A Thrilling Grand Canyon South Rim Helicopter Tour Experience

Last Updated on October 21, 2020 by Adam Watts

There’s a big hole in America. There are many jokes I can make there but because this is a family-friendly website, I won’t. The big hole I’m talking about is of course the Grand Canyon, over which I did a south rim helicopter tour.

The Grand Canyon covers a lot of the south-west of the United States and it’s big. Really big. Almost as big as the hole my brother and I dug on a beach in Costa Brava back in ’97.

I went to this big hole while I was staying in Las Vegas. You can read more about my time in Vegas here.

I arrived in Las Vegas after missing my scheduled bus from LA, which totally wasn’t my fault. So I got to Las Vegas later than expected, about 11 p.m.

I took a taxi from the Greyhound bus station to the Imperial Palace mega-resort and checked into my room. I then checked a few travel plans and realized that my day-trip to the Grand Canyon was the following day with pick-up at 5 a.m.

Anyway, part of the Grand Canyon day trip experience includes a visit to the Visitor Centre. Thrill a minute, huh? But I’d blown the last of my student loan money on a south rim helicopter tour so while everyone else was learning about the history of the Grand Canyon and how it was formed, myself and an Australian couple were flying over that bad boy in a helicopter.

Here’s the helicopter:

You know how most people these days don’t pay any attention to safety demonstrations on flights because they’ve seen them a thousand times before? Well, during the safety video about what to do and what not to do in the event of a helicopter emergency, I was perhaps a little too blasé about the whole thing because I knew it all having done a helicopter tour before only a couple of months ago, over Manhattan.

But even though I’d been through the process before, actually taking off, flying over a forest of trees and then seeing the hole approach…

…Well, bub, you have to experience it for yourself. It’s a feeling that doesn’t compare to anything else.

And once you’re out there, looking down over the massive hole…

…You can only marvel and its majesty and just for a split second you consider that…

…It’s a perfect place for someone to hide a body after murdering someone by, say, pushing them out of a helicopter, especially if they were an Australian who had been really noisy and obnoxious on the bus ride from Las Vegas.

But just hypothetically.

After the south rim helicopter tour, which only lasted about half an hour (and it felt a lot, lot less than that), we caught up with the others from the day trip at a couple of look-out points.

The Grand Canyon has some stunning views, from which you can get some great photos.

…but it’s the Niagara Falls syndrome all over again. It’s too busy.

Everyone is fighting for spots at the railing and trying to take photos of each other trying to make it look like they weren’t part of a massive tour group all trying the same thing.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a stunning place, and I preferred it infinitely to Niagara Falls. But it’s better if you ‘do it’ in a special way – a hike, a south rim helicopter tour (or a north rim one, but I can’t vouch for that), or a road trip to a quiet part of the place where you’re not surrounded by hundreds of other people.

If you liked the pretty photos from this post, check out some other Best Photos posts.