Two miles southeast of
Yaki Point,
Shoshone Point also has a road leading to it, and basic facilities including picnic tables and fire grills, but use of these requires advance permission from the NPS; in summer the place is quite often used for private functions like weddings and parties.
The one mile road is unpaved and normally closed to vehicular access by a locked gate, though visitation on foot is allowed without a permit. The point is not signposted from the
East Rim Drive but next to the gate is a parking area, on the north side between mileposts 244 and 245; from here, the rim is reached by a pleasant, level, 20 minute walk through open ponderosa pine woodland.
At road's end, the cliffs form a narrow promontory, jutting out from the plateau, and affording views of more than 180° of the Grand Canyon - a vista usually appreciated without any other visitors. To the west, the edge of the rim is formed by
Yaki Point, with
Cremation Creek below and
Phantom Creek (on the North Rim) in the distance. In the foreground are Newton and Lyell buttes, two narrowish peaks in the Supai sandstone, then beyond, also on the North Rim, the long drainage of
Clear Creek runs between more high buttes including Zoroaster Temple and Thor Temple. The eastern aspect is dominated by several forks of
Grapevine Creek, with other red, flat-topped buttes beyond. The Colorado River is in view only in the far northeast near Tanner Canyon, where it curves round northwards towards
Marble Canyon.
Next Points
West:
Yaki Point
East:
Grandview Point