While in the Page area we decided to head to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This was the Sunday before Memorial Day weekend and we had no idea where we were going stay that weekend. We don’t do reservations more than a couple of days ahead since we don’t really know where we might be and everywhere would be already reserved. This was weighing on my mind a bit. Researching the North Rim via Campendium showed many boondocking NFS areas and a few NFS campgrounds up that way. The North Rim had only opened 5 days previously but the NPS campground was already booked, naturally.
We drove the 80 miles between Page and the North Rim turnoff, which goes past the Vermillion Cliffs (very beautiful):
We went to the campground (Jacob Lake) that was right next to the North Rim cutoff. This campground has one loop that takes reservations (fully booked), and one loop that is first come, first served. Both loops were full or reserved, but were they? The camp host told us there was one spot left in the reserved loop, #35. We drove over to look at it and decided to take it:
It appears that if there is a multi-day reservation and the reserver does not show the first night, the camp host waits until 2 pm the next day to release the spot. This is what happened here and we could only have it for one night.
The camp host also told us to get up the next AM and look for a non-reservable spot in the other loop. Once you get in there, you can stay for 14 days. That is what we did. We looked for another spot at around 10 am and found one! We paid for 2 nights to see the North Rim and figure it out.
The North Rim is quite different than the South Rim (we were there about 1 1/2 months ago). Fewer people and different views. We were there for 2 different days and took a few hikes. Here are some pictures:
We discussed what to do for Memorial Day and Roxie suggested we just stay at Jacob Lake through that weekend. That would be 8 nights there but what else can we do? The local private campground allowed outsiders to use their dump but not use ANY water. The local Chevron allowed people to fill up however even though the water up there was shipped in from about 30 miles away.
During one of the days there, we took a trip to Kanab (in Utah) to see the biggest town around and see the RV parks there as we would like to use that as a base for a trip to Zion. We talked to the RV Corral in Kanab about coming down there the Tuesday after Memorial Day and they had space. We made the reservation. However, there was one spot where the RV’er was possibly going to leave in a few days. I asked him to keep us posted on that.
After night 5 at Jacob Lake, on the day we were going to go dump (you also could only dump from 11-12) and fillup I contacted the RV Corral. They told us the RV’er had left that morning and we could take the spot. This was on Friday of the Memorial Day weekend and we had a spot! We headed down there and thus our visit to the North Rim was over.
