Grand Canyon in winter, South Rim. Part 2 of our winter Grand Circle road trip, the night of Saturday, December 18, through Sunday, December 19, 2021
The Grand Canyon in winter is worth one night inside the park, even on a Grand Circle road trip with a tight schedule. Our cabin door opened a few steps from the rim, so we photographed the canyon under a full moon and walked out for sunrise the next morning. Then we drove Hermit Road, which is open to private cars only in winter, and left by Desert View Drive for the Little Colorado River Gorge.
- This postDays 2 and 3 of a rental-car road trip. We checked into Bright Angel Lodge, inside Grand Canyon National Park, late at night and watched sunrise from the rim. The next day we drove Hermit Road, open to private cars only in winter, then Desert View Drive out of the park.
- Dates and weatherDecember 18: arrived at night, clear sky, full moonDecember 19: clear, snow in the shade and along the roads (sunrise 7:35 a.m., sunset 5:15 p.m.)
- StopsThe rim in front of the lodge full-moon long exposures, sunrise the next morningVerkamp’s Visitor Center a walk on the Rim TrailHermit Road five viewpoints and Hermits RestDesert View Drive Moran PointLittle Colorado River Gorge overlook outside the park, at dusk
- AdmissionGrand Canyon National Park entrance fee (we used an annual pass)The Little Colorado River Gorge is a Navajo tribal park with its own fee (we only looked from the roadside and did not go in)
- Where we stayedDecember 18: Bright Angel Lodge, inside Grand Canyon National ParkDecember 19: Hampton Inn & Suites Page, in Page (next post)
- WhoThe three of us: my wife, our kid and me
- RouteSaturday, December 18, night
- Bright Angel LodgeStayNight drive from Flagstaff
- 🚶 Steps from the cabin
- The rim in front of the lodgeSight20 minLong exposures under a full moon
- The rim in front of the lodgeSight55 minFrom predawn dark to sunrise
- 🚶 Rim Trail
- Verkamp’s Visitor CenterSightShopping2 hr 45 minWalking the Rim Trail
- 🚗 Hermit Road, about 11 km (7 mi)
- Hermit Road viewpointsSight2 hrTrailview Overlook to Hermits Rest
- 🚗 Back to the Village
- Maswik Food CourtFood20 minLate lunch
- 🚗 Desert View Drive
- Desert View Drive viewpointsSight50 minDuck on a Rock, Moran Point
- 🚗 East exit, AZ-64
- Little Colorado River Gorge overlookSight10 minThe gorge at dusk, stalls at the entrance
- 🚗 Through Cameron, US-89
- PageStayNext post
Contents
A cabin on the rim: Bright Angel Lodge
Coming through Sedona and Flagstaff, we pulled up at Bright Angel Lodge around 9:50 p.m. It sits in the middle of Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim, right on the edge of the canyon. The architect Mary Colter built it of logs and stone in 1935, and a row of small cabins runs alongside the main building (National Park Service).
The lobby has an old stagecoach and a wagon wheel, with lantern-style lights hanging under the log ceiling. We checked in and found our room.
Ours was one of the cabins next to the main lodge. It wasn’t big, but it was plenty for one night. What mattered was outside: open the door, take a few steps, and you’re at the rim.
Lodging inside Grand Canyon National Park
Sleep inside the park and you can walk to the rim before sunrise instead of driving in the dark.
The canyon under a full moon, long exposures
We dropped our bags and went back out. With no lights anywhere, the canyon at night is close to invisible. A phone photo showed the railing and then nothing but black.
So I put the camera, a Sony A7C, on a tripod and left the shutter open. The first frame was f/2.8, ISO 3200, 1.6 seconds. For the second I zoomed out to the widest setting, 17mm, dropped to ISO 1600 and let the shutter run for 15 seconds.
Fifteen seconds of light turned the canyon as bright as midday. The red rock layers showed up, and so did the snow along the rim, none of which we could see standing there. It was the night of the last full moon of 2021, which peaked around 9:35 p.m. Arizona time (Mental Floss). That moonlight is also why the sky comes out blue.
If we’d been staying outside the park, these pictures wouldn’t exist. Being able to walk out the door and stand at the canyon at that hour was the single best thing about the lodge.
You don’t need a camera for this. A phone’s night mode gathers light for several seconds too; it just needs a tripod to hold it still while it does.
A tripod for night shots and sunrise time-lapses
Long exposures, or a long time-lapse from one spot, need a tripod. The phone kind doubles as a selfie stick and weighs next to nothing.
The night and sunrise photos in this post were taken on a Sony A7C with a Tamron 17-28mm F2.8. Sony has since replaced that body with the A7C II. A full-frame camera that small came along everywhere on the trip, and the bright wide-angle lens let me fit the whole canyon into the frame even in the dark.
The camera and lens behind the night shots
For night skies and wide landscapes, a full-frame sensor and a bright wide-angle lens gather the most light.
Sunrise from the rim by Lookout Studio
The next morning we went out before dawn. Sunrise at the Grand Canyon that day was around 7:35 a.m. By about 7:20 we had a spot on the rim right in front of the lodge, near Lookout Studio. There was snow on the ground, and it was quite cold.
I set up a time-lapse in one spot at one angle and let it run from full darkness until the sun reached into the canyon. At first the canyon was one black mass. Then the edge of the sky turned orange, and as the sun climbed, the tops of the buttes lit up red one after another. The shadows slid slowly down into the side canyons.
As the sun rose higher, the buttes deeper in the canyon brightened in turn. In a little over half an hour, the same view changed its face several times. I took a few frames with the camera from the same spot.
Without a car, there are day tours that leave Las Vegas at night and reach the South Rim in time for this sunrise.
Grand Canyon sunrise tour from Las Vegas
Leave your hotel at night, reach the South Rim before dawn, and move on to the next stop after the sun is up.
Summer 2007, winter 2021
This wasn’t my first time here. I came once in the summer of 2007 with friends. We shared a four-person room outside the park, showed up at midday, and saw the canyon under hard, flat sunlight. This time we arrived on a winter night, slept inside the park, and watched the morning sun come in.
The canyon hadn’t changed. The company had. Back then it was friends; this time it was my wife and our kid. It felt strange and good to be back fourteen years later.
On the way back we bought hot cocoa. Our kid scooped snow from the rim into an empty cocoa cup, carried it back to the room, and played with it in the bathtub for a long time.
Verkamp’s Visitor Center and the Rim Trail
Around 9 a.m. we left the room for the day. From the lodge, the Rim Trail follows the canyon edge, and Verkamp’s Visitor Center is a short walk away. The building opened in 1906 as a souvenir shop and now serves as a visitor center (National Park Service). Inside is a store run by the Grand Canyon Conservancy.
Through the village, the Rim Trail is nearly flat and easy to walk with a child. The stretches that never get sun still held unmelted snow, though, and those were slippery. A sign along the way mapped the trail sections and shuttle stops.
In the store, our kid picked out a stuffed California condor: a big black bird with a pink head. The species was once down to 22 birds and has been brought back through a recovery program; today you can see condors over the Grand Canyon (National Park Service).
There are trails that drop below the rim, but with a young child we skipped them and went from viewpoint to viewpoint on foot and by car instead. Our kid said it would have been more fun to climb up and down a bit rather than only look. If you’re traveling with children, pick out a short below-the-rim stretch ahead of time, one you can walk down and back up.
Hermit Road, by car in winter
Around noon we drove onto Hermit Road, west of the village. It runs about 11 km (7 mi) to Hermits Rest, with nine viewpoints along the way. From March through November, private vehicles aren’t allowed and only the red shuttle runs. You can drive it yourself only from December through February, so visiting in winter worked in our favor (National Park Service).
From Trailview Overlook you can see the village and the Bright Angel Trail zigzagging down into the canyon. Next we spent about half an hour at Hopi Point, where the canyon opens wide to the west and east and a thread of the Colorado River shows far below on the canyon floor.
A sign about California condors was mounted on the viewpoint railing. Same bird our kid had picked out that morning.
On the way to The Abyss and Pima Point, we spotted elk among the trees by the road. Elk are a common sight in Grand Canyon National Park, especially around the South Rim.
We reached Hermits Rest, at the end of the road, around 1:40 p.m. Mary Colter built this stone rest house in 1914, and it now holds a gift shop and a snack bar. We looked around for about 20 minutes and drove back the way we came.
If hiking below the rim isn’t in the cards, you can look down from the air instead. Helicopters and small planes don’t leave from Hermit Road or the village; they fly out of Grand Canyon National Park Airport in Tusayan, just outside the park’s south entrance, about 20 minutes’ drive from the village. In a short flight you see the inner canyon you’ve been peering into from the viewpoints, which suits families whose kids are too young for the trails.
The Grand Canyon from the air
With kids too young to hike down, this is a quick way to see the inner canyon from above.
Late lunch at Maswik Food Court
It was past 3 p.m. by the time we got back to the village. We’d kept pushing lunch back, and around 3:15 p.m. we finally ate at Maswik Food Court in Maswik Lodge. We tend to keep meals simple on the road and spend the time on seeing things, so a food court where you grab what you want and sit right down suited us.
Desert View Drive
After lunch we headed east on Desert View Drive. It follows the South Rim about 40 km (25 mi) from the village to the east entrance at Desert View, and it’s open to private vehicles all year. Around 4:10 p.m. we stopped at the first viewpoint, Duck on a Rock. True to the name, a rock shaped like a duck sits on top of a ledge at the rim. The sun was already low, and long shadows were stretching across the inner canyon.
At about 4:35 p.m. we stopped at Moran Point, named for Thomas Moran, the 19th-century painter of the Grand Canyon. The sign at the viewpoint reproduces one of his canyon paintings. With the sun this low, the rocks in front glowed yellow while the canyon behind them sank into blue.
We skipped the Desert View Watchtower at the end of the road. We wanted to see the Little Colorado River Gorge, outside the park, before dark, so we drove straight out the east entrance.
Little Colorado River Gorge at dusk
Past the east entrance, Highway 64 runs into the Navajo Nation. At about 5:10 p.m., with the sun going down, we stopped at the roadside by the Little Colorado River Gorge Navajo Tribal Park. We only looked from the roadside for a few minutes and did not go in. The land here is flat right up until it isn’t: the ground drops away and a deep gorge opens below. Even on the road out of the Grand Canyon, there was a cliff like this, and I loved it.
A row of stalls stood at the entrance under signs reading “Arts, Crafts, Jewelry, Pottery, Buffalo Jerky.” We browsed for a few minutes. Among the crafts were traditional stone-headed axes, a stone lashed to a wooden handle.
From the gorge we drove to Cameron and turned north on Highway 89 toward Page. That night’s hotel, the Hampton Inn & Suites Page, and the next morning at Horseshoe Bend are in the next post.
Know before you go
Entrance fees
- Private vehicle$35 (valid 7 days)
- On foot or by bike$20 per person age 16 and up (valid 7 days)
- Nonresident feeVisitors 16 and up who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents pay an extra $100 per person.Waived with an America the Beautiful annual pass
- Annual passAmerica the Beautiful: $250 for nonresidents$80 for residents
- PaymentCards only; no cash.
Per the National Park Service fee page, as of October 2026; check again before you go. There was no nonresident fee when we visited in 2021. If you’re covering several national parks on one trip, run the numbers on the annual pass first.
Winter roads and services
- Hermit RoadDecember–February: open to private vehicles under 22 ft longMarch–November: closed to private vehicles; red shuttle only
- Desert View DriveOpen to private vehicles year-roundMay close briefly after snow
- Village shuttleThe Blue route links the visitor center and the village.
- TrailsShaded stretches hold snow and ice all winter.The Park Service recommends traction devices on trails below the rim.
Per the NPS Hermit Road and shuttle pages, as of October 2026
Little Colorado River Gorge
- Run byNavajo Parks and Recreation (outside Grand Canyon National Park)
- Fee$5 per personThe national parks annual pass is not accepted.
- Hours8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. (posted hours as of October 2026; we only looked from the roadside in December 2021 and did not go in, so we never checked the hours then. The park has posted different hours over the years (8:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m. in summer 2024, for example), so check before you go)
Per Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation, as of October 2026; check again before you go
Terms
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| South Rim | The canyon’s southern edge. Open year-round, and where most visitors go |
| North Rim | The canyon’s northern edge. The road there closes in winter |
| Rim Trail | The walking path along the South Rim. Nearly flat through the village |
| Long exposure | Leaving the shutter open to gather light in the dark. Needs a tripod |
Is it worth it?
Our schedule was tight, and seeing both sunrise and sunset in one place was hard. At the Grand Canyon, sleeping inside the park got us a full-moon night on the rim and a sunrise the next morning, both a few steps from the cabin door. If we went back, we’d book the same place, Bright Angel Lodge, and add one short trail below the rim that we could walk down and back up with our kid.
- Best forRoad trippers who can get a room inside the parkFamilies with young kids; the village stretch of the Rim Trail is nearly flat
- Skip ifYour heart is set on the North Rim, which is closed in winter
- Cost$35 per vehicle for the park (we used an annual pass)$5 per person at the Little Colorado River Gorge
- What we’d bringA tripod, for the night shots and the sunriseA heavy coat for waiting on a snowy rim before dawn
The first time I saw the canyon, it was midday in high summer. This time we arrived on a winter night and watched the morning sun come into it. Same canyon, a different hour, different company.
Seeing the South Rim on a tour
We drove ourselves, but you can see the South Rim without a car on a tour from Las Vegas. The sunrise day trip is under the sunrise section. For a slower pace, overnight tours spend a night near the park.
Grand Canyon overnight tour from Las Vegas
A night near the park means sunrise and sunset don’t have to share one rushed day.
FAQ
Can you visit the Grand Canyon South Rim in winter?
Yes. The South Rim is open year-round, so it works in a winter Grand Circle itinerary; only the road to the North Rim closes for winter. Snow lingers on shaded roads and trails, but we got around the village and most viewpoints by car and on foot.
Can you drive Hermit Road yourself?
Only from December through February. From March through November, private vehicles are not allowed and you ride the red shuttle bus.
Can you see the canyon at night?
Barely, with your own eyes. A camera on a tripod with a long exposure picks it up, and under a full moon the canyon comes out almost as bright as day.
Related posts
| Series | Post |
|---|---|
| Full itinerary | A winter Grand Circle road trip in 10 days The route through 15 stops, where we slept, and what to book |
| Previous post | Half a day among Sedona’s red rocks From a Route 66 motel to the Chapel of the Holy Cross and Bell Rock |
Getting there and map
From the lodge we drove west to the end of Hermit Road and back, then took Desert View Drive east out of the park, past the Little Colorado River Gorge and Cameron. At each numbered stop we parked, got out for photos, and walked around a little. The inset shows the village and Hermit Road up close.
What we booked and packed
Bookings
- A room inside the parkWe arrived after dark, shot long exposures under the full moon right outside, and walked out for sunrise the next morning without touching the car.View Bright Angel Lodge on Expedia
- Rental carIt let us drive Hermit Road, open to private cars only in winter, and Desert View Drive in a single day.View Las Vegas airport rentals on Trip.com
What to bring
- National parks annual passWe used it to enter Grand Canyon. The Little Colorado River Gorge is a Navajo tribal park, so it doesn’t cover that stop.
- TripodIt held the camera steady for the moonlit long exposures and kept the sunrise time-lapse in one spot. It helps with a phone’s night mode, too.View phone tripods on AmazonView travel tripods on Amazon
- A warm jacketWe stood on a snowy rim waiting for the sun before it came up.
We picked up our rental car at the Las Vegas airport and kept it for nine days.
Rental cars at Las Vegas airport
If you want to drive the Grand Canyon’s winter roads yourself, picking up a car at the airport and heading straight out is the easy way to do it.
For flights, search with Las Vegas as your destination.
Flights to Las Vegas
Fly into Las Vegas (LAS); from there, the Grand Canyon is about 4 hours 30 minutes by car.
Sources
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