The Hike of Hikes - Part 1: The Backstory

Michelle and I wanted to hike the whole canyon. Well, not the *whole* canyon (that's impossible, as it's pretty big), but all the way down and all the way back. When I first started thinking about going to the Grand Canyon a few weeks ago, I knew I wanted to do this, so I looked into what it consisted of. Turns out the National Park Service strongly discourages doing a "Rim to River and Back" hike in one day. So much to the point that they have signs like this:


And signs like this:


I watched a video on the Grand Canyon website about safe hiking in the canyon and they said probably five times something along the lines of, "Remember, the National Park Service is not required to rescue you." Yikes!

So what are the options if you want to hike the canyon? There are campsites at the bottom as well as one half way up one of the trails. I looked into that. Turns out, you have to book months in advanced, and they were booked up for the days of our trip. So the other option is to hike it in one day (which they obviously don't recommend). We were going to attempt it in one day. Yes, this may be crazy, but we wanted to do it!

At first I got the impression that it was along the lines of an "extreme" sport. Maybe it is, but as I talked about it with a few people, I heard mostly second hand stories that the Rim-to-River-and-Back hike could be done in one day. (Like, "My brother did it," or "My son did it," etc.) We knew it wouldn't be easy, but knew it was possible. Upon talking to my advisor about the trip, he encouraged us to do it, if we felt we could. He recommended gauging ourselves on the way down, not going all the way down if we didn't feel physically up to it. This was good advice. ("And what's an advisor for if not to give you advice?" he said.)

He suggested doing the Kaibab Trail down and the Bright Angel Trail up. The Kaibab trail (~6.5 miles) is shorter (getting us down faster), steeper (better to do the less steep one going up), has less shade and less water (better to do earlier). It also offers wider views of the canyon. The Bright Angel Trail (~9.5 miles) is less steep (that is a comparative statement, NOT an absolute statement) and has stops with water and bathroom facilities. This was a good plan. Our route would essentially look like this:


Once we got to the park and familiarized ourselves, saw all the warning signs ("Death, death, and more death!" is what we liked to call them), we started having second thoughts. We bought trail maps in the bookstore and were chatting with the cashier, and even though we didn't tell him what our plans were, he started talking about going Rim-to-River-and-Back in one day. He said, "You can totally do it. You just have to put one foot in front of the other." He then told us about how he's done it, his wife has done it, and such. We were very encouraged. We knew we could do it!