Can You Survive This EXTREME Grand Canyon Trail?
Grand Canyon is in Arizona, USA. We are going to hike from the North rim of Grand canyon to the south rim. Starting from North Kaibab trail head, we will go down 5800 ft, go thru red wall bridge and reach Manzanita rest area.
Then we will go thru Ribbon falls to Phantom Ranch. Then we will cross the Colorado river and then thru Bright Angel trail, we will reach Havasupai garden. Then we are going to climb up to the Grand Canyon village with a total elevation of 4800 ft.
Total distance: 24 miles. We are planning to do all these in 1 day. Did we do it? Let's see. We came to Grand Canyon park 2 before the hike. Chicago's elevation is 600 ft. Grand Canyon South rim's elevation is 7000 ft. When we suddenly go to a high altitude place from a low altitude place, we are prone to get altitude sickness. Head ache, vomit, dizziness are all common symptoms.
We all got head ache. My head ache was so severe that I was reconsidering whether I should go on the 24 miles hike. If you have plans to do this hike, make sure that you get acclimatized to this high elevation for at least 2 days. "Where are you from?" "We have come from Tirunelveli to see this beautiful place. "This place is called Grand Canyon in english.
"Looking beautiful Oh, look at that bird - California Candor. "No one knows about this bird. So it is pretty safe to say that it is California Condor. "We are waiting here to watch the sunset." "We are walking in the rim trail." "Someone here is feeling bad for not applying sunscreen. He is worried that he would get tanned...
"He has not realized that tanned skin is what everyone is after... "So we are on rim trail walking towards Mathar point. "Squirrel. Hello sir... someone has feed him with snacks. "Please do not feed squirrels like this. There are boards all over the place warning not to feed wild life. "But still people are not listening.
"We are continuing to walk thru the rim trail. "Beautiful place. There is no crowd at all. "Sunday evening and Fall season. That must be the reason for no crowd. "Good to enjoy this place with no crowd.
"We got a chance to enjoy the nature peacefully. "This is where we will hiking in 2 days." "Looks like wild Jasmine" "Have you seen wild Jasmine?" "No."
"Oh. we have just heard the song. Have not actually seen the flower... "See it just looks like a jasmine flower... "Oh so it is wild jasmine.." :D After the sunset, the color of the sky and the canyon is pure magic.
Next day morning, we went down the south Kaibab trail for 1 mile as a test run. "We have come here to watch the sun rise in 6 AM shuttle. "But it looks like sun has already come out. That's OK.
"Yogi, are you ready? How are you feeling? "Very good. Is this where the trail starts? "Yes. Look at the sun rise... "The sun reflection in the rock is beautiful.
"Ok. Let's keep on walking. "Oh see, looks like elephants have done something here... "That's not from elephants. But from donkeys. Mules actually".
In the early morning, watching the color changes in rocks as the sun rises while hiking is pure bliss. It is impossible to express those in words. "Imagine coming up thru this. "We will have a tough time.
"No. We should be OK. Should be easy... "Easy? Easy for us you say?" We had no idea what is in store for the hike next day. "Good to see our folks using hiking poles to get down. "Look at the path...wow... "People are walking really fast down there...
"We think this is the Ooh Aah point. You see the switch back at the end? That is the "Ooh Aah" point. We are 1 mile in from the trail head.
If we continue in this trail, we can reach the Colorado river in another 6.3 miles. Don't get down thinking that it is just 7 miles. It is very difficult to come up.
Many have died going down and coming up from heat exhaustion. If you are not properly trained for hiking, better to turn away at this point. This is a trial run for us. We turned back here. That afternoon we went to North rim from south rim in Transcanyon shuttle.
If we walk from north rim to south rim, it is just 24 miles. But if we have to go by car thru road, it will be 210 miles. It will take 4 hours to get there. Beautiful scenic road. But it is not easy to sit in the van for 4 hours. On our way, we had a stop in Navajo bridge over Colorado river.
Next day is our hike. "Here Thani is doing some tricks. What are you doing sir? "Putting in some powder inside the socks for blister prevention.
"How are you feeling Vasanth? "Very excited. "Little worried about the cold. "That should not be a problem. We should be able to manage. "How is your energy level? "10/10 for now." "Super". "Yogi?" "I am still in doubts whether we can do this..." "There is no doubt about it. We are going to do it."
"Energy level?". "10/10". "Sarath... how are you feeling?" "Win as a team... conquer as a team. 10/10" "Spoken like a true leader..." "Thani, how is your energy level?". "10/10 of course."
"Thani is still doing some last minute packing... We went to North Kaibab trail head in 4 AM shuttle. Look at us. We all look like a bunch of bandits. It was bit difficult to walk in the dark using head lamp.
"We are entering the Supai tunnel... We got light only after reaching the Supai tunnel. The tunnel is bringing out all the animal instincts inside us.
Down there is the red wall bridge. We are going to get down there. Walking in the midst of these red rocks gave a feeling as if we are walking in Mars. "This is a sample of Grand Canyon hike." "Look at the bridge down there... we have to go past it." "We have walked 2 miles so far. "We just crossed the Supai tunnel.
"This is the red wall area. "As you can see, the whole area is red. "All look beautiful..." "All this scenery is making the hiking effort worth while" "This hike seems very technical" (No. ;D) "By the time we reach Phantom ranch... actually even in Ribbon falls... our knees will just scream...
"I was peacefully sleeping in the room.. "Why are you torturing me with a hike like this..." "But the good thing here is, it is painful for the knees. But a feast for eyes."
"We will rejoice this later." "Correct." "Didn't we do this?" "Didn't we see this?" "We will still remember all this golden memories after 65. "May be even after 85. "Oh the Grand Canyon hike. We have done that long time back..." "We can even talk about this over an orange juice..." ;)
"Wow. Look at that. Beautiful. Sun shines on the rocks... "The light is coming down... Finally we have reached the red wall bridge.
We have come all the way down from there. We still got long way to go. "Wow. This place looks beautiful... You will hear lot of these. Can't help it. If you are there, you will do the same. "Some spots are just amazing.
"6:53 AM now." "It is 8:53 back home" "Oh back in Chicago. I thought back in India. We got two back homes." "It is now easy to navigate around this as the sun is out. It was bit difficult in the dark."
"This is one way. Don't lose focus and fall down. Watch where you are landing your foot. "Go one behind another" "If you hear us talking, we are following you. If you don't, we are down the canyon..." "If only we get closer to Vasanth, we can be in the picture... catch him" "I like this tactic to get you guys move faster... "Fish is going in the front... let's follow it like a cat."
It might look bit scary for you to see this trail in the video. But it was not that scary at all. The trails were wide enough to easily accommodate us. Did you notice the rocks changing colors as we go down the canyon? Grand canyon is part of Colorado plateau. This whole plateau was under shallow sea and rivers over 2 billion years. In those 2 billion years, rivers deposited different layers of minerals.
All this happened over 2 billion years. But for the past 65 million years, the whole Colorado plateau region is growing up. As the plateau grows, the Colorado river and its tributaries carved the canyon in this region. What we are seeing Today is the grown rocks with different sediments and minerals in different layers of color.
An interesting fact here is, the basement rock close by Colorado river is called "Vishnu". Some of the base layers are called with hindu god names - Vishnu schist, Brahma schist, Rama schist. "We should be able to see Roaring Springs from here.
"So far we have walked 5 miles. "Though it feels like lot longer. "But it has been just 5 miles. "Now let's check out the Roaring springs. This is Roaring Springs. "We have been taking rest in the Manzanita rest area.
"Had our sandwich and now we are ready for the next stretch. So far we have walked 5.8 miles. "Today we have to cover 23 miles. How are you all feeling? How is your energy level? "9.5 except knee pain." "Knee pain? Were you running?" "I didn't run. But still hurts a bit. "We don't have to go down as much we did. We should be OK from here."
"Sarath, how are you feeling?" "We will know as we go..." "Vasanth?" "So far good." "Energy level?" "9.5" "Yogi?" "Not stressed out yet. Let's see how it goes..." "So far we have come down 4000 ft. We still have to go down by another 2000 ft right?" "yes yes. Should be a piece of cake."
"Tell us how are you feeling." "My energy level is not as high as these guys. May be at 8. "But I am feeling good. We will do this."
"What is this?" "Salt tablet". "Looks like a white tablet." "Yes, Dr. Yogi prescribed." "So why are we taking this white tablet?" "Electrolyte balancing" "We will lose the salt content in our body thru sweat and urine. Have to replenish the lost salt." "How often are you taking this tablet?" "Once in 1 hour. 250 mg." "What are you holding?" "This is liquid IV. Pineapple flavor." "It is pretty good. Gives us a kick."
"How much salt does it have?" "600 mg". "Is it not 500 mg? Yes, it is 500 mg." "Looks like you are going to take a handful of these tablets..." "No. I am just distributing." "Oh... the dealer."
"Thank you." "Now we are inside the canyon." "We are going towards cottonwood campground from Manzanita rest area. "Remember the Roaring Springs? The water from there is flowing along side as Bright Angel creek.
"Feels good to walk along the creek. "So far the weather is cooperating pretty well. "I think it will be around 70 or 75 now. "May be even lower.
"The weather is expected to go up to 86 F". "If that is true, we should be able to manage easily. "Else, we will see that later." Ribbon falls is little inside from the main trail.
The bridge to get there has been broken for a while now. So to get to the falls, we have to wade thru the Bright Angel creek. Wouldn't we feel bad if we miss the falls after this long hike? To avoid this guilty feeling, we took the diversion and went to the falls, even if it adds an hour and half to the hike. The beauty of the falls justified our side trip. "How was your experience getting here?" "Not bad".
"Did you see the falls?" "Oh... wow." "You made it." "Where is the falls?" "Right here..." "Someone is singing chinna chinna aasai song..." "If you don't get in, you will regret it for ever...
Now let's check out the falls up there. It was just amazing up here. This made our whole hike totally worth it. This was the best part in our whole hike. "Now we are entering the box. The famous box."
"The box is inside the canyon with rocks on both side. "With a creek inside. "A trail along the creek and we are going to walk in the trail. "Everybody said not come to the box after 10:30 "as the sun falls directly on us and also from the rocks reflection ..
"But what did we do? "We exactly came after 10:30 "Not exactly, bit later. Time is now around 11:30. "So... now we are going to enter the box in direct sunlight. "Let's see how it feels like.
"It feels good as we enter... but I think it will have a score on us when we finish." "But it is just 4 miles. Let's see how we are handling this box." "Vijay, please do not share the Ribbon falls video with any of your viewers or the family..."
"Why?" "They will never forgive us." "Why? because it was so good?" "Because that was the most fun part." "Its Ok. Let's make them feel jealous...." "There is actually shade inside the box for our time. Not bad." "Beautiful as we walk along the side of Bright Angel creek." "We are still going down slope. It will be like this till Phantom Ranch. We still have our energy high."
"Yogi? How are you feeling?" "Feeling good. Beautiful place." "But it is hot. Not in this shade. But when we were on direct sunlight." "If you say this as hot, how would we have felt if the temperature was at 100F?" "We are in direct sunlight now. Shade is gone."
"We can still appreciate the beauty of this place." "If you are well prepared with proper sun glass, sun hat and water... "You should be able to handle this. Not a problem."
"Many come in without proper preparation. "If you pack proper water, electrolytes, and food... "you should be able to handle the box. Even we were able to handle it. "
"Vijay, name this flower" "This? Radio flower" "Doesn't that look like a radio? That is why, Radio flower." "No, it is speaker flower". "We call it Radio flower back home" When there is too much heat, soak your hat, neck towel, gaiter or bandana in cold water like this. It will be an effect like you are in A/C. Evaporation effect. When there is too much heat, many actually take a dip in the water.
Finally we reached the Phantom ranch and took a lunch break.
2024-10-01 07:09
