hiking at the Grand Canyon in Arizona
The Grand Canyon is the first place I ever hiked. I have not taken a vacation in a long time and all of a sudden I decided that I need to get out of town. I have returned to the Grand Canyon a few times after this first experience, but I will stick to my fist trip on this blog post.This would be the worst day of my life. Let’s start, shall we ?
I decided to hike two days, the first one going down the South Kaibob trail, then take the Tonto trail west and meet the Bright Angel trail and go up. I have repeatedly read never to go down to the river and up on a day hike, that is suicide. So I took my heavy hiking boots (that I use for normal wear), a fleece since I was starting early in the day (it was early September), two water bottles, NO first aid kit (Jesus !!!), and one single walking stick (I was not going to bring any).
The moment the hiker’s bus arrives at the South Kaibob trailhead (you get on the bus close to the Bright Angel trail bus stop), you get off and get a real view of the grandiosity of the Grand Canyon. It was breathtaking. You can see the first few switchbacks in the image below. Tip: do NOT hike down fast, your knees will get overworked for the hike back up.
This is the place where everyone gets to take a great pic with that magnificent background; nice, uh ?
All was perfect and the sun started to warm up the trail, just in time for another excellent view:
My assumption was that everyone coming down would do the same as me (unless they were camping at the river) and take the left at the Tonto trail. I arrived at the intersection of the Tonto trail, where some mules were resting. Tip: if you find a train of mules on the trail, take the inside path, never makes them seem trapped by taking the outside position on the trail.
And here is where I made the mistake ….. there was no sign for the Tonto trail. On other trips, I used the Tonto trail and it is not well marked. I followed these guys until ……….
I didn’t take the Tonto trail, all along I was still on the South Kaibob trail. Damn !!!!
I was very worried about the mistake I made. I hiked down to the rest area where all the hikers were congregating, filled out the water bottles and decided to start going up before everyone else since I knew that all of them would eventually catch up to me …………… spoiler alert: they did. Worse spoiler alert: even an old lady with a heavily bandaged knee caught up to me.
The way up (or the death march)
I had no clue about distances from the bottom to the next area I was aware of, Indian Gardens. A very athletic couple caught up to me pretty fast. I still had energy, but the knees were paying the price for coming down so fast and by the time I arrived to Indian Gardens all every was gone. I sat down on a bench and rested (where more people caught up to me, rested and left before I did).
This is when I realized this was not going to be pretty. Three miles to the top. No matter how much I would have rested at Indian Gardens, the energy was not coming back into my body.
I started developing blisters on my hands from the cheap walking stick. My toes were killing me since my nails were long and hitting the front of the boots constantly (I would eventually lose 8 nails). I would walk five minutes, felt spent and rested on the side of the trail, only to start again, and having to rest two switchbacks further up. It was pathetic and became more pathetic when the old lady with the knee bandage passed by me, effortlessly.
I figured out that I could not take long or even normal steps, those muscles were gone, so I started walking like an old man and that made things a bit better. I have reached the limits of endurance and I was still two miles from the top and looking up it was so miserable to contemplate.
At one point it the sun was starting to come down and I was nowhere close to the top; I was seriously thinking I was going to spend the night on the trail and freeze my ass off. That last mile was the most miserable time of my life.
Just as the sun was coming down (and about 12 hours later ……….. for a guy that has never hiked before that is a long ass time to hike), my last energies took me to the top. I got on a bus to take me to the parking lot and drove back to the hotel (I stayed that trip in Flagstaff, about an hour away).
The next day I woke up and could not bend my knees at all, forget about my toenails, all were black. I had one more day in there and decided to do the tourist thing, take the bus to the end of the line at Hermits rest and walk back, like an old guy.
The most deflating day of my life had the opposite effect, I was hooked on hiking, I survived the pain and I wanted more. I took a few more trips to the Grand Canyon and visited other trails, besides doing the loop again but using the Tonto trail this time ….. what a difference.
Grandview Trail and the Cave of Domes
This is a fun hike (you have to drive to it since there is no bus service. The traihead is east of the South Kaibob bus stop). You will see nice stuff like:
on a section of the trail you can still see the logs that original people that created the trail used to support the ground.
an abandoned brick cabin at the bottom.
the cave of domes, which is the only open cave (not much to see inside) open in the area, until an idiot gets to far inside, falls and dies. This is not advertised by the park service, but you can easily google info about it.
Hermit Trail
The trail where I first got lost hiking. The trail is not maintained as the more popular ones and on the way back I got lost and got close to the precipice. I did the same thing (beside taking a GPS with me from then on), which was to backtrack to the trail instead of trying to find it from where I was.
A good deed ………
On my last trip I had an extra day (my plans for other hikes were abandoned) and I decided to go down the Bright Angel trail and visit again the viewpoint of the Colorado River from a trail next to Indian Gardens. At one of the rest stops (small canape) I ran into a woman that just arrive to the rest stop and was telling people that she needed to call the rangers and as for a mule to get her daughter, who was totally exhausted (that was was extremely hot and mules were being asked for left and right). She was told to rest instead and decide then. I went down a few yards and met her and her dad and gave her my walking sticks for support.
I decided to abort the rest of the hike and spent some time on the rest area until the family decided to go up, when I gave the girl my walking sticks since I knew that would help her a lot. When the mom asked me how to get them back to me, I just told her: there is only one way out of this place and I will be there waiting. That was my good deed at the Grand Canyon.