Here we are in the parking lot waiting to catch the shuttle. I was excited and nervous all at the same time. It was a little cold but not too bad. Some people had on pants but I didn't want to have to carry all of the extra clothes when we got too hot. We still had to wear the stupid mask on the shuttles, can't wait for the Covid mess to be over.
To think I had to make my way down to that dark crack in the distance is a bit overwhelming but here we go. The views were breathtaking, it's definitely more fun hiking this than the practice hikes by our house.
These signs were posted everywhere, they made me laugh. The ranger said they have so many people every year hiking this unprepared. Eve in our group, as prepared as we were we had one lady in our group that did not eat or drink the whole way down. When she got down to the bottom, she hit a wall and looked a little like this picture. She made it to Indian Gardens on the way back up but had to stay the night with the Rangers in a bunk. She could never quite catch back up with her lack of not eating. She made it out the next morning with her daughter.
We saw these mountain goats on our way down. They ran past us like jumping around on cliffs were no big deal. Below was probably a 200 ft drop and they didn't care. What a way to live.
We were hoping to be to Ooh Aah point by sunrise and we made it. It did not disappoint. The view was breathtaking. The picture does not do it justice, I guess just one of many perks to hiking this in person. You will just have to take my word for it.
These two pictures have to be my favorite from the day. The sun just coming up and hitting all of the red rock with the overlook in the background and of course my favorite guy in them.
The trail just keeps going, down, down, down, step after step. These were not easy steps. They were logs of all different heights and spacing. My knees were feeling it big time and we still had a long way to go. We were about four miles down and coming up the hill with no shirt on and sweating like crazy was this young guy. My sweet man asked him if he had any water. He said no, but was okay. Rhett insisted he take one of his water bottles. You could tell the guy was very grateful. I was starting to see what the signs meant. We came across a lot of people not prepared.
It was so much steeper than it looks in any of these pictures. This was a little friend I met on the way down. He happened to like my peanuts.
This was our first real view of the river. It was brown and not very pretty but I was so glad to see it. My knees were feeling it big time by now.
You can see the black bridge that we had to cross. I was so happy. This last part coming down was so steep. I literally had to lean on my poles and turn sideways to get over the steps at this point because my knees felt like they were going to explode. Rhett said maybe we didn't train enough but I kept saying there was no way we could have trained for this part. Where would you have such random irregularly spaced steps to go down for 4 hours?
We have a cool video of Rhett going through the tunnel to get to the bridge, you will have to check out my Instagram to see it. We crossed the bridge and I felt so much relief to be to the bottom. It felt so good to walk flat for awhile. When we got to the other side the mule train were getting ready to go back up the mountain so we had to wait for them to pass. That was fun to see. We started making out way to Phantom Ranch. All of the sudden I had the urgent urge to poop. I was in full panic mode. I have never walked so fast in my life making my way to the restroom and of course they were at the very back of the ranch in the canyon. I barely made it. I brought extra of somethings but pants was not one of them. So glad I did not have a mess to clean up. My system was on some crazy mayhem after that and I had to poop three more times going back up. If you know me you know that is rare, I'm sure my body was pushed to the limits in so many ways. We stayed at the ranch for a about 20 minutes, we ate our lunch and I sent a postcard to the family. They will mail them for you from the bottom of the ranch. I know its a tourist gimmick but I bought into it. I have to say it was cool getting it a few days later. This was the silver bridge that we crossed on our way out.
There is definitely a science to the whole thing. Your bodies are fine tuned machines. If you take care of them they will take care of you. Rhett and I were very careful to drink all of our water before getting to the next fill up station. We kept feeding ourselves every hour and kept eating salt pills and electrolytes. There was one time that I ran out of water and started to panic a little. We drank so much water I filled my 3 liter bag up 3three times plus I had two water bottles I filled up even more than that. I was so proud of ourselves for that. Our joints were tired but we never felt dizzy or nauseous or too weak. We had the energy to get to the end.
I was nervous going back up, thinking my knees would never hold up. Miraculously the knees were strong going up, in fact they didn't hurt at all. The only thing that started hurting on the way up was my groin on my right side. It got so bad that it was all I could do to get my right leg over the next step. So that was my new focus going up, just taking a step at a time. Rhett had one knee that hurt on the way down and the different one hurt on the way up. We both just kept pushing through.
I was so beautiful we just kept seeing so many breathtaking views. We came across rivers and a waterfalls and trees and valleys and blossoms. Did I mention that it was hot? We started the morning with a temperature of 27 and when we were at the ranch the temperature was 92 degrees. There was no breeze either so it was unbearably hot. We had been training the last six months in snow and cold so this was a shock. It was only supposed to be in the 70s we were in some crazy heat wave that week.
I did have a bit of a panic attack. We were almost to Indian Gardens and I looked up to see where we had to go. It was still so far. It was hot, I was so tired and I knew we had to keep going, we had to get out. I had to breath, I had to calm down. I took a few minutes by a river in the shade and gained my composer. Indian Gardens was the last place for water. I could feel my body locking up after each stop. I told Rhett I can't stop any more, were just have to keep pushing to get out. The best feeling happened when we saw the sun finally go over the mountain, It was shade the rest of the way. It gave you the little bit of energy you needed.
It was slow going, step after step, you just kept pushing through the pain and exhaustion. We got to the three mile mark and I thought I was going to cry. It was also the last bathroom stop. We were almost there. It was starting to get a little dark.
We got to the 1.5 mile mark. I turned and looked out at the vastness of where I had come from. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I had overwhelming emotions take over, inside I was crying, crying that I was almost done. Even more intense was the overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I was so overly proud of myself. So proud that I found the strength I needed to get out of there. I had to dig deeper than anything I have ever done before in my life. It was hard, definitely the hardest thing I have ever done but I did it. I did it!!!
There were a few bends left, we came across a fresh hiker coming down. She had a GPS device. I asked how much longer. She said you have 1.8 miles left! What! I kinda freaked to her. That isn't right, it couldn't be. I passed something that said 1.5 miles a bit ago. OH, she said, I mean you have .8 miles left, that was round trip. We laughed and I calmed down. She couldn't believe that we had started at South Kiabab and were heading up Bright Angel to finish. She was shocked that we started in the morning in the dark and now it was almost dark again. She was shocked, so was I!
We came out just as it was pretty pitch black dark. We could see all of the head lamps from people in our group still making their way up the switchbacks. I was so glad I made it out before I could not see. We caught the shuttle and headed back to the hotel. We were filthy and exhausted. Rhett was starving I just wanted a shower and a bed. While I was in the shower he went and picked up a pizza that we scarfed down. Then we crashed and I slept like I never have before.
Glad Rhett talked me into this. I was so proud of myself. It was definitely a once in a lifetime thing. I say that because I will never be doing that again. He's crazy though, he's already talking about another trip. I could be the cheering section I guess.
We started at 6am at the South Kiabab Trailhead dropped 4400 in elevation, headed up the Bright Angel Trailhead and gained 4460 in elevation, 20.8 miles total and ended at 7pm. Not too shabby!
No comments:
Post a Comment