Down The Trail

This is the first installment of a three-day Grand Canyon rim to rim to rim hike. The itinerary looked like this:

9/15 Day 1: South Kaibab Trailhead to Bright Angel Campground – 6.7 miles
9/16 Day 2: Bright Angel Campground to the North Rim via North Kaibab Trail – 14.3 miles
9/17 Day 3: North Rim to South Rim via N. Kaibab and Bright Angel Trail – 23.5 miles

This first day was a full-moon-night-hike of the entire length of the South Kaibab Trail, to the bottom of the Grand Canyon at Bright Angel Campground. It was a Monday night, and after watching my hometown Philadelphia Eagles play the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football, a friend drove me to the trailhead.

The reasoning behind this night-hike was twofold. First, I only had two days off of work to do this rim to rim to rim hike. Secondly, the full moon fell on this night, and the open nature of the South Kaibab trail had me hoping that the greater length of the path would be “in the light.” I was also hoping to see some tarantulas and scorpions, two of those cool desert creatures that had escaped my detection thus far.

I began at 10pm. The elk rut season was fully underway, and I could hear their bugling calls at the trailhead. The dark woods echoed with this sound.

Moonshadow!

Below Cedar Ridge it was easy to hike without a headlamp, as I could now clearly see the ground at my feet as well as the big wide canyon all around me.

O’Neill Butte

more moonshadows

more O’Neill Butte

That light visible on the horizon is the lodge at the north rim.

I took a nice long break at the Tipoff before continuing down to the campground. My snacks for this hike included three hot dogs purchased at the Yavapai cafeteria earlier this evening, and two cans of Coke.

Some clouds began to move in now, sometime after midnight.

One of my favorite anecdotes involves a hiker standing on the black bridge in the middle of the night, just like I’m doing in this video. The hiker felt the bridge sway and thought nothing of it, assuming it was the wind. Suddenly a mountain lion brushed past him, just inches away from his legs! I guess mountain lions have to cross the river, too.

On the north side of river – near the old Anasazi ruins – I was in the company of some of the typical deer for a few minutes, but these were the only wildlife I saw for the entire length of tonight’s hike. There were no sightings of any cool, elusive creatures! Rats.

Bright Angel Camground must have been full, because I had an interesting but successful time trying to locate a vacant campsite at 2am without disturbing anybody.