Plateau Point
— — the inner canyon, with the river finally in view.
Not only on a wall.
“A flat sandstone shelf at the end of a six-mile trail, where the Tonto Platform breaks off and the Colorado River appears thirteen hundred feet below. The hike out and back from the South Rim is sixteen miles round-trip with no water on the spur and a brutal climb back. Most people who make it sit a long time. The light at the rim feels far away from here.
Plateau Point, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Plateau Point is a promontory on the Tonto Platform of the Grand Canyon, reached by a 1.5-mile spur off the Bright Angel Trail. From the South Rim trailhead it is about six miles down and 3,000 feet below, sitting at roughly 3,740 feet elevation and around 1,300 feet above the Colorado River. The viewpoint was developed in the 1920s by the Fred Harvey Company as a mule destination. Grand Canyon National Park manages it today, and rangers strongly discourage attempting the round-trip on foot in summer heat.
There is no overnight camping at the point and no water on the spur trail. Day-hikers must carry everything in and out, including extra for the steep return. The National Park Service publishes a standing warning against descending past Havasupai Gardens in summer, when shade temperatures on the Tonto Platform exceed 105°F. Mule rides to the point were discontinued in 2019. Most fit hikers budget eight to ten hours round-trip from Bright Angel Trailhead, starting well before dawn.
The Tonto Platform sits in a thermal layer of its own. Cool morning air pools on the South Rim above and the Colorado River cuts the canyon below, but the broad shelf at Plateau Point holds the sun and radiates heat off bare Bright Angel Shale. Spring and late October offer the most workable temperatures. In winter the upper trail can ice over while the platform itself stays dry. There is almost always a faint, steady wind moving up-canyon from the river.