Grand Canyon Backpack

On Sunday and today, it was fun to revisit part of a backpack we did in 2002.  This one was a lot more relaxed because we weren't fitting it within a vacation or airline schedule.  We didn't have to drive.  We just hopped the national park shuttle bus, hopped out right near the Bright Angel Trailhead, cinched up our packs, and we were ready to go.  (Of course, we left the cats extra food and water, and all that.)  We enlisted the aid of a friendly hiker to snap our photo at the trailhead:

We were off down the trial by 9am.  No sooner did we get down off the rim then Kathy looked up and spotted a CONDOR flying overhead!  As we watched, more joined, and within minutes we were gazing at five condors riding the thermals at the rim of the canyon!  There are only 400 California Condors worldwide, of which only 200 have been released into the wild in an ongoing effort to stabilize the population of this endangered species.  Of those 200, fully 73 inhabit the area in and immediately around the Grand Canyon.  All have been tagged with numbers and electronic transmitters.  There are so few of them that the National Park Service and related agencies can identify each condor and keep track of its activities in detail.  The other day, we encountered a young ranger waving a receiver around in the air to pick up the transmissions of any nearby condors.  Later that same day, another gentleman pointed out to us a small cave high on a canyon cliff below, on a formation called the "battleship" where a condor pair has a nest with and egg.

Detailed data on the condors is available online here.  The condor we spotted on the trail first thing Sunday was #80, an 11 year old female who was released into the wild in 2003.  She has mated with #4 and they laid an egg on the battleship formation - the very nest we saw the other day!  (There is more to this story below.)

Sunday's hike down into the canyon was 4.6 miles, to Indian Garden, a spring, oasis and campground located about halfway between the rim and the Colorado River.  We had camped there on our previous trip and love its magical "Secret Garden" atmosphere, right in the middle of the desert.  The hike was uneventful, other than the usual spectacular canyon views.  It's impossible to describe the feeling, not only of experiencing the colors and three dimensional spaces of the canyon, but then of continuing to experience them over a 3 hour hike, as they continually change and morph with our movement down the canyon wall.  We've posted other canyon photos, so we'll pass on them here, in favor of the sunset photos below.

One notable event on the hike:  we met a young ranger who was on her day off, hiking back up from Indian Garden.  She recognized David's Appalachian Mountain Club t-shirt and asked if we had been to the White Mountains.  Well, this started a lengthy conversation.  We explained how we are AMC members and were on the volunteer committee for the Mohican Outdoor Center, which she knows.  She was a kroo member, mainly at Lonesome Lake Hut, and, it turned out, was krooing there the years that we stayed in that hut!  It's very likely we had met before.  We asked her about her position as a ranger at Grand Canyon.  She would love to return as a paid staff member at AMC.  We wished her the best as we each went our ways.

Here's a photo of David in our campsite, with our tent in the background.

We were surprised how easy the hike down was, compared to what we had remembered about the downhill hike in 2002.  Hopefully it means we're a bit more trail-hardened.  We had a few hours to set up camp, relax, browse some hiking and geology books in the campground library maintained by the park rangers, and generally be off our feet.

A ranger talk was scheduled for 4:00 pm, and we arrived early to get a good seat.  As we relaxed under the trees, we heard rustling and scurrying all around the little amphitheater where the ranger talk is presented.  On closer inspection, we found little collared lizards chasing each other all over the hillside around us.  As the ranger later informed us, it's mating season, and those males are not to be denied.  Nevertheless, the females were giving them a good run for their money.  I guess if you can outrun her, you can have her.

The ranger talk was coincidentally about the California Condor, and we had a chance to learn many details about those amazing birds we had seen over the last few days.  The ranger mentioned that a nesting pair has an egg in a nest just on the other side of the large red stone formation looming over the campground on the west.  She mentioned the formation is known as the "battleship" formation.  What a coincidence that the condor Kathy identified nests in the cave we saw earlier in the week, right next to the campground we were visiting!  We felt like we were part of what the ranger called that nerdy clique of people who get into tracking individual condors.  Here's a photo of our ranger, who was a very animated, knowledgeable and entertaining speaker:

One big reason for camping at Indian Garden is that there is a 1.5 mile trail out from the campground to Plateau Point, which overlooks the mighty Colorado River and is an unmatchable location to watch the sunset in the Grand Canyon.  As soon as the ranger talk was done, we put on our backpacks, hightailed it out to Plateau Point, and enjoyed our Gatorade bottles of wine (see Kathy demonstrating below) before cooking a camp dinner and watching the sunset.  The South Rim, where we started our morning hike down, is behind Kathy.

David manned the camp stove.  Here he is in his natural element.  Behind him is the North Rim, and just over the cliff roars the Colorado River, probably a third of a mile below.

Sunset is a good time for shadow photos, and we couldn't resist one looking east:

Here's that mighty Colorado River we were telling you about, from Plateau Point.  It looks tame, but we were told that some of those little white rapids produce waves up to 15 feet high.

Now some sunset photos, which are so special for their shadows and colors:

The next photo is not a sunSET photo, but a sunRISE photo, of the cliff overlooking our campsite.  It started getting light before 5:00 am.  We were up by 5:15.  After a hearty breakfast of oatmeal and camp coffee (instant coffee with instant cocoa - Kathy's favorite), we got on the trail by 6:45 am, headed back up to the South Rim.  This would be a fairly daunting 4.6 mile hike straight uphill, and we decided we wanted to tackle it as early in the morning as possible in order to avoid as much midday heat as we could.

The hike up, though arduous, was smooth.  Both up and down, we were surprised our time was so good.  We usually do 1 mile an hour uphill with full packs, and 1.5 miles an hour downhill with full packs.  Both up and down, we did a solid 1.5 miles an hour.  We're still not sure how we trudged up the trail that fast, but we guess that "slow and steady wins the race."  We had Camelbacks so we could hydrate as we walked.  We were pretty quick about our rest stops and didn't let the lactic acid start building up in our legs.  Kathy led the charge, and although our shade- and breath-stops grew more frequent as we neared the top, nevertheless, she led us to a record pace!  Here, again, a kind hiker took our photo at the top to memorialize our completion:

We treated ourselves to a beer and lunch in Bright Angel Lodge, then headed home to clean the red canyon dust off ourselves and our gear.  After those chores and an unintended short nap, we treated ourselves further to a carnivore's delight at Yippie-Ei-Oh! Barbeque in Tusayan, just a short walk from our campsite (you can imagine no one was in the mood for a long walk).

And the best part?  We didn't have a day's travel home.  We didn't have to go back to work.  We don't have to wait 2 months to get out and about again.  Maybe we'll bicycle tomorrow or Wednesday, but in any event we have some more hiking ahead of us in Zion, Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks and Grand Staircase-Escalante next week!