On Wednesday, February 25th, around 7:20 a.m., Dad & I dropped Jesse and Josh at the S. Kaibab trail head to do a rim to river and back to the rim hike, while Dad & I maneuvered our way to Bright Angel trail-head to do a round trip of about 12 miles to Plateau Point. The original plan was for Andrew to join us also, but since he was sick at the hotel, Dad & I did it ourselves.

As you can see, it was pretty cold out…around -5C. It had snowed the day before so the upper trails were quite icy. We were glad we had ice grips on our shoes, and poles in our hands for the first half.

 

The beginning of Bright Angel Trail.

 

Well, we’re moving, it took us about 30 minutes to an hour in between each 1.5 mile rest stop. As you can see we are into some partially frozen red mud. When I was taking my yak-tracks off mid- trail, I found out that only one was on my foot, the other must have gotten stuck in the mud. Some friendly guys were passing us at this point, so we asked them to be on the lookout for the other one.  It turns out we think mine got picked up by someone else, and brought down to Phantom Ranch, which is a cabin- camping ground in the bottom of the canyon.

Do the distinct layers on this picture suggest a quick deposit or slow deposits building up over millions of years? The layering looks the same as we saw at Mt. St. Helens which happened in hours and days in 1980 not over millions of years.

 

1.5 miles yet to Plateau Point, which will make us half done our hike.

 

We made it to Plateau Point at 11:00 a.m., 6 miles in around 3 hours. Here we visited with a bunch of people, took pictures, and ate lunch.

 

The mighty Colorado River some 1300 feet below us!

 

We look back and see how far we actually dropped down into this washout:)

 

These little critters were very friendly always looking to snatch food away!

 

Green trees? In the middle of winter? In the middle of a desert? In the bottom of one of the world’s biggest canyons? Yes, Indian Garden, a wonderful rest stop, that provides drinking water and camping!

 

The view of the north rim which is a thousand feet higher than the south rim in some places.

 

Well, we have to start hiking up sometime! After spending an hour at Plateau Point, we started back on the upward journey.

 

 

We are just about done! As we were QUITE tired, we didn’t do much but push back up to the top with a break here and there!

 

We made it around 3:45 p.m.! The whole round trip took us about 8 hours,  we were hiking for around 6 of them. After 2 hours of looking around and getting lost, we finally found Josh and Jesse as they hiked Bright Angel Trail up. They had been looking for us for 1/2 an hour!

We are thankful to God for the safety, experience, and endurance we experienced on that day!