Ryan Trahan was standing at Ooh Aah Point, deep inside the Grand Canyon, eating what he described as probably the first Joyride cherry berry rope consumed at that exact overlook in human history. After seven hours of travel starting at 4:00 a.m., a connecting flight through Phoenix, a two-hour rental car drive, and a 29-minute hike down a steep trail dodging mule traffic, he had arrived at the place everyone in his life had been talking about his whole life. The Grand Canyon had been the thing, the one attraction he was quietly nervous about, worried he would not feel what everyone else felt. Then the shuttle bus rounded a bend and it was just there, and every worry evaporated.
This was day nine of visiting the top 10 tourist attractions in America, a summer series that had already taken Ryan and his traveling companion Haley through New York City, Disney World, Washington D.C., Niagara Falls, and a Dodgers game in Los Angeles the night before. The trip runs on a three-category scoring rubric: experience, scenery, and magic, each rated out of ten. The Grand Canyon was about to set a new bar.
Seven hours of travel for a view that stops a shuttle bus cold
The pair landed in Phoenix on a connecting flight, having slept through most of the journey after going to bed late following the Los Angeles stop. A quick snack run at a Target near the rental car lot produced protein shakes, meat sticks, an adult lunchable, and the cherry berry rope that would later make Grand Canyon history. The drive through the desert terrain took another two hours, and by the time they cleared the entrance gate and boarded the shuttle toward Ooh Aah Trail, the anticipation had built to an almost unbearable pitch.
The shuttle itself delivered the first gut-punch. Through the bus window, the canyon simply appeared, vast and layered and completely unlike anything a photograph had prepared them for. Haley later recalled nearly getting choked up trying to describe it: the depth, the shadow, the sheer scale of standing there as, in her words, a tiny human being beholding it.
The Ooh Aah Trail is rated moderate difficulty, a description that felt generous once the steep downhill switchbacks began. There were no hiking poles. There were mules on the path. There was a squirrel near the lookout clinging to thistles with the most remarkable view, Ryan noted, any squirrel has probably ever had.
Brussels sprouts, souvenir cups, and a new number one
After the hike back up, which took considerably longer than 29 minutes, dinner was seared salmon and Brussels sprouts at the restaurant inside the canyon village, a meal Ryan acknowledged was likely the first vegetable he had eaten on camera in roughly a year. He also acquired a souvenir cup that the staff confirmed earns free fountain drink refills for life on any future visit.
The sunset came last. They walked five minutes from the village in hoodies, because the desert had turned cold, to a lookout where Haley said the sky looked like a green screen. They had ice cream. Ryan said he would probably keep the photos from that evening for the rest of his life.
Scoring came at the hotel that night, next to Haley’s scrapbook page featuring the trip’s first horizontal Polaroid. Experience landed at 7, in line with the strong amenity offering but short of Disney World and New York City. Scenery was a simultaneous countdown: both called 10 at the same moment, with Ryan volunteering he would have gone to 11 if the scale allowed. Magic came in at 9, matching Washington D.C. for second-highest in the series behind Disney World’s perfect 10.
Total: 26 out of 30, and a new number one.
Ryan had privately predicted Niagara Falls would top the list when the series began. He was wrong.
The squirrel with the best seat in the house
Somewhere on the trail below the rim, a squirrel grabbed a thistle with both hands and stared out at a canyon that took humans seven hours and two flights to reach.
The bucket list scrapbook now has ten pages. One of them is horizontal.
