mattThe Grand Canyon generates more rescue calls than any other national park, over 350 per year. On Tuesday June 22 we had planned on hiking down into the canyon and spending the night a few thousand feet below the south rim. However those plans changed when it was going to be above 90 degrees on the south rim, which means it would have been well over 100 where we planned on camping. Because it was our first time hiking in a desert environment, and in a canyon, we decided to change those plans and we did the South Rim Hike that I posted pictures from in my last post.
What I didn’t post was that on that Tuesday we hiked the south rim, we had just left the South Kaibab Trailhead when we heard sirens, lots of them. We counted two ambulances, one heavy rescue truck, and 4 Park Ranger pickup trucks, all headed to South Kaibab Trailhead. We later learned that a hiker had an issue less than one mile below the rim and died. On June 20th a woman from Ohio died on a trail that intersects Bright Angel Trail, and a few days before that a man drowned down on the Colorado River when the raft he was on flipped in a section of rapids in the canyon. So in 8 days 3 people had died. We didn’t want to be that type of statistic so we changed our plans.
Even on the relative safety of the South Rim, we still saw people grossly unprepared for the heat. Way to many people were wearing black and other dark colors, all while not carrying any water with them. We saw several people that looked miserable and a few on the verge of real trouble. The Park has many signs at the visitor center that emphasized the importance of hydration, and Julie and I carried 4 liters of water with us.
Thursday the weather was much more pleasant and we decided to hike down into the canyon Thursday late afternoon, giving us a return (all up hill) during the much cooler evening hours. So around 3:30pm we descended the Bright Angel Trail with our sights set on 3 mile resthouse, over 2000 feet below the south rim.
We stopped at 1 1/2 mile resthouse to visit the privy, then continued down to 3 mile resthouse. We arrived at 3 mile resthouse around 6pm, and took our boots off and had a rest with a couple from the Chicago area and a park volunteer John who’s part of the rangers and volunteers that patrol the popular trails. We ate some food, drank, and enjoyed the views before heading back up to the South Rim at 6:30pm.
Have you ever walked up hill for 2 1/2 hours? Julie and I did just that as we ascended up past 1 1/2 mile resthouse for another visit to the restrooms and a water fill up. We finished the hike reaching the south rim under headlamp in the dark around 9pm. It was a thrilling and quite pleasant hike. There were no crowds and we had the trail to ourselves for the climb up. But most of all we were very happy we didn’t do this hike when temps were over 90 degrees.
