The Widforss Trail is one of the finest and most relaxed day hikes on the Grand Canyon's quieter North Rim, a roughly 10-mile round trip (about 5 miles each way) to Widforss Point that trades big elevation change for a gentle, scenic ramble. The first two and a half miles trace the forested edge of the Transept, a side canyon, with a series of splendid overlooks into the Grand Canyon's geology; the route then turns inland through cool groves of ponderosa pine and quaking aspen before emerging at Widforss Point and its tremendous view across the canyon toward the South Rim.

The trail is named for Gunnar Widforss, the Swedish-American painter who devoted much of his career in the 1920s and 1930s to capturing the national parks, and the Grand Canyon in particular, in luminous watercolor. Its easy grades and forest shade make it welcoming to less-experienced hikers, and the North Rim's high, cool Kaibab Plateau setting is a world apart from the busy South Rim: this is home to mule deer, wild turkeys and the tassel-eared Kaibab squirrel, a subspecies found nowhere on Earth but this isolated plateau.

A short dirt road leads to the trailhead, and the hike is typically snow-free and open from roughly May through November, when the North Rim itself is open. Note that the July 2025 Dragon Bravo wildfire burned across parts of the North Rim, destroying the historic Grand Canyon Lodge and forcing extended closures, so anyone planning a visit should check the current status of the North Rim and this trail with the National Park Service before going.