What a background!
Just a couple of hours northeast of the Grand Canyon’s south rim (and near to the turn-off for the north rim) is a small no-reservation campground called Lee’s Ferry. There are no hookups or showers, but it’s only $12 a night and offers a dramatic backdrop of vermillion cliffs. It’s also on the Colorado River and in the summer is a popular put-in for rafters. But in May, it was very quiet – only 10 or so other campers. And after the crowds and close-in camping of the Grand Canyon, it was exactly the breath of fresh air we needed.
Colorado River.
We quickly set up camp, marveling at the red cliff views surrounding us, then took a short walk down the road to the river. There was a white sand beach, and although rain clouds loomed, the sun was out and the air warm. On the beach, there was only one Native American family and a couple of fishermen. It felt like we’d stumbled on a bit of heaven.
Before dinner, Kate and I drove back to the main road where’d we passed by the Navajo Bridge. There are two bridges, actually, one for cars and one for pedestrians. They were built in 1928 and 1929. We’d walked on this bridge seven years ago, when we were on a big road trip with our teardrop, and we wanted to revisit it.
One of three condors we saw.
Some bird watchers on the bridge pointed out two California condors on the cliffs below. Condors are basically huge vultures. Their average wing span is 10 feet. Wild condors became officially extinct in 1987 when the last 22 were captured and relocated to zoos in San Diego and L.A. where they were bred. In 1991, the condors were reintroduced to wild. Tagged condors were released from this very bridge. There are now over 400 known condors in the world, but only about 160 Of them in the wild.
The next morning, on our way out, we stopped again at the Navajo Bridge for a little more condor watching. The same two we’d seen the night before (tagged H9 and 2) were there, as well as a third, tagged 56.
This was just a stopover for us, between Grand Canyon and Zion, but it was a wonderful find and I would have happily stayed a little longer.
The five of us.