This is heartbreaking. Such a beautiful spot:
I just saw this. Lots of great memories there. Very sad news.
Damn! My wife and I were just there a couple of weeks ago. We made the trip specifically to visit the North Rim and stay at one of the cabins there at the lodge because we were supposed to get married there in June of 2020. Unfortunately Covid pushed our plans back from early June to the end of the month, and when we arrived the Mangum fire had the road into the park closed. We ended up getting married at Horseshoe Bend and made the trip this year to celebrate our 5th anniversary in the place that we couldn’t get to then. This is just heart breaking!
It was nearly destroyed in 1932 and was rebuilt in 1936 with much of the original materials. Unlikely to happen again, I’m thinking.
Very sad. My wife and I were there in 2022. We also stayed on the south rim. I preferred the North Rim. This will be a major loss for everyone interested in the Grand Canyon.
I am watching “Dixie” of Homemade Wanderlust through hike the Arizona Trail. The latest video had her and her husband exit the Grand Canyon. I’m not sure how long the delay is for a video to show up but they must have got there shortly before the fires.
Brian
A wildfire that tore through a historic Grand Canyon lodge and raged out of control Monday had been allowed to burn for days before erupting over the weekend, raising scrutiny over the National Park Service’s decision to not aggressively attack the fire right away.
The fire that destroyed the Lodge and some 70 other buildings had been burning for a number of days. Questions are being raised why the NPS did not act sooner.
The fire destroyed the water treatment plant, releasing chlorine gas. Once that occurred it was impossible to do anything.
From the article:
The federal government chose to manage that fire as a controlled burn during the driest, hottest part of the Arizona summer,” the governor said in a social media post Sunday.
The Outlet Fire in 2000 started out as a controlled burn, but it got out of control and burned 14,000 acres. My friend and I hiked right past the work crew on the morning they started. We left for the south rim a few hours later before it blew up. When I visited in 2021 the scars/acres of dead trees were quite evident all along the drive from Jacobs Lake.
I’m afraid it will be many years before the complex at the North Rim becomes a tourist destination again.