I drove 45 minutes to the only other overlook from which you can see the Colorado river. The skies turned blue just in time when I got to Cape Royal. It was very windy and the vault toilets gave you a blast of cold air on both cheeks! There is a huge parking lot for hundreds of cars but there were only a handful which is the advantage of coming here off-season. I shudder when I think of the crowded high season; it makes a good argument for having more national parks and monuments to satisfy this need throughout the country. The trail to Cape Royal is an easy paved outing. From here, you can see the Colorado river which is now blue because of the lack of sediments; it used to be red (as its name implies) before the dam settled the sediments. There is a short side trail to go above the Angels Window arch with an extremely satisfying view on all sides.
On the way back, I stopped at the Cliff Spring trail which goes past an Indian granary before ending at a spring emerging from the cliff. It reminded me of the Canyon Overlook trail just east of the tunnel in Zion where you walk in the notch of a cliff for quite a while. The return trip doubles back and up you go without realizing that you had come this far down.
Next stop is the Walhalla overlook
Next comes Roosevelt Point, one of the most challenging side trips. It is short but you have to scramble down and guess where the path goes and if it is even a path at all. I met an Australian complaining that it is unfair that all the good sights are in the US, and that there is nothing good to see in Australia. I disagreed with him even though I cannot vouch for this first hand.
The Vista Encantada is the last stop on this branch of the road.
I went back to the lodge since it was still daylight to poke around some more. The lodge is made of locally quarried stones and you can see fossils and petrified wood in its building blocks.
This was another cold night with temperature reaching down to 31F. Except for my breath condensing around the sleeping bag where my nose poked out, I was fine.