Well, today was our entrance into the hall of hikers of the Grand Canyon – and man, did we earn it. We started the day around 6am for a quick breakfast and put on our clothing layers to head out to the Bright Angel Trail at the Grand Canyon South Rim. In case you’re not familiar with the hiking trails of the Grand Canyon, they range from 21 miles (rim to rim) to just 3 miles roundtrip on the Bright Angel Trail to the first rest stop. We headed out from the Trailer Village to the shuttle to take us to the trailhead where we decided it was a good time for a “before” picture:
What happened after this picture can only be described as unexpected. We started down the sandy, steeped trail and soon realized this was much more than we had bargained for. Though we are all in moderate shape, this trail is NOT for beginners. We made it to the first rest stop at a mile and half (is this really just 1 ½ miles?!) and we become eternally grateful for the cool morning weather. Though the walk down was a tough one, we were able to get tons of great landscape views while going down the canyon:
We finally stopped 4 ½ miles down into the Canyon at an area called the Indian Gardens. Here’s where we had lunch and stopped to contemplate the insane amount of hiking we had just done and how much more was to come. We were joined by some wildlife, mostly squirrels who, while we were told not to feed them, were obviously VERY comfortable with hikers as well as meeting some burros who were rested from their usual job of transporting us lazy humans up and down the canyon trails:
As we started back out for the 4 ½ mile hike OUT of the Canyon (we skipped hiking to Plateau Point from Indian Gardens since it would basically be delaying the inevitable), the group split up a bit into couples with different people leading the pack throughout the hike out, ending with Amy and Shawn finishing first, with Chris and myself close behind them, and Kathy and Dave close behind us. We all moved very slowly up this part, since we basically climbed about 3,000 miles up within 4 ½ miles! We were all dead at the end of the hike and missed out on taking an “after” picture, so we all met up back at the RV after ending the hike. The experience was a great one – the park rest stops along the hike had plenty of water and bathrooms (which we needed every time, believe me) – with friendly fellow hikers who were eager to share their stories and hiking experience.
To avoid having to pay for showers, we all showered on the RV (Yum, hose water) and had a good grilled dinner of burgers and hot dogs. We then made ourselves some drinks, played some Apples to Apples and went to bed! We earned it! Tomorrow is on to the rest of Arizona – peace out Grand Canyon!
No comments:
Post a Comment