We had committed ourselves to viewing the sunrise in the morning and joined the bus loads of visitors with their multiple cameras and total lack of awareness of everybody else to see a great sunrise (Much improved on our attempt in Thailand). It seems we were not quite prepared for the amount of infrastructure located inside a National Park with lodges, bus services and plenty of shops available for the millions of visitors which visit each year! So not the quiet wilderness experience we were hoping for!
Like the majority of our trip, we began planning the stay in the park upon arrival. We had our hearts set on hiking down into the base of the Canyon and camping during our stay which involved getting a backcountry pass. Unfortunately this is quite a popular idea and with a limited number of available sites, (32 sites at the campground with a maximum of 120 people allowed per night..) we had to join a lottery of hopefuls to lock in our stay! This was drawn the day prior to travel, so there was plenty of time to fill with other Canyon related activities.
We explored the western end of the South Rim by bus and got to see a portion of the intense climb we would potentially be making as part of our backcountry adventure. Switchback after switchback straight up the side of the canyon wall looked intimidating to say the least!
Another early morning followed where we got confirmation of our overnight stay in the Canyon and then we went into an intense preparation mode. Our 'unusual' activities in the car park seemed to attract attention from the passers by and it got to the point where we felt a sign would be helpful to explain exactly what was going on. You will have to imagine us sitting in the picnic area cooking multiple meals, repacking our hiking bags in the carpark to include only what was needed for the hike and night trip (resulting in a giant mess of clothes filling the car and surrounding area; the car in which we still had to spend a night sleeping in!) and Emma overcoming her wilderness fears.
Eventually we were finished, able to relax and enjoyed a sunset presentation by one of the park rangers who was totally in love with the wildlife in the area and hoped to one day see a cougar! He also warned us of the future "Elk and Bison traffic jams" of the Yellowstone National Park. The sunset itself was rather spectacular and we were lucky to spend it in one of the more picturesque spots in the region at the eastern end of the tourist area in Desert View. A tower stood near the edge of the rim to replicate some of the early settlers native architecture and provided a great viewpoint atop the Canyon!
Morning brought with it the beginning of our trek down into the Canyon. We again got up with the sun and jumped on one of the shuttle buses that took us out to the trail head. The bus was packed and with a very wide aray of people..from day hikers, newbies who had no idea what they were doing (made very obvious by their brand new backpacks and shiny hiking poles, inappropriate hiking clothing and interesting pre hike stretches) and a couple of super fit oldies who we thought were crazy. They had very minimal equipment, running shorts and shirts and small camel back sized backpacks, and after a quick chat we found out they were running rim to rim to rim (from the south rim of the canyon, down to the river and up to the north rim..and back) All in all 46miles of fun, which they planned to complete in about 13 hours... Completely insane! We later found out this was a common goal for a lot of people in the area..hasnt quite made our list just yet though!
After starting our descent We quickly found that Being inside the Canyon had a totally different perspective compared with the rim itself; from atop a haze is formed (mostly due to pollution from nearby cities) which ruins the view of the colours across the way, but these are much more vivid just because you get that much closer. Everything also looks a lot larger and impressive when you become apart of it, rather than just an onlooker from the top!
Not only is the Canyon itself impressive, but the weather is too. After hiking down the trail with the sun beating down on us for the entire 7 mile trek, we eventually reach the bottom and collapsed in the shade. Due to the 1.3km difference in altitude between the top and bottom, there is a difference in temperature from a comfortable 25degrees at the top and an uncomfortable 42 degrees at the bottom ( in the shade and over 50 degrees out in the sun, all the warning signs posted around the area about over exhaustion are obviously for a reason). Luckily there is a well placed cool running stream with some shady trees, a true oasis which runs right by the campsite so we were able to wash off our mild cases of sun stroke and try to return our body temperatures to comfortable!
The basic campsite we setup was much less elaborate than some of the other visitors. It did not take long to rollout our tarp and lay the sleeping mats atop for a nice sleep under the stars and it was great to escape the majority of tourists hordes roaming around at the rim. We were, however slumming it in comparison to others who were staying in the lodge around the corner with beds, food and mule assistance all provided for the small cost of $500per person! Kind of decreased the significance of our achievements and spoilt the experience a little but sleeping under the stars and hiking with our lives on our backs was exactly what we wanted to get out of it so we were more than happy campers !
Luckily night time introduced a cool change and we could get some sleep before the climb in the morning. We werent eaten by animals in the night so We began the hike before sunrise in an attempt to minimise our time in the sun. after a few much deserved stops we eventually reached the top 5.5 hours later having travelled over 9 miles all with an uphill incline! Every muscle we knew we had and more were just aching; there was no way we would have wanted to do that any further into Summer than we did. It was an amazing feeling to have a nice shower and some post hike treats before repacking the car (tourist signage was required again) ready for our trip to Vegas baby!
Needless to say, the Grand Canyon is so far our highlight of the trip.
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