As if a dream vacation to Hawaii wasn't enough for one month, Scott and I were invited by his customer Knight Transportation to join some of their office in hiking the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim trail. I had no idea what we were signing up for when we agreed to go, but I am so glad we did because it ended up being one of the coolest things I have ever done.
We started the hike bright and early at 4:30am on the South Rim. It was pitch black and so we couldn't see anything beyond the light of our headlamps. As our group of 48 people started down the switchbacks it was pretty cool to see the trail of lights winding back and forth down the side of the canyon. I was sad imagining the incredible views all around us that we were missing out on in the dark, but everyone reassured me we would see plenty of amazing views along the way after the sun came up. As the the sky slowly brightened as the sun came up I found that I was right that we were surrounded by absolute beauty! It was about this time in the hike that our group had started to spread out as people hiked at their own pace and Scott and I found ourselves pretty much on our own beside the occasional passing ultra runner or hiker. A day spent hiking through one of the most scenic places on earth all while filling the hours with quality time and conversation with my best friend was absolute HEAVEN. I can't honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed every single second of the 23 miles we hiked.
Now don't let my gushing description of the experience deceive you. This was extremely challenging!! Below is a screen shot of the elevation changes of our hike from Scott's Strava app.
As you can see, the first 7 miles of the hike were steep switchbacks as we hiked down the south rim canyon wall. By the end of those seven miles Scott's IT band/knee were flaring up and my hips were killing me. I was honestly pretty nervous that we weren't even a third of the way done and my body was hurting that bad. But once we made it down the canyon wall the terrain completely changed as we began our hike across the canyon. Our bodies appreciated the change in muscle groups and both of us felt a lot of relief quickly. We considered the middle portion of the hike "flat", although as you can see we were slowly climbing in elevation the entire time. At about Mile ______ we stopped for lunch. By this point my feet were on fire. I had quite a few "hot spots" created by friction on my toes and I could already tell I would be going home a few less toenails. We were able to take off our shoes and soak our feet in a cold stream while we ate. It felt heavenly and totally recharged my feet for the rest of the hike. Everyone told us that coming out of the canyon was brutal and they weren't kidding. Scott and I had been keeping a pretty good pace the entire day. As we started the ascent up the canyon we were feeling great and passed quite a few members of our group who had considerably slowed. With about 4 miles left to go as we climbed up the switchbacks in the sun as the trail turned into a soft, loose sand I hit a wall and my paced slowed considerably. My body was doing okay, but every few switchbacks I had to stop and let my heart rate slow and catch my breath or else I would start feeling like I was going to pass out. Scott was still going strong and I'm sure he would have preferred to keep going and get it over with faster, but he was very kind and patient making sure I took however much time I needed to rest. We finally reached the tunnel that everyone told us marked about 2 miles left in the hike. That was the longest 2 miles of my life, but that didn't wipe the smile off my face and we climbed up the final incline and were able to look out over the canyon we had just hiked. I felt like a million bucks for having just completed the Rim-to-Rim in 9 hours.
That night and the next day felt very comparable to after running a marathon. My hips were inflamed and didn't want to bend and I couldn't wear anything but flip flops for several days as my blister covered toes healed. This is when I say "it hurt so good" because every ache and pain was proof of what we had just accomplished.
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| The Sun coming up |
The next morning we woke up bright and early at the North Rim Lodge and watched the sun rise over the canyon and looked at what we had hiked across the day before. The beauty of the Grand Canyon is amazing. I cannot wait to go back and do this hike again one day.
