Winter Epic: the Grand Canyon

Monday morning I ran to the store to pick up a few last minute things, then over to the back country office. I received my back country pass and planed my camping area for each night. I drove to the shuttle area and packed up everything I was taking down. On the shuttle ride over to the south Kaibab trail head, I met two guys from Germany. One has lived in Atlanta for the last year and his brother who still lives in Germany. They are travelling some of the same routes I have been on. They just drove from San Diego and there next stop is Moab, UT. I hiked down the first 2 miles with these guys. They had to turn back up at that point and head out. At the mile 3 rest stop I met a guy from japan he was about my age, just graduated college, he is on a huge trip around the U.S. he is about to start his career and until he retires he will never have more than 10 days off at a time. So he decided to fly out to San Francisco, rent a car down to San Diego, drive over to the Grand Canyon, drive down to Phoenix, hope on a train to some cave in TX, train up to Detroit, then over to New York for the end of his trip. He is starting a jab in the car industry, that’s why he wanted to stop at Detroit. It was really cool to meet him and see how he just took off to a different country and planed this whole trip. Hiking down the canyon was a lot of fun, but it was also one the most physically challenging tasks I have ever done. I packed to much stuff to begin with and I could feel it every step of the way. The views you see the entire way down are unbelievable. Nothing can describe the vastness of the place. As you go further down the place seems very eerie. You hike down the canyon then walk across a plateau then down the inner canyon. Here people can rent cabins, or dorms, they have a lodge with lots of goods. So I’m in the middle of nowhere miles and hours from anything and I walk right up and order a beer. It was really surprising to me because I didn’t even know it was down here until I arrived. The place is called phantom ranch, everything here was brought down by mule. They have running water, hot showers, and electricity. I couldn’t believe it. When I got to my camp site I set up and made some food. I met some neighbors and he all headed over to the lodge for a beer.

The next morning I hiked half the clear creek trail and back. I heard you get the best views in the first half and to do the whole trail and back is too much for one day. This trial hikes up to the plateau then along the Colorado River. Right away you get a great view of the river and the South Kaibab trail I hiked the day before. For most of the hike down there is one main view point you can see from everywhere, Zoroaster temple, this trail hikes right to that spot. It is a huge C shaped canyon with a step pointed right in the center on the top. After that the plateau gets very wide and you no longer see the river. This part of the hike is neat. It’s very much a desert with lizards and cactuses. There are a few water runoff areas that carve their way down to the river, no water in them anymore. The half-way point is when you are able to see the Colorado River again. I headed back to camp. My calf muscles have never been so sore or weak. The hike down was rough then I made it worse the second day, but all worth it. That night I went to the lodge, grabbed a beer, and looked around the place. They had a lot of history about the ranch and really old pictures.

The third day I took it easy. I walked around down by where the Bright Angle river meets the Colorado River. The river its self is pretty cool. It’s mostly green with swirls of brown sediment throughout it. They had some history posted about the Indians that lived here and how they were able to make that work. That day was very windy in the canyon. I walked a ways to find a small cove to cook in. I didn’t think I would be able keep the stove lit in the open. When I came back my tent pole was broken. This would have been a disaster but I just walked over and rented a dorm for the night. I packed everything up and moved in the dorm cabin. There was sand over everything in the tent which I didn’t think I was that big of a deal but it must have gotten into my camera and that was shot. I was mad I couldn’t take more pictures for the hike out but at least I got the way down and the second hike. The dorm was really nice; the first thing I did was take a nice hot shower. I met a lot of great people there too. One father son who were from south Jersey who planned on camping the whole trip but got into the dorms at the last minute. So they hiked everything down for camping too. I got the number of one guy who lives in Seattle and dose a lot of fishing out there. I hope to be able to fly out there during the salmon run and tag along with him. There was another older guy who hiked down with his wife and her friend, his wife got a knee replacement 8 months earlier and was “breaking it in”. in the lodge that night I met a couple with hake hiked the canyon for years. They husband has done a week or two every winter for the last 36 years. He knew everything about the place, all the old trails off the map and even old mining trails. That couple lives on the east side on Milwaukee. That night a few foreigners came in and polished off a bottle of Jack Daniels. They had a rough wake up the next morning, and a rougher time hiking out that day.

Thursday morning I packed up and hiked out on the Bright Angle trail. The first half of the 9 mile trail took me 2 hours. But that is only 1/3 of the elevation. The second half took 3 hours 15 minutes. It was a hard hike but its such a beautiful place you get lost in the views. When you finally get to the top it almost puts you in tears. Its so grueling and such a rough trek its takes everything out of you. When I finally got back to the car I drove down to Phoenix to meet up with my friend Mike. I was going to stay at the Painted Desert but with my camera out of order I plan on getting that replaced and making that a separate day trip.