How to hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim
How I did it: Early October, started out on North Kaibab Trail at 6:00 a.m. Carried 4 quarts of Gatorade and some trail mix bars. Walked briskly and steadily. It seemed easy... until the ascent began! Didn't need much water until the start of the climbing. The last couple or three hours, it's all about putting one foot in front of the other. Total time: 10-1/2 hours. I learned a few things, and were I to do it again, I think I could easily shave an hour, maybe two, off that time.
I had visited the canyon the previous year, and talked with a few people who made the rim-to-rim hike, some in one day, some in several days. I decided I would like to return and give it a try. My plan was to use the intervening year to "train." Yeah, right. (See "resources" section below.)
Lessons & tips: 1. DON'T WEAR TOO MANY CLOTHES! The efficient hikers were wearing shorts, trail shoes, and t-shirts, with maybe a light windbreaker jacket, and a SMALL backpack for water & snacks. I wore a much too heavy jacket, and even though it was 20-degrees (F) at the North Rim, with snow on the ground, twenty minutes into the hike I was regretting having the heavy jacket. It became dead weight for the next ten hours.
2. DON'T CARRY TOO MUCH STUFF! Four quarts of juice was too much to carry. Two quarts would be fine. There are water stops at the bottom and on the Bright Angel Trail to refill bottles. My big DSLR camera was unnecessary. A point-n-shoot will be fine if your objective is a rim-to-rim hike.
3. SMALL, GOOD QUALITY DAYPACK! I carried a canvas shoulder bag. Four hours in, the strap broke. I was juggling my too-many water bottles & snacks for the next six hours, which threw off my stride and caused extra exertion. Travel light, don't overload your gear, check the straps before you go!
4. GOOD-FITTING, LIGHTWEIGHT SHOES! - I wore my regular Adidas running shoes. Your shoes will get wet, as there are a couple of streams to wade across. They will get very dusty. There are some sandy patches. Were I to do this again, I would wear my trail runners rather than street running shoes (I didn't because I was too lazy to switch out the Nike+ sensor, which worked well by the way!) because they have somewhat stiffer soles, but the running shoes were adequate. No pain, no blisters, didn't fall down. Hiking boots would be too heavy for a one-day rim-to-rim hike, in my opinion, and are not necessary as the trails, while rocky, are well-maintained.
Resources: WERE I TO DO THIS AGAIN, I would wear or carry:
1. cotton hiking shirt, long-sleeve, with pockets, although just a t-shirt would be adequate.
2. jogging shorts or hiking shorts. My cargo pants with pockets filled with snacks were too heavy, and I barely touched the snacks.
3. lightweight windbreaker jacket - something easily tied around the waist or stuffed into a daypack. You won't need it most of the time.
4. small daypack. Generally I don't like backpacks, but in this case, I would have done better using my small nylon daypack than my canvas shoulder bag. It's all about reducing weight.
5. two quarts of liquid. The four quarts I carried was far too heavy. Gatorade is okay on the way down, but becomes sickeningly sweet during the hike up. Juice or Gatorade for the trip down, refill your bottles with water at Phantom Ranch for the hike up. There's additional water partway up Bright Angel or at Cottonwood if you're heading up the North Rim. As for food, I ate a total of 1-1/2 granola bars. I hate granola bars, and the second one left me feeling sick. Next time, screw it, I'm taking a couple of Snickers bars and calling it good!
6. Jogging or trail running shoes are adequate. Wear good socks.
7. Leave your big camera behind. Take a pocket-cam.
8. I did not carry any of those trendy high-tech walking sticks which are all the rage. The fast-moving rim-to-rim people did not have them. Casual hikers, or people doing the crossing in more than one day all seemed to have either one or two. The trail is steep in parts, but not THAT steep. A walking stick is just one more thing to carry.
9. PITH HELMET! Loved the pith helmet -- wide brim, light weight, fashion statement. A canvas "outback style" hat would be just as good, and more socially acceptable.
10. TRAINING... what training? In the one year between when I decided to do this hike and actually doing it, I completed precisely ONE fifteen-mile practice hike, on mostly flat ground. Otherwise, I am an "occasional" jogger, averaging ten to twenty kilometers a week, and I'm lucky if I can make a ten-minute mile pace. So I'm not exactly what you'd call the "athletic type." I saw people much older than I, and people both far more fit and notably overweight completing the rim-to-rim in one day. Afterward I had one day of notable stiffness and one day of moderate stiffness. In three or four days, I was fully recovered. It's definitely do-able, and not nearly as difficult as some sources would suggest.
11. CHECK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR -- Most humiliating part: a GIRL passed me, RUNNING. She was only wearing lightweight jogging gear, with a small backpack with built-in water supply -- what do they call those things? Anyway, yeah... running. Left me in the dust, feeling like a total loser.
12. I had a relative drop me off at the North Rim, and make the 250 mile drive to the South Rim to pick me up. Oh, this is important: TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE WHILE YOU'RE IN THE CANYON. I failed to do this. My phone spent 10 hours searching for a signal, which totally drained the battery. At the top, I had to use the Bright Angel Lodge pay phone to call my ride! Like, duhhh.....!
13. Oh, and... know where you're going! I took two wrong turns, hiked to Roaring Springs and to Ribbon Falls. Uhm... not the main trail. Cost me an hour or more, cumulative time. Like, duhhh.... again!
