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Running the Grand Canyon rim to rim

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Contributed by: Brad Hackman on 4/9/2007

My brother said, "If your wife wants to leave you, the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be a pretty good place to do it." Undaunted by his heckling, I started out on the adventure of a life time to run the Grand Canyon from rim-to-rim after reading a news clipping from the Rocky Mountain News my mother-in-law gave me. I studied topographic maps, discussed my plans with others who had successfully completed the trek and Grand Canyon Park rangers, and, also ran hundreds of miles and up many thousands of vertical feet in the preceding months.

There was 4 feet of snow at the motel a few miles from the trailhead on opening day of the North Rim. As I watched my wife disappear from view, I looked ahead and knew that I would pass through every climate zone from Alpine forest on the north rim to Sonora Desert on the canyon floor.

The North Kaibab Trail (NKT) begins by winding down through a forest of aspen, Douglas fir and ponderosa pine. Soon it didn't seem so early or nearly so cold a morning. The U.S. Parks Service had kindly dynamited a tunnel and now pinyon's and junipers dominanted the emense landscape. In some places, the winter had been hard on the canyon and blocks of stone, each the size of a small car, made me stop running and scramble over them to gain the trail once more.

Waterfalls a hundred or more feet high cascaded over the cliff, hugging trail and poured deep into the chile-pepper red canyon walls below. Farther in the side canyon the trail runs in is so narrow that it seemed I had to share the main trail with a few tents. By now I was surrounded by yucca and prickly pear cactus and was surprised when the trail temporily collapsed to a knee deep, but very fast, stream.

I experienced a growing sense of anxiety because I had planned to be down to Phantom Ranch, a small group of bunk houses, a snack shop and a mule bag to drop letters in, at the base of the canyon by 10 a.m., and I was about an hour and a half behind schedule. I had studied the temperature of the canyon floor and I was reassured the day before when I saw that it was 80 degrees. The 4 feet of snow seemed other-worldly as the temperature this day ran to over 100 degrees. More and more of the folks I met along the trail were resting or lethargic. Nothing humbled me like the heat of the inner canyon, but there was plenty of water and I wasn't lost. My research paid off; the NKT down and the Bright Angel Trail up provided potable water and a sense of security in numbers.

One of the questions people asked me most was, "How are you going to cross the mighty Colorado River?" The black iron bridge is about 100 yards long. The tunnel is about 60 feet up and through the cliff. The trail there, and for the next five miles was covered in deep, loose sand. It's also the start of the route out of the canyon. Technically, I was over half way, but the hardest part lay ahead.

Indian Gardens is a wonderful, beautiful rest spot. Although 50 percent of the visitors to the Grand Canyon are internationals, everyone spoke the same language -- relief at only 3,000 more vertical feet to go. By now my adventure run had become more of a numbing walk. I kept slighly diverted by a wonderful, young German family with a large red umbrella that I was hiking along side of. They were some of the few visitors to the park that actually ventured into the canyon.

As I came out of the canyon, the early morning bright reds and greens were the sublime afternoon hues of brown and gray. The historic El Tovar Hotel, built with 18- foot logs on the South Rim, has a quote outside on in it's woodwork: "They who dream of mountains as in their sleep; they brood on things eternal." Not to confuse 1.84 billion years with eternity, but I sometimes, before I drift off to sleep at night, I contemplate this natural wonder.

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Submitted By: Erin Feese

posted on 4/10/2007 @ 11:27:00 AM

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Great story! What an adventure. Nice photos, too -- I'm going to have to visit the Grand Canyon, it looks simply breathtaking.

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Brad Hackman

Lakewood , CO

Brad Hackman has posted 1 story and 0 comments since joining on 4/7/2007. Brad Hackman 's average story rating is 5.

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