Panorama from the S Rim the evening before the hike

Tom Grundy's Grand Canyon Hike 2010 Page

Once again spring is springing and a young man's fancy turns to death marches and hell hikes. Time for the annual rim to river Grand Canyon death march. Although this event was missed last year (owing to being in a different state), this would be the third iteration. Previous trip reports for the 2007 hike and 2008 hike are here. Conveniently enough this week was free entrance to the National Parks, so I was able to drive in earlier to try to catch the sunset. I bicycled to Hopi point to enjoy it, but unfortunately the gap between the clouds and the horizon wasn't large enough to let the sunlight come underneath and light up the bottom of the clouds. Still, it was a nice sunset although the viewpoint was a quite a bit crowded for my tastes.

Evening view

Zoroaster Temple and Brahma Temple

battleship rock

Grand Canyon sunset from Hopi Point

view from near the start of the trail

This year I tried to do something a little different, hike down the South Kaibab Trail. This is the path I took long ago in the early 90's, and combined with a heavier pack and a recent knee injury it really hurt my knee. Hopefully this year would be different. I woke up at 4:50 and was bicycling on my way to the start of the trail by 5:15 or so. It was a little hard to figure out which road to take, and I didn't take the straightest path, but I made it there about sunrise. Once again it wasn't a spectacular sunrise, although the colors were nice. I started down around 5:40 am, and pretty much just kept walking all the way to the bottom with only a few breaks to take some photos and to dodge a mule train and shed layers (I was wearing shorts and the Ibex leg warmers and yogaslacker wool layers on top with an MEC puffy and buff head-tube for good measure at the top). There were a fair number of flowers as I went down including nearly every brittle bush. One nice thing about this trail was that it mostly followed a ridge, so the views were quite nice. I got to the black bridge around 8:45. The Colorado River was quite muddy and red.

lots of steps on the S Kaibab Trail

Grand Canyon flowers (penstemon)

view of the lower canyon

More Flowers (Indian paintbrush)

Grand Canyon cactus

Mule train down below

mule train crossing the black bridge

tired mule at the bottom

handstand - the timer took it just when I started

starting back up

at Plateau Point

I didn't spend any time at Phantom Ranch, and because they were clearing some cottonwood branches with chainsaws I didn't get to investigate the fig trees down there. I figured I'd better leave plenty of time for the hike up anyway. I stopped where the Bright Angel Trail left the river to head up and cooled my feet and had a first lunch. I left at 10:20 and started heading uphill. At this point it was pretty hot and sunny, but not unbearable. Soaking my hat in the cool creek helped. I passed lots of overnight hikers plodding up the trail under monstrous loads, in fact I think I passed everyone heading my way. From Indian Gardens (around noon) I headed out to Plateau Point to enjoy the view there and take in my second lunch. It was pretty windy and mostly cloudy by now, but not cold yet. Then back to Indian Gardens to change out my warm water (I carried too much) for cold, and head on up the trail. Although I was starting to feel a bit tired, I still managed to pass just about everyone and didn't feel like I was slowing down 'til near the top of the Coconino Sandstone. From there it wasn't far to the top and I knew I was getting close when I saw Russian tourists with fancy handbags and could smell the smokers. I topped out at 3:50 some 10.5 hours after I started. I ate and drank more and then drove to the visitor center to look around (not much to see) and as close as I could park to the trailhead to walk over to get my bicycle. I thought about staying for the next sunset, but it didn't look very promising (thickening clouds) and I was pretty tired. It is just as well I drove back then, as I was having a little trouble staying alert. The S Kaibab trail drops 4.740 ft in 6.8 miles and the Bright Angel gains 4,360 feet in 9.3 miles. The Plateau point hike added 3 more miles and a bit of elevation change for a total of 19.2 miles plus about 4.5 miles of biking and bit of walking to retrieve the bike. Not a bad little workout, and it probably is a good thing I've been on Andy's "get fit in 3 hours a week or die trying" fitness program. I only got passed by one pack mule train on the way down and passed one passenger mule group coming up, so that was fairly nice.

view from Plateau Point

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