spryng | Le Grande Canyon, Part 1

Although we were in Seattle for two years, we never ended up going to Canada which was so close. I didn't want to repeat that mistake in AZ, so when we had been here already for four years and hadn't yet visited the big canyon, I told Lady last fall that we were setting a weekend aside in the coming spring for just that. I mentioned our plans in passing while we were out in MD visiting the parents and dad got a bee in his bonnet and took it from there. So what was going to be a quick weekend jaunt up to stare out across the vastness of the Grand Canyon became an epic down and up hike within the Canyon.

Dad was the one who made all the reservations, got the hiking permit, and stocked up on dehydrated meals. We just went along. And brought our own food, of course.

The tl;dr version: We hiked down South Kaibab trail on Saturday, which took us seven hours, then stayed the night at Bright Angel and hiked back out on the trail of the same name on Sunday.

First off, we had a crazy time just driving from Tucson up to the park. What should have taken five hours took nine because of a) accidents, b) accidents, and c) more fucking accidents. First there was the crash just south of Phoenix where we sat for a mere 40min until they cleared the road. Then there was the crash just north of Phoenix that slowed everyone down to a crawl for an hour. Then there was the most epic accident that we never saw another hour north of Phoenix, where we sat parked for well over an hour and watched the sun set and the stars come out. I was just very thankful we had all that food in the car for the hike, plus plenty of water. I saw people walking around with kids and dogs. Not fun.

Whew. Anyway, all that is to explain why we didn't get to the park until 11pm (although that meant we didn't have to pay the entrance fee - woo) and then didn't wake up until 8am and didn't get started on the trail until 10am. Which might have been a wee bit on the late side.

We arrived at the top of South Kaibab Trail with full camelpaks and bushy tails. There were a lot of other people milling about, taking photos and posing. We wiggled between them, found the trailhead, and started off on our way. Almost immediately, I realized it was going to be a looooong day.

The trail sloped down at a pretty steep angle and even in my grippy vibrams, I was having a hard time. I was holding up the party and not feeling great. But the views were awesome and dad insisted on taking breaks every fifteen minutes or so, so it all evened out. The first break was pretty funny: dad announced we had been hiking for fifteen minutes and that we must've gone a mile by now. I looked back at the still visible trailhead above us and told him it was more like 1/4 mile, if even. He insisted it was at least 1/2 mile. I told him he had a long day ahead. :)

We wound down, down, down, continuously being passed by older groups who could somehow navigate the slippery, treacherous terrain better. Dad got annoyed with my slow pace and gave me one of his poles. That helped speed things up a bit.

We finally got down beyond the steep rim of the canyon, to the second plateau bit below. Here's where we started catching up to and being passed by the same group. They began noticing that we were particularly adept at finding shade - a few times they had stopped in the sun somewhere and we caught up, only to round the corner and find some shade. Even if that shade happened to be from the composting toilets. Shade is shade.

Everything turned red quite suddenly. By this point, our shoes and shins were caked with red dust. When I first noticed it on Lady, I thought it was blood. Thankfully, just dust.

The trail was also finally less steep and we started making better progress. Our knees, however, were not happy. After a while, every time we stopped they just started shaking. Stops were frequent at this point - any time dad saw shade, pretty much - and both dad and Lady noticed they were running low on water.

Thankfully, not long after, we found the bridge that meant we were both done descending and almost there!

Looking back the way we came - all the way from that craggy point, and even further up and beyond.

Dad showing off the fact that he is completely out of water. Good thing we only have a short 15min walk to the campground and water.

We meet up with some of dad's old college friends with whom we were originally going to hike down, but then we left kinda late so they just went without us. They'd arrived about an hour or so before us and grabbed a camping spot. We rolled out our sleeping bags and dad set up his tent and everyone hung up their bags and stored their food in those crazy metal bear bins.

Then we sat around, drank water, and stared at each other until nightfall.

And that was only the first day!