04/05/02 Hiking South Rim Trail (5.4 miles round trip):
30's again last night as I camped on the first forest road before entering the park from the south. Driving in I was looking for the Visitor's Center but found Park Headquarters first. While there I saw a sign for the Rim Trail and after making sure it was what I thought, I started out.
This was actually the South Rim Trail and I entered it 1/2 to 3/4 miles after its start. It's paved to Maricopa Point and except for one steep spot, almost level. And the views... outstanding. This trail is not to be missed, regardless of any other trails to be hiked.
Speaking of which... looking at a topo map, my Delorme Atlas and my TopoUSA CD, all the other trails are steep. I'm talking 4000-6000 feet elevation drop within 2-3 miles. That's a bit much for these old legs. If I could start at the bottom and climb until I got too tired I'd give it a shot. No way am I going to climb down 6000 feet and then have to come back up again.
I went past the Bright Angel (south) Trailhead and got a good look at the switchbacks. This is a 15.6 mile round trip hike starting at 6860 feet and dropping to 2800 feet. That's 4000 feet. Looking at the switchbacks I said no way can I do that. On the way back I was shocked at the number of people on the trail. Either they were much younger and in much better shape than I or totally crazy. But then I remembered other trails I'd been on and looked back on a section I'd just climbed and thought, 'how did I ever climb that?' So maybe its all in my mind. We'll see.
Hiking West Rim Trail (13.4 miles round trip):
The paved South Rim Trail gives out at Maricopa Point but not the views. The West Rim Trail picks up at that point and narrows to only a couple of feet in some places and there's only a couple of feet to the cliff edge and a drop of a couple thousand feet. I slipped on the trail once but wasn't near the edge when I did. In those areas I went very slowly and was careful not to bump into anything that might throw my balance off.
I continued on to Hermit's Rest and the views were spectacular almost the entire way. That took me 4.5 hours. I know I was doing 3+ miles per hour so that should have been at least 12-13 miles. But the West Rim is supposed to be 6.7 miles plus 2 miles or so for the South Rim is only 8-9 miles. Something's wrong with the trail estimates or my legs.
25-30 California Condors have been released into the Grand Canyon the past few years. They found one egg that was broken by inexperienced parents but there's hope for the future. Trying to find 30 condors in a canyon 10 miles wide, 1 mile deep and 250+ miles long is a kinda iffy process. To see one would be sheer luck.
I took the shuttle bus back part way, hiked part way and then took the bus the rest of the way back to Park Headquarters and my truck. My claim is I did about 15 miles of pretty easy walking and my legs back up that claim.
04/0/02:
Yesterday was not one of my better days. A cold front moved in so it was heavily overcast, cold and windy. Only ran for 20 minutes or so because of steep hills. Got back to the truck and was packing up to leave. Started the truck to let it warm up and locked the keys in the cab. Spare keys were in the wallet. You got it, the wallet was on the front seat. After fooling around for a while went into the little village outside the park entrance and found some to break in for me.
This morning I woke up to heavy fog. It's over 200 miles to the north rim so I thought I'd use this as a travel day. Before I got out of the park the sun was shining but I continued on. A few hours later I was ready to turn onto US-89A when I saw saying the road to the north rim is closed, probably due to snow. The north rim road is somewhere around 9000 feet.
So, instead I kept going to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Don't think I'm going to hang around here. Winds blowing 25-30mph. Found a free campsite and will probably move on to Zion National Park tomorrow sometime.