North Kaibab to Bright Angel Campground

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Let me preface this entry with.. the three of us did not go into this crazy trek without ALOT of thought and preparation. We also came to it with backpacking experience. And even though I've done crazy elevation climbs like Half Dome in a day (twice), multi-day backpacking trips and a handful of desert day hikes, the National Park Rangers still sent me a letter back stating, in summary, "your plans are nuts and extremely strenuous, are you sure? Give us a list of your experience and every backpacking item you plan to bring with you." I nervously sent back the information and they approved my permit. This was back in May, after I'd failed to obtain Phantom Ranch reservations. Many many times I went back and forth in my head, AM I crazy? Am I putting myself, my husband and our friends in danger? All you can do is prepare, right? So I read every blog I could find, watched all the NPS videos online and trained by climbing up and down our local Mission Peak on as weekly a basis as possible. We had a fourth friend, Joy, who wanted to join and I turned her down. She had never backpacked before, and I told her this would be a terrible first trip, if not a dangerous one. She ended up doing the Yosemite trip with us in July, two months ago.

So, we got up at 3am, ate a quick backpacking breakfast of coffee and granola and dehydrated milk, and loaded everything back into the car. First underestimation- the damn weather. I read everything I could on how to deal with the weather IN the Grand Canyon but I hadn't stopped to ask what the weather was like at the TOP of the Canyon. The answer? VASTLY different, lol. When we walked outside it was 40F but thankfully no longer sprinkling. Nothing but a vast gorgeous starry sky above us. And here I was dressed in shorts and a tank top. The warmest top I had was my long sleeved REI Screeline- no jacket. Hadn't thought I'd need one.

We drove in the dark to the Visitors Center to pay for a pass, that way we could leave our car at the trailhead. Then we drove back to the trailhead. It was still freezing at 4am when we unloaded from the car. I reluctantly put on my yoga pants and borrowed a long sleeve shirt for Billy, leaving me with a total of three layers on top and two on the bottom. Which was irritating because I knew in a couple hours I wouldn't need them. Oh well. Our packs were as light as we could make them. We skipped bringing a stove and most of our cooking gear. It'd be so warm we wouldn't want hot meals anyway. We swapped out sleeping bags for sleeping sacks (we bought ours on Amazon but literally you can just fold a sheet in half and sew the sides). We still brought our tent in case of snakes and scorpions. I brought as little clothes as I could get by with.

The big mistake we made started right about here when we headed up the trailhead at the back of the parking lot. The sign on the road had said Kaibab Trail. Like idiots, we didn't check our official map (I always bring one). I say idiots because all three of us had the nagging sensation that maybe we weren't where we thought we were but we all went along with it. The funny part, I told them later, is that when I'm precepting New Grad Nurses at work, one of the biggest things I teach them is to listen to your intuition. If something feels wrong, there's a high likelihood it is. Always verify. Welp. After an hour, the nagging sensation hadn't gone away, and we were moving up and rather far east when I was fairly sure the trail was supposed to be down and south with a lot of switchbacks. So I stopped, took off my pack and pulled out my map in the dark woods. "Oh no," was all I said in a serious but sad voice that both boys laughed about for the next hour. It wasn't just that we were on the wrong trail, we had wasted precious time and miles in the cold part of the day, and we would seriously regret it midday. In fact, we'd added about 3 miles to our already 14.5 mile trek ahead of us that day. I was cursing myself the whole jog back down the trail. Two fucking trailheads at the same lot. Go effing figure!

We made it back to the trailhead parking and found the CORRECT trail at about 5:30am. So there you have it- prepare all you want, and you'll still mess up. That's one thing I like about backpacking. There's a ton of predictability and skill involved but then there's the unexpected. "It's a like a video game," I tell people, "you have so many choices to make but you don't always know the outcomes of those choices until sometime later in the trek. The unpredictability is fun. Having to deal with all the problems with limited resources, no internet and generally no immediate way of calling for help is challenging and exciting." Yes, this is vacation fun for me. =D

There was a pair of guys, an American (I guess because he had no accent) and possibly a Scandinavian (his accent reminds me of Ragnar from Vikings... not to mention he kinda looked like him, too), starting the North Kaibab at the same time as us. The trailhead has plenty of signage and it's at the beginning of the lot. We spent the next two days passing this pair, as well as being passed up by them. It's another fun aspect to trekking. You see a handful of the same people, like a community. The sky was beginning to light up as we headed down the trail to Supai Tunnel. There's a fair number of bathrooms and water stops on this trail. We made sure to use the toilets and fill up our water at every opportunity.

I wasn't particularly worried about the downhill part of today. For some reason in my head, I guess I thought the downhill would be all day. Billy, who has a knee that acts up occasionally, was very worried about all the decline. We spent the cooler part of the day scaling down a steep trail past Supai Tunnel (1.7mi), the Manzanita Rest Area (5.4mi) and onto Cottonwood Campground. We found water at all three stops but surprisingly the water actually followed us for the majority of the day had we needed to filter some. I wasn't sure there would be a year-round water source so I thought this was pretty awesome when I found it to be true. So far the trail had been gorgeous. The walls of the canyon changed colors as you descend, layers of light tan, deep red, an almost green. Near the bottom we started coming across pockets of greenery, another surprise when all you expected was desert. We didn't get to Cottonwood until about 10am unfortunately. It was going to be getting hotter fast and the trail had leveled out, so our speed was going to slow down dramatically. We were only 6.8mi in, a little less than halfway. Not too mention general tiredness from trekking with 20lb packs was going to kick in soon. We ran into the American-Scandinavian pair again. They were a few minutes behind us when we rolled into camp for lunch. They sat in our chosen picnic site and excitedly asked us if we saw the giant snake right on the trail as we assembled our lunches. I was making a curry chicken salad stuffed into pita. Nope- hadn't seen the giant snake. They caught it on their camera phone. ::shudder:: Yup- that was definitely a giant Arizona rattlesnake. The coloring is different than our California rattlers. I can tell you that I didn't see a single snake or scorpion this entire trip in the Southwest. I didn't see any predators of any sort. Gratefully.

We left Cottonwood by 10:30am, hoping to be at Phantom Ranch by 1pm. The next half of the trail was very level. I'd like to note that there isn't a water source between Cottonwood and Phantom Ranch. Even the water sources the NPS provides aren't always reliable. So I strongly recommend bringing some type of water filtration just in case. We actually didn't need ours this first day. Despite the difficulties of trekking through the Grand Canyon, water wasn't one of our issues. It got hot fast and soon we felt blech. We kept hoping Phantom Ranch would magically appear around the corner, and it didn't. Not helping the situation, we stopped and asked an older couple hiking in the opposite direction how long it had taken them to hike from Phantom Ranch to our present spot. The woman guessed 45min (she was wrong). So after an hour we were like... WHERE the HELL is the Ranch? At one point, all three of us just sat on a bridge, sprawled out, resting. We were so tired. Had we been smarter this first day, we would have soaked ourselves in the water. This is a trick we learned after speaking with an NPS volunteer at Phantom Ranch. I had known that this was something we could do if we were seriously overheating but I hadn't taken it seriously and we also thought we were SO CLOSE to finishing when we weren't. After all, the NPS videos I had watched prior to this trip had suggested it. I had been soaking my hat, just not my whole body. So, when I say I learned it later, that's because that's when it sunk in. I also think that as tired and hot as we were, it was difficult to tell just how hot we were. As Chris pointed out later, "After 90 degrees, too hot just feels the same, whether its 95 or 120." We rested at every shade opportunity at this point. The breaks were longer and longer. We weren't the only ones using this tactic. We passed multiple hikers and groups lying about in shady areas of the trail. I guess it's the only way to tough through this part of the day if you insist on hiking during it. We hadn't planned on it. We had left early enough that we should have been done trekking and at Phantom Ranch by this time of the day. Except we effed up in the beginning and got an hour and a half behind schedule! Ugh.

But. We DID. FINALLY. MAKE IT. At 1:30pm we rolled into the Phantom Ranch Cantina, dropped our packs in a corner and just sat in the air conditioned room, drinking the free ice cold water. Billy was hunched over the table just resting. We had made it 17.5mi that day by our estimation, ending in 120F heat (in the sun; it was about 105F in the shade). Effing INSANE. I'd never completed a backpacking trek that long. Climbing up and down Half Dome in Yosemite is the closest I've come in terms of length and elevation changes but certainly this was much more intense. After sitting for close to an hour, I finally felt cool enough to eat. Another thing the NPS volunteer explained to us. If you're overheating you won't be able to eat well. Your body shunts all your circulation to your periphery in an attempt to cool you off. So your core has less circulation, hence stomach doesn't want anything. So, if you're low on energy even though you've had plenty of water, your issue might actually be food. He said you need to cool down your core- go dunk yourself in the water for a few minutes- then try to eat. This same concept, I realize now, is what I felt in the Cantina. It took longer to cool down in the overworked AC but same concept. I felt hungry after an hour, and set about trying to rehydrate some couscous. I had found the idea online as a backpacker meal. Lemme tell you, making couscous with cold water doesn't have the same effect on the couscous. It softened after letting it sit well over twice as long as normal but it was definitely still grainy. I added "Oloves" packets to them. It was very filling at least. We chased our lunch with some delicious lemonade from the Cantina.

Somewhere around 2:45pm we felt ready to venture back into the heat with our packs to Bright Angel Campground. I didn't really feel like setting up camp this early but it'd be good to atleast establish a site. We found one of the last ones right next to the Creek, and then we did what everyone else was brilliantly doing in the half shaded creek- stripping down to underwear and lounging in the water. It was HEAVEN. We were literally lying on our backs, on the rocks, cold water flowing over our bodies. It was way better than the AC in the Cantina. The rocks felt great on our overworked muscles. Occasionally we felt like we were getting pinched by something, maybe annoyed crawdads? Though we never actually saw any. This part of the trip remains one of my absolute favorites. Lounging in this gloriously shaded creek.

Chris and I ventured back to the Cantina again at 3:30pm right before they closed (they close for a couple hours before dinner). We enjoyed more lemonade along with M&Ms. The Cantina also serves beer and wine. Pre-trip Nicki had a fantasy of drinking a glass of wine at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It's genius. Except when reality caught up with fantasy, it was just way too damned hot to drink alcohol. So that never happened.

After our snack of basically sugar, we headed back to the campground to wait a couple more hours for dinner. Billy had snagged us three reservations for the Stew Dinner, and we were very excited for it. There's nothing like a hot meal on a backpacking trip that you don't have to carry in AND prepare yourself. In the meanwhile we set up our tent, and then I lounged for another long time in the creek, feet in the water back and head on the grassy shore. The sun was finally dipping behind the Canyon Rim so things were cooling down slightly. It was wonderful just listening to my iShuffle and relaxing, reflecting on the day's ordeal and psyching myself up for the climb out of the Canyon tomorrow.

For dinner, we were sat at a table with a large family who was staying in the Phantom Ranch cabins. We learned they have AC in the cabins, btw. They laughed about being "too cold." I'd have found that annoying except they were so damned nice. We swapped travel and trekking stories as we inhaled steak chili, cornbread and salad. I think I had two iced teas. Dessert was chocolate cake. Again, I didn't feel like drinking any wine. I thought maybe at this point I'd be ready for it but after much deliberation we decided we'd get up at 3am again to avoid as much of the heat of the day as possible. So sleep was incredibly important and I didn't want the wine to mess with that.

The entire camp went to bed right after dinner. On the advice of the NPS volunteer, we went to sleep "soaked." This sounds crazy but it makes such a difference. You can't sleep when you're hot. And the campground stays in the 80s all night, along with humidity. During the day, the moisture rises out of the Canyon and forms the big thunderhead clouds. Occasionally you get lightning storms in the evening. Then the moisture descends back into the Canyon as humidity. So even though it's like 40 degrees cooler at night, it doesn't really feel like it. Blech, right? So I soaked myself head to toe, wearing a shirt and underwear and crawled into our tent. I slept terribly, as expected, even with Benadryl. I got up two more times to soak my entire body again with water. I did get some sleep, just not lots. =) It was all part of the experience of course. Billy, deciding his tent wouldn't let in enough air to cool him off but still worried about snakes and scorpions like us, slept ON TOP of the picnic table. lol. Needless to say, his sleep wasn't fabulous either. But he stayed cooler.

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