Driving to Grand Canyon National Park
Thursday the 23rd we woke up in St. George and got ready for the drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The drive took about 3 hours and we went from 2500 feet elevation to nearly over 8,000. We were definitely feeling the difference in altitude. We found the trail head where we were to start hiking, thinking it would be better finding it in the day light than at night. The trail looked like it had tons of big stairs and steep descents but we were up for it. The view from the lodge was incredible; you could see for miles including the South Rim on the other side and it seemed insane that we were going to hike all the way to the other side. No backing out now. A little later we met up with Grandma and Grandpa Andrew (my mom’s parents), my awesome aunt Mary and Uncle Carl and their son Carl as well as uncle Ray. We had a delicious dinner that night at the North Lodge and headed to bed early to be able to wake up to be on the trail by 1:00 a.m. in the morning, yes you read that right. Alyssa and I shared a top bunk bed and it was blazing hot in the cabin. We had the windows open but we still didn’t feel a breeze. Sleep was almost impossible and we probably got less than an hour of sleep between the two of us. The ‘get ready’ alarm finally went off and it was time to go. We quickly changed our clothes, packed up our stuff, and were on our way to the trail head.
Hiking Rim to Rim
Friday the 24th, we were hiking all morning and day long. I started my Strava app on my phone to record the amount of hiking ahead of us, turned on our headlamps and off we went. We went from 8,000 feet elevation down to 2,400 feet in about 16 miles which took us nearly all of morning. We got down to a little ranch near the Colorado river called Phantom Ranch by 7:30 a.m. and started eating lunch (…breakfast?). The day before several people had warned us that all the drinking water was turned off along the trail because of pipeline leaks, which worried us a bit. But miraculously and to our surprise all of the water stations were working. We were truly blessed by this because we probably would not have gotten very far without the pipelines working. We each carried 5 liters of water and we still needed to fill up along the way. You can imagine how heavy our packs were with all that water plus food and some extras for safety.
The ascent was definitely the most grueling part of the trek. By the time we left Phantom Ranch, the sun was up and blaring. The temperature quickly rose to around 102 degrees, which we combated with our cooling towels (thank goodness for our cooling towels), and wetting down our hats and shirts every time we come upon water. The trail had some pretty steep climbs including one ascent referred to as “Devil’s Corkscrew,” which we found to be fire and brimstone. The last 3 miles were completely exposed to sun and we slowly trudged our way to the top.
Thank you to Alan Caserio (Alyssa’s dad), and mom and dad for helping us prepare and train for the hike these past 9 weeks. I don’t think we would have made it without our rigorous training hikes to get us mentally and physically ready (Laguna Canyon x3, Los Pinos, Saddleback, Cucamonga Peak, Baden-Powell, San Bernardino, San Gorgonio).
At the end of the trail was a beautiful angel (mom) who greeted us with cold watermelon, drinks, and motivational cheers. It was the greatest feeling completing the grueling hike and seeing her cheer us along at the end.
Exploring Northern Arizona
After a very restful night’s sleep, we explored the south rim a bit with mom and dad. Several stunning lookout points gave panoramic views of the Grand Canyon. The watchtower was a neat building to climb up into and look out from. While mom and dad drove us back to the north rim to pick up our car (thank you mom and dad) we stopped at Cameron’s Trading Post for lunch (yum!), which had all kinds of authentic Native American trinkets. When we were back in our car (we missed our loyal “Blue ByYou”) we headed toward Page, Arizona. (By the way, we averaged 280 miles on about 5 gallons of gas — awesome!)
In Page, Arizona we drove around town to find the church building to get ready for Sunday tomorrow and we stumbled upon the cutest BBQ restaurant for dinner tonight. They converted an old gas station into the restaurant called Big John’s Texas BBQ. Not only did they have really yummy pulled pork and corn, they also had a live country band and line dancing. Very fun!
