Horseshoe Bend & Glen Canyon: The Bend, the Dam, and the Drowned Canyon
10 stops· 19 min· 9.5 mi· narrated by Ranger Quinn
Buy the self-guided tour now, or get it in the app.
- The Walk Out to the Rim
- Who Lives on the Trail
- The Bend — a Thousand Feet Down
- Page — the Town the Dam Built
- The People of This Land
- Glen Canyon Dam & the High Bridge
- The Cold River & the Start of the Grand Canyon
- Wahweap & Lake Powell
Stand a thousand feet above the Colorado River as it swings through a perfect horseshoe of stone — then drive the high desert country of Page, Arizona, to the great dam that changed this river forever. Ranger Quinn walks you out to the famous Horseshoe Bend overlook, then drives you north on Highway 89: through the youngest town in the region, across one of the highest bridges in America, to Glen Canyon Dam and the vast blue sprawl of Lake Powell. Ranger Boone Merrick rides along with the tales this canyon country keeps — the dizzying drop and the people the edge has taken; a one-armed Civil War major who ran these rivers blind in 1869 and named the canyon for its glens; the drowned wonderland of Glen Canyon, the most beautiful place hardly anyone ever saw, now four hundred feet under the reservoir; and the Diné, the Navajo people, whose land this red country is. It's a short walk on sand to the rim and an easy, gorgeous drive — bring water and sun protection, mind the unfenced edges, and come in the cool half of the year, because this desert bakes in summer.
Driving + walking route · 10 stops. Live GPS playback and turn-by-turn pins are in the app.
What you'll see and hear
10 narrated stops along the way — waterfalls, overlooks, history, and Ranger Boone's campfire tales.
01• Welcome to Horseshoe Bend
Orientation at the Horseshoe Bend parking lot near Page, Arizona — the plan for the walk to the overlook and the drive north to Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell.
02🥾 The Walk Out to the Rim
The Horseshoe Bend Trail — the short but exposed desert walk to the overlook, the Navajo Sandstone underfoot, and the heat-and-water sense to keep.
The Walk Out to the Rim guide →
03🌲 Who Lives on the Trail
The wildlife of the Horseshoe Bend trail — ravens on the cliffs, lizards and cottontails, and the rattlesnakes: how to share the trail safely, prepared not scared.
Who Lives on the Trail guide →
04🌲 The Bend — a Thousand Feet Down
The Horseshoe Bend overlook — the 270-degree entrenched meander of the Colorado River, ~1,000 feet below, and how the river carved it into the Navajo Sandstone. (Boone's tale of the drop dwells here.)
The Bend — a Thousand Feet Down guide →
05🌲 Page — the Town the Dam Built
Driving back through Page, Arizona — one of the youngest towns in the country, built in 1957 to house Glen Canyon Dam workers, on land at the edge of the Navajo Nation.
Page — the Town the Dam Built guide →
06🔥 The People of This Land
Boone's tale of the Diné, the Navajo people, whose land this red country is — their long presence, the sacred canyons like Antelope, and respect for a living homeland.
The People of This Land guide →
07🌲 Glen Canyon Dam & the High Bridge
Glen Canyon Dam and the US-89 steel-arch bridge — the 710-foot dam that plugged the Colorado River (1956-1966), the bridge nearly 700 feet above the river, and the Carl Hayden Visitor Center.
Glen Canyon Dam & the High Bridge guide →
08🌲 The Cold River & the Start of the Grand Canyon
Glen Canyon Dam's power plant and the cold, clear river it releases — the blue-ribbon trout water at Lees Ferry just downstream, which is Mile Zero of the Grand Canyon.
The Cold River & the Start of the Grand Canyon guide →
09🌲 Wahweap & Lake Powell
The Wahweap Overlook above Lake Powell — the second-largest reservoir in the US, 186 miles long, its recreation, and the drought-lowered 'bathtub ring.' (Boone's drowned-canyon tale dwells here.)
Wahweap & Lake Powell guide →
10• Farewell from the Canyon Country
Quinn's closing above Lake Powell — a last thought on the Colorado River, the dam, and the drowned canyon, thanks for coming along, and a request for a review.
What you'll see
Tap any landmark for a visitor guide — what it is, where it is, and how to hear its story.
Good to know
- How long is the Horseshoe Bend & Glen Canyon: The Bend, the Dam, and the Drowned Canyon tour?
- The tour has 10 stops over about 9.5 miles with roughly 19 min of narrated audio. You set the pace — pause, linger, or skip ahead anytime.
- Do I need cell signal to use the tour?
- No. Download the tour before you go and it works completely offline — the audio plays by GPS even with no bars, which is exactly where most park tours lose signal.
- How does a self-guided audio tour work?
- You drive the route at your own pace and the Ranger Tales app plays the story for each stop automatically when you arrive, using your phone's location. No tapping, no reading while you drive. Ranger Quinn guides and Ranger Boone tells the campfire tales.
- Where does the Horseshoe Bend & Glen Canyon: The Bend, the Dam, and the Drowned Canyon tour take place?
- Horseshoe Bend & Glen Canyon (Page, Arizona). The Colorado River's most famous curve — a 1,000-foot cliff wrapped around a horseshoe meander at Page, plus Glen Canyon Dam and the drowned canyon now filled by Lake Powell.
- How do I get the tour?
- Download the free Ranger Tales app from the App Store, then unlock this tour inside the app. The tour downloads to your phone so it's ready offline before you arrive.
- Can I cancel or get a refund?
- Change of mind? Full refund if you request it within 24 hours of purchase. If a verified technical issue prevents access, contact support within 7 days for a refund or credit. All requests are reviewed at our discretion and refunded to your original payment method.
Buy your self-guided tour
Pick a date and book online — checkout is secure, and your unlock code arrives by email. Works offline once it's in the app.
Horseshoe Bend & Glen Canyon: The Bend, the Dam, and the Drowned Canyon — in your pocket
Download the app, unlock the tour, and let it drive with you. Works offline.
Buy the self-guided tour, or get it in the app.
Keep exploring
Drive + walkCarPlayOlympic National Park
142 stops· 2 hr 8 min· 233.0 mi
A self-guided driving and walking tour of the ENTIRE Olympic National Park — three worlds in one journey: glacier-capped mountains, the wettest temperate rainforest in the Lower 48, and seventy-plus miles of wild Pacific coast, all driven on the great horseshoe of Highway 101 from Port Angeles down to Lake Quinault. Ranger Quinn guides you up every spur — Hurricane Ridge and Mount Olympus, the freed Elwha River, blue Lake Crescent, Sol Duc Falls, the Hoh Rain Forest, Rialto and Second Beach, Ruby Beach, the Kalaloch coast, and the Valley of the Rain Forest Giants — while Ranger Boone Merrick tells the tales that matter: the Lower Elwha Klallam who freed their river in the largest dam removal in American history, the Lady of the Lake, the Quileute's Move to Higher Ground, the Makah village the sea kept at Ozette, the two Roosevelts who built the park around its elk, and the world's largest spruce. This is the ancestral homeland of eight living, sovereign nations who steward it with the park today. The park interior is roadless, so you drive the perimeter and turn up the spurs; the tour plays whichever end you start from, by GPS. Around thirty dollars a vehicle gets you in for a week; cell signal dies past Port Angeles, so it works fully offline. On the coast, the tide can trap you and rolling drift logs kill — carry a tide chart and never turn your back on the ocean. 2026 note: some roads are gated by washout or fire (the Elwha beyond Madison Falls, Rialto's Mora Road in late season, the Quinault South Shore loop, Staircase) — the tour routes what's open and tells you the rest honestly; check the park's road line before you go.
Driving tourCarPlayHocking Hills — Caves, Cliffs & Waterfalls
38 stops· 1 hr 9 min· 28.4 mi
The flagship tour of Hocking Hills — six legendary stops strung along one winding scenic byway, driven at your pace with a walk at every one. Start at Cantwell Cliffs, the rugged corner most visitors miss, and squeeze down a crack in the rock the locals named a century ago. Stand inside Rock House, the only true cave in these hills — a corridor in the cliff with great arched windows where outlaws and bootleggers once kept house, so the story goes. Walk the hush of Conkle's Hollow, a boardwalk gorge beneath walls of two hundred feet, where pioneer legend says a robbers' treasure is still up on the ledge. Give the centerpiece its due at Old Man's Cave — waterfalls, the Devil's Bathtub, stone bridges raised by the CCC, and the great recess cave where the hermit Richard Rowe lived out his days with his dogs. Catch the biggest water in the hills at Cedar Falls — named by settlers who couldn't tell a hemlock from a cedar — and finish in the grandest stone room in Ohio: Ash Cave, a seven-hundred-foot amphitheater sheltering ten thousand years of human firelight, where Ranger Boone closes the day with the story of Grandma Gatewood, the sixty-seven-year-old Ohio grandmother who out-walked everyone who doubted her. Ranger Quinn guides; Boone stops you seven times for the deep stories. The park is free; the tour works fully offline — exactly what these no-signal hills require. Works in either direction, north or south. Good shoes recommended; every walk is under ninety minutes and one is fully wheelchair-accessible.
Driving tourCarPlayThe Mohawk Trail
36 stops· 53 min· 49.1 mi
Fifty miles of the Mohawk Trail — Massachusetts Route 2 — the marquee New England fall-foliage drive and, back in 1914, the very first road in the country built purely for the pleasure of the view. It climbs out of the Connecticut River valley at the great French King Bridge, up through Shelburne Falls and Charlemont into the Berkshire hills, over Whitcomb Summit and around the white-knuckle Hairpin Turn, and down into North Adams and Williamstown under the shadow of Mount Greylock. Ranger Quinn keeps you oriented and safe and tells you what you're seeing — the river gorge, the flaming maples, the old summits and their four-state views. Ranger Boone Merrick brings the tales this old road has carried for a thousand years: the Native 'Great Path' that came first, the French scout who named a rock in the river, the winter the whole town of Deerfield was marched to Canada, the railroad tunnel they called the Bloody Pit, and the mountain a novelist watched like a sleeping whale while he wrote Moby-Dick. Drive it either way. Best in late September and October, when the hills catch fire. Roll.