Lipan Point

Lipan Point is a roadside overlook on Desert View Drive, with a broad westward view across the South Rim. The Colorado River stays in sight as it winds toward the Inner Gorge, making this one of the rim’s longest looks downriver. Keep it on your drive if you want to see the canyon’s scale and its layered geology in one stop.

The view is full of buttes, spires and temple-shaped formations, with bands of pale, purple and red rock stepping down toward the river. On a clear day, the Vermilion Cliffs are visible about 45 miles to the northeast. Sunrise and sunset bring changing light across the walls, and the broad view also makes this a good place to look up at the night sky.

Hance Rapid is almost four miles away, but its roar can sometimes carry up to the overlook. The canyon here is also an important route for migrating raptors, so keep an eye on the open sky above the rim.

The leaning rock bands belong to the Grand Canyon Supergroup. The lower Unkar Group formed between 1.255 and 1.1 billion years ago, from sand and mud carried north by rivers draining mountains in what is now West Texas. Above it, the Chuar Group formed in a shallow sea between 780 and 729 million years ago, when the continents were coming together as Rodinia.

The Colorado River cuts through soft purple Dox Formation sandstone below dark Cardenas Basalt, hardened lava from ancient eruptions. Looking west toward the Inner Gorge, the tilted bands continue through Bass Formation, Hakatai Shale and Shinumo Sandstone before the river reaches much older basement rocks.

Near the river, the Unkar Delta lies among these tilted layers. Puebloan people grew beans, corn and squash there, a reminder that the canyon has long been a lived-in landscape as well as a dramatic view from above.

The overlook has auto parking and is listed as wheelchair accessible. For a photo, keep a stretch of the Colorado River low in the frame and include the surrounding canyon walls; that small line of water makes the depth easier to read.