On Thursday I finally had enough “lay of the land” to take a hike down into the canyon. After asking a few of the service people at the park about the best trails and conditions, I decided to hike Bright Angel. This is a fairly well maintained trail and has markers at 1.5, 3, and 5 mile marks where you can get water and rest. I will say after reading the warnings and the stats on how many people are seriously injured along the trail, I certainly took heed. I would like to think I have done a pretty decent amount of hiking in my time, but definitely realized this might be a challenge based on the grade, length and temperature. I will get back to the difficulty level in a moment.

Getting down into the canyon presented a whole other perspective of things. It really was amazing to see these rock faces and trees close up as opposed to miles away. The only wildlife to be concerned about are the biting squirrels. Yup! At one depth along the trail the rock completely changed like someone took a half mile of rock crust and just set it on top of the other. It was quite an amazing journey… down. Now Up? That was another story. I had set out around 8 in the morning and it took me a little over an hour to get to the 1.5 mark. This did not coordinate with my fitness tracker which had me at 3 miles at this point. No fwonder why people drop like flies! There were people I saw going down that were elderly and overweight and I by no means wanted to experience or be around for their return ascent. There are parts of the trails that are very treacherous and once again I witnessed “foreign” visitors paying absolutely no mind to the obvious dangers as they either backed up or motioned to subjects to back up for photos. They treat it like its Disneyland for sure. I remember going to a spot called Ricketts Glenn Pa. for many years and after about a four year hiatus returned to find it over run with picture snapping tourists. One ranger told me 4 people had already died that year from falling, presumably whilst taking photos. Oh well, I caught myself saying be careful many times along my hike. Coming back up the mountain was certainly a challenge. The sun was in full swing at that point and I downed at least a quart of water on the way back up, making many stops in any shade I could hustle up. When I got back to the truck the thermometer read 107*. Aye yi yi Louie, no wonder why i found it so difficult. I am really glad I trekked in. With five days here I’m getting antsy and starting to research the next stop on my adventure. I will keep you posted. #grandcanyon ☮️