Hiking the Grand Canyon: Hindsight

[Tri Girl]

I would truly like to do a rim-to-river and back in one day. I'm incredibly impressed by your adventure!!!
I would have to seriously train for it (like I train for an Ironman, tho). I don't know what would be better: getting all the soreness over in one day, or letting it fester overnight and then starting back up the next day??? Rim-to-river and back is the next hike in the canyon. Or even better- a rim-to-rim from the N to the S rims. That sounds even more fun!
We encountered about a half dozen canyon runners on the trail heading up- spaced out over lots of miles. I was duly impressed. I can't imagine running down those trails: so rocky and ankle-breaky- especially since I know a lot of them left the rim before daylight broke and there was ice the first half mile of the trail coming down. WOW!

[eofelis]

Tri girl some of your pictures look very familiar! I was just in the GC last week. I did my 5 day backpack trip with 4 other ladies. I wonder if we passed by each other out there somewhere.


On Monday we went down the BA trail to camp at Indian Gardens, 4.5 miles. Then a day hike out to Plateau Pt (3 mi). Saw a little rattlesnake out at PP.
On Tues we hopped on the Tonto Trail east to Tipoff on the SK trail and down to Phantom Ranch, 7 miles. Saw a condor sitting on a rock stretching it's wings in Pipe Canyon.
On Weds it was a day off at the PR/BA campground. I walked around a lot, maybe 3 miles total. My legs were a bit too sore to just sit around.
Thurs we hiked up the BA trail to IG. Went out to PP again that afternoon. 8 miles total. Saw 2 condors sitting on a rock at PP.
Fri we hiked out the BA, 4.5 miles. My guess for the time it would take us to get out was 4.75 hrs. It took us 4.5 hrs. I won a Pepsi for having the closest guess in our group.

Good times.

[emily_in_nc]

I would truly like to do a rim-to-river and back in one day. I'm incredibly impressed by your adventure!!!
I would have to seriously train for it (like I train for an Ironman, tho). I don't know what would be better: getting all the soreness over in one day, or letting it fester overnight and then starting back up the next day???

Thanks, Tri Girl. I am sure the rim-to-rim was much less strenuous than an Ironman (it was longer but no more difficult than a century bike ride to me, and I simply can't imagine adding a marathon on top of that!!) But we did train quite a bit -- we went to different parks every weekend to hike, eventually working up to a few parks in the NC mountains. The biggest hike we did was very similar to the GC hike as it was from the top of Mt. Mitchell to the base, then back up. 16 miles total, and like the GC, it was cold at the top and hot at the base.

I honestly don't remember being that sore afterwards, but we did get blisters. That was probably the most difficult thing to deal with after the fact, since we still had many more hikes ahead of us as we went on to Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce, and Zion Nat'l parks!