In a park of spectacular trails, most hikers consider the 6.3 mile South Kaibab the most spectacular of all. There are two reasons for this.

First, all the other trails in the Canyon (except Grandview) were originally game trails, then Anasazai and Havasupai trails. They were chosen for efficiency. There are no easy routes from rim to river, but those other trails were chosen to be the easiest possible. The South Kaibab was built in 1924-25 by the National Park Service to be as scenic as possible. They weren't worried about ease of use. They wanted one breathtaking vista after the next. All these trails drop very quickly, but the South Kaibab drops quickest of all.

Second, all the other trails follow stream drainages down. They zig and zag back and forth from one side of the stream to the other. They thus hug the walls. Your views look out across the canyon to the North side, but looking immediately to your left and right, you see mostly walls, flanks, and shoulders. The South Kaibab is just the opposite. It follows ridges, outcrops and promontories. You get the same north canyon views as the others, but you also get great views looking up and down the Tonto Plateau and the south walls. Paradoxically, this means that even though this is a shorter trail, it takes longer to hike because you keep stopping for photos or to admire the view. As just these top two scenes show, they each demand that you stop. If you try to keep hiking while gazing out over the abyss, you'll inevitably trip and fall.

To reach the South Kaibab Trailhead, take the Village Shuttle to the Visitor Center, or drive in from Tusayan to the Visitor Center, then take the East (Kaibab Rim) Shuttle (orange). Just a few yards off the parking lot is the trailhead, shown here at left. The slightly darker pavement in the lower right corner is the South Rim Trail heading westward. The South Kaibab immediately begins descending through a specatacular series of switchbacks. The photo below right looks up toward this trailhead. You can see how the park service blasted these switchbacks out of the sheer rock of the Kaibab Limestone. The trail continues to drop all the way to the river, but the longest and steepest sustained drop is this initial series of switchbacks.

This was the scene of one of the Grand Canyon's most incredible feats when 42 Havasupai carried eight steel cables, each one 550 ft. long, 1.5 inches in diameter and 2,320 pounds, down to the Colorado River to use in building the Kaibab Suspension Bridge. Donald Hughes, a park ranger at the time, described it as "looking like some giant squirming centipede." Accounts of the day indicate that getting those cables around the bends in the switchbacks was a major challenge. The Havasupai carried one cable at a time down to the river, then all 42 came back to the parking lot and hoisted the next cable onto their shoulders. They made four round trips a day and carried all eight cables down in two days. In this photo, if you look carefully you can see the mule pack train on the way up. The trail at bottom center is disappearing off the picture. It will run along the side of the cliff and then emerge onto Cedar Ridge, also known as The Razor's Edge.

The Razor's Edge, probably the single most breathtaking quarter mile in the Grand Canyon. This photo is taken looking down on the trail from from Mather Point. That's O'Neill Butte at the far left of Cedar Ridge. The South Kaibab Trail follows the knife edge all the way out, before dropping down to the right (out of sight in this photo) and coming to Cedar Plateau (often mistakenly referred to as Cedar Ridge; the actual Ridge is what you're looking at here). Some of the most scenic panoramas are seen to the left and right as you hike across this knife ridge. However, if you're coming back up in late afternoon, keep your eyes out for approaching storms. You cannot allow yourself to be caught out on this ridge during a thunderstorm. You can either wait down on Cedar Plateau until the storm passes, which is usually pretty quickly, or if it's still downriver far enough and you have enough remaining energy, speed up and race across ahead of it. It's safe back against the cliff on the switchbacks. Just below O'Neill Butte the trail hugs the cliff (see photo two frames down). Storms come in from the West, so you might take refuge along that cliff. You'll still get wet, but the rain pounds down on the west face, with a much lighter drizzle on the east face.

You need to plan your trip carefully before you start. There are several turnaround options. Cedar Pleateau, often called Cedar Ridge by mistake (the ridge is above it), is 1.5 miles below the rim, for an elevation drop of 1140 ft. If you turn around there, you'll have a three mile round trip. Cedar Plateau is the most common turnaround point, but the scenery beyond it gets even more spectacular, so you might consider going on. Skeleton Point is another 1.5 mile, down another 900 ft. This would give you a six mile round trip. Beyond that, Tipoff is another 1.4 miles, down another 1220 ft. So if you hike from the rim all the way to Tipoff you'll be going 4.4 miles down, for a round trip of 8.8 miles. This also means that from Tipoff back to the rim you would be climbing 3260 ft. The only pit toilets on the trail are at Cedar Plateau and Tipoff. The other points are marked by signs. The photo here at right shows the Cedar Plateau ("Cedar Ridge") stop, with its pit toilets. Probably 70% of all day hikers turn around here.