Desert Southwest - The Checklist Edition - Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim Traverse, Day 1 - South Kaibab TH to Clear Creek Campsite - September 2014

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Grand Canyon, Rim-to-Rim Traverse, Day 1

South Kaibab Trailhead to Clear Creek Trail (At-large)

Saturday, September 20

I had originally hoped to start our backpack no later than dawn, keeping much of our hiking to the cool part of the day and giving us loads of time to make the sub-10-ish mile hike to our first camp location. However, that start time was now looking uncertain.

The previous night, Chris and I had worked to salvage the unravelling logistics caused by Sandra and Alana's flight diversion. We had established contact and learned that they had booked a sightseeing flight from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon airport. This flight would leave early in the morning and arrive at the airport roughly around 9:45 a.m. It wasn't a great idea to start a Grand Canyon backpack so late, but on the other hand, I was impressed with the effort Sandra and Alana were putting into joining up with us. The reasonable hiking distance coupled with a reasonable temperature forecast, however, meant could still do it safely, even with a late start time. Provided we kept up a medium hiking pace, we'd even get to our campsite before dark.

Grand Canyon Dawn

So, despite urgings from Sandra for us to go on without them, we decided to wait for their flight. This meant we had quite a bit of morning time available to us, and we used this time to witness a glorious sunrise from nearby Yavapai point. Off to the east, we could see a puff of dust as a mule train made its way down Cedar Ridge on the South Kaibab Trail - the trail upon which we would soon be setting out.

Grand Canyon Dawn

South Rim View

Zen at the Grand Canyon

Crack of Dawn

Pu's Mystical Sun Rays

Hanel at the GC

From our rim-top vantage point, we could see much of our planned journey: the aforementioned Cedar Ridge, just a few kilometres off to our east, provided a way for us to descend, along the South Kaibab Trail. This trail leads all the way down to the Colorado River, crossing one of the only two footbridges across the Colorado for a hundred miles in either direction. On the far side of the canyon, directly across from us and still shrouded in shade, lay the fault-following arrow-straight drainage of Bright Angel Canyon. The North Kaibab trail runs up the bottom of this canyon, until far up its reaches, it turns left and begins a clever and winding ascent of a narrow side canyon to the North Rim.

courtesy JInnes

The Shady Abyss

Morning Familiarization

Jenn, Yavapai Point

Bright Angel Creek

Early Morning Mule Dust

Sunlit Buttes

Heavenly Rays

After returning from our sunrise rim visit, we set about putting in place the final preparations for the backpack. In a bid to reduce shuttling time after we reached the North Rim, Gillian and I relocated our big white rental van to Desert View, a locale far on the eastern edge of the park. In three days from now, I would be taking a shuttle service from the north rim back to the south rim to retrieve this van, and performing this repositioning activity now would likely save me at least an hour off of a probably lengthy seven-hour round trip.

courtesy JInnes

Morning Prep

Prolific Elk

Lazy Morning Packing

courtesy RHanel

Baby Tarantula

Shuttling the Van

Ready ready

Returning from our shuttling operation just before 9 a.m., it was time to start hustling. Our backpack start time was already going to be quite late by most peoples' standards, and we didn't want to make it any later than it needed to be.

While Gillian and Chris prepared to drive down to the Grand Canyon Airport to pick up Alana and Sandra, the rest of us hoisted on our packs and prepared to set off. Without our rental van, which was now parked far to the east, we (the seven of us not with Chris) had to make it to the South Kaibab Trailhead from Mather Campground on foot. I had mapped out a reasonable walking route along some faint old roads leading through the forest of the South Rim, and estimated that we could walk to the trailhead in less than an hour. If all went well, all of us would converge at the trailhead at roughly the same time and we'd finally be able to start our Grand Canyon adventure.

Since the Hatko family children were too young to participate in an extended backcountry outing such as this, Gillian had graciously agreed to forego the backpack and stay with both Katie and Evie. In addition to taking care of the kids, she would also be ferrying their red rental van around to the North Rim, where she would meet us three days later.

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