The Edge of Glory? Or the edge of a big mistake?
After we left Zion National Park, we decided at the very last minute to check out the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Last time we visited the Grand Canyon we were at the South Rim and it was December and snowing. Even so, we briefly contemplated hiking down into the canyon until a phone call from my mother urging us not to go changed our minds. She said she saw this episode on television that freaked her out. A person slipped on a frozen trail and fell down the canyon and wasn’t found for days and died. The thought of us, her beloved little lesbians, hiking during the cold frigid months of December when the trails are covered with ice and snow was very unnerving to her. So we promised not to cause her any anxiety and left the Grand Canyon later that day. Besides, we could barely even see the canyon for all the fog and snow and clouds that had filled up in it. Leaving, Sarah said that she still didn’t believe that the Grand Canyon existed at all.
After spending a few weeks in San Diego, we had made plans to meet up with a few of our good friends at the South Rim for a Spring Break hike into the canyon. Well, that fell through. We thought it would be a few years until we would have an opportunity to hike the Grand Canyon.
Just before our trip, Sarah and I read a book by Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts. A few chapters are devoted to the author’s last minute decision to hike down into the canyon with his buddy, Paul. By his account and other stories we have heard, we knew it was one of the most strenuous hikes in the United States. But if he could do it… then?
So, when we arrived at the North Rim, the first thing we noticed was that it is not as touristy as the South Rim. We LOVED IT! Suddenly, out of a blank stare, Sarah turned to me with a contemplative look, “Hey, do you think you want to give it a try? Hike all the way down?” Without hesitation, “Yes!”
We went to the visitor center in search of information about a hike into the canyon at this time of year. Being freaking balls hot, all we wanted to know was what we should expect and how to plan for a summer excursion into the canyon. We asked this nice old gentleman and he immediately directed us to whom he called “the expert.” An old prune-faced hag scorned at us behind the counter. Noting her “Volunteer” patch and trying to make nice conversation between her doubting stabs at our hiking abilities, we asked the expert how many times she had hiked into the canyon. “Once” she said. Once? However, she also went on a river trip through the canyon. Yup, she’s a pro. After ten minutes of talking with her most of the time we waited for her to say something but all she did was cough and hack, she sounded like she had already smoked her daily two-pack of cigs. All she managed to do was discourage us from hiking. She said it was tough, and during this time of year the heat posed a dangerous threat to us and so on blah, blah, blah. We walked out of that visitor center feeling defeated. That Kharell had gotten to us. But a minute later we realized that dumb ass hag had no clue what she was talking about. She probably thought it was so tough because she probably couldn’t breathe while she was hiking, too busy coughing and hacking the whole way. And she’s only hiked it once. It was probably last year when she was 99 years old. Fuck that shit! Let’s go talk to someone who knows what they’re talking about. And off we went to the North Rim Backcountry Office.
We arrived at the Backcountry Office and there was this adorable ginger Backcountry Ranger named Ranger Stephen sitting at his desk. He welcomed us into his office with a huge and enthusiastic smile. We think he might have been bored and starved for conversation that day. We told him we were interested in hiking into the canyon, but we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, being newbie’s to this and all. After talking with him for about 15 minutes, we knew we could hike this son a bitch they called the Grand Canyon. He asked us if we wanted to start our hike that evening. We were surprised that we could get a permit that quick! Donald Miller and his friend had to wait three days to get their permit. We told him that we needed a day to prepare and we would begin early the next morning, but we have one question, “once we get to the South Rim how does the shuttle system work to get us back over to the North Rim?” He said all it takes is a reservation and 80 bucks a person. Homo WHAAAAT?!! Damn that’s way out of our budget. What the hell are we going to do? We could try to hitchhike the 200 plus miles back to the North Rim. Nope, too many roads. Not a good idea. Or we could just hike back across the rim…. Um… I guess that could work… Yup. We’re going Rim to Rim to Rim. Stephen reassured us that we were capable of completing this hike. Sarah brought up that I have a bum knee, and Ranger Stephen was so kind to offer up his personal hiking sticks. Ranger Stephen went over our agenda before printing out our backcountry permit:
Day one: Hike 15 miles down to Phantom Ranch and camp at Bright Angel. Day two: Hike up the first half of the South Rim and camp at Indian Gardens. Day three: Hike up the final portion of Bright Angel Trail and camp at Mathers Campground on top of the South Rim. Day four: Hike down the South Kaibab Trail and camp at Bright Angel again. Day five: Hike up the first half of the North Rim and camp at Cottonwood campground. And finally, day six: Hike up the remaining portion of North Kaibab Trail to the top of the North Rim.
Ranger Stephen gave us a lot of tips for our journey. A few of the most important tips were to stay hydrated by drinking a lot of electrolytes and eating plenty of salty snacks, and avoid hiking in the heat of the day from 11am to 4pm because the floor of the canyon normally gets above 110 degrees. Yes, sir!
We left the backcountry office a bit nauseous with our last minute adventure itinerary and headed to the local store to stock up on iodine tablets for filtering river water and salty snacks. As for food, we thought we take a few tips from that Donald Miller book we read. Don and Paul cooked rice and beans the day before they left on their hike into the canyon and stored them into baggies and this is what they survived on for the entire hike. They spent 3 days in the canyon. We thought it sounded like a great idea because we had rice and beans. So we headed to our campsite in the Kanab National Forest to prepare a shit-ton of rice and beans.
By the end of the night we had three baggies of rice, one baggie full of ranch-style beans, and one baggie full of grilled sausage. We bought a dozen eggs a few days earlier and there were nine left. We were afraid they might go bad if we left them in the car, so we boiled them up and planned to eat them within the first day. All this food should take care of us until we get to the South Rim. I prepared chicken salad sandwiches for dinner and we had a lot left over so it wound up being breakfast and lunch the following day on the hike. Our logic was that the eggs would last longer than that mayo. Thinking we have plenty of food, 15lbs of it, there was not a chance of us starving on this hike.
Sarah was amazing and packed everything we needed for the hike. She turned one for her computer backpacks into a hiking backpack, and managed to pack all the food and our gear into our two tiny backpacks. And she didn’t forget a single thing! A momentous accomplishment for my lady! Bravo! By the way, we decided not to bring a tent because our tent weighs 10 to 15 pounds. At this point our bags both weighed about 20 pounds and this was good enough for us. A tarp, a sleeping bag and one fitted sheet on the ground will suffice for us.
The following morning we got up later than we planned, 3 am is just so freaking early, and 5 am is a little bit more manageable for us. We wound up getting to the North Kaibab Trailhead at 6am jamming with some Lady Gaga and psyching ourselves up. Wow. The weather was great; it was a cool 50 degrees on the rim. We couldn’t believe we were finally going to do this. There were other people on the trail and we were unsure how fast to pace ourselves, but we found a slow pace that allowed us to enjoy the beauty of the canyon. And just about everybody passed us. Even a group of senior citizens. Go granny go! We made sure to take a lot of breaks and fill up on water. Before we knew it we were sweating balls. We were told that for every 1000ft descended into the canyon, the temperature rises about 5 degrees. We were losing shade and the further down into the canyon we hiked the hotter it got. When we reached Roaring Springs we took off our shirts and hats and dipped them into the freezing creek. Ahhh, it was so refreshing to put our now freezing wet shirts back on our overheated bodies. We headed down the trail and made it to the Cottonwood campground around 11:30am and decided to be smart hikers and wait out the heat of the day. We found an amazing spot next to the creek. We thought we would jump right in, but it took us about five minutes to submerge our entire bodies into this frigid creek. Water like cold needles. We lay down our tarp underneath the shade of a nearby cottonwood tree and just waited for the sun to set. We tried to nap but it was just too freaking hot! The thermostat at Cottonwood registered at 110 degrees. IN THE SHADE!
It felt like the sun was never going to set, and we needed to get to Phantom Ranch and Bright Angel campground before dark. So, after patching up Sarah’s poor blistered toes with duct-tape, we left Cottonwood at 4:30pm. A ranger on the trail had told us that we had to check out Ribbon Falls, it was slightly out of the way but was totally worth the detour. The waterfall was beautiful. A very comfortable and romantic spot in the middle of a great sweltering crack in the ground in the middle of nowhere. We’ll definitely have some spectacular memories of that place, being both romantic and terrifying at the same time. But we’ll keep that short story for ourselves and maybe a few choice others… you know who you are. wink
We made our way through “the Box.” Ugh, this part of the hiked really sucked. It was so freaking hot and humid. I think the heat gets trapped in this narrow part of the canyon and it feels like the trail goes on and on. But we finally made it to Phantom Ranch just as it was getting dark. It gets dark really fast. By the time we got to Bright Angel it was pitch black but we managed to score a campsite right along the creek. We took off our shoes, finally. Ahhh, relief! Sarah counted up the day’s tally of blisters. 6 on hers. 2 on mine. Geez. We finally dipped into the rice and beans we made the previous night. The first thing that Sarah noticed was that the rice tasted like butter. Butter? I didn’t use any butter. Let me try some. Yup, tastes like butter. Shit! All of our rice has already gone sour. That’s ok cuz we weren’t really that hungry for dinner and we still have sausage, beans and eggs. Off to bed early.
Sleeping on the ground was not as bad as it sounds; we had an amazing view of the night sky and the Milky Way. However, the following morning we woke up without fussing about getting up and out of our cold hard bed. Only MAJOR aches and pains in our knees. And Sarah’s blisters had mutated it seemed. FUCKING huge! Poor thing. I felt soo sorry for her.
We hit the trail by 5:30am. We really wanted to avoid the heat of the day and enjoy ourselves at the Indian Garden campground. The only exciting part of the hike up to Indian Garden was crossing the Colorado River on a suspension bridge and arriving at our campsite. Everything between that was difficult, hot and painful. For breakfast we had an apple with peanut butter so by lunch time we were quite hungry. At this point of the trip we had yet to eat those boiled eggs. As soon as I opened the baggies that contained the eggs, I knew that we should pass on them. Sarah on the other hand, thought they might be ok. “NO, NO!” I told her as I broke the egg in half and shoved it under her nose. She believed me. What were we thinking?!!! Now we have 9 rotten eggs to pack out because the Grand Canyon has a strict “pack in, pack out” policy. FACK!! We check on the status of our beans and sausage and so far so good. We decided to snack on our salty snacks and we saved the beans for dinner. At all the campsites we are required to pack all of our food into military ammo containers, AKA squirrel boxes, because the Grand Canyon squirrels are demons and look like they have developed Type II Diabetes. (Keith, these obese squirrels would be great for our squirrel-fry!) After storing our food, we headed over to the campsite “pool.” The pool actually is a 10×10 creek-formed puddle that people sit in waist deep to cool off from the scorching sun. But it had water bugs. Sarah didn’t like the buggies. We were hoping to check out Plateau Point later in the afternoon, but after a quick conversation with this German chick we were made to believe it was a 12 mile round-trip hike. Hells No! We decided to pass. We had a great time interacting in the pool with our fellow hikers. We stayed near the pool for most of the day before heading back to our campsite to grab a bite for dinner. I think the ammo boxes expedite food spoilage. Our beans went sour. When opening up the box after a few hours, Sarah seriously almost vomited in the bushes. RANK. So, great. All we have is sausage which at this point could be bad but we were hungry and need calories. After a crappy dinner, our neighbor came back from a short hike and told us he went to Plateau Point. “It’s only 3 miles roundtrip,” he says. SON OF A BITCH! So with the sun going down fast, we decided to book it. We ran as fast as we could (passing signs around the campsite that read “Plateau Point 1.5 miles.” We hadn’t noticed them before..? Damn!), to get to the Point before we missed out on an awesome sunset view and lost any more light. We made it just in time. Sort of. We had a great view of the sunset, but didn’t get to the actual Point until shortly after the sun was gone. I guess we’ll stargaze then. The view of the night sky was spectacular and the night hike back to camp was definitely enjoyable too.
Another early morning. We woke up at 4:30am and left Indian Garden by 5am. This was going to be a steep climb. We just wanted to get up to the South Rim as soon as possible and take a shower and get a real meal. Nothing exciting happened on the way to the top but it was quite difficult because the smoke from a nearby forest fire had blown into the canyon making it annoying to breathe and obscuring the spectacular views we were expecting. (AGAIN! Remember December? Sarah was pissed at the irony. We hiked into and out of this thing and still weren’t able to fully see the grandeur of it.) We arrived at the top sooner than we expected, did a little victory dance (mostly because we were excited to be rid of the shit-rank food) and headed straight to the showers. We still had to prepare for our trip back…
Sarah will be handling the rest of the story from here. I’m tired of typing.
SO! There we were at the top of the South Rim and admiring our route, or what we could actually see of it. Thankfully the wind changed direction by the end of the day and we could enjoy a sunset from the top. Earlier, after getting out of the canyon, we had some planning to do. We were feeling great and ready to tackle the route back to our car perched atop the North Rim. There was no way we’d wimp out and take the shuttle back (Thanks anyway for the offer Dad.) However, as all of our food had rotted we had to buy more. This time we would be a little more wise about our choices. 6 Clif bars, a bag of Fritos, another gallon jug of water and 3 dehydrated meals. Lighter and all would last longer than 16 hours into the canyon. With laundry done and an eight minute shower for each of us, we hit Canyon Café for the best meal we’ve ever had. Burgers, fries and a slice of cherry pie. Looking back at the meal, it was actually pretty nasty. All prepackaged and stale-ish. But at the time, we just did not care. Delicious. Finishing with our bellies unhealthily swollen, we putzed around the canyon rim until it was time to go to bed on yet another cold hard and lumpy ground. Sigh…
The next morning we set out at 4am. We didn’t know it at the time, but it would be the most intense downhill hike that ever tortured our poor knees. The South Kaibab Trail was no joke, we were told. No shade and no water for 7 miles down a very steep and rigorous path. We took them seriously and planned to leave well before sunrise and bought that extra gallon of water, but we were not prepared for the pain. Excruciating. We got down in a short 4 hours only because we practically rolled down the damn canyon. Even more, I could not fathom another hour on that hellish trail, so we kind of gritted our teeth and hurried. Apparently the South Kaibab is the only trail in the canyon that the National Park System had a hand in building. All the other trails were built by miners and Natives and had already been there before the NPS got into the picture. All I could think was “What the in the Hell were they thinking! Those Fuckers! This is a shitty trail!” And it really was. By the time we got down to Bright Angel again, I could not feel my lower half. Lying on our picnic table I thought “This must have been the trail Don Miller was talking about.” It was TERRIBLE. Amanda however, was a trooper and made me look pretty bad. She says her knees were pretty sore but she felt good mostly because she was relieved we actually made it without water issues. The South Kaibab was the part of the trip she was most worried about.
Seeing our campsite at Bright Angel during the daytime was an absolute treat. Since we arrived at night a few days earlier, we did not realize the details of our digs and how beautiful the Phantom Ranch area actually is. Our campsite, as well as all the creek-front sites, had our own private little creek pool. They were something like the pool at Indian Garden but way better. Bigger, cleaner and OUR OWN. Also, it had less buggies. We explored the area a bit, mailing a mule-carried postcard to Amanda’s grandmother from the bottom of the Grand Canyon while enjoying a bagel and strawberry cream cheese treat. Amanda was going on and on about the two available reservations for the Phantom Ranch steak dinner that evening. It was “A once in a lifetime chance to eat steak at the bottom of the Grand Canyon!” she said. It was also 50 bucks a person. So of course, I bought her that cream cheese bagel to shut her up. She seemed happy with that. Adorably appeased. So easy. “It’s a once in a lifetime bagel at the bottom of the Grand Canyon!” we agreed. I bought her another one.
Our dinner was the dehydrated ‘Cold Pasta Salad meal’ that we bought at the South Rim. It sounded so good we bought two. Besides, it was one of the only choices we had as we didn’t have any way of boiling water for our dinner. The other choice was the ‘Granola and Bananas in Milk meal’. We got one of those as well. The Pasta Salad was of course the most disgusting thing we’ve ever eaten. We had such high hopes. They were dashed. We couldn’t eat the whole thing without gagging. We resolved to give the extra pasta meal to a homeless person should we run into one soon on our travels. Maybe they will enjoy weird curdly cheesy sour cream in their pasta.
Before heading to bed that night, we attended a ranger talk about Condors. Very interesting. However, it was the event after the talk that will most likely stick with us. We were informed that it is a Phantom Ranch tradition to go on a scorpion hunt after the evening program. Do we even want to know? No. But Yes. We joined in, knowing full well where we’ve been sleeping. Tentless, on a tarp, on the dirt ground, amongst all kinds of creepy crawlers we couldn’t see. Until now. Is ignorance bliss? HELL YES IT IS! Hunting for scorpions is easy. Turn on a blacklight and look down. That’s pretty much the extent of it. And there they are. A handful of them glowing right in front of you. No hunting necessary. So this ranger turns on his blacklight and says “OH now! These are the ones that you definitely don’t want to see.” Pointing at the 4 inch glowing fucker perched on a nearby rock. “That is the second most poisonous type of scorpion we have in the canyon. Actually these are the most common type we have down here.” Homeboy just made us shit our pajamas. “If they sting you, the venom goes straight to the nervous system. You have about 24-48 hours of intense pain in the affected area along with intense numbness, dizziness and disorientation. You’ll probably get pretty nauseous too.” Cool. I’m not tired anymore. How ’bout you, Amanda? Nope. “But don’t worry. Just use your whitelight flashlights, they stay away from the light. And stomp around because the ground vibrations will scare them away. And check your shoes. You should be fine.” Thanks Ranger Douchebag. Goodnight! Needless to say, we were silly with fear and I barely slept at all. But we did ask for it.
Waking up at 4am dead tired but unvisited by scorpions, thankfully, we started hiking early. Trekking back up the North Kaibab Trial and through the waterless Box was the part of the trip I was most worried about. So hiking in the coolness of the dark morning was the solution. On the way down a few days ago, this part of the trip seemed impossibly long. But coming back up we got to our Cottonwood campground by 8:30am. (That 4 hour hike-time even includes the particular rest break in which I accidentally fell asleep on a bridge.) Damn we’re good! However, the hard part was waiting out the rest of the hot day. We had 10 hours to waste. Mostly, we read our books. Having already gotten over the sheer feeling of astonishment that we’re actually succeeding at this crazy epic hike, I was just ready to get out of the Grand fucking Canyon. I was hot, tired and hungry. Done with natural beauty. Done with being awestruck by the night skies. Done with being hot, tired and hungry. I wanted a shower. I was cranky. But that only lasted an hour or so until the sun went under the canyon cliffs and all things good were restored to our little Cottonwood abode. Basically, God said “Chill Out, Woman! And Enjoy! You’ve only got one more day.” OK. Yes, Sir. Bedtime came early.
I’d have to say that the last day of hiking was definitely my favorite. Not only because it was the last day, but because the day was immaculate. We left Cottonwood at 4:30am, the perfect time. The temperature was perfect. Clouds came at the perfect moment to cover up the sun as it peeked into the canyon. We made a perfect pace, impressing ourselves with our endurance, strong and unrelenting all day. There was a perfect constant breeze. And most of all, all morning we had the trail to ourselves. The views were absolutely incredible. We just had plain fun. Shouting the perfect echoes, epic in the eerie silence of such a huge place.
It wasn’t until we got to the 1.5 mile restpoint from the top of the North Rim when we ran into the first people coming down the trail. Then we ran into the mule riders. Then we ran into the stink of mule shit all strewn along the trail. It was oddly comforting. We knew we only had about an hour left in our Grand Canyon. So when we came to the last overlook we stopped for a little while. It was the same overlook that gave us our first view of the canyon on our way down 6 days earlier. Then, we looked at the route ahead of us while trying not to think about how crazy and unprepared we were. Now, we looked at it feeling pretty OK about ourselves and what a wild story we have together. Thanking God, we practically jogged the last .25 miles to the top of the North Rim. Another victory dance at approximately 9:30am. 50 plus miles. Done. Finished. There’s no way we’d ever have to do that ever again. But then I asked Amanda if for a million dollars she’d go right back down and do it again. Her answer: Totally!
Needless to say, we were feeling pretty good. Just hungry. The whole day we had been thinking and talking about our celebratory meal on the North Rim. Beers and Steaks were in order for sure. Receiving a voicemail as we turned the iPhone back on, we were informed by my wonderful and loving Father that he would be treating us to our steaks and beer at the North Rim Lodge. WHOOOHOOOO! Bring it on! Showers and laundry done, we got to the lodge at lunchtime. Steak was not on the lunch menu. Shit. But with a wink and a nudge, the host had us seated in front of a beautiful large canyon-front window with the promise of two New York Strips. Cheers Dad! Two steaks, two serving of fries and veggies, two beers, one margarita and a banana split later we were reminded of what a good food coma feels like. Our week’s adventure ended on the North Rim porch watching a pink and golden-cliff sunset in Painful Heaven.
So moral of the story: If we can do it, you can bet your sweet candy-ass you can definitely do it too.
Love,
Amanda and Sarah
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