Grand Canyon National Park
Mather Campground, site 240, Oak Loop. 3 nights. $24 (Senior rate)
At the end of August, we visited the Grand Canyon (South Rim) in Arizona, with our daughter and our two grandchildren. I was very aggravated that the first day that we went to the rim, I had forgotten to put the battery into my “good” camera. When we went back the next day, the lighting wasn’t as good and there was a lot of overcast. This photo gallery is a handful of the photos that I took on the “good” camera. I always think the Grand Canyon looks better Photoshopped than it does in person!
We stayed at the Mather campground at the park, site 240, Oak loop. This site was a ‘C’ shaped pull-through that had enough room for our rig and a bit of space to share. It was on a bit of a slope, though, so we had to lower the front of the trailer quite a bit to get it level. The parking areas of most of the sites in the campground were fairly small, as is typical for national parks. And there were branches and tree trunks quite close to the loop road. I scraped the branches most times I drove through the loop. I was surprised that one Class A rig had made it to their space. I wonder if they got any dings doing it!
The Mather campground has no hookups. There are a few water faucets around the campground, as well as flush restrooms. The restrooms actually had hand soap in them, which is a first for the national parks that I’ve been in! There is a shower house that is shared by the Mather campground and the full-hook-up campground and is far enough away that we had to drive to it. Showers were about 8 minutes and cost about $2.50. The campground itself was surprisingly quiet! It was mostly tenters, and I was expecting hoards of kids, but our grandkids were among the few that I saw there! Maybe it was because schools had reopened in some areas of the country. I don’t recall hearing any generators and the nights were quiet – no partying!
We had nice campfires on two evenings. Firewood is available from the general store for $8 a bundle of about 5 logs. Not generous, but enough for us. The temperatures were pretty warm and fairly humid during the days – about 85 degrees. Warm enough that we’d have used the A/C if we’d had power. And the first night was pretty darn warm for sleeping inside the trailer. We used a battery operated fan to help since the air was very still. Subsequent nights were cooler and more tolerable.