Best Tent Camping: Arizona. Kirstin Olmon Phillips
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a right as you leave the visitor center parking lot, toward the Keet Seel Trail. As you leave the pavement behind you, look for the employee housing on the left and the corral on the right. The Keet Seel Trailhead parking area is just below the entrance to the campground.
A slender thread of sites, Canyon View sits on a ridge between Tsegi Canyon and Shonto Plateau, and almost all of the sites do indeed command a canyon view. You’ll find only patchy shade in the pinyon–juniper woodland, but at nearly 7,300 feet elevation, the mornings and evenings prove to be cool and comfortable. Most of the sites are well screened. The first site is very private and set apart with a generous pull-through. Site 2 has a shallower pulloff but offers good morning shade, as do all of the sites on the east side of the road. Sites 7–9, 12, and 13 provide the best view of Betatakin Canyon. Sites 10 and 11 are group sites, available for free on a first-come, first-served basis. Situated in the center of the loop at the end of the line of campsites, site 11 is open and uncomfortably rocky. A large group here would affect sites 9, 12, and 13, which are otherwise quite nice. Site 10 is the better group site, being off to the side with a large, smooth area for tents.
While you won’t have a campground host, park employees live nearby. The campgrounds are rarely full—in fact, Canyon View closes during the off-season because of lack of use. If you come when only Sunset View is open, check out site 7, which is below the road and has a nice tent spot; site 15, which is very private at the price of a little hill climb; or site 16, which is nicely screened. The weather can turn cold and snowy in the winter, and no open campfires are permitted in either campground.
During the summer, the Park Service offers daily, free ranger-led hikes to the 125-room alcove at Betatakin (ledge house, also known as Talastima in Hopi). Allow three to five hours for this 5-mile round-trip hike. The less ambitious can spot Betatakin from the overlook 0.5 mile down the paved Sandal Trail. Along the path, interpretive signs teach you the names and traditional uses of Navajo and Hopi native plants. An additional 0.8 mile down the steep Aspen Trail allows you a glimpse into a rare pocket of forest lush with aspen and Douglas-fir. If you’re up for a longer hike or even a backpack trip, sign up for the 17-mile round-trip hike to Keet Seel (broken pottery, Kawestima in Hopi), the largest and longest inhabited of the ruins. The hike requires a backcountry permit, which is free at the visitor center. Only 20 people per day can hike to Keet Seel, so you should make reservations. The path brings you down to the riverbed, with 32 stream crossings and an occasional waterfall along the way. While you can do this as a day hike, you might prefer to backpack in and camp overnight in grasses and trees 0.25 mile from Keet Seel. At the ruin, a ranger guides you up a tall ladder and into the past, five people at a time. Inscription House (Tsu’ovi), the most fragile of the three, is closed to visitors.
GETTING THERE
From Kayenta, take US 160 southwest 21 miles to AZ 564. Turn right and drive north 9 miles to the Navajo National Monument Visitor Center. Past the visitor center parking lot, turn right at the fork and drive 0.5 mile to Canyon View Campground.
GPS COORDINATES N36° 40.977' W110° 32.548'
2
Desert View Campground
Beauty
KEY INFORMATION
CONTACT: 928-638-7888, nps.gov/grca
OPEN: Mid-April–mid-October
SITES: 50
EACH SITE HAS: Picnic table, fire ring
ASSIGNMENT: First-come, first-served; no reservations
REGISTRATION: On-site with credit card at automated fee station
AMENITIES: Flush toilets, water spigots, trash, recycling, campground host; gas and general store nearby
PARKING: At campsites
FEE: $12/night, plus $35/week park-entrance fee
ELEVATION: 7,463'
RESTRICTIONS:
PETS: On leash only; prohibited below rim, in park lodging, or on park buses. There is a kennel at South Rim, reservations recommended. Pets are prohibited on North Rim trails.
FIRES: In fire rings only
ALCOHOL: Permitted
VEHICLES: 30-foot length limit; ATVs prohibited; 2-vehicle or 1-RV/trailer limit
QUIET HOURS: 10 p.m.–6 a.m.
OTHER: 7-day stay limit; bear-country food-storage restrictions; firearms prohibited; 6-person limit/site; 2-tent limit; checkout 11 a.m.; no firewood gathering; mountain lion country
This is the campground to go to if you’re looking for a quieter experience at one of the world’s largest tourist attractions.
The Grand Canyon from the South Rim
No book about the best camping in Arizona would be complete without mentioning Grand Canyon National Park (thrice, in our case). One of the seven natural wonders of the world, it is Arizona’s main claim to fame and receives six million visitors each year. That can mean a lot of chaos and congestion. Luckily, most of those people concentrate near Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim and don’t explore the rest of the park. You can still have a peaceful experience at one of the world’s largest tourist attractions.
The South Rim offers two developed campgrounds—Mather and Desert View. Mather’s 320 campsites are near Grand Canyon Village, the South Rim’s hub, with everything you could possibly need. It’s open year-round, and reservations are strongly recommended from March 1 through mid-November. Desert View, open seasonally on a first-come first-served basis, is the campground to go to if you are looking for something quieter.
Approaching from the village along Desert View Drive, you pass some of the park’s most famous viewpoints, while the flora changes from tall pines to open pinyon–juniper woodland. You won’t see the canyon from the campground, but just a short distance away is Desert View Point, site of the Watchtower. Climb to the top, the highest point on the South Rim, for incredible views. The tower itself is a historical landmark, a Pueblo-inspired creation of the Fred Harvey Company’s remarkable architect, Mary Jane Elizabeth Colter. You’ll also find a gas station, convenience store, snack bar, and gift shop here; close by are the ranger station and the east entrance to the park.
In the campground, 50 sites line one long, narrow, paved loop. The sites inside the loop back up to each other, so you don’t have much privacy, but the sites on the outside of the loop are more spacious. The junipers and other low scrub provide some screening between most sites, and all of them have a cleared tent area. We think the better sites, inside and out, are on the second half of the loop. Sites 22, 42, and 44 have particularly good screening and separation from their neighbors, and site 29 is spacious and shady, set well back from a generous pullout. The most private site in the