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Grand Canyon Trek Research Spring 2002
The Grand Canyon National Park has North and South Rims with the Colorado River flowing between. Many trails lead from one rim or the other down to the river. Here is one of the better maps illustrating this.
The most commonly hiked trail in the Grand Canyon is the Bright Angel Trail (18.6mi roundtrip). The trailhead is in the center bottom of this map. Many people will hike down to the River and camp at Bright Angel Campground. They hike back the next day. With determination you can hike to the Colorado River from the South Rim and back in one day, although the Rangers do not recommend it.
A nice variation on this hike is to take the South Kaibab Trail down to the Colorado, follow the River Trail a bit west and then take the Bright Angel Trail back up (15.7mi loop). The Kaibab Trail is the other trail leaving Yaki Point a bit to the east. Here is a 3D map illustrating this route. Trail statistics can be found here.
The South Kaibab/Bright Angel loop is a comfortable 2-day hike. There are many recommended hikes to choose from. Also, to fill the trip out some more, we can add in some sidehikes. From the Bright Angel Campground, we could take a hike up the North Kaibab Trail to the Ribbon Falls (12.2mi roundtrip). Or, from Indian Gardens Campground, we can take a sidehike up to the Plateau Point (3mi roundtrip). The Ribbon Falls hike can easily add in an extra day, the Plateau Point hike just a few hours.
Another alternative is a Rim-to-Rim hike. By taking a 5-hour, 215mi, $60/person Trans-Canyon Shuttle ride around the canyon is required to start a Rim-to-Rim hike from the North Rim. The shuttle leaves the South Rim at 1:30PM and arrives at the North Rim at 6:30PM. We can then hike from the North Kaibab Trailhead. Alternatively, we could do a Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim hike simply by extending the Ribbon Falls hike another 16.8mi rountrip, but perhaps that is too many miles to not do in a loop.
There are many other trails in the National Park which are quite beautiful and less gagged with tourists, but the hiking and driving conditions can be much more extreme.
To camp overnight in the Canyon requires a Backcountry Permit. It is a good idea to apply for the permit as early as possible since park capacity is limited, but applications must be made within 4 months of the scheduled trip. This means if we want to hike in June, we must apply now. If we want to hike in July, we have to wait a few weeks. To apply, we must have our primary and alternative proposed itineraries figured out, so I need feedback from you all about any particular routes that you are really interested in. Also, if we have more than six people, the process becomes much more difficult and we are not all allowed to camp together. And if Dan wants to bring his sheep, we have even more paperwork to fill out.
Itinerary
Friday 28jun2002
Tim, Christy, Bill, and Michelle arrive in Las Vegas really late and find a place to crash (or shake it all night instead).
Saturday 29jun2002
Brent and Jen arrive at McCarran Airport in the morning and call Tim and Christy (Days Inn Fremont, downtown) or Bill and Michelle (Excalibur, strip) at their hotel around 9:00. We meet Joann and Charles at check in area of Imperial Plaza on the strip at 18:00. arrive in Las Vegas for trekking pre-party!
Sunday 30jun2002
Bill, Jen, Tim, and Brent pick up the National minivan (drivers present) at 8:30 (702.263.8411 or 1.800.CAR.RENT). Drive to south rim, stopping at Hover Dam (250 miles). Meet Ed and Susan (coming from Flagstaff) at Grand Canyon South Rim Mather Group Site (Joann's reservation) to camp over night. No tent restrictions. Nearby airports can be found at Las Vegas (250 miles west), Pheonix (200 miles south), and Flagstaff (50 miles south).
Monday 01jul2002
We rise to gawk at a South Rim sunrise. At 10:00 AM we ride 5 hours (215 miles) on the Trans-Canyon Shuttle departing South Rim Bright Angel Lodge (Joann's reservation) to North Rim. We camp overnight at the North Rim campsite (Joann's reservation). We will have two campsites, each supporting six campers and three tents.
Tuesday 02jul2002
We hike down the North Rim to Bright Angel Campground near the Bright Angel Creek. We have a rare permit for a single group campsite that will support 11 campers (Brent's permit). Here we hang out, cook stuff, and watch Ed catch trout with his hands.
Wednesday 03jul2002
We hike around the river. Tim will probably want to run 30 miles along the river, and Jen probably will not. We'll work it out. We stay a second night at the Bright Angel campground (Brent's permit).
Thursday 04jul2002
We hike up the South Rim from Bright Angel campground (4:45 minutes, 9 miles for Tim and Brent!). Ed and Susan drive out that evening. Joann, Charles, Tim, Christy, Bill, Brent, and Jen will drive 260 miles to Canyon de Chelly and stay in a local hotel overnight.
Friday 05jul2002
We take a horseback tour out past White House Ruin to camp at Spider Rock with Justin's Horse Rental. We have a 9:00 reservation, they will truck out our gear and provide dinner (bbq chicken, navajo tacos, or steak).
Saturday 06jul2002
We take the horseback tour back out of the canyon and stay an additional night at the Visitor Center campsite
Sunday 07jul2002
We travel home.
Trekkers
Travel
Here is a summary of peoples arrival times F28jun2002 2041 NW#1195 LAS Tim & Christy F28jun2002 2300 SA#666 LAS Bill & Michelle S29jun2002 0837 AA#1417 LAS Brent & Jen S29jun2002 1510 SW#1295 LAS Joann & Charles U30jun2002 Eve Ranger GC Ed & Susan And departure times: R04jul2002 Eve Ranger GC Ed & Susan U07jul2002 1200 NW#714 LAS Tim & Christy M08jul2002 0040 AA#1070 LAS Brent & Jen M08jul2002 0040 SA#007 LAS Bill & Michelle M08jul2002 0750 SW#1716 LAS Joann & Charles
Costs
Bill Brent Christy Charles Ed Jen Joann Michelle Susan Tim
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
gas #1 +22.00
-3.67 -3.67 -3.67 -3.67 -3.67 -3.67
SR Entrance +20.00
-3.33 -3.33 -3.33 -3.33 -3.33 -3.33
Mather +40.00
-4.00 -4.00 -4.00 -4.00 -4.00 -4.00 -4.00 -4.00 -4.00 -4.00
BC Pass +120.00
-12.00 -12.00 -12.00 -12.00 -12.00 -12.00 -12.00 -12.00 -12.00 -12.00
BC Pass #2 +70.00
-7.00 -7.00 -7.00 -7.00 -7.00 -7.00 -7.00 -7.00 -7.00 -7.00
gas #2 +18.01
-3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00
TC Shuttle +315.00
-31.50 -31.50 -31.50 -31.50 -31.50 -31.50 -31.50 -31.50 -31.50 -31.50
North Rim +30.00
-3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00 -3.00
Anasazi Inn +91.00
-15.17 -15.17 -15.17 -15.17 -15.17 -15.17
Justin's +80.00
tip -10.00 -10.00 -10.00 -10.00 -10.00 -10.00 -10.00 -10.00
gas #3 +19.37
-3.23 -3.23 -3.23 -3.23 -3.23 -3.23
Granny's +120.15
-23.03 -17.03 -23.03 -17.03 -17.03 -23.03
silver Queen +45.00
-7.50 -7.50 -7.50 -7.50 -7.50 -7.50
Kingman Deli +18.00
-9.00 -9.00
gas #4 +20.90
-3.48 -3.48 -3.48 -3.48 -3.48 -3.48
National +387.87
minivan -64.65 -64.65 -64.65 -64.65 -64.65 -64.65
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
-44.65 +476.68 -176.56 -67.50 -57.50 -197.56 +317.50 -188.56 -57.50 -4.41
rounding error: -0.06
Bill pays $44.65 to Brent
Christy pays $173.00 to Joann and $3.56 to Brent
Charles pays $67.50 to Joann
Ed has already paid $12 to Brent, $7 to Tim, and $77 to Joann
Jen pays $197.56 to Brent
Michelle pays $188.56 to Brent
Susan has already paid $12 to Brent, $7 to Tim, and $77 to Joann
Tim pays $18.41 (because of $14 from Ed and Susan) to Brent
We also paid for the following additional items individually once we arrived in AZ:
TODO
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