All seven hotels at the Grand Canyon will close temporarily beginning on Saturday, dealing another blow to the wildfire-scarred national park, one of the most popular attractions in the United States.
In a statement, the park service blamed “a series of significant breaks” in the South Rim’s water supply system for the move. The closures come after a major wildfire last summer destroyed a historic hotel on the North Rim and staffing cuts caused chaos at national parks early this year.
The park service said that it hoped to let the affected hotels reopen “as quickly as possible.” It is unclear whether that means a period of days, or longer.
About 90 percent of visitors to the Grand Canyon, in northern Arizona, go to the South Rim, which features campgrounds, trailheads, scenic overlooks, and a museum and visitor center. The North Rim is closed for the winter.
In addition to the seven hotels, an R.V. park will also shut down. Mather Campground, which offers more than 300 campsites on the South Rim, will stay open, though access to water will be restricted. Food and beverage services on the South Rim will also remain open, as will the clinic and post office.
Hotels in Tusayan, Ariz., just outside the park’s South Entrance Station, remain open.
Xanterra Travel Collection, which runs five hotels on the South Rim, including the 120-year-old El Tovar, has so far canceled all reservations from Dec. 6 to 8 and given guests the option to rebook elsewhere or receive a full refund, said Andy Stiles, the company’s general manager for the Grand Canyon’s South Rim. Phantom Ranch, a Xanterra-run lodge at the bottom of the canyon, closed on Tuesday, according to a notice on its website.
Delaware North, the concessionaire that owns Yavapai Lodge on the South Rim, was working to accommodate guests at one of the company’s other hotels in Tusayan, said Glen White, a company spokesman.
It was not immediately clear how many visitors will be affected. Nearly five million people visited the Grand Canyon in 2024, making it the third most popular U.S. national park.
The Transcanyon Waterline, a 12.5-mile pipeline built in the 1960s to carry water from a source on the North Rim to the South Rim, has experienced more than 85 major breaks since 2010, according to the park service. The pipe is not currently delivering water to the South Rim, the agency said in the statement.
The park service has been working since 2023 on a more than $200 million replacement to the water system that it expects to complete in 2027.
The closures come at the end of a difficult year for the park. The Dragon Bravo Fire burned more than 145,000 acres on the North Rim in July, destroying the nearly century-old Grand Canyon Lodge and scores of other buildings. The North Rim is tentatively scheduled to reopen in May, though the future of the lodge remains unclear.
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Gabe Castro-Root is a travel reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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