What Goes Down Must Come Up

Today was the day. The day were we had to hike to the top of the Grand Canyon.

A day at Phantom ranch starts early, very early. Coffee gets put out at 3:30am. Many of my bunkmates had plans to hit the trail as early as 4:00am. Unfortunately I didn’t sleep very well, and only got about a solid 3 hours. At about 5:00am all the dorms get a wake up call which consists of a loud banging on the door.

Seeing as most of my bunkmates had already left, I decided to get up and enjoy some coffee. It was still pitch black outside. I don’t think I have ever seen so many stars in my entire life. Katie was still sleeping so I just sat on a nearby bench and enjoyed the sights and sounds.

Some other hikers were coming back from breakfast and one of them had a blacklight. I thought it was an interesting choice for a flashlight until I saw what he was using it for. He was searching for scorpions. Apparently scorpions glow fluorescent yellow when exposed to a black light. Maybe it’s just because I am from Michigan, but I was so pumped. The guy let me borrow the light for a bit and I discovered the bench I had been sitting on for the past half hour was crawling with them.

Katie woke up around 5:30am, and at that point the sun had just started to rise. We smashed some delicious poptarts for breakfast and prepared for departure. We headed towards the Bright Angel Trail to start our trek up at around 6:30am.

This route also had a suspension bridge to get across to the other side of the canyon. For about a mile this route paralleled the river. It was really cool seeing the sun start to poke out over the inner canyon rim. This was the point where we were also able to easily access the Colorado River for a few pictures and a soak of the hat.

We really enjoyed the first half of the Bright Angel Trail. The inner canyon is just so beautiful and calm. All the sudden, about 4 miles in, the scenery changed to a luscious green. There were trees, bushes, and even grass growing everywhere along the trail. It was like we had reached an oasis. Turns out we did, and it was called Indian Gardens! It was about 9:00am at that point and there was already about 40 hikers taking a rest there.

Indian Gardens marks about halfway. From then on we were hiking with quite a few others. The Bright Angel Trail is nice because there is potable water at each of rest stops along the way. This is where the hike started to increase in intensity. We were still at the bottom of the upper canyon with about 4 miles left to go.

We soon reached the 3 mile rest house, and we were on a grid. Our bodies were starting to feel it once we reached the last 1.5 mile rest house.

At about noon we had finally reached the top! Total time was about 5.5 hours. We were pretty happy with this considering the average hiking time is about 6-8. We then immediately proceeded to the lodge for some well deserved ice cream. I also had this Drake song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

Would I do Phantom Ranch again? YES absolutely. I would do it tomorrow if my body could handle it. I can confidently say that this was probably one of the most incredible things I have done in my life. I highly recommend anyone who might be interested in this sort of thing to add it to their bucket list.

After that we packed up and said goodbye to the Grand Canyon. Our next destination was Page, AZ. We took highway 64 out of the national park and 89 up to Page. This awesome two lane highway through the backcountry of Arizona was surprisingly seninc.

After we checked into our hotel we headed out to grab some food at the Dam Bar and Grill to watch some Monday Night Football. When we got back to the hotel we took a dip in the hot tub to relax our tired muscles.

Anddd bedtime 🛏️...