April 8, 2022
- Start: Tusayan (mile 676.3)
- End: Mather Campground (mile 682.6)
- Distance: 6.3 miles
Today was a fresh new day. I could feel it in my bones. It was sunny and mild outside as the day unfolded. It would be an easy day overall since I’d planned to take a short 6 mile hike into Grand Canyon National Park. All I had to do was make my way from Tusayan to the Grand Canyon Village on the canyon’s south rim.
The storm of grief I’d been feeling after hearing about Barbara’s passing yesterday was now properly compartmentalized where I could deal with it in smaller chunks. And I no longer felt overwhelmed by sad emotions, but instead was up and moving with excitement for what the next few days had in store.
Tomorrow, Volt and I would begin our final physical test between here and the Utah border – hiking through the Grand Canyon!! But first we needed to get inside the park and make the last minute preparations to make it a successful journey.
RIM-To-Rim
We ate a quick breakfast at the hotel’s buffet, blending in with the tourists and families on Spring Break. As I glanced around me, I realized how few of them would get to experience what lay ahead. Unlike these daytime visitors who were going into the park to stare at the giant hole in the ground, I wasn’t ending my adventure at the canyon’s rim. I was going to traverse the gorge from its south rim to the north rim over the next few days.
This wasn’t my first rodeo though. I’d already successfully completed a rim-to-rim-to-rim (or R2R2R) fastpacking adventure of the Grand Canyon back with my best friend Sean back in 2017. And I knew from experience that so many people vastly underestimate the 25-mile journey across this masterpiece that lay ahead of us.
Crossing the Grand Canyon from the one rim to the other was like hiking an insanely steep mountain, only in reverse. AZT hikers began their quest at the South Kaibab trailhead (at approximately 7,200 feet elevation) and then descended to the Colorado River down near 2,200 feet elevation. Once at the canyon’s bottom, it’s time to hike up to the North Rim – up to 8,200 foot elevation – which is about 1,000 feet higher up than where I’d initially started!
Using the corridor trails to make your way across the Grand Canyon on the most direct route requires hiker to will experience close to 10,000 feet of vertical change in just 22 miles!! It ridiculously trying on your legs – both going up and going down. That’s a heck a massive feat, and it’s why I’m so glad I had the time to build up my hiking legs over the past 680 miles!
GRAND CANYON NATL PARK
As Volt and I finished up breakfast, he managed to knock over an entire cup of coffee and I couldn’t help but laugh. We’d barely had clean clothes for 12 hours and we hadn’t even left the hotel yet. But he’d already managed to get himself dingy and dirty with the lukewarm coffee pouring off the table and onto his hiking pants.
By 8 am, we were all packed up and wandering north through Tusayan to meet back up with the AZT again near the roundabout on the outer edge of town.
Less than two miles into our day, we approached the giant archway made from ponderosa pine trees. A national park service seal set into the stone pillar base welcoming us to Grand Canyon National Park. We were officially entering the park on foot, and now we would just need to hike four more miles on the paved bike/walking path to Grand Canyon Village.
Given our early arrival into the park, we probably could have tried to camp down in the canyon this evening. But the reality was, neither Volt nor I expected that to happen. We still needed to head to the Backcountry Information Center and get our permit to camp below the rim. I needed to find the park’s post office and pick up my resupply box. And both of were looking forward to being tourists for a day.
So our first stop was Mather Campground, where we could secure a spot at the hiker-biker campsite for the evening. This would be our jumping off point for the rest of our time in the park and we could set up our tents and leave most of our belongings there rather than lugging them on and off the shuttle buses during our errands and sightseeing.
LUNCH BREAK
The park ranger checking guests into Mather Campground was a super chatty host who wanted to tell us where to find everything we might need during our visit. So, even though Volt and I were among the first handful of people to arrive in the queue at 11 am, paying for our overnight stay wasn’t a quick process.
By the time we finished setting up our tents within one the two hiker-biker allocated campsites, and catching the free shuttle bus down to the Backcountry Information Center, it was already 12:05 pm.
Unfortunately, this meant we’d arrived five minutes too late to get for our backcountry permit. The rangers as the Backcountry Office closed down for lunch between 12-1 pm and all the windows were shuttered for the next hour. There was nothing we could do about it.
Rather than get frustrated with the unexpected hurdle, we used the extra hour’s time to wander over to the Bright Angel Trailhead, where Volt would get his very first look at the Grand Canyon! It’s hard to believe he’s never seen it before. But, I suppose the same is true for so many Americans who only know what it looks like from movies or postcards.
While walking along the path that runs along the south rim and taking in the views, we spotted some large elk grazing. They were so habituated to the tourists that they didn’t startle or even pay attention when people got within six feet of them to take photos.
And this reaction (or lack thereof) from the elk is probably why so many tourists visiting our national parks think it’s perfectly safe to take their selfies while standing inches away from other wild animals like bison or bears. People get this artificial front country experience with some docile wildlife and then try to project it on their future experiences – sometimes at their own peril.
FAKE THRU-HIKERS
After a bit of exploring and taking photos, Volt and I were back at the Backcountry Office at 1 pm on the dot, and ready to request our AZT thru-hiker permit for the Grand Canyon. I already knew from my past trips that there are three different campgrounds on the corridor trails we could potentially use overnight:
- Indian Gardens (which is now called Havasupai Gardens) around mile 4.8 on between the South Rim and the Colorado River;
- Bright Angel Campground near mile 7 on near the Colorado River; and
- Cottonwood Campground near mile 14 and right before the major ascent up the North Rim begins.
My first choice was the Cottonwood Campground, and I was feeling pretty good about getting an overflow spot there. Fewer AZT and Grand Canyon hikers made it that far in a day, and getting to Cottonwood would set us up nicely for a morning ascent up the remaining 8 miles to the top of the north rim.
But my hopes were soon dashed. As I sidled up to the counter to request our backcountry permit, the ranger told us the Cottonwood Campground was already full!! There were 16 AZT thru-hikers ahead of us who already had permits to stay there tomorrow night, she explained. If we wanted to camp inside the canyon tomorrow night, we’d have to stay at Bright Angel campground instead.
The ranger’s statement hit me like a slap in the face. Not because I’d miscalculated the popularity of Cottonwood Campground, but because she was asserting that there were so many AZT thru-hikers immediately ahead of us.
I knew this was 100% baloney. Volt and I were near the front of the AZT thru-hiker pack for the 2022 season. It was only April 8th, and the vast majority of hikers didn’t start the trail until about three weeks ago. They’d have to be averaging 30-35 miles/day with no days off to make it this far north in that timeframe. Plus, these 16 superhuman hikers would have had to pass us somewhere along the way. There was just NO possible way there were that many AZT thru-hikers one day ahead of us.
I felt confident that I knew exactly who was hiking ahead of us based on the trail registers, the crowdsourced comments in FarOut, and leapfrogging with people over the past five weeks. Taejen, Clothesline, and her brother (John the Baptist) were directly ahead. Mad Max, Leah, and Lucky Larry were several days ahead of them. And Elliot was directly behind us.
Sure, there could be up to three or four thru-hikers that fell none of us knew about. But there was just no way there were 16 of them! There were barely a half dozen people staying at the hiker-biker campsite at Mather Campground right now. This assertion from the ranger was simply impossible for me to believe.
If I were a betting person, I’d guess there were a bunch of regular backpackers (or possibly AZT section hikers) who just wanted to camp inside the Grand Canyon over the weekend. Today was a Friday after all. It was the beginning of the weekend. But weekenders pretending to be AZT thru-hikers just to game the system for a campsite just ticked me off! Nothing irritates me more than playing by the rules only to lose out to someone who “cheated.”
In my heart, I knew there wasn’t much the National Park Service or the backcountry rangers could do to verify who was a “real” AZT hiker and who was just pretending to be one to get around the normal permit process. But it was just so frustrating!!
We accepted our permit for Bright Angel Campground, but poor Volt got an earful for the next hour as I vented on our way to the post office to pick up my resupply box and mail some unnecessary gear items (like my microspikes) back home.
MATHER CAMPGROUND
After our stop at the post office, I went in search of some pizza and a beer, so I could simmer down a bit and refocus on the task at hand. Opening my resupply package was like Christmas once again. I definitely couldn’t remember what I’d mailed myself weeks ago, but I knew I’d need to head to the general store to supplement it with a few more snacks and a new fuel canister for the final 100 miles of trail.
By my calculation, it would probably take us three and a half (or four) days to hike the 70 miles through the Grand Canyon and up to Jacob Lake. But I had to be careful. I didn’t want my pack to be too heavy with too much food as I made the 5,500′ ascent up the north rim. It would need to be a balancing act with just enough food to give me the energy I needed, while trying to stay as light as possible. The terrain would be too challenging for anything else.
I did make one splurge at the General Store though. I bought a new pair of socks to keep my feet warm. All the hiker reports from the north rim were indicating the landscape on that side of the Grand Canyon was still completely covered with snow. Moreover, the weather forecast showed even more cold weather and snow coming our way on Monday evening. An extra pair of warm socks were completely worth the weight!!
When I returned to Mather Campground, a duo of really nice bikepackers from Canada were sitting at a picnic table deep in a conversation with Volt. Barb and Ian were on an extended cycling adventure through the Southwest to escape the winter weather up north. But while we were traversing the canyon on foot, they would be riding around its east side out toward Cameron and then up to Marble Canyon.
The four of us had a lovely evening together – talking, joking, sharing stories about our respective adventures. Barb and Ian had all kinds of tips about traveling with a bike to share, which I suspect would come in handy this summer as I was considering doing a bikepacking adventure on the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal Towpath this summer.
This unexpected camaraderie with some non-hikerswas exactly what I needed to pull me out of my funk over the whole backcountry permit debacle this afternoon. It was a good reminder that this adventure was supposed to be fun. Fretting over the logistics wasn’t a good use of my time. And that’s when I decided I was no longer willing to let the 16 fictional AZT thru-hikers ruin my hike. Tomorrow I was hiking into the Grand Canyon and sleeping inside it! How many people get to experience that??
As the sun went down and everyone retreated back to their respective tent, I skedaddled down to one of the campground bathrooms to charge my phone a bit. And that’s when I got a surprising text from Elliot. I knew he was somewhere behind us after his detour to hike to the summit of Humphreys Peak and then spend the evening with his friend in Flagstaff. But I didn’t know how far back he was. One day? Two?
To my astonishment, Elliot’s text message said he’d hiked 60 kilometers (or roughly 37 miles!) yesterday. He just made it into Tusayan this evening, and was now only 10 kilometers behind us. He might even catch us inside the Grand Canyon, depending on how things went for him tomorrow with the permits! Now that was a pleasant surprise indeed!
Highlights
- Today was mostly a easy relaxing near-o in the Grand Canyon where Volt and I got to stroll around the south rim like ordinary tourists. What a delight!
- Meeting Barb and Ian – the bikepackers from Canada – was really interesting. I got a ton of great tip from them that I’m hoping to use just this summer.
- I was pleasantly surprised that my resupply package was still at post office. I mailed it 6 weeks ago and I’d been worried the local postmaster might not hold boxes for hiker that long.
Challenges
- The inability to get a backcountry permit for Cottonwood Campground really was absurd. I know there aren’t 16 AZT thru-hikers ahead of me. So, depending on what time I get down to the bottom of the canyon tomorrow, I may try to push on to Cottonwood anyway.