The Hike out of the Grand Canyon

After seeing how hot it can get at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, we decided to leave very early for our more strenuous hike up.  There is a 4:30 a.m. wake up call at all the dorms, just to be sure that the people that signed up for the 5:00 breakfast won't be late.  So we woke up with the early morning crowd even though we weren't eating breakfast.  Actually, in Denisa's dorm there was one woman awake at 4:10, and she turned on lights and put on make-up so that most of us were awake before the friendly knock on the dorm twenty minutes later.

By the time the two of us met outside at 5:00 and put on our backpacks, it was still dark outside.  We could see just well enough to hike out of Phantom Ranch.  You can see from this picture at the first little bridge it was pretty dark (but also nice and cool) as the low temperature that night at the ranch was in the 60's.

It was interesting hiking in the twilight.  It is nice and level on the canyon floor and we had hiked this path in the day time.  We wouldn't have tried this on the steep sections, but it was an easy hike even with limited light.






By the time we got to this point, we found another camper out enjoying her morning coffee in the twilight.  She offered to take our picture this morning.

Coming down on the South Kaibab trail from the east, we hiked over the black suspension bridge on our way into Phantom Ranch. Now leaving and heading west on the Bright Angel Trail, we would exit over the silver suspension bridge. 


We were hiking along the Colorado River for a while, surprised to see that the hiking surface was sand.  There was just enough incline now to remember that hiking uphill in the sand is hard work.  We were glad that this sandy section didn't last too long.

It was fun to see the first light of morning hitting the top of the canyon walls as we continued to hike.  We couldn't see the sunrise from deep in the canyon, but we could see the results of it.

We didn't have the all-you-can-eat breakfast at the ranch this morning because we wanted to get an early start this morning.  Since we are here because someone canceled their reservation, our only option would have been the 6:30 a.m. breakfast.  If we had eaten a big breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, etc. we knew we wouldn't have gotten on the trail until close to 8:00, and it would have already been warming up by that time.  Besides, we really enjoyed hiking in the early morning light.

We got to watch the canyon wake up, and the morning light on the canyon walls was spectacular to experience.  We snacked on the breakfast bars, nuts, and beef jerky we had brought for breakfast as we hiked and loved our breakfast on the go.

It might have been the smell of the nuts that brought this squirrel close to us on the trail.  You can tell that too many people feed them, as they can be quite forward especially at the rest sites.  We heed the rangers' advice never to feed wild animals, so we wouldn't share our breakfast with this squirrel.  But we did watch as he pulled down the seeds from the native grasses and nibbled his morning meal too.

 

We had several creek crossings while we hiked up.  This creek flows into the Colorado River, and as we started hiking up, we met it three different times.  We are happy to report that we made all of those crossings with dry feet.

As we started to climb, the vistas opened up and the views got better and better.  We can't say how many times we have said, "This is awesome!" and "How beautiful!" on this hike.  We knew the Grand Canyon was spectacular from looking at it from the rim.  But it is even more remarkable from the inside.

After the relatively flat portion of the trail early in the morning, by 7:00 we were experiencing some steep switchbacks to gain elevation.  The zig-zag trail was lit up by the sun this morning.

By 7:15 it was already warming up and the sun was up and shining brightly on the hikers.  Denisa devised a plan to keep cool.  She wore a tshirt with a long sleeve shirt over it for the early morning cool hours.  But she decided that a wet long sleeve shirt would keep her cooler, so she dunked it in the clear water creek.

Sure enough, it was cool and refreshing.  She would get that shirt wet at each of the water stops on the ten-mile trip out of the canyon.

The first 50% of today's hike only increases 30% of the total elevation change to get to the rim.  So this first five miles had some almost flat terrain that was surprisingly shaded and green.

There was even running water and an occasional waterfall during this first five miles.

Since the South Kaibab and the Bright Angel trail heads are about 5 miles apart on the rim, we were obviously hiking not only vertical, but also some horizontal miles to connect the two this morning.

But the vistas ahead were always beautiful, bathed in the early morning sunlight.  We are still snacking almost all the time, and continuing to sip on the water that we filled at the bottom.  It is recommended that a hiker bring 3 liters of water to make this hike.  We purchased new water bladders for our back packs, and really liked them.  It was so much easier to sip out of the tube, rather than opening and carrying a water bottle.  Because of the sweating, it is also recommended that you need to replace your electrolytes with salty nuts or something like gatorade.  We found a water enhancer product with electrolytes that we liked, so we sipped on it during the entire hike.

We arrived to Indian Gardens before 8:00.  Just as the name implies, this is a wonderfully green area of trees and bushes and flowers.  It would be interesting to see this area in a few months when all the wild grapes that we saw blooming today would be bearing fruit.

Indian Gardens is the half-way point of Bright Angel Trail, so we have walked 4.7 miles by the time we reached here.  There are three bathroom and water stops on the hike out of the canyon, and this is the first one.

There is also a campground at Indian Gardens, and the traffic on the trail picked up as we now saw hikers that were staying here.  We also got passed by several guys with big backpacks.  We didn't recognize them from Phantom Ranch, so we asked if they had stayed at Indian Gardens.  The reply was, "No, our guests stayed at Indian Gardens and we just hiked down this morning to carry their packs out for them."  So there is obviously a service for carrying out overnight packs besides the mules we saw yesterday.

The temperature was 60 degrees in the shade at Indian Gardens, but felt warmer in the direct sun light.  So it was time for Denisa to wet down her outer shirt in the gardens before the hike out of the trees. 

We noticed that our backpacks felt heavier on the hike out of the canyon.  We were actually carrying less water today since we knew there were 3 places to refill.  We had also eaten much of the food we had brought with us. So they were physically lighter, but we were getting more gravitational pull as today we were hiking up instead of down.  Mark's pack was pretty heavy, and he took some rest stops just to get the weight off his shoulders.

We saw a couple deer on the trail, and lots of lizards.  This was an unusually fat lizard sunning himself on a rock, just posing for a picture.  





Mark somehow spotted this lizard, peeking out of a tree knot hole.  He didn't pose for long, but we still managed to snap a picture of him in his hiding place.



This is the area that we saw a couple deer.  Even though it's hard to see from the rim, there is a surprising amount of grass in the canyon.

It's almost 9:00 now, and we have been hiking for four hours.  Because it is heating up, we are certainly glad we left at 5:00 this morning!

The next water and bathroom stop is at the 3-mile resthouse--obviously named because it is 3 miles from this point to the rim.  Denisa did not appreciate the fact that you had to hike up several switchbacks to get to the bathroom.  At this point hiking up that doesn't get you closer to the rim is the last thing you want to do.  This,  however, should be ranked as the bathroom with the best view in America.

We arrived at 3-mile resthouse at 9:30, and it's 72 degrees.  It's time for a short break from the back packs and rewetting the shirt.   Then it's back to the trail for more panoramic views of the canyon.  We remember seeing this "tiny" pinnacle from the rim, and now we are at eye level with it.

It's at this point that we met the people riding the mules down to the bottom of the canyon today.  We can't help but wonder how our friends on horse back from Oklahoma are doing on the trail going up today.

We made another stop at the 1.5 mile resthouse.  There was a line for the bathroom here, as a considerable number of people will hike down from the rim to here.  It was getting warmer, and we were glad to get some water here as well.

We realized later that we have very few pictures from 9:30 a.m. until almost noon.  It could be because we are getting tired.  It could be because the traffic on the trail is getting heavier as we get closer to the top and there are more day-hikers.  It could be because the view doesn't change much for the last couple hours.  It could be because you are hiking up around half of the entire elevation change in the last several miles and you're too winded to take pictures.  It could be because we stopped several times to have long conversations with people hiking down Bright Angel trail.  You have a little of a rock-star status when people find out you have hiked up from the bottom of the Grand Canyon that morning.  When we got to this tunnel, we were very close to the top of the trail!


It was very odd to start meeting people on the trail in flip flaps that weren't carrying any water.  Bright Angel is the most popular trail for tourists to take for a very short exposure to the canyon below the rim.  We got back to that rim right at noon, and it was easy to find a passing tourist to take our triumphant picture once we were back on flat ground.

We were glad that the car was parked close to the trail head, but we were in surprisingly good shape.  We had been hiking 7 hours, traveling ten miles, and going up in elevation by 4,380 feet.  Some parts of the trail are very steep in the last few miles! 

We were in the car driving out of Grand Canyon National Park at 12:12, and Denisa took the last drink from her backpack as we pulled away.  I guess that two liters was the exact amount needed for the hike today.  We had a back-up liter of water, but we were trying not to carry anything we didn't need today.

I wish we had a counter for the number of times we commented at how beautiful this hike had been.  It was truly a hike of a lifetime, and we'll remember it forever!  We feel like we have certainly wandered up and down one of God's greatest wonders!