Grand Canyon - Saturday

This weekend was my Grand Canyon trip. I flew into Phoenix late Friday afternoon, Jim picked me up at the airport. We arrived at our hotel in Tusayan about 10:30. By the time we checked in, got situated, prepared for Saturday's hike, and got ready for bed, it was 1 am-ish. The alarm was set for 5, but I started waking up around 4. I am a bad sleeper, but more on that another day.

We started our hike of Bright Angel Trail exactly at 7 am. Twelve hours and 44 minutes later we stepped off the trail. Whew! What a long day!

The hike down was pretty uneventful, except for the gorgeous views of the Canyon. The further down we went, the fewer people we saw (thank goodness!). It was cool to see the people who were coming back up from their backpacking trips. They looked tired and I can't imagine hauling that much weight up the trail. We hit the 1.5 and 3 mile water stops. We finally hit the Indian Gardens stop at the 4.6 mile point. That is like an oasis after hiking down the the Canyon. Lots of shade, drinkable water, campsites, restrooms, and lots of people hanging out. We stayed there for a bit to eat, hydrate, and rest. Once we finished, we were off. At that point we hadn't decided how far to go. About 10 minutes after we left Indian Gardens, we stopped and talked about how far we wanted to go. We decided to try for the river. The river is 3.3 miles from Indian Gardens. Parts of the trail went along and crossed a stream. When we could, we stopped to wet down our clothes. That helped a lot w/ keeping cool. I had a thermometer on the outside of my backpack and it was registering 115 degrees at times. It was probably only 105, but the sun made it read higher. We made it to the river and stayed down for a little over an hour. Surprisingly, there was a small beach. We took our shoes off and sat on a rock w/ our feet in the water. That water was COLD! We then laid under a tree and dozed off for about 30 minutes. Woke up, ate some more trail mix, drank some more, wet down our clothes and headed back up.

The hike back up was more interesting in that we saw more wildlife. We saw a large variety of lizards, birds, a big horn sheep, mule deer, and a rattlesnake (more on that later). These critters were smarter than us in that they stayed under cover during the hottest part of the day. Once we made it back up to Indian Gardens, we drank a LOT of water and rested. While we were resting, a couple of mule deer yearlings came out. Only me and one other person noticed them. One of them had nubs around 3" long on his head. I cautiously followed them around and took some pics.

We took off and made it up to the 3 mile resthouse. Things started getting bad here. Jim and I both started getting a headache. We stopped, rested, ate, and drank some more. At each water stop, we would down at least a liter of water and drink almost twice that between the stops. At this point, I had to go to the bathroom pretty badly. The 3 mile resthouse doesn't have restrooms and bushes to squat behind are pretty rare along the trial. At the three mile resthouse, there was a perfect place for me to pee. Once I'm done, I button up my pants and start walking off when I hear it. Rattle-Rattle-Rattle. My perfect spot was about 1 1/2 feet from where a rattle snake was sleeping. Luckily, there was a log between us. I found Jim and he came and checked it out. The snake was only about 2-3 ft in length. But 2-3 feet too long for my liking. Jim threw a pebble at it and it didn't move. Phew.

Off we went again. Still had a headache. Didn't get worse, but would get a little better at times. Made it up to the 1.5 mile rest stop in good time. We kept running into the same 3 groups of people that were making their way back up to the top. They would leave the stops before us and we would catch up. Their hikes were also quite a bit shorter in length than ours. That made me feel pretty good. After the 1.5 mile rest house, we smoked all of them. Quite a ways up, we could see them all and I was thankful that we were trucking along at a quicker pace than them. Even though we had flashlights, I wanted to make it up to the top before it got dark. Things started getting a bit worse for me in the last mile. My calves started tightening up. I knew we only had a short distance left, so I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.

We made it back to the trail head at 7:44 pm. 4 minutes before the official sunset time. Woohoo! Our hike was 15.8 miles in distance, 12 hrs 44 minutes w/ temps ranging from 75-105. The amazing part was we only took 30-45 minutes longer coming up than we did going down. Turns out I'm a better uphill hiker than downhill. Jim told me later on that my downhill pace was pretty slow and he was surprised at how fast my uphill was. The Grand Canyon website advises that you plan for 2x your downhill rate for the return trip. We smoked that estimate.

We left the Grand Canyon and headed back to the hotel after going through the drive through at Wendy's for some salty goodness headache relief (aka french fries). We brought them back to the room, put more salt on them and drowned them in ketchup. We then changed clothes and walked over the Pizza Hut next door for some pizza and gatorade.

My calves are still pretty tight today. Once I sit for any length of time, it takes a few minutes for the muscles to stretch back out before I can stop hobbling like an old lady and start to walk somewhat normally. Massage and stretching are probably helping, but I can't tell yet. I'm shocked (but thankful) that nothing else is tight or hurting.

Sunday's write up will have to be another day.