Exploring the Forest on the North Rim

When we think of Arizona, our mind wanders to visions of flat deserts populated by the Saguaro cactus and the occasional roadrunner. What may not come to mind is rolling terrain and dense forests with numerous types of trees, but the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park is just such a place.

Within Grand Canyon National Park, there are three distinct forest communities. Beginning at about 4,200 feet above sea level, and going up to 6,200 feet you can find a forest of pinyon pine and Utah junipers. Amongst the trees it’s common to find sagebrush, Mormon tea, cliffrose, apache plume, and Utah agave. Between 6,500 and 8,200 feet on both the North and South rims is a forest characterized mostly of ponderosa pine with Gambel oak, and New Mexico locust scattered about. On the North Rim above 8,200 feet is a spruce-fir forest, characterized by Englemann spruce, blue spruce, Douglas fir, white fir, quaking aspen, and mountain ash.