Trails!

Grand Canyon North Rim to South Rim to North Rim

One of the coolest experiences of my life and I am so glad I was able to survive it to tell the tale.  It capped off my year of insane trail running experiences and was a great way to go out with a bang!  It was all Jon's fault but as many of you know I don't do anything half-hearted.  If we were going to run the grand canyon, we were going to "enjoy it".  And by "enjoy it" I mean run as hard as we can until one of us either collapses or until someone pushes me off the cliff.  It's all or nothing in my book.  I do believe we succeeded. 

Even though this was the longest run of my life the report will be kept to a minimum.  So, here it is.....

Roughly 48.5 miles including the sightseeing detour over to the black bridge.

Sport Tracks called it at 20,000' Vertical on my garmin (but the reception is sketchy and therefore wrong)

Garmin Training Center called it 28,000' Vertical (its always wrong)

The trail had everything from smooth buffed out trail to rocky to stair stepping to insane cliffs.

10 hours and 58 mins for the "running time". 

Some highlights for my records:

The cold dark descent

The 7 min pace along the desert

The fan club at Phantom Ranch and Indian Gardens

The group of Orientals "hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, etc"

Rob saying "I have to pee" every 10 mins

Jon telling Rob to drink more and take a gu (again and again and again)

The best tasting Snickers that I have ever eaten at the South Rim

The best shower ever at the campground after the run was over

Oh, and sleeping like a rock the night before the run while Rob and Jon tossed and turned all night.

I have decided to break the run into sections as there were distinct sections where the climate and trail would drastically change.  I will begin with the North Kaibab trail.

Insane Switchbacks that go on for thousands of feet down and even worse up for the final push to the finish.  It was filled with tons of water steps that made for tricky footing especially in the dark.  I had a blast winding down this in the early morning.  Not as much fun during the return trip.

After the switchbacks comes the Desert

We were lucky to pass through the desert in the cool morning air on the way out, but the way back was brutal and tested our heat tolerance.  I was saved by a small creek which I used to cool off the core.  My 2 bottles of water was pushing it pretty close.  3 would have been nice.

The next section of trail was the Narrows

The narrows were one of my favorite sections of trail.  Very scenic and it was the flattest part of the trail.  Fun both directions.  It reminded me of Zions National Park.  My lousy camera didn't do anything in this trip justice.

Following the narrows was the River

I just plain love the River.  It is what made this all possible.  It reminded me of the many times I spent at lake powell and even on the colorado above the lake.  Can you spot the mule trains on the trail on the other side?

After the river begins the climb up to the South Rim.  To get there you must first pass through the Devil's Corkscrew

After that brutal section, you get relief by running through the Indian Gardens then you are into the final section of trail.  The South Rim Switchbacks

That little hut there is the 3 mile warming house (aka bathroom).  It was 3 miles of endless switchbacks until the top. It was on this section that we ran into hundreds of tourists hiking up and down this mountain.  Many were in over their heads and most thought we were crazy.

We made it....halfway at least.  Now for the hard part doing it all over again, but with tired legs and heat (about 90 degrees) to add difficulty.  I kept my slave driving attitude up until the end.  No slackers allowed.  If you can run the Grand Canyon, you can run it fast!  I did find lots of opportunities to stop for 5 seconds and take a picture though (I took close to 200 pictures).  For those interested (Joe maybe?) I will post the link to download all 40MB of the pictures here

We eventually made it back without anyone throwing me off a cliff (although Rob was sure tempted at times).  And even more amazing was that the return trip was only about an hour slower than the first half.  Not too shabby.

I recommend going to Rob's and Jon's pages for their reports as they are more entertaining.  But you knew what you were going to get when you read my blog entries anyway, dry and to the point.  I loved every minute of it even with all the pain and misery.  I would do it all over again, but FASTER!