Floods hit a historic Grand Canyon lodge. It’s the second park landmark affected by a natural disaster in the past year

By Chris Boyette, CNN

(CNN) — The Grand Canyon’s vast, mile-deep landscape may appear timeless, but two devastating disasters have recently struck the iconic natural wonder as the climate crisis intensifies extreme weather.

Muddy brown floodwaters roared through Phantom Ranch on August 29, swamping the 1920s lodge that has welcomed adventurers seeking a rare chance to spend the night at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and making it the park’s second historic structure impacted by a natural disaster in just over a year.

In July 2025, a destructive wildfire tore through dense pines on the canyon’s northern edge, destroying the historic Grand Canyon Lodge — the park’s only lodging there. The disastrous late-August flash flooding near Phantom Ranch struck below the burn scar left by that blaze, the National Weather Service said.

The climate crisis is making certain types of extreme weather events both more frequent and more severe. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water, which it wrings out in the form of more intense rainfall in some regions, potentially leading to devastating flooding. It’s also loading the dice in favor of wildfires that burn longer and hotter. In turn, landscapes marred by fire are more susceptible to flash flooding, due to sparse vegetation and changes in the soil.

Ahead of the normally busy Labor Day weekend at the park, the scars of these natural disasters and subsequent closures of lodging and hiking trails will likely impact how visitors enjoy one of America’s most iconic landscapes during the holiday and for years to come.

Floodwaters swamp a remote refuge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon

Tucked beside the Bright Angel Creek, nearly a mile below the canyon rim, Phantom Ranch was built in 1922. Construction was carried out mostly by foot and mules, as documented by historical photographs from the National Park Service.

To this day, there are no roads leading to the ranch. Guests arrive only by a 7.5-to-10-mile hike, mule ride or rafting down the Colorado River, making it one of the most remote and sought-after reservations in the National Park system, with reservations available via an online lottery 15 months in advance.

The stone cabins and canteen made of rounded river rocks showcase the rustic, homey appeal of the campground, whose outward appearance had changed little since 1922, according to the NPS.

The remote ranch’s hallmark isolation is now complicating recovery efforts.

As the murky waters of Bright Angel Creek began to retreat after the floods, witnesses described debris-filled water carrying mud, rocks and fallen trees through the canyon, transforming the area surrounding the ranch.

Floods destroyed the footbridges, leaving remnants of stone pylons littering the creek, NPS said, and hiking trails, utilities and other infrastructure suffered significant damage.

The ranch, the nearby Bright Angel Campground and large sections of the inner canyon trail network remain closed indefinitely.

The NPS is cleaning up the campground and assessing damage to facilities and infrastructure across the area, but it is too soon to determine the extent of the damage at Phantom Ranch, the Interior Department said in a statement to CNN.

Two people were killed in the flooding, and another hiker remains missing.

After the flood, 62 people were evacuated from the campground and the lower North Kaibab Trail, according to the NPS.

One factor that may have limited the disaster’s toll was the closure of the ranch’s hiker dormitories. The bunkhouses had been closed since early 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent infrastructure projects, with one men’s dorm and one women’s dorm scheduled to reopen September 1. Had they been full, more hikers could have been caught in the rising waters.

A wildfire destroyed the park’s sole North Rim lodging

A lightning strike on July 4, 2025, sparked a blaze fueled by hot temperatures, low humidity and strong winds that raced across the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Within days, it had destroyed the historic Grand Canyon Lodge.

Park officials initially expressed little concern about the fire at the less-visited North Rim, which draws only about a tenth of the Grand Canyon’s millions of annual visitors. But by July 13, the Dragon Bravo Fire had grown out of control, destroying 85% of the lodge and its outbuildings, according to the NPS.

When the lodge burned down in 2025, it wasn’t the first time. First built in 1928, the lodge burned down in a kitchen fire in 1932 and was rebuilt in 1937, according to the Grand Canyon Historical Society. The new building used much of the original lodge’s native Kaibab Limestone, according to the NPS.

Located at the end of Arizona’s Highway 67, the Grand Canyon Lodge welcomed travelers and was often their first sight in the park — even before the canyon itself, the NPS said.

Its sloped roof and large ponderosa beams made it a landmark on the North Rim.

The NPS said long-term recovery planning is underway, but no reopening date has been announced for the historic lodge.

One famous resident of the lodge survived the flames. Brighty the Burro, a 600-pound bronze statue that greeted visitors in the Grand Canyon Lodge, was found damaged by the fire, but park officials chose to save the cherished mascot.

The statue was modeled after a real burro that lived in the canyon in the early 20th century. According to the Grand Canyon Historical Society, the animal gave children rides and hauled water to a North Ridge summer camp in exchange for pancakes.

Brighty is being kept safe at the Grand Canyon Museum Collection facility, the NPS said, with no timeline yet for his restoration or return to the North Rim.

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CNN’s Julia Vargas Jones, Laura Paddison and Andrew Freedman contributed to this report