This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/arizonatrail by /u/elephantsback on 2024-02-21 21:10:57.

Let’s face it: the official AZT route makes some puzzling choices. So I’ve come up with a few alternates to make some less-than-stellar trail sections more interesting. Here’s the first:

When the AZT NOBO gets to Grandview tower, just south of the Grand Canyon, the trail makes a left turn and heads for Tusayan. If you’ve never been to Tusayan, it’s your typical ugly national park gateway town–overpriced hotels and some shitty restaurants and that’s it. But the official route has you walking right through town and then following the park entrance road all the way to the rim.

When I started planning my thru and saw this on the map, I promised myself I would never walk through Tusayan. Luckily, there’s a super easy *and shorter* *and scenic* alternate route that skips Tusayan. You don’t need to go to Tusayan anyway. The developed areas on the South Rim have a good supermarket, a bunch of restaurants, a post office, a nice campground, laundry, and showers. Plus lots of elk.

Here’s the route in blue. The official AZT is in green.

When you get to Grandview Tower, take the dirt road running northwest. You cross into the park in a few minutes. Follow this road a few more minutes, and then turn left onto a power line right-of-way. You follow this two-track for about 9 miles. Do a quick bushwhack to the park road then follow the trail out to Shoshone Point. From there, you follow trail along the rim to Yaki Point and then walk the road to the S. Kaibab trailhead.

From there, you can take the bus to the Village or walk there along the rim. If you still need to get to Tusayan, there’s a free bus. Either way, you’ve spared yourself some unnecessary, unscenic walking. Also, this alternate saves about 9 miles off the official route.

There’s no camping on this alternate–or anywhere else on the South Rim outside the developed campgrounds.

Here’s a link to the route: You can download it by hitting the export button, and then you can import it into Gaia GPS, Caltopo or whatever nav app you use.

By the numbers:

More alternates to come…