Grand Canyon

Today is Tuesday, October 2, and I am sitting in a room at the Super 8 Motel in Chandler. Tomorrow we are flying home to Ann Arbor. I haven’t made a post in this travelogue since before we hiked into Grand Canyon, and that is because once we hiked out of Grand Canyon I focussed on posting the photos I had taken rather than writing about it.

The photos of Grand Canyon have not been weeded very much, so there are hundreds. Most folks won’t want to view them all, but weeding takes more time than I wanted to devote to it right now, so just look at the thumbnails and just look at the full size photos of the ones that you really want to see.

There is so much to say about our hike in Grand Canyon — things that the photos can’t capture — and since it is nearly midnight now, I find that I still don’t have the time to devote to details. Instead I will summarize and pull together the text I have already written under the photos section.

First I want to say that we had very good fortune in traveling companions. Linda and Allen were a pleasure to hike and camp with, and our guide, Eb Eberlein, was fabulous. Altogether there were 5 of us, so it was a very small group.

Everything was awesome! We had perfect weather; the rain didn’t hit until a few days after our hike. The 3 nights that we stayed in the canyon were the 3 nights of the harvest moon, so the full moon rose very shortly after sunset, lighting up the canyon for excellent nighttime viewing. The hiking was quite strenuous, and there was pain, but it was absolutely worth it to get a view, and an adventure, that most people never get. I feel truly privileged.

Our first day in the Grand Canyon (Tuesday, September 25) was spent hiking down the South Kaibab Trail. The trail is about 7.5 miles long and descends 4,780 feet from the rim to Bright Angel Campground and Phantom Ranch. I found hiking down to be the harder, or perhaps most painful part of the journey. The hike up may require more muscle, but to paraphrase one of the rangers, “you can build up muscle for going up, but you can’t build cartilage for coming down.

We made camp at the Bright angel campground. On our second day in the canyon (Wednesday, September 26), we visited Phantom Ranch, and took a day hike about a mile and a half up the Phantom Creek and back again. There was a great place for bathing up there and I took advantage of it, as the photos will attest. That evening I helped Eb close the Phantom Ranch Cantina and got to meet quite a few new folks and talk with them.

On our third day in Grand Canyon (Thursday, September 27) we hiked from Bright Angel Campground to Indian Garden along the Bright Angel Trail. Along the way we reached the summit of our inverted mountain and touched the Colorado River. After making camp at Indian Garden, we hiked about a mile and a half out to plateau point to watch the sun set.

On our fourth day in Grand Canyon (Friday, September 28) we continued along the Bright Angel Trail from the Indian Garden Campground back up to the rim and out of Grand Canyon. At the end I got a photo of our whole group, and our smiling faces tell you what a wonderful time we had.

Well, it is now about 20 minutes past midnight, so I am going to bed now. I’ll be back in Michigan tomorrow, bringing some fabulous memories with me.