Grand Canyon 2017 - Day 3, Part 1: The Hike

I'm breaking this one up into 2 posts, a.m. and p.m., because I'm terrible at self-editing and have included a lot of photos.

Like this panorama I took later in the day

We had breakfast in the hotel again and made it to the South Rim at 9:45am.  Note:  The National Park Service (NPS) recommends that all morning summer hikes be completed by 10am.  Once you're in the canyon there is little shade and the temperature gets hotter the further you descend.  Plus the ascent is much more difficult that going down.  We started way too late on both our hikes, which would come back to bite us on the second one.

Todd and I split from the group and took the orange shuttle to the South Kaibab trailhead.  Our destination for this short hike was Ooh Aah Point which is .9 miles and 660 feet down from the rim.  Each of us had backpacks with plenty of water and some salty snacks.

Well this doesn't look so bad.  Oh, wait.

Here's where we're going

A journey of a thousand miles and all that

Oh, snap

Steep switchbacks.  Notice that the path is also strewn with rocks - these are not smooth trails.  Keep a constant eye on your footing.

These are also the same trails the mule teams use...

...so you also had to constantly watch your step for other reasons

No, this is not a depiction of a man getting a drink from a tiny geyser of chocolate milk.  Read the sign.

All smiles on the descent.  The area of rock above Todd's left shoulder with the sun shining on it is the switchback section at the start of the trail.

There's Ooh Aah Point

Told you so

The view from Ooh Aah.  Notice the trail zigzagging across the surface of the red rock formation on the left.

The South Kaibab Trail continues all the way to the bottom of the canyon.  Someday I'd like to hike to the bottom, camp out, then hike up the other side.

But for now we're happy to have made it to this lookout point.  Todd's still smiling.

We'll turn around here instead of continuing on the path down.  The way back is up, up, around that rock outcropping and up, up, up.

Going down isn't too bad.  It'd be very easy to overextend yourself by going down too far, not thinking about the return trip back up.

Ooh Aah Point.  We stopped here for a snack: roasted cashews for Todd and honey sesame sticks for me.

The canyon wall across from us

Heading back up.  We've got to get over there.

There's the steep switchback section in the center of the picture, but it's not a straight shot to get there

Closer

Closer...

Are we moving at all?

Rain on the north rim

We made it back to the top!

Whew!  That was quite a workout.  The NPS advises you should plan on at least taking twice as long to ascend as you did to descend.  Our roundtrip journey took about an hour and half, including the 15 minutes or so we spent at the Point.  After we made it back to the top we decided to walk the paved Rim Trail 2.5 miles back to the Visitor Center instead of taking the shuttle.

Heading back along the Rim Trail

Crazy dead tree

Glad it's daylight

I submitted this one to the iNaturalist community and learned it was Stansbury's Cliffrose

Not sure what this is, though I've seen it before

A sign on the path advised there had been a controlled burn a few years back that had gotten out of hand and burned it's way to the canyon's rim.  It will take decades for this to grow back to the forested terrain seen in the background.

We arrived back at the Visitor Center and got a sandwich from the combination bicycle rental and cafe.  They had a wide variety of pre-prepared sandwiches; I had one with turkey, lettuce, cranberry cream cheese and bacon on cranberry ciabatta bread.  Pretty good.  There was a picnic area out back with tables and benches in the shade, so we ate and rested there.  They also had water spigots so we were able to refill our bottles.

Afterward we strolled through the gift shop where I picked up a pin to commemorate our hike.

There was a pin for each of the major trails

We caught the shuttle back to the hotel and had a little time to rest before the afternoon's activity:  A plane ride over and around the canyon.