There and Back Again: Down the Grand Canyon

It is early April, 1973. The cast of characters are Lobojo geographer, his wife, sister in law, and brother in law. It is cold and snowing and the wind is blowing and we are out of our frickin minds.


We are camped on the south rim of the grand canyon in Arizona. Our intent is to take a three day trip into and out of the bottom of the canyon. This is Shiva's Temple from a third of the way into the canyon.


It is an 18 mile round trip. It is about a mile down and a mile back up. Of the 18 miles, it is that last 1/3rd back up that is the killer. We started down on the Kiabab Trail across the botton and back up the Bright Angel trail. We were not granted an overnight permit for in the canyon, and so the only way to do this was to go into and out of the canyon in one day.


The snow was deep along the top of the rim. A narrow channel allowed us to get down to the top of the trail. That is where we encounter this sign.


This is the wife.


This is the sister in law.


This is when we are fresh and just starting down the trail.



The Kiabab trail decends along the edge of the rim that you see here.


It makes a long decent, much like walking down a sidewalk. That changes however.


The switchbacks begin.



Then we encounter the trash mule train. This is how they bring out the trash from Phantom Ranch each morning by mule train up the Kiabab trail.


Not a very talkative type. He did tell us to sit down, don't move, and keep quite while the mules came by.


Enlarge the picture and you will see the mule train going up one of the streaches of trail we have come down.


Now is the "jump off" down to the Tonto Rim. we are less than 25% of the way down the Canyon.


Down and down we go.


Here we are at 60% of the way down on the Tonto Rim walking towards the edge to drop off in to the river gorge itself.


And down we go again.



The Mule corral at the bottom. Phatom Ranch is about a mile up the creek.


The Colorado river. Next to it the ground vibrates and you can actually hear the boulders being moved in the river.


Over the rim and down to the bridge.


At the bottom, through the tunnel, across the bridge.


Don't we all look cool? In about 9 hours we won't look this good.



On the river are some of the rafts making the trip down river. Enlarge the picture and you will see that these rafts are much smaller than those that run the river today.



This the largest one we see.



Shiva's Temple from the river level. From here we go up the Bright Angel trail.
The last three hours of the hike up is in the dark and cold. It is 9PM before we get to the top.
The next morning even standing up is almost impossible. So we lay freezing in our down sleeping bags cursing the bright idea of hiking in and out of the Grand Canyon in one day.
I am glad we did it, but I have never remotely be tempted to try it again.