The Grand Canyon is deep

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been spending the last month getting in shape for a Grand Canyon hike. Last weekend, the time finally came to give it a shot. My good friends Jacob Hansen and Justin Prideaux and I drove up to the lovely Holiday Inn Express (too bad we didn't find anywhere to use our newfound, HIE-fueled brainpower) in Tusayan, Arizona on Friday night.

Saturday morning, bright and early, we arose and caught the shuttle bus to the South Kaibab trail, which descends from the South Rim to the Colorado River. On the bus, we met a guy (I believe his name was Tim) who was attempting to break the world time record for traversing the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim. That's 42 miles and about 18,000 feet in elevation change, folks. And he was trying to do that in 6 hours and 30 minutes - roughly a 10-minutes-per-mile pace for about 1.6 marathons with 3.5 miles of elevation mixed in for good measure. Absolutely incredible - I am so curious to know if he made it ... or even survived it!

Of course, this makes a trip down to the river and back seem positively pedestrian. But of course, it really isn't - it's a pretty tough hike. It's 16 miles, and about 9,000 feet total elevation down the South Kaibab Trail, over the bridge, down the river a ways, back over the second bridge, and all the way up Bright Angel Trail. In fact, there are signs all over the canyon warning against attempting this exact thing:

We started our descent to the river at 6:50a, reaching the river at about 9:20a. We messed around at the bottom for almost two hours, taking a refreshing dip in the Colorado River and resting and fueling up for the long trek back to the top.

13 miles into the hike, three miles from the top, we felt great, but that last stretch was very tough, the last mile in particular. We got back to the top at 2:40p, completely and utterly exhausted, and were very happy to see Jacob's WRX. We spent the next hour in a jacuzzi at the hotel, followed by an enormous and extremely mediocre meal at the adjacent hotel's sports bar (Rays vs. Sox Game 6 was on). We finished up the night enjoying monstrous ice cream sandwiches in our room, watching the end of the game. I was out for the count at 7:00p, and I didn't wake up until 8:00a the next morning - probably the first 13 hour night I've had in 5 years.

I really enjoyed the hike and would love to do it again, perhaps next spring. What a beautiful place!