August 19

Kristin and I left Flagstaff Friday morning under thick monsoon clouds. We checked out a few outdoor shops, Kristin needed a hiking shirt, but all the lighter colored shirts were way to big. We settle on the long sleeve she is wearing and walk out to HWY 180 to hitch. As we do so the sky opens up into a nice rain. At least its not crazy hard. We hitch a little while in the rain before heading over to hide under cover at a gas station. After the rain let's up, we head back to the road.

After twenty minutes we get a ride with a French couple enjoying a month long vacation. In America your lucky to get a week off. In France people get five weeks vacation a year. They drive us all the way to the Mather campground, where we part ways. We get a hikers site, six bucks a head, then are ravishingly hungry bellies force us to the market.

On the way over, a crowd of tourists on the road alerts us to a huge elk grazing along our path. Cars are pulled over and everyone is taking pictures. A ranger turns on his squad car siren, and makes everyone leave there. A complete party pooper. At the store we get bread, sandwich meat, and some condiments from the deli, along with pasta salad. We have dinner at the site, then figure out what extra food we need.

August 20

The next morning we plan to wake at four, but sleep in til five thirty. We pack in a hurry then head to the bus stop where we eat breakfast. The Kaibab trail head is crowded at six thirty with tourists waiting for a ranger hike. We pass them, and Kristin gets her first good view of the canyon since she was six. It's a beautiful morning to hike the canyon is clear, and the views are long. The day is threatening to be hot though. Clouds are always appreciated in the Grand Canyon.

We start hiking in shade though, and soon reach Ooh-ahh point, a major dayhike destination on the South Kaibab trail. Coincidently, the Kaibab trail is also part of the 806 mile Arizona trail. So this is a section hike of it. We take the required pics at Ooh-aah point, then hike down to Cedar Ridge where we break and enjoy the view.

Below Cedar Ridge Kristin takes off running, downhill is easy, but running kills knees. She'll feel that later. Below skeleton point we take a shade break in view of the Colorado river 2500 feet below. Bright Angel Campground, tonight's destination is also in view below, along the clear cool Bright Angel creek. We continue down into the heat, Kristin begins running again and I don't catch up to her until I find her taking a shade break below the Tonto Platform.

It's getting hot now, and we need to hustle between shade spots. We are both doing good though. Kristin's pack is pretty light, mine is fairly heavy. I have all the food, cooking stuff and tent. Basically I'm carrying three times more then I'm used too. We get to the tunnel blasted into the Vishnu Schist that leads to the Black Bridge. It is much cooler then outside, so we take a break before crossing the five hundred foot long bridge to the Canadian side of the river.

We are getting very hot, so don't take time to check out the Indian ruins. We are set on the creek. Soon we get to the sign saying, "Hot, Tired, Nearly Expired? Hop in the creek." So we do and instantly feel better. We get out and head to the small campground along the creek. My favorite site, site eight is vacant, so we snag it. After putting our food in the ammo cans that serve to protect it from animals, and hanging our packs we hang out in a pool in the creek for an hour.

After chilling in the creek, we head over to Phantom Ranch where Kristin teaches myself and Tom a guy from a neighbouring site how to play cribbage, while we drink Lemmiskey's, a combo of the Lemmy lemonade they sell at the ranch, and whiskey.


After cribbage we head to a non tourist pool that I know of just above the ranch, built by the employees for employees. I know of it since I used to work at the park, and was brought here by the ranch manager back in the day. This pool is about three and a half feet deep, and has eight ranchers enjoying the afternoon drinking Tecate. They eye us suspiciously as we enjoy the water of the best pool for miles around, but accept us after a manager from the south rim and I start talking and realize that we all know the same people from my five summers in the park.

Our neighbor Tom hooks us up with a bunch of food that he doesnt need, which helps us out greatly. Then we cook dinner in camp, and crash on the picnic table for an hour before going back to the creek below our site.

Approaching eight we make our way back to the canteen at the ranch. Along the way we pass a group led by a ranger with a black light searching for scorpions. The dayglo green scorpions glowing like neon lights under the black light are easy to spot against the rocks. There are scorpions every five feet or so on rocks.

We play more cribbage at the ranch before heading out to the Silver Bridge to stargaze, and enjoy the power of the river below the long swaying bridge that causes Kristin a little anxiety. After that its off to the tent. On the way we see another canyon Grey Fox. We saw two on the way to the bridge. When we get back to the site, I head to get water and spot my first ringtail in years.

August 21

Today is a zero day in the canyon. We are still planning on hiking today though, from our basecamp along Bright Angel Creek. Our plans include hiking up Phantom Canyon, a mile north on the Arizona Trail. There we will enjoy more pools in Phantom creek. Last night the volunteer ranger, who came by the campsite to check in with us and say hi to me, told us a story of another couple who was staying in Site eight. They along with another man made dinner reservations at the ranch, then decided to go to Phantom creek for a few hours. Before getting to the first pool an eigth of a mile up Phantom canyon, a flash flood hit them. The one man got washed out of Phantom Canyon, and deposited on the Bright Angel Trail, twenty feet above normal BA creek level. He survived, the other two were found twenty and forty miles down the Colorado river, pulverised by stone.

We keep an eye on the sky as we enjoy the first pool, then hike over a rockfall to a second, in the shade and deep enough to enjoy at nearly four feet. After four hours we leave the canyon as we start seeing cloud build up. The ranger knew how to get his point across with that story. Afterwards we head back to the ranch for a bit and play more cribbage before heading to the Colorado river to enjoy its cold water.

The canyon is pretty empty of tourists due to the economy. We both appreciate the solitude rather then the crowds which are usually here. A ringtail cat speaks into our site and nearly is able to get into my open food box, before Kristin spots it and we use my headlamp to get an awesome view of it. We crash early tomorrow we hike north.

August 22

Today isn't a big hiking day, only seven miles, the heat will be intense though. We eat trail food for breakfast over coffee at the ranch, refusing yesterday's cups for free refills. A couple who emigrated years ago from Hungary tell us how awful life was there under communism. The lady said how one day one of her neighbors apartment was boarded up, and the family that lived there was never seen again taken by secret police. They told of of the Hungarian revolution, and how the Russians were beaten. Hungary was free for two months before the Russians tricked the generals and leaders of Hungary to come to treaty talks. There the Hungarian were captured, made to sign documents admitting their sins against Russia, then they were hanged.

We hike up canyon below walls towering thousands of feet above us then head to the pools of Phantom canyon again. We just go to the lowermost one, yet still spend an hour. We wish for clouds bringing shade today, the temperature is already in the nineties and its just before noon. The cool water is hard to leave, We are not in a hurry today, we just want to get out of "The Box."

The box is the lowest four miles of Bright Angel canyon, that become super hot during the hours around noon. The narrow walls of the box are made of dark Vishnu Schist, which absorb heat from the sun and turn this stretch of the canyon into an oven. People die in the box from the heat all the time.

We start heading up canyon dashing between shade spots. Several times we jump in Bright Angel Creek to keep from getting heat exhaustion. The side canyon we are heading up is grand in its own right. The walls of this canyon rise thousands of feet, we are minuscule to the grandiose scale of the canyon.

Heat is getting intense as we near ribbon falls canyon. We plan on stopping in this small oasis five minutes hiking from the North Kaibab trail. It is a relief when we near it. The whole side canyon is in the shade and the high waterfall further serves to cool off the hot desert air. Mint is growing in large clumps along the stream. A maze of trails criss cross each other leading to the base of the falls. The falls themselves are two stages. The first fall crashes into a travertine stalagmite standing thirty feet tall covered in moss that becomes the second waterfall.

We take the small trail up behind the fall and relax for two hours. By the time we make it back to the North Kaibab trail, the canyon has gone into the shade, and we are relieved to be hiking in the cooler air. After a mile we reach Cottonwood Campground and we are able to get my favorite site on the far north end. Higher then the rest of the campground and not surrounded by trees, this site has the best views, it is also more private. In the sun it would be harsh, but its in the shade now and great. From our perch we are able to look up and down Bright Angel Canyon, as well as up Transept canyon which intercepts Bright Angel Canyon across from our site. On the map its easy to see the near ninety degree angle formed by these two canyons. Transept was named for the horizontal part of the cross, the Transept, for which it resembles, on a map.

We cook dinner, then set up camp on top of my tent. We use the tent as a tarp, cowboy camping below the Milky Way, and three thousand foot stone monuments.

August 23

We wake at five thirty today set on starting before Death Clock, the time when the canyon is bathed in sunlight. We cook dinner for breakfast, pack up and hike on making it nearly a mile to the pumphouse before getting into the sun. The pumphouse is home to the guy who maintains the pumps that send water from Roaring Springs to the south rim. One guy raised a family here.

Above the pumphouse the trail turns into Roaring Springs Canyon, the springs being a prominent feature at the mouth of the canyon. Here water plunges two hundred feet from a spring in the Muav to the canyon floor. The trail hugs a cliff in the Redwall and makes its way up canyon.

After topping out of the Redwall, in the Supai formation, we cross a bridge and are on a south facing canyon side. Facing the sun the temperature rises and we are exhausted from the heat by the time we reach water past Supai tunnel. At first the spot runs cool, then becomes hot as it runs and water from pipes hanging down the canyon in the sun comes out.

Even though its hot we get soaked in it and it feels better then being dry in the sun. Two more miles we hike. The altitude and heat takes its toll, but the beauty of the canyon keeps our spirits high as we climb on. Soon we can see across the Colorado Plateau to the San Francisco peaks 80 miles away. Other mountains nearbye are also in view. Above the Coconino sandstone we enter forest and the trail cools off.

Thunder heads are forming overhead, cooling off the land further. It finally feels good out as we get to the rim. A family from Pennsylvania brings us the mile and a half to the lodge, where we get pizza and find our campsite neighbor Tom from the bottom of the canyon. Tom brings us to the campground, and leaves us with a cooler and fire wood.

Our site is perhaps one of the best in the park system. The hikers biker site is not only far enough from the rest of the car campers to be private and quiet, its also right on the rim with broad views of the canyon and Northern Arizona. We are on the edge of Transept canyon and can practically see where we woke up this morning 3000 feet below.

August 24

The campground is quiet this morning and the fire we had is out. Morning over the canyon is awesome, and I wake several times at different stages of sunrise to watch light play tricks in the canyon. We laze around the campground store drink coffee, and enjoy a mellow day. About noon we walk a mile and a half through a cool forest made picturesque by white aspen. A storm is raging over the south rim, a Arizona monsoon. It's nice to watch from twenty miles away.

The lodge has a pasta buffet for lunch and we gorge at the best table in the restaurant with the Bright Angel Canyon leading out below us and sweeping views across the canyon and Arizona. The rest of today is planned to just be mellow.