Day Four Below Rim: Grand Canyon - Sep 19, 2019

It was another early rise, but since the day before was a relaxing time at the bottom of the canyon, we did not mind. The plans for the fourth of our five day Rim to Rim hike were to eat breakfast at Phantom Ranch, hike up to Indian Garden Campground, then finish the day with a hike to Plateau Point for sunset.

Our alarm woke us up at 4 am which gave us plenty of time before our 5 am breakfast reservation to do some initial packing and make ourselves presentable. Like our Phantom Ranch dinner the night before, we had to keep remembering to eat while we were carrying on interesting conversations with the other people at our table. Some people were camping at Bright Angel Campground like us, but others were staying in the cabins or dorms at Phantom Ranch. Most people had either hiked down or rode mules down, but there were a few who had taken a rafting trip down the Colorado River from Lee’s Ferry to Phantom Ranch and then would be hiking out to the South Rim. One of the people who had ridden down on a mule was talking about how unnerving it was on the switchbacks, as he peered over the drop off as the mule was rounding the corner, just hoping they wouldn’t go over the edge. The mules have an excellent track record and no tourist has ever died while riding a mule in the Grand Canyon (2001 news article about the book “Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon”). The breakfast itself was wonderful with bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes, mixed fruit, orange juice, coffee, and tea. It was great fuel to start our hike out.

Bright Angel Trail from Bright Angel Campground to Indian Garden Campground is only five miles with a 1300 foot elevation gain. That didn’t sound too difficult for us, so we took our time packing up our gear and started down the trail at 6:20 am. That was after Left Buddy (LB) remembered that we forgot our backpacking permit on the post at our campsite.  Fortunately, we were still close to the campground so LB hustled back to retrieve the permit while Right Buddy (RB) leaned up against the rocks and watched the sun start to light up the canyon walls.

After crossing the Colorado River on the Silver Bridge, the Bright Angel Trail heads west along the Colorado River for about a mile and a half before reaching the River Resthouse. Along the way, the rising sun gave us a show as the light gradually descended down the canyon walls around us, making the rocks glow in the morning light. The moon was still above the canyon walls to the west, which provided a nice backdrop to the contrast between the brightly lit and the dark unlit rock walls. We took advantage of the River Resthouse since there are no other toilets until we reach Indian Garden Campground.

After the River Resthouse, the trail starts to climb. It follows the small Pipe Creek for about a mile or so until the switchbacks of Devil’s Corkscrew. It was early enough in the morning that most of Devil’s Corkscrew was in the shade. Our training paid off, because we handled Devil’s Corkscrew with relative ease. Just past Devil’s Corkscrew, the trail was muddy for a short stretch where water was seeping down the rock wall and flowing across the trail. Luckily RB looked up from her feet as she was negotiating the mud. The rock wall held a small oasis of green plants and flowers which were taking advantage of the water and just growing out from the wall. We’re sure that others were paying too much attention to the mud and might have missed the beautiful, colorful spectacle on the wall next to them. On a similar note, it was necessary to watch your footing from the evidence of mule trains.  Is it just us, or does it seem like when one mule "goes", they all "go"?

Just a short while later, the trail joined up with Garden Creek. Both Garden Creek and Pipe Creek are much smaller than Bright Angel Creek that the North Kaibab Trail follows, but they still could be used as a source of water if a hiker was getting low. They were not really big enough to soak in though. A turkey vulture soared back and forth over our heads. As we approached Indian Garden Campground, we were surprised by the dramatic increase in vegetation. There were not only green plants, but also large trees that started to drape over the trail.

We reached Indian Garden Campground by 10 am. Even though we were back to vault toilets instead of the flush toilets we had back in Bright Angel Campground, we felt that Indian Garden Campground was the nicest of the three we stayed in along the corridor. Almost all of the campsites were under the full shade of large trees and had structures to cover the picnic tables. High winds were expected that day so we took extra care staking down our tent though the surrounding trees did a good job of limiting the wind in the campground to a nice breeze. The creek was not really deep enough to soak in, but the air temperature was more pleasant. Instead of the 100’s (Fahrenheit) we had left down at Phantom Ranch, the high for the day at Indian Garden was in the low 80’s. Indian Garden was such a relaxing and inviting paradise. A deer seemed to agree and came strolling through our campsite in the afternoon.

After eating our lunch at our campsite, we spent most of the day socializing with other campers. Steve from the state of Washington was solo hiking. He was also into photography and told us about the 52 Hike Challenge which we have since signed up for. Steve said that he saw a snake curled up on a rock next to the trail, just after the Devil’s Corkscrew. Tammy and Cindy are friends from Kentucky. They have hiked the canyon before and seemed to be watching out and taking care of other hikers. They were the ones who had helped the woman who was struggling to reach Phantom Ranch the night before. All three of them were following the same itinerary as us, five days from North Rim to South Rim.

By this time, blisters had fully formed on RB’s toes. She had four of them on her right foot and a popped one on her left. She put a bandaid and antibiotics on the popped one. Then she put Vaseline all over both of her feet. She was hoping the Vaseline would reduce the friction on her toes and keep the blisters from getting any worse. At least it felt very soothing on her feet if nothing else.

The trail from Indian Garden Campground to Plateau Point is about 1.5 miles each way, but it is fairly flat. We ate an early dinner, at 3 pm, to make sure we had time to make it to Plateau Point by sunset, especially since RB was not sure how fast she would hike with her blisters. Skipping Plateau Point was not an option in either of our minds.

For dinner, we cooked our meals on our little backpacking stoves (paid link) on top of a small rectangle of concrete provided in each campsite for that purpose. Back at Bright Angel Campground, we also used the little concrete cooking pad, but we don’t remember seeing one at our campsite in Cottonwood Campground.  Perhaps we just didn't know to look for it and were just oblivious. We’re assuming the purpose of the concrete pads are to provide a level stable base to reduce the risk of starting a wildfire and to keep any mess off of the picnic tables. We live in Colorado and are very much aware of the danger of wildfires and how easy it is to accidentally start one in such a dry climate. We noticed a couple of the other campers were using Jetboil stoves. The Jetboil seems to bring water to a boil much faster and can boil a larger amount of water at a time than our tiny backpacking stoves. We probably could have used one Jetboil stove between the two of us. However, the Jetboil stoves that we saw were much larger, weigh more, and cost more than our two backpacking stoves combined. Just like everything else, there are pros and cons to every option.

We left for our sunset hike at 4 pm and started down the Plateau Point Trail. Along the trail, we came across a few more deer grazing on the plateau. We reached the Plateau Point overlook well before sunset, which would not be until 6:30 pm. A couple of hikers that came behind us said they saw a snake along the trail. Dang it! We missed it again. And we thought we were keeping a look out for them after Steve told us about his snake sighting earlier that day. We had read about the pink Grand Canyon Rattlesnake that is only found in the Grand Canyon. RB was hoping to spot one. We don’t know what types of snakes the others had seen, but we had not seen any, let alone a Grand Canyon Rattlesnake. Oh, well. We guess that just means we’ll have to come back and hike the canyon again in the future.

By the time we reached the Plateau Point overlook, there were already a few people there. By the time the sun set, there were about a dozen people. A few people ventured behind the metal railing to have their picture taken. This made us a little nervous and we were not the only ones that seemed to be bothered by this behavior. The metal railings are there for a reason. There is no way to tell how stable the rock ledges were that they were standing on and there was no way to see under those ledges to notice how much of the ledges’ support had been eroded away. Unlike no one dying while riding a mule, quite a few people have died from falling over the edge in the Grand Canyon. The people on the ledges seemed to notice how uneasy they were making some others feel and one of them said something like they were safe and knew what they were doing. RB noticed that some of the rock that we were standing on at the overlook had several different types of impressions and patterns on them. She wondered if they were fossils.

The view from Plateau Point was simply gorgeous. Words and pictures do not do it justice. You can see down to the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon and look up and down the main canyon for quite a ways. Even though we were looking at pretty much the same view for over an hour, the setting sun was changing the shapes of the shadows and the color of the rock so the view seemed like it was constantly changing. There was a rafting group that landed at a sandy beach along the Colorado River below us. We guess that they were going to camp there for the night.

Even though we had our headlamps with us, we didn’t want to hike back in the dark, so we left the overlook right after sunset instead of waiting for the glow in the hour after sunset. However, we did stop several times on the way back to turn around and take in the view of the glowing canyon from the trail along the plateau. We found out later that Steve had stayed well past dark and was rewarded with a wonderful starlit sky and a fantastic view of the Milky Way.

The weather forecast for the night at Indian Garden was predicting a low temperature in the low 50’s. The forecast for the next day at the South Rim was a high temperature of 70 degrees. Since it looked like heat would not be an issue on our last day in the canyon, we did not set an alarm. We were in no hurry to climb out of the canyon. Since we were still warm from our sunset hike, despite the cool temperatures, we did not put the rainfly on our tent.  Warm layers were within reach inside our tent to add them if needed during the night. Tomorrow will be our last day inside the canyon. That thought made us feel a little sad as we drifted off to sleep.

Check out the related video on our YouTube channel: Day Four Below Rim - Phantom to Indian Garden: Grand Canyon

(RB)