Hiking the Grand Canyon is like climbing a mountain in reverse. The obvious difference being that when you think that you're halfway done with the hike, you still have a mountain to climb. So like many other hikers, we decided to separate the down from the up. But unlike many other hikers, we had a friend at the bottom.
Your rest options at the bottom of the Grand Canyon are pretty limited. You can either make a reservation a year ahead of time for Phantom Ranch, which will cost you a pretty penny, or you can throw your tent in your backpack and camp at one of the two campsites at the bottom. But not only do you add 20 pounds to your gear, you still need to reserve your space at least a year ahead of time. And even camping isn't cheap at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. So you can imagine how thrilled we were when Greg, our friend from Tucson said, "Yeah, come on over!" He offered us the guest room of the staff bunkhouse and let us pick pretty much any date that we wanted. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
But even though our living arrangements were about as amazing as they can get, we still had to make our way down there. And for that, we picked the South Kaibab trail. There are two main trails that will get you from the South Rim of the canyon to the bottom: South Kaibab and Bright Angel. South Kaibab is shorter but steeper, and Bright Angel is longer, flatter, and more scenic. We wanted to see them both, and we decided that steeper is less of a problem when we're going down.
Of course, next to this lovely trail map is an equal amount of space dedicated to warning you that you're probably not going to make it out alive.
The top poster reminds you that 250 people are rescued from the canyon each year, and the one below it tells a pretty depressing story of a marathon runner (and medical student) that died in the canyon because she underestimated the distance and amount of water that she'd need. That's the polite way of saying that you're fatter and dumber than this girl, and she didn't make it. But have a wonderful hike.
Of course, that didn't stop us, and it probably doesn't stop anyone else. But is does make you double check that your Camelbak is full.
And with all of the final checks done, we were off!
The South Kaibab trail is pretty much just one giant switchback. It's the trail that the Phantom Ranch staff (and mule drivers) use to get up and down quickly. "Quickly" of course meaning "seven miles of trail with a five thousand foot elevation change".
But if you can remember to look up at all during the hike, the scenery is almost enough to distract you from the abuse that your knees are taking.
And I can't really figure out how to work this photo into the story, but no Grand Canyon hike is complete without a photo of us impossibly close to the edge of one of the largest canyons in the world.
About halfway down the trail, we got a sneak peak of the Colorado River. We were fully aware that the bottom was still very far away, but simply seeing the bottom of the canyon is a pretty motivating sight.
But just as quickly as the river appears, it vanishes behind another cliff with another mega-run of switchbacks.
And now comes the loopiness.
This is us at the sign reminding you that you're still not even halfway there.
Aimee's smile went away very quickly when she tried to stand back up.
But we were getting closer!
And about the time that our smiles were fading and our knees were throbbing, we saw a redeeming figure off in the distance. Jesus? No, Greg Bryan! But he hasn't cut his hair since he left Tucson, so you could forgive us for thinking that it was Jesus.
And he really was our savior. He surprised us on the trail about two miles out from Phantom Ranch, which would have been amazingly cool of him, even if he didn't have three cold Tecates in his backpack. Cold! Tecates! This was, without a doubt, the most amazing moment on the most amazing hike that I've ever been on. We drank Tecates on the South Kaibab trail. I still can't get over that!
And when a seven mile hike is punctuated with Tecates, it's hard to go up from there. However, crossing the bridge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon was a pretty amazing experience.
And even though Phantom Ranch was still a few hundred yards away, we barely noticed. We were home!
