Hiking the Grand Canyon!

On Febuary 25, shortly after 7am, Josh and I hit the trail. Although it is not recommended to go down to the Colorado River and back in one day, it is possible but difficult! We hiked down the South Kaibob Trail.

 

Starting off the hike in subzero weather made us thankful for microspikes!

From a distance

Close up look at the same rock formation you see on the picture above and below this one.

Looking back to the South Rim where we started.

Skeleton Point!

Continuing to descend

A mule train. This is how many people come into the canyon, how food and supplies are hauled down to Phantom Ranch and how garbage is hauled out!

Looking back to the South rim from the plateau

And the North Rim

First view into the inner canyon. Might look close but still a long ways to go!

Met a friendly Longhorn Sheep!

Red mud on the trail was the story of most of our way down.

We got to cross two suspension bridges. The first: Kaibab (Black) Bridge which was made in 1921. It is 420 ft. long and about 60 ft above the river!

The second supports the Trans-Canyon pipeline which supplies the park. It pipes water from a spring on the North side all the way up the South Rim! To give scale, if you look carefully you can see me on the bridge.

The “burning” bush!

You can barely see the rim of the canyon rim from the river!

On our way up Bright Angel Trail.

 

In the background of this picture you can see some bent brown rock which shows that this rock would have bent while it was still soft because if it is bent after hardening it would only crack and shatter.

We made it! 10 hours later, 27 kms and over 9000 ft of elevation change PTL!