Hiking though the Grand Canyon to the Colorado River - September 2012
It started months ago when my friend Matt decided he was going to do this and received permits for 5 people. To begin with there was 5, but as the date approached it was only 3 of us. The first picture is pretty much the view we had when starting the trail. It's an overwhelming site. The plan was to go down the South Kiabab Trail, stay in the Bright Angel campgrounds and then hike up Bright Angel Trail.
South Kiabab Trail - 7.1 Miles - 4,780 feet of elevation change.
Bright Angel Trail - 9.3 Miles - 4,212 feet of elevation change.
Total Traveled - 16.3 miles and 8,992 feet of elevation change.
South Kiabab Trail - 7.1 Miles - 4,780 feet of elevation change.
Bright Angel Trail - 9.3 Miles - 4,212 feet of elevation change.
Total Traveled - 16.3 miles and 8,992 feet of elevation change.
As you can see, the rocks are now starting to appear above us as we are making the descent.
The arrow off in the distance is pointing out the trail we actually followed. In some parts it was pretty steep, which seemed like more than 40 degrees.
Just a beautiful site.
Just following the trail down. Here is Matt which appears he is considering jumping...
You can start to see how far down we have made it, and my feet are all ready feeling pain.
My tour guides Matt & Chris still appear to be full of energy and ready to go.
We stopped for a minute to take pictures of the birds flying around.
You can see in the middle of the picture towards the bottom the trail going down.
Here the trail was so deceiving. Even in person, it just appeared to run off the cliff.
This spot in particular we had all ready come down and when you looked back up, you could see it was pretty steep. I was trying to capture that in a picture.
Hiking down miles and thousands of feet of elevation were not enough for these two. They started having hand stand competitions.
When handstands were not enough alone, Matt climbed out onto this rock and started doing them here. If you cannot see it, this rock literally is hanging off of a cliff. Below you also get a glimpse of the Colorado river.
Now we are getting close, you are just filled with excitement to get a chance to rest for the night.
Here is a picture from one of the suspension bridges crossing the Colorado river. Depending on how much rain the area has gotten the river will change colors. Recently Arizona experienced some rainfall which has caused the river to carry dirt and minerals turning it brown.
I was pretty exhausted at this point and my toes hurt!
Here was our camp for the night. We arrived here thinking that you could built a fire or grills would be available. We were wrong, and had to eat our food cold.
It was a half moon while we were down in the canyon and I took a picture. The stars were absolutely amazing, but the pictures I did try to take, didn't work.
After sleeping on hard ground and the campsite next door waking up at 3:45am, I'm not sure any of us got a "good" nights sleep. After eating some of our cold food we were on the way around 7am. This was the view we had while walking along the river for a bit.
Halfway up (5 miles) there is a campground called Indian Garden. Many times people will make this hike a 3 day trip and will stay at this campground for a night and then hike the last 5 miles out the next day. I will also note, there are plenty of people that hike/run down and back up in one day. Here we stopped for a bit, ate some food, used the restrooms and enjoyed the mules.
Finally it feels like we are starting to make some progress. Anytime you would get to the top of some rocks, there would still be many more ahead.
Bootleg Canyon. Sunday, the day after we hiked out the Grand Canyon and went out for drinks that night, was just not enough for the two I was with. They wanted to go mountain bike riding at Bootleg Canyon, so we woke up in the morning and headed out there. I would drive them to the top of the canyon in a little truck, they would ride down and we repeated this many times. From the very top you had a view of the Vegas Strip.
Rumor is that remnants of an old chimney that was used as a moonshine distiller.
Just another view of Bootleg Canyon and the Vegas Strip in the distance.
Lake Mead.
Thanks to my buddy Matt, he hooked me up with a Helicopter tour over Lake Mead, Hoover Dam and the West Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Pilot Matt "Hey folks, we will be proceeding with our flight and some up it will be upside down, please do not be alarmed." Most people on the air tours are foreigners and do not understand English well, so apparently the pilots say stuff like this often. The woman right behind me actually filled a few of those white baggies they give you. No one notifies the passengers that flights in a small aircraft are much different than a commercial airline and they can be extremely bouncy at times.
A good portion of the Colorado river below.
Hoover Dam & Lake Mead from above.