Driving Desert View Drive (East Rim, Highway 64): Grandview, Moran, Lipan & 1932 Watchtower

Unlike Hermit Road to the west, the 37-kilometre (23-mile) scenic highway of Desert View Drive (Arizona Highway 64 East) running east from the Grand Canyon Visitor Center to the Desert View East Entrance is open to private passenger cars 365 days a year! Even better: if you are driving to the Grand Canyon from Page (Horseshoe Bend / Antelope Canyon), Monument Valley or Flagstaff via US-89 and Cameron, entering or exiting the park via Desert View Drive lets you skip 90% of the South Entrance traffic lines while stopping at six of the grandest viewpoints in the park!

1. The 5 Best Viewpoints Going West-to-East Along Desert View Drive (Allow 2 to 3 Hours)

1. Pipe Creek Vista & Duck on a Rock Viewpoint (km 3 & km 6): pull over just past the Orange Shuttle turnaround to spot a whimsical limestone rock pinnacle shaped like a sitting duck looking out over the canyon!
2. Grandview Point (km 18 — 2,256m Elevation): juts out on a wooded peninsula where copper miner Pete Berry built the park's first tourist hotel in 1892 (and where the steep, unmaintained cobblestone Grandview Trail drops down onto Horseshoe Mesa!).
3. Moran Point (km 28): named after famous Hudson River School landscape painter Thomas Moran, whose monumental 1870s oil canvases of this exact view convinced the U.S. Congress to protect the national parks—notice how the rock strata here tilt at an angle in the 1.1-billion-year-old Grand Canyon Supergroup!
4. Tusayan Ruin (km 32) & Lipan Point (km 34 — Best River View in the Park!): walk a flat 15-minute path around an 800-year-old Ancestral Puebloan stone village ruin (c. 1185 AD), then drive 2 minutes up to Lipan Point—looking straight down at the bright red-and-orange Unkar Delta (where ancient Puebloan farmers grew corn alongside the river!) and the roaring whitewater of Hance Rapids!
5. Navajo Point (km 36 — Highest Overlook on the South Rim at 2,275m / 7,461 feet!): look straight east across the chasm to see the 1932 Watchtower perched on the cliff!

2. The 1932 Desert View Watchtower (km 37 — Eastern Terminus of the South Rim)

Anchoring the eastern tip of the park stands architect Mary Colter's crowning masterpiece: the 21-metre-tall (70-foot) stone Desert View Watchtower, modeled after the ancient 12th-century ancestral Puebloan round towers of Hovenweep and Mesa Verde! Walk onto the ground-floor kiva observation deck (free!) and pick up a free timed ticket at the door to climb the 85 interior steps past Hopi artist Fred Kabotie's original 1932 murals—looking out across the Painted Desert, Navajo Nation and the big bend where the Colorado River turns from south to west! (During season, Native American artisans demonstrate weaving, pottery and carving here daily at the Desert View Inter-Tribal Cultural Heritage Site!).