Permit, Preparing and Ordeals before GC hike

10/5/11

We woke up really early on Wednesday because we had to be at the backcountry permit office by 8am in order to get one of the permits left for the last minute walk-in people. Only 10 % of these permits are set aside for walk ins. Otherwise you are supposed to reserve your permit with 4 months anticipation via fax. We had tried to get one a month ago but found out on Tuesday we didn't got one (of course). 

We arrived at the office at 7am just to be extra careful. Other people equally desperate for a permit started to arrive.  Luckily, us and the second group that arrived were able to get a permit for the next day. We almost could not believe it, we had a permit yeiiiiiiiiiii !

We were happy we had a day to prepare because after reading Ron Adkinson's GC (grand canyon) hiking book we were a little scare of the prospect as first timers. Basically you have to be somewhat fit, and specially in the summer, have to be extremely well hydrated and eat 4000 to 5000 calories or more. Luckily we are in autumn but still the book scares you pretty well. 

We decided to do the recommended backpacking hike for first timers that are fit. This hike starts at the South Kaibab Trail in the S Rim. This trail is 5 miles long, all steep, all the time going down, with no shade. You hike this trail on day one to the Bright Angel Campsite. You sleep there over night and leave the next day for the Bright Angel Trail. The Bright Angel trail is 8.1 miles and is mostly going up. The hike is described as strenuous in Adkinson's book. The change in elevation is ~5,200 feet. In the picture of the topographic model you can appreciate both hikes. 

We stopped at the south rim scenic turnouts and saw for the first time the amazing Grand Canyon. The pictures don't make justice to such natural marble. We were so pumped to get down to it and connect with such nature.

Next we went to have breakfasts at the GC General Store and had huge breakfast burritos for 3.50$, we were pretty pleased. At breakfast we made a list of food. Conveniently the General Store is also the super market so we immediately got the groceries. We went back to the park and pre-packed all we could for the next morning. While doing that we had visitors (aka, the wildlife) came and entertained us. During the trip we have been able to identify plants and different animals by using field books that Paul got from the Milwaukee's library. Similar to Yellowstone's Mammoth area the Mather campground had Elk roaming around in rut.

Here a Mountain Chicadee, and we also saw various white breasted nuthatchs (not pictured)

Luckily Mather campground has showers so we showered after 5 days, and did laundry. We went for dinner at a awful "Mexican" restaurant and went to bed just in time for the storm that was coming to begin. 

We had predicted our basic tent was not going to stay dry, therefore we used our expensive, super nice, 3 pounder,  backpacking tent to cover the gaps. The fix worked and we did not get wet in the 40 mph wind storm that happened that night. Unfortunately when we woke up the day of the backpacking trip our backpacking tent which we needed to use for the trip down the river, that morning, was completely wet.  Not only that, the storm which was unlike anything I've experience before, (remember I come from hurricane world), kept us awake all night at the fear we had to run for our lives at any point.

We still got up and decided to quickly fix the tent issue by drying it in the laundromat drier. All of this while snowing. We were a little desperate and uncomfortable, therefore, not really thinking through (or so I want to believe). Drying up the tent turn out to be a terrible thing, but we didn't realized until later so, we will tell you about that in another post. 

Finally we were ready to start the hike at about 10am as supposed to 8am as we had planned. We drove the car to the Bright Angel trail parking were we could take the bus to the South Kaibab Trail head. In mid way realized we had forgotten the permit. We had to ride the bus about an hour to get back to our car and recover the permit. We were once again delayed but our spirits were not broken. We finally started the hike at about 11am. The next entry will talk about the greatest hike, I just wanted to mentioned all the really Unusual stuff that happened that morning to leave the GC hiking post to be about all positive.