Hiking across the Grand Canyon: Part 3

We woke up slightly before 5am and packed up for the second day of hiking.  Our destination was the South Rim - 10 miles away at an elevation 4,500 feet higher than the Canyon bottom.  My wife was in the female bunkhouse and I was in the male bunkhouse - a great place to sleep at Phantom Ranch, as the bunk beds offered a better night than sleeping on the ground in the heat of the nearby campground.  Reservations at this popular oasis book out 13 months, so I kept calling every month leading up to the hike and got lucky when some spots opened up. 

We ate a quick breakfast, augmented by the free coffee that Phantom Ranch provides hikers, and then got on the trail by 5:30am in the early light.  Walking south along the creek, we saw the campgrounds and passed a corral of mules, who would take tourists up the trail later in the morning.  We saw a couple of small deer along the way and quickly arrived at the Colorado River, where we crossed the Silver Bridge across the river and then turned west for a short distance along the sandy Rim Trail to River Resthouse.

The views were nice and it was a very quiet morning, with few other hikers along the trail.  The sun was illuminating the higher features in the Canyon, but was fortunately not high enough yet to warm up the bottom.  Turning south, we started up the Bright Angel Trail and enjoyed the hike up a series of switchbacks called Devil's Corkscrew.  Slow and steady was the best way to tackle it.  By this time, we were starting to get hit with some direct sunlight, but the trail fortunately moved around to the west a bit more and we enjoyed more shade as we walked into Indian Garden, a campground at the halfway point that has cool water and lots of shade.  We'd made very good time for the first half of the day's hike, but a slowdown was in store for the second half.

After a rest and a snack, we refilled our water before we headed back out on the trail and got into bright sunlight that rapidly warmed the morning.  The Canyon features were interesting and there were hikers headed past us down into the Canyon for the day.  We got to 3-Mile Reststop (named for being 3 miles from the South Rim), took a rest in the shade and enjoyed some water.  The heat was definitely starting to slow us down as it got in the low 90's, much warmer than we'd seen in Minnesota in 7-8 months.  The other challenge was the ever steepening trail, as there are 2,000 feet of elevation to climb in the last three miles.

Averaging now about a mile per hour, we took frequent breaks in small spots of shade and made it into 1.5-Mile Reststop (yes, it is an aptly-named 1.5 miles from the South Rim).  After a break and a snack to keep the blood sugar up, we trudged up the last part of the trail and saw more and more tourists and day hikers.  One of the other hikers near us wryly noted that 'you know you're close to the end when you start seeing people like that,' referring to some tourists wearing flip flops and not carrying any water.      

Finally, we round the last bend in the trail, hiked through a small tunnel amidst kids and camera-toting parents, and walked up to the Bright Angel Trailhead next to Kolb Studio.  We were dusty, tired and sore, but we'd made it across the Canyon in two days and looked back across all the miles to where we'd started the previous morning.

After a couple of pictures, we got the rental car and drove over to the campground for a hot shower ($2 in quarters, please) and a change of clothes.  Now clean, we downed a quick lunch and drove back to Flagstaff for the flights back to Minnesota.  Despite the sore muscles, it was a great hike and a terrific way to appreciate the Grand Canyon.