Grand Canyon Posse

11/04/2026

11/04/2026

Flyin' into Phoenix with your eye on the Grand Canyon, but got a couple days to burn in the desert metropolis?

Now that it's finally cooled off enough that your steerin' wheel won't brand you, steal a day for this Old West run east of town.

Point your horse about forty-five minutes east to Apache Junction and start at the Superstition Mountain Museum, home of the legend of the Lost Dutchman's gold mine.

Then mosey a mile up the road to Goldfield Ghost Town, a rebuilt 1890s minin' town that's free to walk into.

But listen close, partner. The gunfights run Saturdays and Sundays only. Show up on a Tuesday and the only shootout you'll see is a European tourist arguin' with a downright anachronistic vending machine.

Finish up the Apache Trail at Tortilla Flat, an old stagecoach stop that serves prickly pear ice cream. Cactus ice cream. Back in my day we steered around cactus. Now y'all eat it in a cone.

Don't get no more Arizona than that.

🤠 Want to plan your Grand Canyon trip without wastin' time or guessin'? My free Grand Canyon Cheat Sheets have my favorite routes, hidden gems, good grub, and where to bed down for the night. Just comment the word "CHEAT" and I'll shoot 'em your way.

11/03/2026

Back in the 1880s, a fella who owned nothin' in Phoenix cooked up a scheme to collect money from everybody who did.

His name was James Addison Reavis, an ex-streetcar conductor outta St. Louis with muttonchop whiskers big enough to hide a jackrabbit.

He claimed a Spanish king had granted a nobleman named Peralta a slice of desert that swallowed Phoenix and Tempe.

He had the papers to prove it, too. Trouble is, he forged 'em himself.

Folks took to callin' him the Baron of Arizona.

Some folks even bought quitclaims on lots they already owned. That's like buyin' your own horse back from the horse thief, then thankin' him for the saddle.

The Southern Pacific agreed to pay him fifty thousand dollars for a strip across his so-called barony, with five thousand up front.

Then government sleuths took a magnifyin' glass to his papers, and the whole barony came tumblin' down.

🤠 Skip the guesswork and spend yer time seein' Arizona, not searchin' for it. My free Grand Canyon Cheat Sheets have my favorite routes, hidden gems, good grub, and where to bed down for the night. Comment CHEAT and I'll send 'em your way.

11/02/2026

Why in tarnation does Grand Canyon have buttes named after Hindu gods?

Blame a fella named Clarence Dutton.

He was an Army captain and a government geologist with a silver tongue, and the Park Service calls him the poet geologist.

Round 1880 he sat on the edge of a long point on the North Rim, near four thousand feet of nothin' below him.

He called it "the most sublime and awe-inspiring spectacle in the world" and named the spot Point Sublime.

Trouble was, nothin' out there looked like the Alps or New England.

It looked like towers and temples.

One butte reminded him of a pagoda, so he named it Vishnu's Temple.

Another sat in what he called a "stupendous scene of wreck," so it went to Shiva, the Destroyer.

He and the surveyors after him kept right on goin', with Isis, Zoroaster, Apollo and twenty-some temples in all.

Not everybody cheered, and the tribes who lived here long before any of 'em already had their own names for these places.

Way it's told, Dutton just figured this canyon was too grand for plain names.

Want to see his temples for yerself?

The North Rim is open for day use through Nov. 30 or the first big snow, and the Park Service says the Cape Royal road reopens on Nov. 3.

There's no gas, grub or water inside the park up there right now, so fill up and pack it in from Jacob Lake.

🤠 Skip the guesswork and spend yer time seein' the canyon, not searchin' for it. My free Grand Canyon Cheat Sheets have my favorite routes, hidden gems, good grub, and where to bed down for the night. Comment CHEAT and I'll send 'em your way.

11/02/2026

Phoenix to the South Rim is 'bout four hours in the saddle, and you climb near six thousand feet along the way.

What most folks miss is that the rocks out the window are tellin' a story more'n a billion years long.

Start with Camelback Mountain right there in Phoenix.

The hump is granite, somewhere round a billion and a half years old, and the red head on top is only 'bout twenty-five million.

Between the two there's better'n a billion years just plumb gone, wore away before anybody was around to write it down.

Head up I-17 past Black Canyon City and you climb into the Transition Zone, the in-between country.

Glance west and you'll see the Bradshaw Mountains, made of rock geologists put at near 1.7 billion years.

Sedona's red is mostly iron oxide, plain ol' rust coatin' sand from old coastal dunes, somewhere round 270 million years back.

Top out on the Mogollon Rim and you're ridin' the Kaibab Limestone, an old seabed, pretty near all the way to the South Rim.

Then you stand at the edge and see all that time stacked up in one look.

Heads up if you're makin' this drive soon.

As of Monday, Nov. 2, flooding has 89A through Oak Creek Canyon closed between Sedona and Kachina Village, with no word yet on when it reopens.

Some spots round Sedona are closed too, so check AZ511 before you go, and take I-17 straight on to Flagstaff if the canyon's still shut.

🤠 Skip the guesswork and spend yer time enjoyin' the drive, not wonderin' where to stop. My free Grand Canyon Cheat Sheets have my favorite routes, hidden gems, good grub, and where to bed down for the night. Comment CHEAT and I'll send 'em your way.

10/30/2026

Way down at the bottom of Grand Canyon there's a rock so old and so tough, it makes the rest of the canyon look like a youngster.

They call it Vishnu Schist, and it's the canyon's basement.

It started out as mud and sand on an ancient sea floor, somewhere 'round 1.75 billion years back.

Then islands came crashin' into the continent, piled up mountains, and shoved that rock miles down into their roots.

Heat and pressure baked it and squeezed it till it came out somethin' brand new.

The softer layers up top wore down into cliffs, ledges and slopes.

But the schist stood strong, so the river had to saw straight down through it, carvin' the steep, dark walls of the Inner Gorge.

Near a thousand feet tall in spots, and when the sun hits that mica just right, them walls sparkle.

Want to see it for yerself?

Right now South Kaibab is open down to the Black Bridge, which takes ya into the schist, but there's no water below the rim, and that's a hard, hot haul back up, so plan careful.

The easiest way is still the river, bouncin' through rapids like Granite, Hermit and Crystal with them walls towerin' over ya.

Want to plan your Grand Canyon trip without wastin’ time or guessin’? Grab my FREE Grand Canyon Cheat Sheets - just comment the word “CHEAT” and I’ll shoot em’ your way

10/29/2026

Free 30-minute one-on-one trip plannin' call with me, Stephen, the fella under the Cowboy's hat.

🤠 Grab yer spot at grandcanyonposse.com/plan

Only the first 30 are free, and there's about ten left, so after that it's $97 a session.

Now, the video told ya why you oughta talk to a local before ya plan.

Here's how it goes once ya do.

Ya click that link, and it'll take ya to a spot where ya can sign up.

I'll ask ya a handful of questions, so I can get to know ya a little before we ever say howdy.

What ya dream about seein' out here, and what kind of adventure you're hankerin' for.

Any limits I oughta know about, whether it's knees, kids, or a tight schedule.

And how ya like to travel, fancy lodge or dusty campsite, fast or slow.

Then ya pick a day and time off my calendar that works for both of us.

I'll show up prepared, with yer answers already rattlin' round in my head.

And we'll sit down and hash it all out together.

Once I know what ya want, I'll put together an itinerary for ya, sort of yer own travel guide, built just for you and yer posse.

Pick a day, and let's get to plannin'.

10/28/2026

Somewhere in Grand Canyon's walls, better'n a billion years of rock just plain went missin'.

The dark Vishnu Schist down low is near 1.75 billion years old, and the Tapeats Sandstone parked on top of it is only about 508 million.

Geologists call that kind of skip in the record an unconformity, and this here's the Great Unconformity.

One camp blames Snowball Earth, with glaciers grindin' off miles of crust and leavin' clues in tiny crystals.

The other camp points to Pikes Peak in Colorado, where the rock looks wore down long before the ice ever came.

Their idea is the land got heaved up and eroded by movin' plates, not frozen and scraped.

Folks who study this for a livin' still ain't settled it, so the fight goes on.

You can walk the whole gap on the South Rim's Trail of Time, one step for every million years.

🤠 Planning a Grand Canyon trip? Get my preferred routes, hidden gems, places to eat, and where to put your dogs up for the night. Grab my free Grand Canyon Cheat Sheets at grandcanyonposse.com/cheat

10/27/2026

Most folks only ever see Grand Canyon's layers from one spot, way up top with a mile of empty air between them and the river.
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Here's how I'd get nose to nose with them rocks without hardly leavin' the car.
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Start on the South Rim, 'cause that pale rock under yer boots is Kaibab Limestone, an old seabed the Park Service puts at about 270 million years.
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Then mosey 23 miles east to Desert View and look down at them tilted, rusty-colored layers near the bottom.
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That's the Grand Canyon Supergroup, laid down by old seas and rivers better'n a billion years back.
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Top off yer tank at the Desert View pay-at-the-pump while you're there, 'cause the road ahead gets mighty lonesome.
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Roll out the East Entrance to Cameron and swing north on 89, through the Painted Desert out on the Navajo Nation.
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Them candy stripes are the Chinle Formation, river mud and volcanic ash from somewhere near 225 million years ago.
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At Bitter Springs, hang a left on 89A and pull off at Navajo Bridge.
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You can stroll the old 1929 bridge on foot with the Colorado runnin' some 467 feet below yer boot heels.
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Keep yer eyes peeled for California condors, 'cause the Park Service says this is a popular spot to catch one loafin' on the railings.
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Just past the bridge, a paved road runs about 5 miles down to Lees Ferry, where you can walk right up to the river.
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Most of that red rock round you there is Moenkopi, old tidal flats and muddy rivers where the iron in the mud rusted up like a horseshoe left out in the rain.
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Glen Canyon charges its own vehicle fee there, card only, though an America the Beautiful pass covers it.
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Look downriver and you'll catch that same Kaibab you stood on that mornin' pokin' up outta the water and climbin' higher round every bend.
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From there it's west past the Vermilion Cliffs to Jacob Lake, then south on Highway 67 through the pines of the Kaibab Plateau.
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Point Imperial sits at 8,803 feet, the highest point on Grand Canyon's rim accordin' to the Park Service, and it's capped with that very same Kaibab seabed.
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That's near two thousand feet higher than where you started yer mornin', if you can believe it.
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The Park Service figures South Rim to North Rim at about 212 miles and four and a half hours before you add a single stop.
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So I'd make a full day's peregrination of it, which is just a fancy word for a long, wanderin' trip.
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I reckon the missus wouldn't let me rush it anyhow.
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Heads up, pardners, if yer plannin' this trip soon.
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The road out to Point Imperial and Cape Royal is closed till November 3rd.
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The North Rim's day-use only right now, with no gas, grub or lodging up top, and it shuts for winter at the end of November, or sooner if a big snow rolls in.
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Fill yer tank at Jacob Lake and grab yerself a cookie while yer there.
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There ain't no drinkin' water up top this fall neither, so pack plenty along with yer lunch.
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The old Grand Canyon Lodge burned in the 2025 Dragon Bravo Fire, so book yer bed outside the park, up at Jacob Lake or on over in Kanab.
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Snow and ice ain't strangers on the North Rim this late in the year, and help can be a long ways off, so check the Park Service's North Rim status page before you roll.
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🤠 Planning a Grand Canyon trip? Get my preferred routes, hidden gems, places to eat, and where to put your dogs up for the night. Comment CHEAT and I'll send you my free Grand Canyon Cheat Sheets.

10/27/2026

Grand Canyon ain't the deepest canyon on Earth, and it ain't the longest neither.
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Most folks who measure such things rank the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon over in Tibet ahead of it on both counts.
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And a few canyons, like Copper Canyon down in Mexico, run wider in spots.
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So why do folks cross whole oceans just to stand on the South Rim?
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I'd wager a buffalo nickel it's 'cause hardly any canyon on Earth lays its history out plainer'n this one.
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Every stripe of color in them walls is a chapter, stacked one atop the other.
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A good many of them layers started out as the bottom of an ancient sea.
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That pale Coconino Sandstone up near the rim was once a stretch of desert sand dunes, and you can still spot the slanted lines of them old dunes right there in the rock.
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Other layers piled up on muddy flats along an old shoreline.
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The rocks way down at the bottom are near two billion years old, while the limestone you're standin' on at the rim runs about 270 million.
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Geologists got a fancy name for readin' all them layers, and it's stratigraphy.
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Plenty of big canyons got a long record too, but trees and brush grow so thick on their walls you can't hardly read a word.
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Out here the desert keeps the rock bare, so the whole story sits right out in the open, pardner.
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This week we're stickin' with Grand Canyon geology, and tomorrow I'll show you an easy way to get up close to them layers.
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🤠 Planning a Grand Canyon trip? Get my preferred routes, hidden gems, places to eat, and where to put your dogs up for the night. Comment CHEAT and I'll send you my free Grand Canyon Cheat Sheets.