Apparently, the Grand Canyon is big. Who knew?
Grand Canyon West is the part of the Grand Canyon that’s a short drive from Las Vegas. It’s about a two hour drive from Vegas, compared to approximately seven hours each way for “the good view.”
In between Grand Canyon West and Vegas are Lake Meade and the Hoover Dam, so there are a few other great tourist spots to check out along the way. The main reason to visit Grand Canyon West is because it’s much closer to Vegas, making it possible to do as a Day Trip along with Lake Meade and the Hoover Dam.
What to expect
You’ll arrive at a large parking lot where a huge, permanent tent that acts as a gift shop and ticket center. It’s actually pretty cool in it’s own right as it’s kept inflated by positive pressure. Tickets are a little pricey hitting around seventy bucks for what I would consider the basic package.
Once you purchase tickets them you’ll go by bus to their Sky Bridge, a building with a u-shaped, glass bottomed walkway that extends out over the Canyon. There are no cameras allowed on the Sky Bridge but they have photographers that will take your photo on it and you can pay to have a copy of the photo.
Outside the Skybridge is a neat display of various shelters used by area native tribes. All together, I would say there’s 30-45 minutes of activity here to keep your interest.
There are two other stops that the buses will drive you to after the sky bridge. Be aware that the buses are running a circuit and not waiting on you so you could be waiting an hour or two in the heat for the next bus.
The next two stops are Guano Point and one more that was skipped on my trip because it was getting late in the day. Why the Skybridge stop has various safety fences, the other two stops are all natural so you will want to keep young kids on a leash to make sure they don’t fall or do something ridiculous.
Thoughts
The drive from Vegas was my favorite part of this day trip. Coming from the dense, green vegetation of Appalachia, driving through the desert was a marvel of painted mountains and Joshua trees. If I was just making the trip to Grand Canyon West, I might recommend skipping it but when you combine it with Lake Meade and the Hoover Dam it becomes a great day trip.
Grand Canyon West is orchestrated to suck money out of your pockets and the views are not impressive as the “far Grand Canyon” but it’s still a very cool view and if you’re only going to see it once, it’s worth paying for the basic ticket and seeing an environment that’s very different than what you see a home.
There were a few paint points involving waiting for buses in the heat for a long time but overall it was worth checking out. I would rate it 5/10 on its own but when combined with the desert drive, Hoover Dam and Lake Meade rolled in…it becomes a composite 9/10 day trip.