Day 17: Grand Canyon

North Rim of the Grand Canyon 

Thursday, August 19

As has been the case every day that I've been traveling alone this trip, I've been wanting to get an early start but for whatever reason, haven't been able to.  My excuse this time is that a rainstorm woke me up at 5:30 am, stopped so I could fall asleep again, and then woke me up again at 6:30.  I could have dealt with the lack of sleep alright, but the problem was that it turns out my tent isn't as waterproof as I had hoped.  I didn't get wet, but when I woke up for the day I noticed that the tent had been leaking and much of my stuff had gotten soaked.  It took awhile to dry off whatever I could before packing everything up into the car, while hoping the whole time that the addition of all these damp items wouldn't make the car smell any worse than it already did. 

After all that clean up, driving a short distance down the road to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, eating a breakfast burrito, and parking near the hiking trail, it turns out I hadn't gotten as late of a start as I thought.  I didn't find this out until much later in the day when some random guy on the trail told me, but Arizona follows Mountain Standard Time instead of Mountain Daylight Time.  So it ends up that I started my hike into the canyon at 9 am, which ain't that bad.

Random Fun Fact: 90% of all Grand Canyon visitors go to the South Rim, since it's more accessible to major cities than the North Rim.  I prefer to be a contrarian, and the North Rim was closer to my other destinations, so I got to enjoy the less crowded version of the Canyon.  One more fun fact: Although the South Rim and North Rim are only 10 miles apart as the crow flies, the drive from one to the other is 215 miles, or over 5 hours. For more information, please consult your local library.

Top view of my hike to Redwall Bridge

Anyways, there is only one hiking trail that goes into the canyon from the North Rim.  The full trail is over 14 miles one way to the Colorado River at the bottom.  Obviously I wasn't going to do that, but I hadn't really set on a destination for my hike when I started either.  I knew every step into the canyon was another step I'd have to take uphill later in the day, so I didn't want to go too far, but I wanted to see how I felt as I descended.  The early part of the hike wasn't too strenuous.  Part of it was pretty heavily shaded by trees, but that also meant the views weren't so good.  The one major problem was there was a heavy dose of horse poo at every step.  And horse poo in the heat of the summer adds way more flies and stink to a trail than you'd hope for.  Further down than the horse part of the trail, the path got a lot hotter without the shade.  After awhile I decided that once I hit the Redwall Bridge (it's tough to see, but its a tiny yellowish spot in the middle of the picture on the left), I would turn around and head back up.  I made it down there (a little over 2.6 miles) in a little under 2 hours without too much struggle.  But reversing the course uphill was definitely one of the more strenuous walks I've ever done, between the intense heat, the constant uphill battle, and that I was already tired from a couple hours of hiking.  It took me around 2.5 hours to make it back up to the top, which was quicker than I thought it would take, but I was sweating profusely the entire time, was feeling pretty sore, and had developed a blister on my right heel by the end.  I did a good job keeping myself hydrated and well fed throughout the trek, going through 100 oz of water/gatorade, a sandwich, a banana, several granola bars, and some other snack foods in that time.  Thinking about how much work it was for me to only go less than 3 miles down of the 14+ mile descent into the canyon, was a different way of appreciating how huge this thing really was.  I think I'm gonna add backpacking down the canyon to the river and back (not in one day), to the list of life goals.  But that will have to wait until sometime when I have legit equipment and some fellow hikers to go down with.


After relaxing for a bit from the hike, I went to some of the viewpoints overlooking the canyon around the park, and drove to another one off to a different side, all which provided spectacular views.  On the drive out to the park exit, one highlight was seeing a huge herd of bison in one of the nearby meadows.  Allen and I had been looking out for them ever since the Badlands promised there were a ton in their park.  I've eaten two bison burgers on my trip since then, but hadn't seen a live one until today, so this was exciting.  Immediately after that, I saw a fox run across the meadow, and then a young boy vomit on the side of the road.  It was already quite the exhilarating drive, and I hadn't even made it to the highway yet.

It was a 2+ hour drive back to Utah, where I had booked a room at Rodeway Inn.  I made a spontaneous decision to stop at the Pipe Spring National Monument after seeing a sign for it on the way, but when I got there I was told it closed at 5 pm.  My room at the hotel actually featured a full kitchen, so instead of trying some of the local delicacies in Hurricane, Utah, I opted to save some green and cook some of the leftover camping food I had instead.  Which means I had a lovely dinner of soup and rice. Yum.

Miles traveled today:  170
Miles traveled total: 4,175
States traveled through: 13

One more picture of the Grand Canyon from a different angle