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Do you have any experience hiking in the Grand Canyon?
Do you have any recommendations? Are the sites of previous dwellers available to view? Any comments from hikers who have been down in the canyon?
Answer:
Recommendations for hiking in the Grand Canyon is a pretty broad question as the canyon covers a huge area with trails ranging from casual rim-side walks to risky expedition-level trips into remote backcountry only rarely visited by humans.
If you are new to the canyon, you are best off getting your legs doing day hikes or easy overnighters on the main trails. My favorite real easy day hike is going 1.4 miles down South Kaibab trail to Cedar Ridge and back - excellent sweeping views. The 7 mile round trip on the Hermit Trail to Dripping Springs is probably the next step up on the South Rim. On the North Rim, Cliff Spring trail near Cape Royale is easy (1 mile) and pretty and going down the South Bass to the historic cabin at Muav Saddle is a short interesting day hike (a bit of a drive to the trailhead though). For a first backpack, doing an overnighter to Indian Gardens on the Bright Angel is the easiest, but the classic and most common popular backpack is a night or two at Bright Angel campground at the bottom and a night at Indian Gardens on the way up.
As far as prehistoric sites go...
The Grand Canyon was home to the Ancestral Puebloan culture (AKA Anasazi) who built the famous ruins at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. But the Grand Canyon was at the extreme western edge of their settlement and never saw the size or complexity of sites to the east. Most of their canyon settlements were in small 1-5 family groups during the period 1000-1200 AD resulting in small 5-15 room single-story pueblos (usually a short row of rooms) and numerous little storage cubby-holes called 'graneries'. Few have significant standing walls and many you could walk right over without noticing.
There is a small excavated and partially restore pueblo ruin along the road between Grandview and Desertview points called Tusayan (different place than the little community at the park gates). The little museum and displays here are a good place to get an introduction to the prehistory of the park.
Inside the canyon... along the river near Phantom Ranch (near the base of the Black Bridge) is another partially excavated ruin just beside the trail with a small display sign. Note: both this and the Tusayan ruin can even be seen from Google Earth if you know where to look.
Coming up the Bright Angel trail, there is a small collection of room built against a cliff face just below Indian Gardens, but it a ways of the trail, there is no sign, and you have to know where it is to find it. At the very top of the Bright Angel trail are a number of often-overlooked pictographs just below the rim near the first arch.
On the north rim, there are many small unexcavated pueblo ruins all around the Powell Plateau and Wahalla Plateau, but there is not much to see and you could easily walk over one without noticing it (pretty areas though). There is also a single small granery near the head of the Cliff Spring trail mentioned above.
Of course, the most famous graneries in the canyon are those in a cliff face overlooking the river near Nankoweap Creek. This is a regular visiting spot for river trips and has become a classic canyon photo.
Note that all prehistoric (or historic too for that matter) sites in the canyon are strictly protected. Disturbing them or removing artifacts is highly illegal (not to mention very uncool).
Mr. Danger above is an experienced canyon veteran and knowledgable expert who will likely be able to give you more hiking and prehistoric site tips as well.
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