Adventure on a grand scale, part five, the final day!

Beginning Day Four

Given our early ending to our hike the day before we got a start even earlier than we had on the other three days.  Although maybe that was just because all of us knew the drill by now and could pack up the tents half asleep- or at least I could.

The morning was gorgeous, as always, if only because being above the inner gorge we could were surrounded by the lofty plateaus that make up most pictures that you see of the Grand Canyon.

Now we knew that this hike was going to be the toughest of all of our days.  Well, the other three knew it.  I only had been continually told about it from the moment we started hiking.

The good thing, however, is that the last section of the trail is the most traveled.  Day hikers from the top of the South Rim might not make it down to the river, or even to Phantom Ranch, but they do make it to Indian Gardens on a semi-regular basis.  It, and Plateau Point, is the traditional stop for those coming down.

This means that there’s a lot of water.  There’s water at Indian Gardens, water and a rest house at Three Mile Rest House (three miles from the South Rim and so a mile from us at Indian Gardens), and water and a rest house at Mile and Half Rest House (two and a half miles from our start at Indian Gardens).  That means lots of chances to take a break from the climb and take your pack off for a bit. 

The path to Three Mile Rest House was actually fairly easy, a fact that wasn’t very comforting.  We had over four thousand feet to climb, so every bit of trail that wasn’t hard to climb was going to be made up by a bit of trail further along.  Given the stories I had been hearing I wasn’t looking forward to it.

It was still pretty shady by the time we left Three Mile, but the sun started streaming down the canyon walls as we walked onward.

The trail started right up after Three Mile.  But knowing that it was going to be a difficult climb, I grabbed the camera once again to make sure that I didn’t just keep my eyes on the ground. 

The dirt got redder as we climbed upward, staining my boots a deep brown.

Mile and a Half Rest House was a welcome stop.  We heard it before we saw it, though, because there was a huge group of people dressed in bright white shirts with Project Athena emblazoned upon them.  They were quite obviously trail runners, with day packs and small containers of water and given the time (around 8:00) we figured they were maybe going down to Indian Gardens or Phantom Ranch.  When we asked, however, they told us that they were actually going to the North Rim.

We thought they were crazy.  They were going to go the entire distance that we had traversed, and in a single day.  And then the next day they were going to come back the opposite way.  Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim, in two days.  Had that been us we would have been on the trail at dawn.

We couldn’t, however, figure out who was crazier: the Project Athena folk or the Kayak Man from the day before.

As we hiked we started to feel as if we were reaching the top… although it was really a dirty lie.  The top was much farther above us than I thought, despite the tops of the hills around us.

At least the walls of the canyon kept us mostly in the shade.

And the views were amazing…

The climb didn’t get much steeper, but it stayed constant.  It was just a steady upward incline that seemed to go on forever.  Luckily there were plenty of day hikers to say hi to and explain why we were heading up with such heavy packs on our backs.  I took every opportunity to talk to them because a) I enjoyed bragging about how far we had come and b) it gave me a chance to stop climbing for a second.

We also were back in the regularly traveled mule trails, which meant more poop on the trails.  Not the most pleasant of things to walk through.

One of the people we ran into as we were climbing was a volunteer ranger who explained that I wasn’t the only one who found this section of the trail kind of painful and long.  In fact, the name of the section we were on was called “heartbreak hill.”

Oh no, Phil passed me!

However, he did give us a bit of hope.  “See that section over there in the sun?  That’s a switchback.  It’s called Cinch Up, because after that it’s a cinch to get up!”

Sure enough after a long, hard slog we got to the switchback and found ourselves somewhat able to breathe again.  We had all separated along the trail, each climbing at their own pace, but after this we caught up and made conversation.

Soon, very soon, however, we were at the top.  We grabbed the first people we could find (an elderly British couple) and asked them to take a picture of us at the trail head.  They were happy to oblige.

We quickly located the car, which Mom had been nice enough to leave incredibly close to the trail head, dropped our packs off, grabbed a change of clothes (especially socks and shoes) and headed to explore the South Rim a little. 

It was beautiful. 

In the distance we could see Bright Angel Canyon, where we had started our journey and were able to marvel at how far we had come. 

We wandered around and looked at all of the bits of Americana that cluster around the South Rim.  There was El Tovar, a terribly luxurious (and expensive) old hotel complete with animal heads clustered around its dark wood paneled lobby (complete with signs informing backpackers that they were not allowed inside… at least not with their packs).  And the Historic Hopi House, a recreation of a Hopi dwelling built to sell Native crafts and attract tourists in 1904.

And of course there was a canteen and a gift shop. The former sold us deliciously cold coke, the latter shirts with our exact route on them and a design that proclaimed to all that we had hiked “Rim-to-Rim.”  Of course there were other shirts with other routes (even a Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim shirt) but it wouldn’t be honorable to buy one that you didn’t hike. 

It was with a relieved sigh, then, that we headed back towards civilization (and the delicious Chipotle burritos awaiting us in Flagstaff). 

But there was also a bit of sadness to it.  This was a trip that I had looked forward to for months, that I had trained for and prepared for. It was a trip that I had deeply enjoyed every minute of, even those tough moments on Heartbreak Hill and the Devil’s Corkscrew, partially because of the beauty that was around me, partially because of what I was accomplishing, and partially because I got to spend time with my father and brother.

So, with a eye to the road passing beneath us, I couldn’t help but wonder: what was I going to do now?