In 1994, Sandy and I were doing one of our “drive around in a BIG circle and stop at anything and everything interesting” trips. This time, it was a loop from Saskatoon, starting going south through the Dakotas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, finally curving back north through Utah, Wyoming and home again. About 5 thousand miles in 12 days. People don’t really believe us when we say this is fun, but it IS.
We had promised Mom and Dad to try and stay in the classic El Tovar Hotel on the south rim of the canyon, but when we phoned for reservations, we were 2 years too late. We had also promised to watch the sunrise over the canyon, so, we settled on tenting there. We felt lucky to find a nice campsite easily. We then drove the 10 minutes to the canyon rim. We ended up arriving a bit too late to do a major hike down into the canyon. All the placards indicated that it was dangerous, that we needed to carry umpteen quarts of water, that we would need far more time than we had, and that the heat would do us in.
We decided to go down anyways, for about 2 hours, then turn around and come back up. Once again, all the signs warned us to allow twice as much time to come up as going down. And, as we started down into the canyon, from the looks of the people coming up out of the canyon, it seemed that maybe the placards were right. We saw a great many people coming up who looked like hell. This worried me a little, and Sandy a great deal. We were in good shape, but really hadn’t done much real hiking. Our recent experience climbing the biggest sand dunes in the US (in southern Colorado) a few days before also made us more cautious (even though they were only 800 feet high, that is a tough hike when for every step you take, you slide back 3/4’s of the way in the soft sand). In spite of all these omens, we started down the Bright Angel Trail at 2:30 in the afternoon.
The sheer size of the canyon takes your breath away every time you round a corner and see something new. We had very little sympathy for the groups of tourists sitting on burros, complaining about how uncomfortable they were.
Since the trail is often quite narrow, with a steep drop off one side, care had to be taken while passing the burros. We pedestrians were not allowed to stand on the cliff side, for our own safety I guess. The guides must feel that the burros have more common sense than the typical pedestrian, and will not step/stumble over the edge.
We continued on down for 3 or so miles, stopping at the water rest stops to refill our small canteens.
At the 2 hour point, we turned around, and headed back up. And re-passed most of the people going up that we had passed on our way down. It looks like only a small percentage of the people who hike down into the canyon are fit enough to do this. Most did not look happy, and about a dozen were actually throwing up… Makes me wonder about humanity sometimes. We scampered back up the trail in the same 2 hours it took us to get down. This left us lots of daylight to go out, eat, and then go back to our tent.
At some ungodly hour in the morning (4 am), we crawled out of bed, packed up, and drove off the the South Rim again. Right on schedule, the sun rose over the canyon.
It was impressive, watching the sun’s rays creeping down into the canyon, illuminating the various nooks and crannies. (yes, some of the “nooks” and “crannies” are huge, but from way up, they look small).
Since we were unable to get a room at the El Tovar, we figured we should at least have breakfast there…
Warren welcomes Sandy in to the El Tovar.
We need to go back and do some real hikes down in the canyon!
More photos
