The Grandest of Canyons

The North Rim The South Rim

STATS: North Rim. 8,250 feet. 30 degrees. 5:30 am. 14 miles to the Colorado river. Noon. 95 degrees. 2420ft. 7.5 miles back up. 7,200ft. 75 degrees. 5:00 pm 8 liters of water (for me) An apple, several granola bars, hummus, pita, cheese, crackers, and lots of dried peaches. 55 pictures.

As you drive south from Fredonia through the Kaibab National Forest, there is no indication that the earth is about to split open in front of you, breaking into a maze of of canyons so deep you

can't see the bottom from the top. It must have been every covered wagon trains worse

nightmare, sudden cliffs falling a mile down to the the river that's responsible for carving the whole thing. You'd have to just give up and turn around. Now, instead of a journey's biggest inconvenience, the Grand Canyon is a journey's destination, with nearly 4.5 billion visitors annually.

Brandt and I set out on May 30th to see the whole thing. Ok, obviously not the whole thing, it's an enormous park of 1.2 million acres, more miles of wilderness than anyone could ever cover. But, we decided to cover the most popular trail from the North Rim down to the Colorado River and back up to the South Rim. The route we planned is 21.5 miles long. With 5,770 ft down and then 4,780 ft up. There are several campsites along the way, but the trip is so popular that you need to make reservations way ahead and if you were camping, you'd have to carry all of the heavy camping gear that slows you down. So, we opted to day hike, fast and light. Brilliantly, we convinced our friends, Felicia and Bryant, to hike it in the opposite directions, trade

keys, and drive each other's cars home to Vegas. Genius.

Except that the park service strongly discourages people from doing this hike. It's hot, long, and steep. They have signs posted at all the trailheads with scary stories of people who've died hiking in the Canyon. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HIKE TO THE RIVER AND BACK IN ONE DAY. It's dangerous because you hike down first, and some people don't realize the difficulties of hiking back up. Most hike, those out of shape or unprepared people would never make it up far enough to get into trouble, but here at the Grand Canyon, they flock down the trails. People treat it more like a pilgrimage than a hike....a journey that you have to make, however arduous the trip, however unprepared you are. Hundreds of people have to be rescued every year. However, we

were feeling confident. Felicia, Bryant and I all hike in the desert for a living, and Brandt's in pretty great shape, despite his indoor job.

So wet set off from the North Rim on the North Kaibab Trail at 5.30 am. It was really cold, and we couldn't convince ourselves to leave our sweatshirts and hats in the car. I even kept my long-underwear on. A middle aged guy was taking off on a cross canyon run as we reached the trailhead. That's right, RUN. His wife dropped him off and was going to drive around to the south rim to pick him up, and she told us that he'll probably get there before she does. It's a 4 hour drive. Crazy. The first mile of our trip, we also met a few hikers just finishing their trip, they left the south rim at 7:00 pm and did the hike under the light of the full moon. We were feeling less and l

ess ridiculous about our plan.

The first 7 miles flew by, the scenery changing around ea

ch bend, as the side canyon we were hiking in descended and twisted toward the Colorado. We quickly warmed up and gave up on all of our layers. The trail drops hard and fast, and suddenly we had arrived at the first campground, Cottonwood. From Cottonwood, it's a rolling, winding trail along Bright Angel Creek for 7 more miles to Phantom Ranch, the lodges and campground near the river. During this section, we passed a lot of other hikers, day hikers and backpackers both, trekking along.

As the creek twists and turns below high rock walls, we felt like the Colorado river canyon would

open up in front of us just around the next bend. Or the next one. Or maybe the next one. Finally, we reach the riverside campgrounds, and happily sat down in some shade for lunch. 2/3 of the hike down. Except all that was left was climb. We'd been expecting to see our friends for the past few miles, and we finally found them here, and had a little chat abou

t the hike and where the cars were parked.

From the bottom, sitting on a sandy bank, soaking our sore feet in the cold Colorado, the canyon doesn't feel that enormous. You're so deep in, you can't see to the top,

you can only see the

first row of rock wall. It wasn't until we began the uphill climb that the views began to expand, the

canyon growing wider with each vista. We loaded up with water, crossed a large bridge constructed in the 1930s and headed up an impressive series of switchbacks on the South Kaibab Trail. We choose to go up this trail for several reasons, although it had no water stations: it's a bit shorted, less popular, and I had been on the Bright Angel trail (the other option) before. It was hot and steep, but we made pretty good time, resting the in shade whenever we found some.

The views from the south rim are more impressive than from the north rim, but almost unbelievably

so. The canyon looks so expansive that it seems more like a backdrop or a photograph than a real geologic possibility.

Except that hiking up from the bottom helps give you a sense of scale; you're hiking so hard it can't be an illusion. The trail frequently switch-backs like this. Luckily, you've got a good excuse to catch your breath while admiring the scenery. To me, the north rim seems prettier just because it's not so mind-blowing, and there's more of a sense of solitude. We made it to the top in about 4 hours, the trail getting more and more popular as we reached the rim. Tired, sore, and incredibly pleased with ourselves, we set off to find ice cream, dinner, and a place to camp, in that order.

I'd recommend the trip for people in pretty good shape. We met a lot of people doing the rim to rim day trip, and many of them didn't look as fit or prepared as we thought we did (I'm a bit of a snob about this stuff....fyi) but they were doing it. I was pretty sore the next day, I think from descending the first 7 miles so quickly...if I had slowed down a bit and rested more during that part, I probably would have felt better the next day. It certainly would be nice to slow down, camp, and enjoy the trip spread across a few days too. They aren't the type of views that you'd quickly tire of.