Hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon

How do I roll up this experience into a blog post? Its pretty difficult. I feel like it was the most amazing experience and I want to share it but you could never get a feel for it, really, unless you have been there. True, we have done this same hike before in Jan 2010, but no matter, I am just in as much of awe this time as before.

I tried to capture it in photos and video but its impossible.

My brother, Dewey, flew down from Washington on January 1st (after the Egg Nog jog) and we left for the Grand Canyon on January 3rd. We stayed the night at the Best Western Squire Inn in Tusayan (just outside the entrance to the National Park). It was bitterly cold. We drove out to the rim and I have never been so cold. We awoke the next morning to -2 degrees. Luckily it warmed up to about 20 by the time we started hiking. We got a late start because of the cold. It took us 5.5 hours to hike to to bottom. We stayed 2 nights at the bottom at the hiker dorms at Phantom Ranch. The full day we had at the bottom was spent hiking up the Clear Creek Trail to the Phantom Overlook. In the afternoon I hiked out to the Black Bridge across the Colorado River. We hiked out on January 6th. We drove to Flagstaff for the night and then home the next day through the Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona. Amazing, right?

We accomplished approximately 27 miles hiking in three days.  Twenty of it was done with a 25-30 lb backpack on (way to heavy, btw).  We had no major catastrophes this time except that Jim's knee is shot and he almost didn't make it out but we gave ourselves plenty of time so we could stop and rest it.

I've put some of my favorite photos and video here. At the bottom is a link to my photos on Picasa. I hope you enjoy them all. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

BTW, I know my videos are a little corny....but thats who I am :-)

Isn't Jims furr hat adorable?  He bought in Moscow. It kept him very warm.



This guy was happy to see me

At Indian Gardens

Crossing the Black Bridge

Phantom Overlook

Starting our hike out in the dark at 5:45am

 

 







Starbucks in Sedona on Monday

 

Soooo....who wants to go with us next time? Click here Our Fabulous Grand Canyon Photos To see more of our photos.