The Grand Canyon - Rim to Rim to Rim (R3) Part III
To see Part I please click here.
To see Part II please click here.
Around 3:00am we stumbled out of our sleeping bags, stepped into our running clothes, and shrugged on our light packs. We took a quick picture, received a hug each from my mom, and were on our way around 3:30.
It was very cold and very dark.
The Grand Canyon has nearly 5,000,000 visitors each year, or almost 13,700 each day. We walked for 10 minutes along the rim past all the tourist hotspots and saw no one. Not one person. To the north was void—just utter blackness with what looked like one blinking star. That star was actually the security light on the visitor’s center at the North Rim, our halfway point. Impenetrable inky, silent darkness lay between.
We didn’t talk much. We walked to the trailhead with our headlamps off, utilizing the dim yellow security lights of the scattered gift shops and lodges in an effort to save our batteries for the coming hours.
Suddenly we were at the edge. The pavement abruptly ended and the trail started, spiraling downward out of sight. We turned on the headlamps, shook hands, and started down.
A weather phenomenon I’d never experienced was raging. Katabatic winds were roaring down into the canyon, filling it with cold air. All day long, the gorge bakes like a convection oven. The rims are 5,000 feet higher and dramatically cooler. Hot air rises, and so at dawn and dusk each day the warm, inner-canyon air and the colder rim air masses displace each other. Katabatic winds occur when the cold air falls from higher to lower elevations, and anabatic winds are the reverse, when warm air rises.
So, as we stepped off the ‘edge,’ we were pushed down into the canyon by freezing 30-degree winds that finally petered out after 45 minutes. All was quiet for about 10 minutes and then we heard a moaning noise like a muted freight train’s whistle in the distance and the anabatic winds washed over us, warming us with 80-plus-degree air.
Even at a quarter to four in the morning, you could tell that dawn was coming. The animals and birds were moving. The sky tinted itself every color of the spectrum, finally settling on blue, and before we new it, it was bright enough to turn off our headlamps and speed up to a light jog.
We made it to the Colorado River around 6:15 and crossed the suspension bridge around 6:30, cruising into Phantom Ranch around 7:00. The hikers who’d stayed overnight at the ranch were just starting to stir. At this point we’d been on the move for about 3 hours and were ready for a bit of break. We sat down, changed our socks, topped off our water and slammed down an energy bar and a gel pack.
Each of us was carrying a light backpack with the absolute minimum of gear. I was carrying a hydration pack, with a 2-liter hydration bladder, a super light windshirt/jacket, a first aid kit the size of a coin purse, 5 feet of duct tape wrapped around the first aid kit, a change of socks to keep my feet dry and comfortable, a camera, a twenty dollar bill, and my headlamp with a single spare battery.
For food each of us was carrying 20 gel packs and 10 energy bars. Each gel pack provided about 100 calories of "pre-digested goo" and the bars had about 250 calories each. I had about 2 cups of dry powder to mix into my water to make an electrolyte replacement drink, an apple, and a few plain old meat and cheese pitas that my mom had had us take at the last minute.
Certainly, we skipped some things that others might have considered important or necessary, and obviously there weren’t any serious opportunities to resupply. We individually weighed the advantages and disadvantages of bring more things, and were comfortable with our risks. Still, the margin for error was fairly slim.
Even though we’d traveled about 10 miles, we’d seen less than 8 people to this point. We took our last sips of water, topped off our reserves, and pushed off again.
The next 4 or 5 miles were the most geographically unique portions of the trial. We were hiking up the Bright Angel Canyon. The canyon was narrow, in parts as skinny as 75 to 100 feet wide. The rocks were still cool and the sun hadn’t risen high enough yet to penetrate to this depth. We jogged steadily, clipping off a few miles before the trail left the creek bed and began to climb the canyon walls to the north rim.
Ahead we saw a guy standing in the middle of the trail holding perfectly still, eyes glued to the ground ten feet in front of him. Since we were jogging, by the time we realized that there was a problem we were about twenty feet away from a coiled rattlesnake and thirty feet from the other guy. After maybe a minute or two, the snake uncoiled itself to its six-foot length and slithered off toward the creek. The other hiker had rounded the corner coming toward us, saw the snake, and froze.
Snake or no snake, the next 10 miles were the hardest of the whole hike.
Part IV coming soon... (Part IV is now available here)
eazakes@juno.com
To see Part II please click here.
Around 3:00am we stumbled out of our sleeping bags, stepped into our running clothes, and shrugged on our light packs. We took a quick picture, received a hug each from my mom, and were on our way around 3:30.
It was very cold and very dark.
The Grand Canyon has nearly 5,000,000 visitors each year, or almost 13,700 each day. We walked for 10 minutes along the rim past all the tourist hotspots and saw no one. Not one person. To the north was void—just utter blackness with what looked like one blinking star. That star was actually the security light on the visitor’s center at the North Rim, our halfway point. Impenetrable inky, silent darkness lay between.
We didn’t talk much. We walked to the trailhead with our headlamps off, utilizing the dim yellow security lights of the scattered gift shops and lodges in an effort to save our batteries for the coming hours.
Suddenly we were at the edge. The pavement abruptly ended and the trail started, spiraling downward out of sight. We turned on the headlamps, shook hands, and started down.
A weather phenomenon I’d never experienced was raging. Katabatic winds were roaring down into the canyon, filling it with cold air. All day long, the gorge bakes like a convection oven. The rims are 5,000 feet higher and dramatically cooler. Hot air rises, and so at dawn and dusk each day the warm, inner-canyon air and the colder rim air masses displace each other. Katabatic winds occur when the cold air falls from higher to lower elevations, and anabatic winds are the reverse, when warm air rises.
So, as we stepped off the ‘edge,’ we were pushed down into the canyon by freezing 30-degree winds that finally petered out after 45 minutes. All was quiet for about 10 minutes and then we heard a moaning noise like a muted freight train’s whistle in the distance and the anabatic winds washed over us, warming us with 80-plus-degree air.
Even at a quarter to four in the morning, you could tell that dawn was coming. The animals and birds were moving. The sky tinted itself every color of the spectrum, finally settling on blue, and before we new it, it was bright enough to turn off our headlamps and speed up to a light jog.
We made it to the Colorado River around 6:15 and crossed the suspension bridge around 6:30, cruising into Phantom Ranch around 7:00. The hikers who’d stayed overnight at the ranch were just starting to stir. At this point we’d been on the move for about 3 hours and were ready for a bit of break. We sat down, changed our socks, topped off our water and slammed down an energy bar and a gel pack.
Each of us was carrying a light backpack with the absolute minimum of gear. I was carrying a hydration pack, with a 2-liter hydration bladder, a super light windshirt/jacket, a first aid kit the size of a coin purse, 5 feet of duct tape wrapped around the first aid kit, a change of socks to keep my feet dry and comfortable, a camera, a twenty dollar bill, and my headlamp with a single spare battery.
For food each of us was carrying 20 gel packs and 10 energy bars. Each gel pack provided about 100 calories of "pre-digested goo" and the bars had about 250 calories each. I had about 2 cups of dry powder to mix into my water to make an electrolyte replacement drink, an apple, and a few plain old meat and cheese pitas that my mom had had us take at the last minute.
Certainly, we skipped some things that others might have considered important or necessary, and obviously there weren’t any serious opportunities to resupply. We individually weighed the advantages and disadvantages of bring more things, and were comfortable with our risks. Still, the margin for error was fairly slim.
Even though we’d traveled about 10 miles, we’d seen less than 8 people to this point. We took our last sips of water, topped off our reserves, and pushed off again.
The next 4 or 5 miles were the most geographically unique portions of the trial. We were hiking up the Bright Angel Canyon. The canyon was narrow, in parts as skinny as 75 to 100 feet wide. The rocks were still cool and the sun hadn’t risen high enough yet to penetrate to this depth. We jogged steadily, clipping off a few miles before the trail left the creek bed and began to climb the canyon walls to the north rim.
Ahead we saw a guy standing in the middle of the trail holding perfectly still, eyes glued to the ground ten feet in front of him. Since we were jogging, by the time we realized that there was a problem we were about twenty feet away from a coiled rattlesnake and thirty feet from the other guy. After maybe a minute or two, the snake uncoiled itself to its six-foot length and slithered off toward the creek. The other hiker had rounded the corner coming toward us, saw the snake, and froze.
Snake or no snake, the next 10 miles were the hardest of the whole hike.
Part IV coming soon... (Part IV is now available here)
eazakes@juno.com
posted by Eddy Zakes at 2:24 PM
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