Grand Canyon Loop - The Most Scenic Drives in America: 120 Spectacular Road Trips - page 457

Moran Point is named after the landscape painter Thomas Moran, whose work helped preserve the canyon from runaway
commercial development.
8. Moran Point
While you're admiring the wild beauty of the Grand Canyon, save a bit of gratitude for the
landscape painter Thomas Moran, who stopped here on his travels across the West in the
late 19th century. Moran's dramatic paintings played an important role in persuading the
federal government to preserve the canyon for all Americans, at a time when private com-
mercial development was spreading insidiously across the South Rim. This view, named
in his honor, looks west toward the slanted rock layers and jagged outline of the formation
known as the Sinking Ship.
9. Tusayan Ruin
Nineteenth-century explorers, artists, and prospectors were not the first to behold the
Grand Canyon's marvels. Before them came Spanish conquistadors, and before them the
Anasazis, who built pueblo settlements in many places across the Southwest. The restored
Tusayan ruin, with its rock-walled living quarters and round ceremonial kivas, survives as
silenttestamenttoadepartedpeople—ancestorsoftheHopiIndiansoftoday—whofarmed
and hunted here some 800 years ago.
10. Lipan Point
In the canyon depths below Lipan Point, the Colorado River makes a sinuous S curve as it
bends toward the west. Cottonwoods and willows grow in spots along its banks and, like
oases in the desert, create an important habitat for wildlife.
There is much to see above the rim as well. Mule deer, with their enormous ears, are
often spotted by the road, while elk are more elusive. In the nearby ponderosa pines, look
for a large, bushy-tailed squirrel with long tufted ears; this charming and playful creature
embodies a fascinating lesson in ecology. Over the centuries squirrels on the North Rim
evolved into a white-tailed form known as the Kaibab squirrel; the closely related, dark-
tailed Abert squirrel is found on the South Rim. The two populations live only a few miles
apart, but with the Grand Canyon between them, they might as well be on separate contin-
ents.