Hike to the Bottom of the Grand Canyon!

The day of our big hike finally arrived, with a beautiful weather forecast!  So we set the alarm for 4:40 a.m., and were on the road out of Williams, Arizona a little after 5:00.  There is a closer RV Park just outside the national park, but it costs $50 per night, rather than the $20 we are paying in Williams.  So we decided an hour-long drive to get to the Grand Canyon this morning might be worth the nightly money savings since we stayed in Williams for seven nights. The thermometer said it was 33 degrees when we entered into the national park. We got a great parking place just down from the trail head where we will end our hike the next afternoon.  We walked to the shuttle stop outside the Bright Angel Lodge, and waited for the 7:00 hiker express shuttle to take us to the South Kaibab trail head.

It was fun meeting people that we would see on the trail for the next two days.  But this isn't a group hike with a leader.  We all made plans independently that just happened to be on the same day.  The express shuttle makes only two other stops before dropping us off in the far eastern part of the national park where South Kaibab trail starts.  It's a thirty minute bus ride, so we were at the top of the trail at 7:30.  We took the compulsory picture at the top of the canyon looking rested and refreshed (as two people could be that didn't get much sleep last night).

The South Kaibab trail is known for being steep, and this view of the switchbacks shows that we went down in elevation in a hurry.

It took less than 30 minutes to get down to the "Ooh Aah" Point.  A view like this could be the reason for its name.

All of the hikers on the 7:00 shuttle bus were pretty close together at this point, so there were plenty of people that offered to take pictures for us.

As the day progressed, we spread out based on different hiking speeds and number of stops for taking pictures.  The picture pauses put the Engelmans at the back of the pack.

We were a little surprised to see the condition of the trail.  There are lots of steps, and many of them had a deep divet where the dirt was missing.  We spent most of the time looking at our feet, making sure that each step was solid.  There were also lots of rocks in the trail to dodge, so we had to pause to look around.

Hopefully that will improve, as we saw our first group of mules going down.  When we asked, they explained they were the "road crew", carrying supplies and 3 workers down to work on South Kaibab.

We arrived at Cedar Ridge (already 1.5 miles down from the rim) a little over an hour into our hike.  This is the first of only two pit toilets that were available on this hike.  At this point on the South Kaibab, we got a new focal point of O'Neill Butte to hike toward.

We were surprised to see how green it was inside the canyon.  The red rock and the green plants were a beautiful combination!

There was also a good number of wildflowers blooming.  Denisa couldn't help but include a flower picture or two.

Denisa enjoyed her jacket for the first hour on the trail.  Mark would pack his jacket all over the Grand Canyon, without ever putting it on.  

As we got lower into the canyon, the temperatures were going up and soon sleeves were rolled up.  It is usually 20 degrees warmer at the bottom at Phantom Ranch than it is on the rim.  This picture shows a view inside the canyon, as well as the load that Mark carried down (and back up).  Thanks, Brian for letting us borrow one of your backpacks.  We don't have scales in the motorhome so we don't know how much it weighed, but it did a great job!

It was fun to look ahead and see where our path was leading us.  You can see it on the ridge in the center of the next photo, then going around the hill.

Then we could see it zig-zag in switchbacks down the side of the steep slope.  South Kaibab is an ever-changing hike that was never boring.

We reached Skeleton Point (now 3 miles down from the rim) before 10:00, and got our first glimpse of the tiny Colorado River that had carved this grand canyon.  You can see the green water of the river peeking out beside Denisa's left arm.

Around 10:15 we met another group of mules.  There was a leader and a sweeper, and between them were tourists that paid a premium to ride to the bottom and now back up.  We visited with some of the mule riders that evening, and they had more aches and pains from their ride down than the hikers.

When you look down into the canyon, it is hard to grasp how big the rock walls are.  Denisa is dwarfed by this wall.  There were many times that the walls were so huge they wouldn't fit into the photo frame.

We didn't see any exotic animals on this hike.  But this lizard did pose nicely for the camera.

 

We met another mule team around 11:00.  They take supplies to Phantom Ranch at the base, and pack out their trash as well.  You can also hire a mule to carry your backpack for only $70 each way.  Each handler has 5 mules tied behind his (or in this case her) mule.

We found out from the ranger than these mules have a great work ethic, and complain loudly back at the corral if they don't get to make the trip up with the rest of the team.

At almost 11:30 we arrived at Tip Off Point--now 4.4 miles down from the rim.  From there you can see the  Colorado River is closer. To the right in the picture is the trail we will be taking to continue our descent into the canyon.

When you see the canyon from the top, you see stripes of color that change for some geological reasons that we don't understand.  It was fun hiking through the different soil colors.

The red section was probably the prettiest, and we arrived here before noon.

It continued to heat up as we were on the trail longer and got deeper into the canyon.  It was awesome to see things at eye level that seemed so small looking down from the rim.

 

By 11:45 we were so close to the Colorado River that we could see the white water caused from rapids.

It was around 12:00 when we met a young woman hiking up the South Kaibab trail.  It seemed like she was getting a very late start on a strenuous hike when it was already getting quite warm.  She smiled and explained that she had just gotten off work at Phantom Ranch, so she couldn't pick her hiking times.  We were also passed by a guy almost running down the trail.  We wondered why he was rushing through such an awesome experience.  But when we saw him working in the kitchen later, we realized he was rushing because he was late for work.  That's quite a commute to work!  But all the people that work at Phantom Ranch seem to prefer this South Kaibab Trail going up and down because it is the shortest route to the bottom.  Here's a picture of Mark NOT rushing to the bottom of the canyon.

We were pretty excited at 12:30 when we first caught site of the suspension bridge over the river.  But you can also see the trail snaking down towards the bridge.  It takes a long time to walk a little bit of vertical space.  You can even see several rafts taking a rest from their journey down the river at the beach.

We were surprised to see a couple cowboys on horses as we neared the bridge.  We had seen lots of mules, but no horses.  We made two new friends when we found out they trailered their horses here from Oklahoma to make this once-in-a-lifetime ride.

From Seminole and Chandler, Oklahoma, they had gone through the lengthy process of getting a permit for this ride.  It would have been much easier to ride the canyon mules down, but riders must weigh less than 200 pounds to ride one of those mules.

We wondered if the horses would balk at going through the rock tunnel at the bottom, but they entered with little pause.  But the lead horse didn't like the metal suspension bridge.  So they had to trade places in the tunnel to get across the bridge.  We visited with them in camp, and got their email address so we could send them pictures from a spectator's perspective behind them.

The South Kaibab is a great trail to the bottom of the canyon!  It is 7 miles long, and it changes altitude from 7,260 feet at the rim down to 2,480 feet at the bottom.  That's close to a mile straight down!  It took us right at 5 hours to hike from the rim to the bridge, with lots of breaks for pictures and visiting with others.  We really liked that it was a winding trail with new focal points all morning.  It is the recommended trail for the descent because it is very steep to climb up.   

 

Also, there is very little shade, and no where to refill your water containers on this trail.  So it is very important to bring all the water you will need.  We brought the recommended 3 liters each, and only consumed about half of that.  But there are only two bathrooms available on this 5 hour hike, so Denisa didn't want to drink too much.  We also ate the lunch snacks that we had brought with us.  It is recommended that you eat and drink continually while hiking in and out of the Grand Canyon.  That's the kind of instructions we like to follow!