Practically everyone at least knows of the grand canyon and/or has been there. However, pretty much everyone goes to the south rim touristy part or the north rim lookout. There are a few other much less well known lookouts that are only accessible offroad. One of these is Twin Point. We thought about camping out there, however we’re lazy and camping in a tent isn’t very comfortable so we decided to commit to the drive as a day trip!
We headed out of Mesquite, NV where my parents live and went north to St. George, Utah and then east. Eventually we turned south onto a fairly nice wide gravel road. Most people are running around in side by side ORV’s, but there were a few other trucks and Jeeps around too. The aftermarket suspension on our 4Runner smoothed out all the road chatter and we were able to make excellent time! As usual, I’m navigating and following the directions on my phone… and also as usual it’s navigating to “shortest route” which means we took a random side road and ended up on an hour of 2-track paths meant for gathering cattle. It was an interesting drive, but it was pretty clear that it wasn’t the preferred route!
After hours of exploring and bouncing around in the truck we finally made it to twin point! The road at the very end got tight and twisty through some big trees that made me glad we had a small and nimble 4Runner! The view was spectacular as expected and, better yet, we had the entire place to ourselves! After fighting the crowds years ago to see the grand canyon and get my photos of it (on FILM!) I find it amazing that there are still places to go that aren’t full of tourists! We even dug out our camp chairs and made some sandwiches for lunch that we ate while looking at the canyon!
After hanging out at the canyon for a while we headed back towards home a different direction over the mountains instead of back up north to St. George. Along the way we came across an old cabin falling apart that I had fun taking pictures of! (old buildings are my favorite!)
We finally rolled back into Mesquite in the dark after spending all day driving around. The road over the mountains was a lot rougher than we thought it would be, but we definitely slept well that night!