The South Rim is easily accessible by car off Highway 64, which connects Williams and Cameron. Inside the park's southern gate, the South Entrance Road diverges from Highway 64 and leads to Grand Canyon Village. A National Historic District, the village feels like a small town, with hotels, restaurants, shops, and a train depot. The loop road can be confusing, so take your time, watch carefully for signs, and use the village map included in the park newspaper, The Guide.
Scenic drives hug the canyon rim on either side of the village. Hermit Road (closed to private vehicles during high season) heads west for 8 miles from Grand Canyon Village to its terminus at Hermits Rest. Desert View Drive covers 25 miles between Grand Canyon Village and the Desert View overlook on the southeastern edge of the park. The two scenic drives have numerous pull-offs that open onto the canyon, some with views of the river.
Some 210 highway miles and 4 hours of driving separate the North Rim from the South Rim. On the way, Highway 89A crosses the Colorado River near the canyon's northeastern tip, where the river begins cutting down into the rocks of the Marble Platform and the Grand Canyon begins. As you drive west from Lees Ferry, you'll see where rocks make a single fold along a fault line and rise more than 4,000 vertical feet from the Marble Platform to the level of the Kaibab Plateau -- the canyon's North Rim.
The North Rim stretches more than 1,000 feet above the busier South Rim. Highway 67 travels south 44 miles from Highway 89A at Jacob Lake to where it dead-ends at Bright Angel Point, site of the Grand Canyon Lodge. A 23-mile-long paved scenic drive travels from Highway 67 southeast to the tip of the Walhalla Plateau, a peninsula east of Bright Angel Point. This drive, which ends at Cape Royal, has overlooks of the eastern Grand Canyon. On this curvy road, signs appear quickly. Pay attention, as there are few places to turn around. The 3-mile-long spur road to Point Imperial, the highest point in the Grand Canyon (8,801 ft.), forks to the northeast off this road.
The rims at the western end of the canyon are lower, rockier, and more remote than those in the central canyon. Only a few roads cross these lands. The canyon ends abruptly at the Grand Wash cliffs, where the Colorado River flows out of Grand Canyon and into Lake Mead. To drive from rim to rim around the western end of the canyon, you'd have to cross the Colorado River at the Hoover Dam, near Las Vegas.
