No worries everyone - Star survived our super fun Grand Canyon hike.First off we caught the 7am bus to South Kaibab Trail head. But to backtrack in the story just a bit...the food on the rim of the G.C. is terrible, almost indigestible. People come from all over the world to visit the G.C. and they feed them total crap. So despite our encounter with half-raw pizza the evening before, Star recovered enough to give the go-ahead, although it was touch and go for a bit.
The weather was perfect - just a bit chilly for the start. South Kaibab starts out at 7260 ft and drops down to 3870 ft in a hurry (4.6 mi) to Tipoff point- where we turned west on Tonto trail.
Tonto trail rolled along, I was hoping for more bike path, but that's not the case. It crossed two small streams and skirted side canyons. Including one Star & I renamed - One Mis-step And Welcome Into The Canyon Of Death Abyss - not the catchiest, but we were under a bit of stress. The trail we followed wasn't very wide, and as you can see below it came across the face of a shale covered slope that was at the edge of a sheer drop into the canyon. It was easily the scariest part the trip (even scarier than the pizza). In the picture below you can barely see the trail about 30 feet from the edge. yeah, that scary,
We rolled into Indian Gardens and stopped for a lunch of delicious beef sticks, crackers and peanut butter (it's better then you think). Indian Gardens is a popular stop for lunch the the benches were full of all kinds of hikers. The European's were easily identified by their baguettes and chunks of cheese, the Americans by their powerbars.
Then we headed up Bright Angel Trail. Climbed 3800 ft to 6860 ft in 4.9 miles to the top. It was totally easy, except for the hiking part. Actually we ripped it up - got up in 2hrs 45 mi which is pretty good, didn't get passed by many but passed plenty. There's water 3 miles and 1.5 miles from the top, so we stopped to rest and eat a bit at those but otherwise just kept going.
Then we ate doritos.
For those keep score at home - that's 13.8 miles, about 6000 ft of elevation, in just over 7 hours (with a 1/2 hour lunch). Yep, we owned the Grand Canyon. Not really, but it's fun to say. Below are more pics.
