Bright Angel Campground to the South Rim

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Up again at 3am, and apparently most of the campground had the same idea. Everyone was quietly eating a quick breakfast and packing up their gear in the dark. All we saw were headlamps bobbing around. I was groggy, and quickly mixed some more granola along with a quick cup of cold coffee. Always the coffee first. We had asked multiple hikers advice the day before on how long it might take us to climb out of the Grand Canyon- most seemed to think 6hrs hiking but longer if you had backpacking gear. So our goal was out by 11:30am- 8hrs. Seemed reasonable. We left camp at 3:30am, along with the American Scandinavian pair. They were actually ahead of us by two minutes, and then backtracked past us. "Where you going?" I asked. He said something about lost. Already lost, lol. We reassured them this was the right way, although we probably don't have the best track record this trip. The five of us trekked along in the pitch black for a half hour. One of them was limping. He said he'd taken a spill the day before and was very lucky he wasn't more injured. We crossed the Colorado River in the dark on a very long bridge. I have no idea what this iconic river looks like but I heard it! Sounded very big. After that, the trail took us along the river for a rather level mile to the first resthouse at Pipe Creek. The Bright Angel Trail has a lot of water sources just like the North Kaibab. The South Kaibab does not, btw. So avoid it unless you're on a mule. I hadn't looked closely enough at the map. When we got there I realized that the resthouse had a bathroom but no water source already filtered like the other resthouses. Damn. I didn't fill up my water at the beginning because I had planned to get some here. And I didn't think I had enough to make it to Indian Gardens. So we stopped for ten minutes to filter water and get soaking wet. Now we knew better... get soaked all day long. Especially since we weren't hiking in cool 40F degree weather like yesterday- it was already 80F.

I liked the eerie quality of that first climb out of the Canyon to Indian Gardens. It was still very dark, and we could see other hikers high above us. Not their bodies, just their headlamps, slowing moving up the switchbacks. Little by little, light appeared in the sky. It was Chris' turn to get his ass kicked by the trail. Apparently his own headlamp was giving him motion sickness and a headache. He stopped a couple of times to take longer breaks. Billy and I were doing pretty good. After we finished those switchbacks sunrise was in full force. Another beautiful one. Then another creek appeared and it followed the trail as far as Indian Gardens, providing multiple opportunities to get wet again. It felt wonderful.

We made it to Indian Gardens by 7am! Not bad! We were making such great time that morning. Today's first lunch consisted of harvest chicken salad in pitas. My body was beginning to think I was starving it. The next few days my stomach would feel like a bottomless pit every few hours, like it was catching up for me pulverizing it out of it's energy stores. We moved on after a half hour, knowing that this cooler morning was about to become brutally hot midday again.

We switchbacked up to the Three Mile Resthouse, no big deal. It was funny to see so many day hikers looking at us like we're nuts with our packs. Like why would we do this to ourselves. Because I can!!! One of the family at dinner yesterday had said people get rude the higher up you get on the Bright Angel Trail. I actually found the opposite true. 90% of people made wide berths when we came across them in case we keeled over, and I think the other 10% didn't notice us because of the giant canyon and cliff. Many people just gave us lots of encouragement- "you're almost there!" And when we'd sit to rest, they'd engage us in conversations about what the trip was like. At dinner, the Phantom Ranch server said, "only 1% of park visitors make it all the way down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and that includes the river rafters. So you're the extra special part of that 1%."

Just like the previous day, the desert gets real about 10am. Ugh. We got slower, the temperature got hotter. I had no shame soaking myself in front of twenty tourists at each resthouse on the way up. They kinda just stared at us, like... why hadn't we thought of that? But didn't partake like it was a weird social taboo. The last mile and a half was the worst- we trudged at micro pace. We kept moving, though, and only stopped in shady spots once again. On a side note, whoever designed these two trails in the Grand Canyon put some genius thought into what they were doing. I had hours to think about these things. But seriously... the trails follow water sources and manages to have long, long sections of shade in the afternoon because of the high walls, and the side that the trails were on.

11am, we made it out. We sat on a bench at the top, unsure of what to do. Our reservation for Maswik Lodge wasn't until 3pm. We were already starving again. Do we walk all the way over to Maswik and risk getting denied? But maybe they'd hold our luggage? Our should be amble over to Bright Angel Lodge to see if they had food? Bright Angel Lodge was closer so that's what we decided to do. Awesomely, they had a luggage storage room they were willing to keep our packs in while we ate lunch in their restaurant. While we waited for food, I called Maswik Lodge to see if they could get us in a room sooner. All I wanted to do was kick off my boots, take a shower and relax in AC. After eating, of course. We were in luck. There was a room open and we could check in anytime. For future reference, the customer service gal told me they usually set aside a section of rooms for "Phantom Ranch Returnees" (in my head, I changed this to "Phantom Ranch Refugees" which just made me giggle) that are available late morning. You just have to let them know in advance.

We feasted on guacamole, chips, jalapeno poppers, burgers and fries. Dear lord, I was starving. We paid for our food, grabbed our bags and then hopped a shuttle to Maswik. It would have been all of a 5min walk but we were totally done with that today. We got our room, took turns showering and then just dozed in our ice cold room. It was glorious. I didn't want to sleep, though. It was too early, and I wanted to get on a little bit more of a normal sleep schedule after the last two crazy days. So I decided to venture back out at 4:30pm to try and look for souvenirs and ice cream. At first Chris didn't want to join buuuuuuut then he did. We planned to meet Billy at El Tovar at 5:30pm for drinks on the back porch before our 6:30pm dinner reservation. We hopped on a shuttle bus, and the driver asked where we were headed. "Bright Angel Lodge," I called up to her. "Are you sure you don't want to just walk? It's five minutes that way! The shuttle will take you much longer," she responded, willing to stop and let us back off. We just laughed and said we were over walking. She asked another question, probably something to the affect of "are you SURE?" and it somehow came out that we'd just finished our Transcanyon trek. This turned into the driver and half the bus congratulating us on our adventure. =D

Ahhhhh, but that Prickly Pear Margarita on the back porch, though. Life is good. Damn did that one drink hit me hard. Chris and Billy both had a second drink- I was great. We watched tourists wander around the South Rim while we sat in our chairs in the shade. It was pretty toasty up on the South Rim, a good 100F at least.

Dinner at El Tovar was fabulous. We had many long talks over this trip, one of which was the crazy difference between simply driving up and looking at the Grand Canyon and then traversing it. Chris admitted at dinner that he really never cared to visit the Grand Canyon again after we initially visited it back in college. I hadn't remembered him ever mentioning that so I was pretty surprised. "What? Why did you agree to do a transcanyon trek with me then?!" I asked, pretty surprised he put up like zero fight. "Because it was on your bucket list," he said, "And I'm glad I did it." We all agreed that traversing the Grand Canyon was an entirely different experience. It's too easy to take a picture on Instagram when you just drive up to a place, and you experience nothing of the nature of it. But backpacking across it, we had to really think about what we were doing, plan ahead and train. Then we had to push our bodies to the limits against a long trail and extreme heat. Does this all sound cliche? It's sort of sounding that way. But I am also very serious about the difference in how it makes you feel. You end with a deep respect and a little fear of the wilderness which is different than just admiring a pretty picture of it. That being said, none of us want to do this trek in two days again. I could be persuaded to do it over three, though. =D But yeah... that delicious El Tovar dinner. This was our reward for the hard work. Also, it's the best restaurant on the South Rim. I wasn't overly impressed with the Arizona Room the last time we were here. We shared appetizers that included crab stacked with avocado and other tasty things and a tamale. Billy had some soup. Then we all ordered different main entrees so we could share. My pork was amazing. So was my wine. Which had also gotten me drunk despite all the food. Yes, I finally got my glass of wine. After our meal, our kind waiter congratulated us on our trek. "Had we told him?" I asked Billy and Chris. No, I don't think we had. It must have been the way we visibly limped into the restaurant wearing our hiking boots. They had a no flip flop policy we were very annoyed to see other guests violating. We wanted to wear our damned flip flops because our feet were chewed to hell after 27 miles. The waiter said something to the effect that it was always extra special to have guests who had made the transcanyon trek and ended up at El Tovar for dinner.

We strolled back to Maswik Lodge at the very end of sunset. Nearly all the tourists were gone and the South Rim was peaceful and cooling off again. Such a beautiful place. We, ofcourse, crashed hard that night. I slept like a rock.

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Photos

Can't Tell Where I am in the Dark
or rather... what me in the Grand Canyon looks like in pitch black

Lovely Shot of Chris Resting Near the End
I love that this man goes on my adventures with me