rough draft - GC report

I'm gonna submit this for the PPRR newsletter, so please read this very rough draft and post any comments on how to improve it.

Oh yeah, if you're a PPRR lurker on here, write some crap for the newsletter! I'm getting sick of seeing my stuff in there, but when I didn't write anything last month they ended up filling my space with the entire results from the Poser 5K (aka the St. Pats run).

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Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim
April 11, 2009

First off, I am trying to do the impossible here. Even the most eloquent author, and I am nowhere near that, would be unable to describe the beauty of the Grand Canyon. My goal was to do one of the “classic” trail runs, the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim, 42+ miles from the South Kaibab trailhead at the South Rim of the GC, down to Phantom Ranch along the Colorado River, and up the North Kaibab trail to the North Rim. Then all the way back again.

I stepped off the bus at 7:15AM and began my adventure. Lots of fog provided limited visibility. “Great,” I think to myself, “I’m not gonna be able to see a thing out there.”

The South Kaibab trail immediately begins dropping you down towards the Colorado River. Lots of switchbacks. Lots of erosion bars. Lots of mule poop. After a few minutes I drop below the fog and am amazed at what I see. The Grand Canyon in all it’s glory. I had seen thousands of pictures of the GC before, but not even the most professional ones did the Canyon any justice. Different shades of reds and oranges and greens and browns just jumped right out at me. The twelve hour drive from Manitou was worth it just for that single moment. All this time I had just assumed that because the Canyon was in Arizona, it was all desert. It was incredible to see now many different plants decorated the place.

It’s just amazing how deep the Canyon is. About four miles down the trail I have to pull over to let a mule train pass. I take a look over the cliff and catch my first view of the Colorado River. It is flowing at a level even deeper than I thought I had to drop to.

Soon enough I’m crossing the suspension bridge over the Colorado River. Another half mile or so and I’m at Phantom Ranch, just before 9AM. The ranch is quiet, as most people are either out hiking or riding their mules back up to the South Rim. I discover that a can of Tecate costs $4.25 here. Not too bad considering how much work has to be done to get the beer to the Ranch.

I fill up on water at Phantom Ranch and find the North Kaibab trail, which will be my home for the next 28 miles.

The park rangers (bless their souls!) really, really, really discourage people from hiking into the Canyon at all, let alone attempting to do the double crossing. Signs at the top of the Canyon warn of death to people who try to hike to the river and back in a single day. As I’m leaving Phantom Ranch a ranger asks me where I’m going. “The North Rim,” I say. She looks at me like I just walked on water. “That’s 14 uphill miles away, you shouldn’t do that” she replies. I say thanks and take off running. To be fair, the day after finishing this run I asked a park ranger why they discouraged any serious hiking or running. She replied, “We do more than 300 rescues a year. Do you know how friggin’ hard it is to carry a person from the Phantom Ranch to the South Rim?”

I thought that going rim to rim would have you running in the main canyon, but I was wrong. After leaving Phantom Ranch you actually follow some sweet singletrack along Bright Angel Creek up through Bright Angel Canyon. For about two miles after the ranch I felt like I was running in the Royal Gorge. Cliffs shooting straight up on both sides of me. I had decided early not to take any pictures of this run (other than the obligatory shot from the North Rim to prove I’d been there) since every step I took was gorgeous. Had I taken all the pics I wanted to, this run would’ve taken several days.

As Bright Angel Canyon began to open up the rain started to fall. A few drops at first, but before long it was a steady drizzle. No big deal, it was nice to run in the rain after all the snow I’d been running through lately.

I ran past Ribbon Falls, one of several zillion waterfalls in the Canyon. Continued on past the Cottonwood campground, about seven miles from the ranch. The water was still turned off here, luckily I was carrying a lot and didn’t need any. Another good thing about the rain and low temps was not having to worry about overheating

I continued on at a decent pace. The trail is all uphill but this section was not something that a Colorado trail runner would notice. Soon I reached the Roaring Creek ranger station. Water here was on, and I refilled my camelback. Also took a break here to wolf down a cliff bar and hope the weather would improve. I was soaked pretty good by this point.

Roaring Creek has a huge waterfall spilling into it, and it’s used to generate electricity. This marks the spot where the real climb to the North Rim begins. Shortly after passing the waterfall it also marked the spot where the rain turned to snow. Things became real rough here. I was hiking the steep parts of the hill, which were most of it, and running the flatter parts. The snow was heavy and the temps were dropping. The trail here was a lot less rockier, and the snow was quickly turning the trail to mud. You climb forever and eventually come to a bridge, and this was where I had a real bad section. From the bridge, through the Supai tunnel, I felt like I wasn’t moving. I was sliding all over the place in the mud, freezing my ass off, and wondering if I should turn around. Just as all hope seemed lost, I saw a pair of hikers coming towards me. I stopped to chat with them for a bit and they said it was only about to the North Rim. This cheered me up a bit.. Shortly after I passed the group of hikers, the snow got real thick. I had to keep my head down to keep it from blinding me. I saw another pair of hikers and again stopped to chat, though this conversation was a lot shorter. I continued with my standby mantra of “relentless forward motion” and was nearing the top when I saw a group of three runners headed back down. So all in all I would see four hikers and three runners on the North Kaibab trail. About ten minutes after I saw the runners I was finally at the North Rim.

The North Rim was completely deserted. There were about five inches of fresh snow covering the parking lot. The water was either turned off or had frozen. It was weird how alone I felt up there. FYI, they are opening the North Rim on May 15th this year.

I started the trip back around 1:15PM. I tried to run hard, knowing that better weather awaited me once I got down far enough, but the heavy snow and muddy conditions made for some rough going. There are some hairy moments on this trail, running across some slippery sections where a drop would take at least 1000 feet for you to stop. Good stuff!

The Supai tunnel, the bridge, and finally the waterfall, before I knew it the snow had once again turned to rain. I made very good time here, suddenly realizing that if I kept screwballing around I would be forced to make the climb back up to the South Rim in the dark. I had a flashlight and running in the dark wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I was worried about how much the temps would drop once the sun went down and I had to climb back out of the Canyon. I’m a huge sissy when it comes to cold weather.

Ended up passing the three runners shortly before the Cottonwood campground, so I can claim I had the fastest R2R2R crossing of the day.

Before I knew it I was back at Phantom ranch. Total heartbreak – the Ranch is closed from 4PM to 6PM to serve supper to those staying the night. I arrived just before 5PM. No special t-shirt. No four dollar Tecate. Fuck. But in retrospect, that may have been a good thing.

I began the final section of my journey around 5:15PM. I passed a ranger on the way out, right at the mule stables. She told me I shouldn’t be leaving so late. I told her I had ran to the North Rim and was on my way back, had pleanty of water, and had a flashlight just in case I didn’t make it before sunset. She told me I shouldn’t be leaving so late. Seriously, what kind of brainwashing school do they send GC park rangers to?

But it was getting late, and I knew I’d hafta haul ass back up the South Kaibab trail. And haul ass I did! The final climb was a bitch and a half, but I hammered as hard as I could. No stopping for water, no stopping to eat. Just some more relentless forward motion. Running when I could, walking when I couldn’t. It was lonely as hell out there – saw nobody coming up or down, and the runners and hikers I had passed on the North Kaibab trail were probably two hours behind me now.

Though I was underdressed and wet, and the temps were dropping and the wind was picking up, I was working so hard to get up that damn hill I never really got cold. Shortly after passing the 3.5 miles to go sign my spirits received a huge boost at there was a section probably a mile long that I was not only able to run, but run fast. At that section my thoughts went from “I might wind up dead out here” to “I hope Katie got more ice so the beer is cold.”

Another few zillion switchbacks later and I hit the “do not hike to the river in one day or you will die” sign and shortly thereafter I was back where I had started almost 13 hours earlier. I had completed the classic R2R2R!

Was about to call Katie for a ride back to the campsite but instead bummed a ride off a hiking guide that was just leaving.

After getting a shower ($2 in quarters for eight minutes, FYI) I started gourging myself. Hadn’t eaten much all day and it was time to make up for it. Two extra large cans of Pringles, several bottles of Ensure, some PBR soaked brauts that Katie made over the fire, and of course a shitload of PBR.