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| Snow Camping |
It snowed the day and night before we got to the park, so there was about 4 inches of snow on the ground. The roads were clear but our trailer site was pretty much a mud puddle. I’d forgotten about “mud season”. It was frozen at night and early in the morning, but pretty goopy during the day.
I decided that I wanted to take a day hike into the canyon, and initially planned to walk down to the 3 mile rest shelter on the Bright Angel Trail. I arrived at the trailhead at about 9:30 in the morning and started down. What I had not counted on is that the top of the trail is pretty much in the shade most of the day so the trail was covered with snow and ice. The snow was still soft and walkable, but the ice was slick. I figured that if I was careful about where I stepped I would be ok and that was the case, but I spent most of my time looking where to step than on the scenery around me.
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| Icy Trails |
The snow lasted about 2 miles into the hike, and from then on it was muddy with patches of rock and solid ground. There are a lot of steps on this trail made from logs holding back the soil or forming mud puddles. Walking through the mud was no worse than walking through the snow. I was glad to have hiking boots and not sneakers which many of my fellow hikers were wearing.
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| Rest Shelter #3 |
When I got to my original destination the 3 mile rest shelter, there was not much there, no water and just a small bench to sit on. Just below was Indian Garden, where there is a ranger station, camp grounds, a corral and the place where hikers and campers stop to get water and rest. It was only a mile and a half further and looked so close and not that much further down the canyon.
By the time I arrived at Indian Garden I had been hiking two and one half hours and was feeling a bit spent. My legs were beginning to get sore, but I felt that that it was because of all the downhill walking and that I would be using a different set of muscles going up. I ate my lunch and drank all my water, hoping to be totally refreshed. I refilled my water bottle and started back up the Bright Angel Trail at 12:30. Looking back the way I came all I could see were three huge tiers of cliff that I would have to climb through to reach the rim of the canyon. (over 3,000 ft) and walk back 4 and half miles.
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| The way back |
Since the total distance and altitude change was just too overwhelming to contemplate without breaking down into tears, I decided to break the hike down into three segments a mile and a half each, as that is where the rest shelter were, and from where you could call 911. Along the way I counted the switchbacks as I completed them 12 to the 3 mile rest shelter. I rested drank half my water and took stock of my situation, my legs were sore, and my heart was beating pretty hard. I decided that if I was to make it that I needed to slow way down so as not to have a heart attack. I had kind of planned to finish the hike by around 3:30, but I couldn’t keep up the pace for that. On the next rest shelter the 1.5 mile shelter, (14 switchbacks) I went a lot slower, but with fewer rest stops. While I was constantly being passed by other hikers, I eventually caught up with many as they were stopping more often. By the time I got to the 1.5 mile shelter I was pretty spent, but I could see all the progress I had made below me, and the rim was looking ever so tantalizingly closer.
The last leg was steeper and icier and I was tireder (17 switchbacks) I was getting still slower but eventually I came to final switchback and could see the tourists looking out from the overlooks, the hotels, and the gift shops, and knew that I would not have to hire the helicopter to get my tired ass out of the canyon. I arrived at the rim at 4:06pm.
As I finally reached the parking lot and arrived at the bus stop, I silently rejoiced when the bus driver announced that one of the stops was the trailer park, because I knew then that I only had maybe a hundred steps left in these tired old legs.
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