The Grand Canyon. It was December of 2006 and our group was looking for a destination for our annual 10 day backpacking trip, how about the Grand Canyon?
We were going to be a group of 5 this year ranging in age from our early 40s to our early 50s. We had significant backpacking experience, but it was all in the mountains of the American West. Several trips to Glacier, a trip to the Tetons, a trek several years ago in Sequoia culminating in the summit of Mt Whitney, and many adventures in Yellowstone, including a 7-day backcountry extravaganza through the remote Thorofare Region.
We had never been anywhere remotely similar to the Grand Canyon. Everything is different; you never have to worry about water in the mountains, usually there’s too much, with thunderstorms and the occasional snow and hail.
You don’t have to secure your food supply against bears in the Canyon, but mice, ravens, and other rodents are a nuisance. Extensive rain gear is probably not necessary, but sun protection is a must. In the mountains you have many ups and downs everyday, sometimes climbing and descending several passes in one day, in the Canyon, you pretty much have one down and one up, but they’re doozies!
But if we do anything well, we plan.
Our “planning meetings” are an excuse to get the group together, eat pizza, pore over maps, and drink beer.
We started planning in early March, researching online via private sites and the NPS. We figured that October would be a good month, which was difficult for us as our normal timeframe is June or July and we would certainly be antsy to get out of town come the end of summer. We studied the permit process and prepared the application. We are familiar with difficult to obtain permits and planned a strategy to get the permits to the backcountry office on the first possible minute the permits were available.
We wanted to combine several days of backpacking with a night or two at Phantom Ranch. We had done similar style trips in Glacier, breaking up several days of backcountry with nights in the Granite Park and Sperry Chalet.
Our first choice was down the canyon to Phantom Ranch and then several nights down the Clear Creek trail. Our second choice was departing from the Grandview Trailhead, several nights along the Tonto Trail to Phantom Ranch and then up and out. The Phantom Ranch reservations were already made and booked, so the trip itinerary revolved around those dates.
Now we wait.
Notification from the GC Backcountry Office seemed to take forever. When we finally heard back we received our second choice, Grandview, Horseshoe Mesa, Grapevine Canyon, Boulder Canyon, Cremation Canyon, with Phantom Ranch for two nights at the end. We were disappointed that we didn’t get our first choice, but excited about the current itinerary.
Now the hardcore planning begins; flights from Chicago to Las Vegas, car rentals, lodges before and after the trip, and equipment purchases to add new and replace old. My brother is kind of a map freak and he always orders custom topos (www.mytopo.com) of our trip. For this adventure not only did he document the route and the distances between the camping zones, but he researched and documented perennial water sources along the way.
Fast forward to October.
Flight to Vegas, rent the car, drive over the Hoover Dam, and head to the South Rim. We had a room at the Red Feather Lodge in Tusayan.
Our first Canyon hiking experience was a day hike from the Hermit’s Rest trailhead, down the Hermit Trail, to Dripping Springs.
This was a great hike, it acclimated us to the canyon, had plenty of ups and downs, and great views.
The night at the lodge was spent packing and repacking, deciding what was necessary, what was a luxury, and exactly how heavy our packs would be. We had read all about the rodent and raven problem in the canyon and had decided to pack all of our food in 1-gallon screw top plastic jugs that formally held pretzels from Costco!
We always dehydrate and cook all of our food from scratch (self-dehydrated meal recipes available on request!), so everyone ended up with either one or two gallon jugs full of food for the 5 days in the backcountry.
We had two vehicles, so the next morning we left one at Bright Angel Lodge and piled ourselves and our gear into the other for the short drive to Grandview.
Trip report from the backcountry next week!
Len Hardy
Bartlett, IL
USA
http://www.firehole.us
We’re real excited about Len graciously agreeing to write about his Grand Canyon experiences and share his photos as our guest blogger! Check back next Friday for the second installment of Len’s trip.
