Woke up at 6 a.m and went and got breakfast at the lodge. I was solo this morning because the other guys in the group wanted to leave one hour later and give the sun a chance to come up and warm the temps (It was 25 F when I stared down the trail). I had to get going. Had to be back in STG well before 4 p.m so Mik'L could get off to the shuttle and fly to PHX. However I did take my time getting breakfast and let the sun come up until it seemed good enough to see. Made my way from the lodge over to the Bright Angel trail head and started down at 7 a.m sharp. This way was much prettier than the south Kiabab trail and I'm really glad I came this direction even though it is like 2 miles longer. Well worth it and I'll always go this way in the future rather than up SK trail which seemed like I was coming out of a canyon on Mars. Just not very pretty on that side. Anyways once I got down in the canyon just a short distance the temps started to get warmer quick and I soon took off my gloves and ear warmer. The rest of the day was basically perfect at just over 40 F and sunny with no real wind. Saw a nice 4x5 point buck just an arms length off the trail. It took 1:40 to get down to Phantom ranch and the downhill hurt today. Legs got really tight over the night. I think that's the advantage to running it all in one day is that you don't sleep and have time to stiffen up. Then from Phantom Ranch up to the ranger station it took about 1:25. From the ranger station up to the top is the "all business" section. It's basically 6 vertical miles with over 5000 feet of elevation gain. This last 6 or so miles took basically 2 hours and I really struggled the last half hour. Wanted to break 5 hours total time but just ran out of gas. I took a GU before the last 6 miles but wished I'd had one more for the last 45 min's or so. Still put together a solid effort for my first R2R2R run. Glad I got my feet wet with the overnight stay first and maybe next time I'll eat the whole enchilada. Total running time for my 2 crossings was around 8:30. Total time for both crossings was 9:11.
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