Grand Canyon North Rim Tours

No trip to Las Vegas is complete without visiting the Grand Canyon. Thousands of feet higher than the South Rim, the canyon’s North Rim provides impressive vistas, trails along the Colorado River, and a better glimpse at the inner canyon, all with sparser crowds than its more popular counterpart. Highlights on the North Rim include Bright Angel Point (a terminus of the famous Bright Angel Trail), Angel’s Window Overlook, Cape Royal, and Point Imperial—the Grand Canyon’s highest point at 8,800 feet (2,682 meters).

While not as popular as the South Rim, the North Rim offers plenty of opportunities for outdoor adventure. Visitors based in Las Vegas can get a bird’s-eye view of the North Rim aboard a helicopter or airplane flightseeing tour, with the option to add an ATV ride or Jeep tour for close-up views from the ground. Since the Hoover Dam is along the route from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon North Rim, many visitors and tours stop there first.

The Grand Canyon North Rim runs into both Arizona and Nevada, and is part of Grand Canyon National Park. The North Rim is about 275 miles (442 kilometers) east of Las Vegas and about 207 miles (332 kilometers) from Flagstaff in Arizona. If you’re not visiting on a tour, you can get there by car by taking Highway 89A to Highway 67/North Rim Parkway. A Trans Canyon shuttle runs between the South Rim and the North Rim when the North Rim is open between May and October.

The best times to visit the Grand Canyon are in early autumn and late spring, when temperatures are cool and the crowds are sparser than in summer. Visitor facilities at the North Rim are open from mid-May to mid-October, and it’s possible to visit the area until the first snowfall closes the road from Jacob Lake until it melts again in spring.

The Grand Canyon North Rim offers some spectacular trails for day hikers, including rim hikes with stellar views of the inner canyon or even hikes down into the canyon itself. The Bright Angel Point Trail can be hiked in as little as 30 minutes along a paved path, with excellent views the entire way. The three-mile (4.8-kilometer) round-trip Transept Trail follows the rim from Grand Canyon Lodge to the North Rim Campground, while the more challenging North Kaibab Trail to Roaring Springs inside the canyon takes a full day to complete.