GRAND VIEW

Just beyond the Grand View overlook, it was time for one last Grand Canyon benchmark attempt. I had some hope that we’d find GRAND VIEW, a USGS mark placed in the 1903 survey near the old Grand View Hotel on the canyon rim. We knew in advance that the hotel itself is long gone, but we had no reason to be certain the mark, set in sandstone at the canyon’s edge, would also be gone. We did not even need to use the hotel for a reference, since our adjusted coordinates should have taken us directly to the mark. Feeling ambitious and intrigued by whatever we might find, we parked in a wooded pull-off and headed along an old doubletrack road toward the site of the old hotel. What a surprise this area was, with the pines that lined the trail, dry pine needles and other debris underfoot, and the grassy meadow we stepped into as we neared the coordinates.

The hotel obviously had stood in the grassy area, but nothing remains of it now. At the time of the survey, only the Bright Angel Hotel and Cameron’s Hotel offered accommodations in addition to the Grand View, so it’s possible that the survey party stayed here while on their assignment. Unfortunately, though, no spirit voices whispered to us today. We could not find the mark. Our coordinates should be exact, reception is excellent in this open area, and our data took us directly to a limestone ledge that looked like a perfect setting for such a mark. But try as we might, even clearing off as much debris and vegetation as possible, we found no mark nor any sign that one had ever been set there. I searched other nearby ledges, unsuccessfully, just in case we were off somehow (I made Rich a little nervous, I’m afraid, as I poked around on the edge!). The mark either remains hidden from our view, or lost to man or the elements probably decades ago—but without evidence to determine which or when. My favorite aspect of benchmark hunting is the discovery of new places such as this. The real prize here was the view that probably very few of the Canyon’s hordes of visitors have ever seen, at least during the better part of the last century.