Seasonal Work at GCC
Living at Grand Canyon
One of the best parts of living at Grand Canyon is the location of your assignment for the season. The outdoor areas in the park are beautiful and there are hiking trails everywhere. Grand Canyon is pet-friendly, and each person who lives in the canyon can have up to two animals per household. Pets must be on leashes when out and about and are not allowed below the rim when hiking with them. The weather is beautiful, with four distinct seasons each year. In winter we receive on average over 100 inches of snow and single-digit temperatures at night. In summer we will have temps in the low 90s with dry and monsoon type conditions.
Spaces are provided for employees with a self-contained RV, with restroom and shower facilities in the unit. The winter season can get cold, so it is recommended that the RV is rated for winter use. Other precautions to take would be having heat tape for water pipes, heated hoses, and winter skirts for your rig. Our RV parks are not located near any of the visitor RV sites, so your neighbors while staying at Grand Canyon will all be working for the park service, GCC, or one of the park concessionaires. The sites are within a one- to three-mile radius of the retail locations and only a 10-minute walk to the rim. The RV area backs up onto an open forested area with trails for walking and mountain biking.
RV sites are supplied with either a 30 or 50 amp hook up for a nominal cost of $50 per month. That includes your water, sewer, and trash services. Other utilities such as electricity and propane are the responsibility of the employee. There is a free bus that runs through the park and many sites are accessible by walking or riding your bike.
By the numbers
4seasons |
2animals per household |
FREEshuttle service |
$50monthly RV sites |
8retail locations |
Working at Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon Conservancy has eight retail stores, a publishing program, a distribution center, a Field Institute, and a very active philanthropy department that helps raise funds for the park. GCC’s retail team has four stores at the South Rim village area, two stores in the East area, and two stores located at the North Rim of Grand Canyon.
As a Visitor Experience Specialist at GCC, you will provide customer service to visitors at our stores who come from all over the world. You will be selling our merchandise, stocking our merchandise, and cleaning our stores. One of the major responsibilities when working with our guests is providing them with an opportunity to become a member of GCC, supporting our programs at Grand Canyon National Park. Annual memberships start at $35. Selling this opportunity to our visitors has been described as one of the easiest parts of the job, because people tend to be eager to help such a beautiful park when you are able to share some of the amazing programs that we fund at Grand Canyon National Park.
Visitor Center Plaza is the main store at the South Rim and was the only GCC store that was built to be a retail location. This store is very busy and is located by the Grand Canyon’s main Visitor Center. For many guests, this is the only stop they will make while at Grand Canyon and our employees spend a lot of time with guests giving directions to other areas of the park as well as suggesting good hiking trails. We like to call it “retail with a side of interpretation.” You may spend a lot of time throughout the day answering the same questions, with the most popular being, “where are the restrooms?”
Yavapai Geology Museum is our second busiest store at the South Rim. This store is located in the geology museum that sits right on the edge of Grand Canyon. There are views for days from the windows. Don’t let its size of this small store fool you though, this site can really sell some merchandise!
Kolb Studio is another GCC store located right on the rim of Grand Canyon. Technically hanging over the rim of the canyon, this store is located inside a historic house that was built prior to Grand Canyon becoming a national park. This site has a beautiful art gallery located on the second floor, and historic living quarters below that people are only allowed to see with a guided tour. The retail store is located on the first floor, with the most beautiful views of the canyon you can imagine.
Verkamp's Visitor Center is located in the South Rim Village area. This store is in a historic house that was built prior to Grand Canyon becoming a national park. It also serves as a National Park Service visitor center, and you will often work with NPS personnel behind the desk, answering many of the same questions they do every day. You will get a rush every day right before the historic Grand Canyon Railway departs because it is within walking distance of the train depot. The second-floor apartment hosts Grand Canyon National Park’s Artist and Astronomer in Residence programs, all funded by GCC.
Once you leave the South Rim and drive east, you will see some amazing viewpoints along the way. The next GCC store you will come to is at the Tusayan Museum. This site is our smallest store and is in a museum at site with ancient ruins. You will be working with NPS personnel answering many of the same questions they do while also selling GCC merchandise and memberships.
Desert View Watchtower is located 26 miles east of the South Rim Village. Employees assigned to this area live in the RV sites located in East Village Area. The Watchtower is another beautiful historic building designed by Mary Colter in the 1930s. Our store is located on the ground floor of the tower and is a very busy location, with lots of tour buses coming through daily. There are 86 steps to reach the top of the tower. Duties at this location included clearing guests out of the tower at closing time, which happens an hour before sunset as there is no lighting other than natural light located in the tower area of this amazing building. You will get your steps in while working at the Watchtower location.
The other two GCC retail stores are located at the North Rim of Grand Canyon, which is 200 miles from the East Area. Employees who work at the North Rim locations, which are only open during the summer months (May thru October) due to snow and road closures, live in RV sites that are close to their work locations. One of these locations is the NPS Visitor Center at the North Rim and the other is located outside the park at Jacob Lake where we work alongside the Kaibab Forest Service. The North Rim of Grand Canyon is an experience wholly separate from the South Rim. It’s a more remote, rugged, and individual opportunity to see what John Wesley Powell described as, “ledges and cliffs where the soaring eagle is lost to view before it reaches a summit.”