Grand Canyon

Long time no post! It’s been a bit difficult to find free internet access since I left Flagstaff. Those who followed my FaceBook status know a bit more about what happened… ;-) But here is the full story, with pictures!

After leaving Flagstaff, I headed to the Grand Canyon Village. To get there, you drive through miles of roughly flat desert. There is no built-up to the Canyon. After entering the National Park (for $25), you park the car, walk a hundred meters, and there it is: the earth simply opens. It’s massive. You can’t start to imagine how many tons of soil and rocks the water has taken out to create the Canyon. You are so high, and it’s such a maze of smaller Canyons down there, you can’t even see the Colorado river (at least not from where you arrive).

It’s very hard to have a good idea of the distances too. The Spanish Conquistadors, having (surprisingly) not found any city paved with gold and looking for a way back to Central America, discarded the river as impractical: they thought it was 6 foot wide! It’s more like 300, in fact. They were totally fooled by the distances.

But before even looking at the view, I had a lot to do. First thing was to check in at the local campsite. Then I needed to find out how to get a permit to camp down the Canyon. Normally, you’d apply for it up to four months in advance, but there is also a daily waiting-list system. You have to go to the Backcountry Office as soon as you arrive. There, the rangers give you a number in the queue. The following day, you have better be there at the opening of the Office (8 AM), when your number is called! If you’re lucky, there is still some place available where you want to camp – there are a few campgrounds in the Canyon. Your permit doubles as your reservation.

If you’re not lucky, you get a new number for the following day. As long as you keep coming, you’ll get a permit!

While waiting, crossing fingers, I met with Phill and Trudy, a couple from Florida. They had “lucky” 13, and I had number 10. It’s never really obvious at which number the permits are going to run out, because they have two independent limits: the number of campsite, and the total number of person per area. Permits run out as soon as either limit is reached.

Finally, number 10 was called and I had a permit to camp at Bright Angel campground the next day. Yay! Bright Angel is right at the bottom of the Canyon.

A few moments later, as I was coming back to the building to take some pictures, I met again with Phill and Trudy. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get a permit, but they were first in line for tomorrow’s give away. They were going to have breakfast at the El Tovar hotel and asked if I would come along. I already had breakfast, but I wasn’t going to refuse hanging out with such nice people! I had the whole day to kill anyway.

It was very nice, both the restaurant and the conversation. I took the cinnamon roll, which was amongst the cheapest item on the menu. It was not the smallest though!

Boy, it was huge! Keep in mind I already had breakfast. So I asked for a doggy bag. That was a first for me! I’ve never seen it done in the UK, and it’s certainly not something you can do in France. So I had to take a picture.

It was very nice to meet Phill and Trudy. And thanks for the tab!

Later that day, I half hiked, half rode the bus along the rim trail. That was a great thing to do to let the view sink in and tame the Canyon, before going down there.

The following morning, I woke up before dawn, took down the tent, went to park the car near the Bright Angel trail head (where I would come back to the next day), and packed up my rucksack in a hurry before catching the 6 AM express to the South Kaibab trail. I couldn’t really pack the day before, since I still had to use my sleeping bag for the night for instance!

It was great to see the sun rise on the Grand Canyon.

The South Kaibab trail is 7.0 miles (11.3 km) and 4780 feet (1457 m) of elevation difference.

It took me only three hours from the rim to the Colorado river. I was going pretty fast!

This trail really means business.

It’s difficult to assess if you’re getting sun burnt when your arms look green to you. I know they don’t on the picture, but after staring at red rocks and sand for hours, they did look green to me! Nice demonstration of why surgeons wear green outfits.

Colorado river in sight!

Because of the difference in altitude, it’s a lot warmer near the river. In fact, they advise to be done with your day of hiking by 10 AM! The forecast down there was about 90 F (about 30 degree centigrade) for the high. And that’s shade temperature. Now, there is little shade on the trail!

Before 11 AM, it was already near 90 Fahrenheit and I felt like doing nothing. I just ate and dozed. A funny thing is that my Jetboil was boiling water super fast, much faster than on the rim. Probably because there is more oxygen in the air down there… (Ah! Physics!)

The Colorado river. Notice the squirrel that popped out just as I was taking the picture.

I can see why the mules refuse to cross the Silver Bridge!

The Bright Angel Canyon – due to the Bright Angel Creek, a tributary to the Colorado river – is teeming with life. This is in sharp contrast with the desolated landscape you can see from the rim!

This is me, shooting cactus from the hips! :-)

Minimal campsite. It’s warm here, and there was no risk of rain, so I was advised not to take my tent with me (it saved me carrying 1.8 kg!). Notice you have to hang your backpack and shoes and put all your food and/or plastic bags (yes, even the empty ones) in the metal boxes provided. Animals here, because of the hikers, have associated plastic with food. Ringtail cats can even open zippers, so nothing is safe!

A few years ago, rangers had to shoot down deers that were starving to death because they ate too many plastic bags. :-(

A great little bird is the Canyon Wren. It’s a small ground bird and I love the way it sings. The “melody” starts pretty high and fast, and then slows down as it gets lower. It sounds just as if the bird is laughing out loud, mocking the tired hikers. This bird really is cracking me up!

It’s well worth looking for “Canyon Wren” in Youtube. Hopefully, you’ll hear its call. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj8xmjVyhC4 around 0:50 is only an approximation. The Canyon Wrens in the Grand Canyon are really funnier.

In the afternoon, we heard stories about the Canyon told by a ranger. It was great to come back to the campsite the head full of the stories of the first explorers.

After the night had fallen, a ranger, armed with a UV lamp, set out to look for scorpions. For some reasons (what good does it do them, really?), scorpions glow in UV light. It was still a bit cold for them and most people following the ranger gave up after 10 minutes. I was the last one still there at the end and we did find one! It was much smaller than I expected (but they say the smaller, the more deadly), and it was back under the rocks before I could get my camera ready.

The night on the picnic table was great. It reminded me of Christophe, one of the Belgian guys I met in Sedona, who was sleeping on the picnic table every night! I could see the stars, hear the bats hunting (lots of them), and I tried to ignore the flash lamps of hikers coming to and from the restrooms, searching their food box for something they forgot, or simply having breakfast and taking the tent down at 4:30 AM...

The sun rose a bit before 6 but I lazily took my time and set out at 7 AM for the Bright Angel trail: 9.5 miles (15.3 km) and 4380 feet (1357m) of elevation difference.

Just when the trail stopped annoyingly going up and down alongside the Colorado river and started to climb consistently, I met with Jon and Julie, from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, respectively. They are both in healthcare and met in Hawaii (isn’t that something!). They were very friendly and we had a lot of fun climbing up the Canyon together.

It worked out pretty well because they helped me pace myself and I took a lot more breaks than I would have on my own. As it turned out, I also helped them keeping a good pace. They left the Cottonwood campground (somewhere on the way to the North rim) at 4 AM, and they were expected in Phoenix tonight for dinner! Crazy schedule if you ask me!

We made it back to the South rim at a quarter to 2. To my surprise, it took me almost seven hours to climb the Canyon! The biggest hurdles were the sun and the temperature. As we were getting higher, so was the sun, so it was pretty hot all the way. We had lots of breaks in the shade every time we found some.

It was a great experience, hiking down and back up the Grand Canyon, and I’m glad I made some good friends along the way!

When I was leaving the campground this morning, my car refused to start. I obviously left the CD player on and the doors open too long yesterday evening and this morning! That said, that car is so clever in so many other ways, I think it should know when to shut down to preserve the battery! Thankfully, my neighbours Jim, Catherin and little Stewart, from California, helped me and jump-started my car.

Now I’m near Monument Valley. The sun is awfully strong here, and I don’t think I’m going to stay very long. Next stops will be Utah’s national parks (most probably Bryce and Zion).

Disclaimer about food: It’s true that I’ve shown a few pictures of burgers here and while it’s true that cookies and burgers are probably my favourite food on this trip, I eat a lot of other healthier food too! But salads, fruits, pasta and rice are boring to take into pictures! A good thing is that it’s not that easy to find good, reasonably priced burgers. Best burger so far was the one in Jerome, without hesitation!

And sorry Jon, but I don’t see what’s wrong in my pronunciation of “burger” ;-)