Gurus

LifeTips Home
Become a Client
Become a Writer
Entertain/Events
Exercise/Fitness
Family/Safety
Food/Drink
Gear/Gadgets
Health/Disease
Hobbies/Pets
Home/Garden
Kids/Games
Relationship/Love
Sports/Sporting
Style/Fashion
Travel/Cities
Holiday/Observances
B2B/Business
Careers/Jobs
Education/Training
Small Biz/Home Biz
Green/Living
Legal/Taxes
Marketing/Promotion
Manage/Employees
Money/Investing
Internet/Web
Hardware/Software
Supplies/Gear
Wheels/Auto
Religion/Spirituality

Listen to our Radio Show
Hot topics for both consumers
and webmarketers
on WebmasterRadio.FM

Every Wednesday, 5PM Eastern.
 

Sherril Steele-Carlin

Expert Guru
Sherril is a freelance writer and researcher from Reno, Nevada. She loves the history of the west, pets, gardening, cooking, needlework and crafts, and travel. She's been a freelancer for over 15 years, specializing in those topics and more. She is a guide for About.com for Reno and Lake Tahoe, and is passionate about America's National Parks, her pets, and her family. She also loves the Anaheim Angels and San Diego Chargers!




10 Tips from Sherril Steele-Carlin

The Hopi House

The Hopi House, designed by Mary E. J. Colter, is another one of the oldest buildings in the park, in fact, it's the oldest curio shop at the canyon, it opened its doors in 1904. Colter designed the building to resemble the pueblo-type homes of the Hopi Tribe, who live east of the Grand Canyon in their ancestral homes located on top of three mesas.

The building still contains a curio shop, and the upper floor has been open to the public since 1995, when the building was renovated and added to the National Register of Historic Places. The upper floor carries museum quality Native American artwork, while the lower floor deals in more traditional Native American arts and crafts.

Outside, the Hopi House is totally authentic to its roots in the Hopi Mesa homes, complete with the ladders used to reach each level, the native stone used for construction, and the terraced levels allowing for outdoor living and meal preparation. Interestingly, several Hopi craftspeople worked on the restoration of the building in 1995, which strived to keep the historic integrity of the building intact.

The El Tovar Hotel

The El Tovar Hotel

I worked at the El Tovar restaurant in the front and back of the house. It's a beautiful building, and you shouldn't miss dining there on your trip to the Grand Canyon. If the price of dinner is a little too steep for your wallet, try the restaurant for breakfast or lunch instead.

Watch the open log beams above your head as you dine. You may see a ring-tailed cat or two balancing their way across the beams. These little animals look like a cross between a raccoon and a house cat (hence their name). They're fast, so you'll have to keep your eyes open to spot them!

Be prepared to wait for a table if you don't have a reservation in the summertime. Waits can be long – 2 hours or more. Luckily there's a small lounge off the restaurant where you can relax while you wait for your table.

Moonlight Rim Walk

One of the finest ways to enjoy the rim walk is to follow it from the park headquarters to the village on a moonlight night. It's easy to see the walk as it winds thorough the pinyon forest of the rim, while the canyon is bathed in shadow and light.

If you're lucky, you can see a lightening storm on the North Rim on your walk. Watching the lighting hit its target without the sound of booming thunder is an eerie and yet magical way to spend an evening.

You don't have to disappear inside when the sun goes down. Take a moonlit walk on a warm summer evening and you'll discover a whole other side to the Grand Canyon.

The Arizona Room

The Arizona Room is only open 10 months of the year, but it's one of the most unique dining experiences inside Grand Canyon National Park. This dining room is near the Bright Angel Lodge, perched right on the rim of the canyon, so the views are magnificent.

This is a steak house in every sense of the word. The restaurant is only open for lunch and dinner, and is closed in January and February. Lunch is only served March through October. The menu is decidedly southwestern, and entrees feature steaks, meats, seafood, and some chicken.

The Arizona Room is a favorite with many locals in the canyon because the food is excellent and the atmosphere is relaxed. The Arizona Room doesn't take reservations, and in the summer, the wait can be L-O-N-G. However, with the views of the canyon afire in the glow of sunset right outside, the wait doesn't seem quite as long.

Take Time to Smell the Trees

Have you ever smelled a pine tree? When you visit the Grand Canyon, make some time to seek out a stately Ponderosa Pine. They are tall, elegant pine trees with long needles, small cones, and a reddish, rough bark.

Walk up to one of these trees, and bury your nose in any cleft in the bark. That's right! You'll discover the rich scent of vanilla when you get close enough. The scent is even more pronounced on a warm summer day.

We always urged tourists to stop and smell the trees during their visit. Some thought we were crazy, but when they discovered the smell, they thought otherwise. To this day, I can't open a bottle of rich-scented vanilla without closing my eyes and thinking of Ponderosa pines.

The Grand Canyon Condors

Many birds live in the Grand Canyon, from swifts to the canyon wren. Look high over the chasm and chances are you'll see ravens dancing on the updrafts, and other large birds soaring on wide, heavy wings. These are California Condors, and they have not lived at the canyon for years.

In 1996, six birds were reintroduced to the canyon area, and they have continued to thrive in their new environment. Today, 51 condors live in the area as they have continued to be released into the wild. At least two pairs of the birds successfully bred and hatched young, but at least one of those young, the first born in the wild, died within two years of its' birth.

Seeing the condors in flight over the Grand Canyon is a magnificent and unforgettable sight. As you meander along the Rim Trail, take a look up into the skies over the Grand Canyon. You may be surprised at just what you'll see soaring in the blue skies above your head.

Don't Cut Your Visit Short

It's not unusual to hear a tourist say, "I only have one hour to spend at the Grand Canyon – what should I see." If you only have an hour to spend, don't plan on seeing more than a viewpoint or two. The canyon is a big place, and an hour is barely enough time to get from the entrance station to the visitor center and Mather Point.

Instead of rushing around the canyon for an hour or two, give yourself several days to really explore and experience the canyon. The view from each vista is different, and so is the same view at different parts of the day. In the early morning and evening, when the sun is low, the canyon's rich colorations really come through. At high noon, the canyon appears hazy and less detailed. Colors seem to change minute by minute as the light changes, which is why the canyon is often called "the house of stone and light."

Take your visit to the canyon slowly, and savor all you can of the park. It is a treasure, and any treasure is worth saving up for and relishing, rather than rushing though it to get to the next destination. Slow down, and enjoy all the views.

The Kolb Studio

The Kolb brothers are to the Grand Canyon what John Wayne was to western films. The very foundation of Canyon tourism rests on their studio, perched precariously on the very rim of the canyon in the Village Historic District.

Emery and Ellsworth Kolb built the studio between 1904 and 1926, for the purpose of developing and showing the early films they created of the canyon. They were the first photographers to film boats running the rapids of the Grand Canyon, and their films helped make the South Rim an even more popular tourist destination at the beginning of the 20th century.

Emery and Ellsworth lived in the studio after the added on living quarters, and Emery showed his film of the boat trip at the studio until his death in 1976. The Kolb Studio is located at the trailhead of the Bright Angel Trail, just a short distance from the Bright Angel Lodge.

Today, the auditorium no longer shows the Kolbs films of the Grand Canyon, but it is a museum with changing exhibits operated by the non-profit Grand Canyon Association. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the views of the canyon from inside are some of the finest views from the South Rim.

How to Apply for Work at the Grand Canyon

So, you'd like to work at the Grand Canyon. Really, it's not that difficult to get a job in the park. Of course, most positions are entry level, and you'll have to work your way up to higher paying, more responsible positions. The company that owns the concession at Grand Canyon National Park is Xanterra, doing business as Grand Canyon National Park Lodges.

You can fill out an employment application online: http://jobs.xanterra.com/recruit/servlet/com.lawson.ijob.QuickCandidate?vendor=223. You need to be 18 years old to work in the park, and willing to live in an employee dormitory at the cost of $16 per week. You also need to be willing to pay for meals in an employee cafeteria, and work in positions such as dishwasher, guest room attendant, or retail clerk.

You'll also need to undergo a background check and be open to random drug testing. Working at the Grand Canyon is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You'll work hard, but you'll also have a national park as your very own backyard, and that's a pretty awesome fringe benefit.

The Village Historic District

The Grand Canyon Village Historic District stretches from Verkamps Curio Shop in the east to the Kolb Studio in the west. Most all the buildings in this district were constructed at the turn of the 20th century, even before the canyon became a park in 1919.

You can drive most of the district on the Village Loop Road, and along that road, you'll also see many other native stone buildings that house park operations and staff. The large, native stone buildings with the green barn-like roofs and the pens outside are mule barns, used to house the mules that tackle the trails of the canyon every day.

You can't tell, but sprinkled in among these buildings are dorms for seasonal workers and side streets that lead to some of the residential areas of the village. Most of the people who work at the canyon live right here in the village, and if you explore some of the back roads, you'll see Park Service and concessionaire neighborhoods that look just like your own neighborhood back home.