Day Five Below Rim: Grand Canyon - Sep 20, 2019
Even though we did not have an alarm set, we both woke up before 6 am, probably due to how early we went to bed the night before. The plans for the last day of our five day Rim to Rim hike were to climb the rest of the way up to the South Rim on Bright Angel Trail from Indian Garden Campground. It is a total of 4.5 miles, but a 3040 foot elevation gain. The weather forecast predicted that most of our hike would be in the 60’s, so we were in no hurry to leave the canyon.
There are two rest houses from Indian Garden to South Rim on Bright Angel Trail with vault toilets and water. The first one we would come to is Three Mile Resthouse (measured from the South Rim), then One and a Half Mile Resthouse. This conveniently broke the hike into three sections, a mile and a half each section. The elevation gain would also be roughly divided into three. It was a 920 foot elevation gain to Three Mile Resthouse, another 1000 foot gain to One and a Half Mile Resthouse, followed by the remaining 1120 foot elevation gain to reach the South Rim.
Since we had no reason to be concerned with hiking in oppressive daytime heat and that we were a little sad about coming out of the canyon, we took our time eating breakfast and packing up camp. We were on the trail by 8:30 am and noticed that we were nearly the last ones to leave Indian Garden Campground that morning. As we were walking out of the campground, we did notice that the group campsite looked like it was the best site in the campground yet again, nestled under a large tree. However, we were not jealous this time as most of the sites within the campground were lovely and shaded.
Not far from Indian Garden, we came across a high pressure water line, part of the Transcanyon Water Pipeline (NPS News Release on May 8, 2019). It is still amazing to us that this pipeline, which was constructed in the 1960’s, provides all the water for the visitors and residents of the Grand Canyon National Park, by piping the water from Roaring Springs, crossing the Colorado River along the Silver Bridge, and pumping it all the way up to the South Rim. Along much of the trail the pipeline is buried somewhat shallowly underneath and is often exposed. A second pipeline pumps water from Roaring Springs up to the North Rim. The pipelines can break several times a year, affecting services in the park (NPS News Release on May 23, 2019). Given its remoteness and challenging terrain, repairing a broken pipeline can take several days and we don't envy the people having to do that work. There are plans to replace the pipeline for which the water source will be an area along Bright Angel Creek near Phantom Ranch.
As we started up the switchbacks just a little while later, a mule train passed us, heading down the trail loaded with smiling tourists. The moon was visible above tops of the South Rim cliffs and it had the company of what appeared to be a weather balloon that hung in the area for several hours. About an hour after leaving camp we reached Three Mile Resthouse. The thermometer there read about 63 degrees Fahrenheit, a very comfortable hiking temperature. The rest house is perched on the edge of a cliff, with spectacular views out over the canyon. After a quick snack and bathroom break, we filled our water bottles from the spigot and started on the middle third of our climb out.
Amazingly, we passed a deer skillfully walking along the steep cliff wall among the switchbacks. We knew goats and sheep were adept at scaling cliff walls, but we had never seen deer doing the same before. There was a group of three people that we were leapfrogging along the trail. Two of them looked like an elderly married couple, gray-haired, with not much meat on their bones. They seemed to handle the climb with ease. This was not their first time in the canyon and were not carrying much weight on their backs. We believe they had started from Phantom Ranch that morning. The third person with them seemed to be struggling a little. He appeared to be younger than the couple, but chunkier and out-of-shape. They stopped somewhat often so he could catch his breath. However, they weren’t stopping much more than we were, hence we kept passing each other.
It was about 11:30 am by the time we reached Mile and a Half Resthouse, so we were maintaining about a one mile per hour pace, including stops. We took turns filling our water bottles and using the toilet so the other one could keep the squirrels out of our backpacks. The squirrels were not easily scared off and Right Buddy (RB) resorted to sticking her trekking poles in their faces repeatedly because they kept coming back. As we started up the trail again, at one of the corners of the switchbacks, there was a handful of people sitting on the boulders along the side of the trail enjoying a snack. There were squirrels around them and the people were giggling and laughing. One of them had a small, pea-sized morsel of food between their fingers and was facing the squirrels. Were they feeding the squirrels? We will never know, but RB couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Please don’t feed the squirrels. They are aggressive enough.” she said in a calm voice. They did not reply. RB did not wait for a response, nor did she even know if they spoke English. She spoke her piece and moved on.
It wasn’t long before we reached the lower tunnel (second tunnel from the top), which is less than a mile from the rim. Turkey vultures were soaring overhead. We initially thought they might be California condors, which became extinct in the wild in 1987, but were reintroduced to the Grand Canyon area in 1996. We have since learned how to distinguish the two birds (Turkey Vulture Identification). The turkey vulture has light coloration on the underside of their flight feathers (the trailing edge of their wings), while the light patches under the wings of the California condor is near the forewing (leading edge of their wings). The closer we were getting to the South Rim, the more people there were on the trail. Most of them were just day hikers. Some were just wandering down the trail, not intentionally “going on a hike”.
We had heard there were pictographs along the trail near the top, known as Mallery’s Grotto. Through our conversation with the elderly couple whom we kept passing, we learned to look for the drawings up to our right, just before entering the upper tunnel (first tunnel from the top). We kept looking all around us as soon as we passed through the lower tunnel, since we were not sure how close to the upper tunnel the pictographs were, nor how high up they were. Sure enough, we found the red pictographs immediately before the upper tunnel. They were not easy to spot. They are about thirty feet above the trail, tucked underneath a small, rocky overhang. We would not have seen them if we were not looking for them.
The closer we got to the rim, the slower we moved our feet. Physically we were fine and not struggling at all, but the fact was that we were not emotionally ready to come out of the canyon. It was like trying to say goodbye to someone you were just really getting to know and you were really connecting with. Despite dragging our feet, we reached the rim by 1 pm. After getting someone to take our picture at the trailhead, we headed over to the snack bar at Bright Angel Lodge to buy lunch. RB had a brat and Left Buddy (LB) had a hot dog along with chips and ice cold Cokes. As we sat there eating our lunch, we looked out over the canyon. The canyon view felt different than it did just a week earlier. Instead of just looking at it in amazement, we felt more connected to it, like it was somehow a part of us. It is easier now to see why people keep coming back to hike inside the canyon again and again. We originally thought this would be a one and done experience, but we can easily see ourselves coming back to do it again.
For dessert, we had hand-dipped ice cream from the snack bar and stared out into the canyon some more. Eventually, we loaded our packs back onto our backs and walked over to Lot D near the Backcountry Information Center to get our Red Tail Lodge, our campervan. It was still there, just as we had left it. We walked over to our van instead of taking the shuttle bus so other people on the bus would not have to smell us and our gear. It had been a week since we had a shower, although we did rinse our clothes in Bright Angel Creek a few times and nightly wiped down with a wet cloth. From Lot D we drove straight to the Camper Services building in Mather Campground. In addition to coin laundry services, the Camper Services have showers which are $2.50 for five minutes. We fed our quarters into the shower coin boxes and soaked for our five minutes. Best. Shower. Ever.
After checking into our campsite, we just relaxed and hung out in our camp chairs, propping up our feet on the picnic table benches. For dinner, we reheated the leftovers we had left in our van fridge the weekend before. RB had rubbed her feet with Vaseline that morning to help the blisters on her toes from getting any worse. It seemed to help and she made it through the 4.5 mile climb that day. But she won’t lie, it felt good to be off her feet. We spent the evening reflecting on our epic backpacking trip. It was definitely the highlight of our year and then some. We now have a high bar that we will compare all hikes against. We turned in early, looking forward to sleeping on a real mattress, drifting off to sleep with big smiles on our clean faces.
Check out the related video on our YouTube channel: Day Five Below Rim - Indian Garden to South Rim: Grand Canyon.
(RB)