On our bumpy, mud-soaked ride to the Grand Canyon’s lesser-visited East Rim, a coyote emerged from the sagebrush to lead the way. It took off directly in front of our van, seemingly directing us through a labyrinth of dirt roads. Our guide, a member of the Navajo Nation, parked the vehicle and offered thanks to the coyote for its guidance. This is a part of the Grand Canyon, carved both by water and heritage, that few see, as it resides on private, ancestral land only accessible via Navajo-led tours. Recently, thanks to a relationship with a new lodge, the Navajo people are now hoping to share it with more travelers.
Marble Canyon Lodge, originally opened in 1926 as a rudimentary roadhouse, has long provided an oasis for visitors to northern Arizona’s popular natural attractions, like the Grand Canyon and Horseshoe Bend, a famous Colorado River U-turn that wraps around a striking cliff formation in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. It’s also been a refuge for Navajo families, many of whom reside on the reservation across the nearby Navajo Bridge, providing a source of employment.
Now, following two years of head-to-toe renovations, Marble Canyon Lodge, which reopened in March 2025, marks the debut project for nature-inspired hospitality brand Terra Vi. The company also already has plans to significantly expand and enhance the more upscale Grand Canyon Nature Lodge across the street from Marble Canyon Lodge. When the Grand Canyon Nature Lodge reopens in 2027, it will be equipped with luxury stargazing cabins, an indoor pool, and a sleek bar.
Explore the beauty and majesty of the Grand Canyon minus the crowds at Marble Canyon Lodge.
Courtesy of Marble Canyon Lodge
Residing on 168 acres half a mile from the Colorado River, Marble Canyon Lodge consists of 53 motel-style rooms and eight ranch cottages. The rooms tout a contemporary Southwestern aesthetic, clad in terra-cotta orange with wood floors, while the 1,500-square-foot cottages feature two bedrooms, living rooms, and full kitchens and dining areas. Decked in natural wood, leather finishes, and artwork depicting desert wildlife, each cottage has a patio with Adirondack chairs and a campfire, and from my cottage I could see sweeping views of the Vermillion Cliffs, a 280,000-acre national monument comprising red sandstone plateaus, canyons, and buttes.
Every facet of the property is either reimagined or brand new. This includes the desert-chic Trading Post, a lobby shop with outdoor gear and art, and the Lonely JackRabbit Restaurant, where food and beverage director Landon Neff draws inspiration from the area’s Indigenous communities for a menu of fried cactus breakfast burritos, Navajo taco salads (consisting of Navajo fry bread, a deep-fried dough cooked until golden-brown and fluffy, traditional in Native cuisine, and topped with pinto beans, lettuce, cheddar, green chiles, tomatoes, and onions, with choice of protein), and blue corn cakes with fried chicken. For dessert, Lucky Foot Coffee & Ice Cream serves Navajo fry bread sundaes, using the deep-fried dough as a base for soft serve, caramel, strawberry, and chocolate sauces, whipped cream, and almonds.
Book into a larger cottage room, many of which have views of the surrounding Vermillion Cliffs National Monument and its impressive red sandstone plateaus.
Courtesy of Marble Canyon Lodge
Beyond the fry bread and the art, and Marble Canyon’s status as a rare boutique option in the remote region, 45 minutes from the town of Page, what sets the lodge apart is its dedicated connection to the Navajo community, and how integral the community is to its story. In addition to employment of local Navajo people, for food service and front-desk roles, among others, the lodge offers a revenue share program, donating a percentage of profits to local Indigenous community causes. Notably, a new addition with the reopening was the introduction of exclusive curated adventures—led by Navajo tour guides, and local outfitters—that are solely available to lodge guests, taking travelers into off-the-beaten-path, far-flung locales.
This includes that aforementioned tour of the Grand Canyon’s East Rim, led by a Navajo family with roots so deep in the area that we literally drove past the dusty remnants of an old corral once owned by their grandparents. A far cry from the heavily touristed South Rim, or even the less-visited—and recently fire-ravaged—North Rim, the East Rim’s location on Navajo land, only accessible via private tours with Navajo guides, ensures total seclusion and serenity.
When we embarked on our tour, through a spurt of torrential rain that made the rugged ride seem like a muddy log flume, it took about 45 minutes of mazelike dirt roads—and the guidance of a coyote—to arrive at the canyon edge. Not only did we get a rare sense of solitude at the edge of one of the world’s greatest wonders, but also our three-mile guided hike along the rim, and our canyon-side Navajo taco lunch, was enriched with stories that most tourists don’t hear. Like how cliffrose roots were once used as lining in diapers, and about the Navajo life ceremonies our guides have celebrated, from a baby’s first laugh to a girl’s transition to womanhood.
Guests were treated to a lunch of Navajo tacos made with fry bread during a guided hike along the Grand Canyon’s East Rim.
Photo by Matt Kirouac
Other Navajo-led tours take Marble Canyon guests into the eroded sandstone passageways of Secret Canyon, a far quieter slot canyon than the inundated Antelope Canyon, and to their own private ledge overlooking Horseshoe Bend, offering the same staggering views, without the hordes. On a 10-mile kayak trip to Horseshoe Bend, other guests and I paddled around the famous curve—and past wild horses—and enjoyed kale salads and blue corn cookies provided by the lodge during a lunch stop.
Come sunset, we gathered nightly around a bonfire at the lodge, prickly-pear margaritas and marshmallows in tow, as we heard stories from the Salamander Fire Circle. Available to all guests, it’s a storybook tradition created by the property, rooted in connection to the land, involving tales about sky spirits, lonely jackrabbits, and the Great Salamander born from fire. Much like our Grand Canyon guide, the one who stopped to give an offering to the coyote who led the way, Marble Canyon Lodge, through impassioned relationships and place-making art and design, gives thanks to the Indigenous communities who have always led the way.
