Grand Canyon going up Bright Angel Trail - 29 March 2011

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We had a wonderful breakfast at the canteen at 5:30 a.m. which included pancakes, eggs, bacon and peaches. We arrived at the Bright Angel trail head at 6:40 a.m. to begin our hike up to the canyon rim.

We began our hike by crossing the Silver Suspension Bridge. The Bridge was built in the late 1960s connecting the Bright Angel Trail from the South Rim to Phantom Ranch and the North Rim. Only hiker traffic may cross this suspension bridge but that’s not the only thing moving across the canyon here. The Silver Bridge also provides a support structure for one of the great engineering feats of the Grand Canyon and a vital support for tourism at this popular national park—the transcanyon water pipeline. Through an extensive system of pipelines and pump houses, 500,000 gallons of water a day are piped from Roaring Springs near the North Rim down Bright Angel Canyon through Phantom Ranch, across the Colorado River suspended from Silver Bridge and then pumped up to the South Rim tourist area.

After crossing the bridge you walk along the river for a mile and one half before starting your ascent.

This photo shows some of the trail we hiked to get up to this point, however we are not even close to the half way point of our hike which is Indian Gardens.

Below you can see the mules going down the trail heading to Phantom Ranch.  You must be extremely careful and listen to the trail guide when the mules approach.  You have to get to the inside of the trail and be very still not to make and sudden moves as this is a highly dangerous situation for the mules and their riders. 

From Indian Gardens which is the green area way at the bottom of this photo you still have 4.6 miles to go to the rim. They only bad thing is we had to hike 5.4 miles to get to Indian Gardens.  Its all uphill from here!

Click on this photo and you can better see the riders going back up to the rim. This is a photo I cropped from the one below which shows just how dangerous trail conditions can be.

Here's the original photo. WOW, glad I'm not one of those riders!

Here's Kathy I don't know why she seems happy since we still have a mile or so to go.  Maybe she is suffering from high altitude sickness.  Get back on the trail! 

This photo shows how far we have come up the rim.

 Click on this photo and you can see Kolb Studio in the center of this picture, look left of center along the rim. We are almost there. We had to put on our yaktracks to help make sure we did not slip on the ice along the trail.

 Here we are after completing 10 miles of hiking.  We are very proud of our accomplishment!  Now for some food and rest.  30 minutes after this photo I could hardly walk to lunch.  I wonder how the heck I made the trip.

Kathy being the detailed person she is created this spreadsheet outlining our cumulative miles we hiked, elevation at various points, total time, break time and percentage of slope for the different levels of the trails.  She has way too much time in her day.

I saved this photo for last. Hiking is fun and can be a great experience but it also can be very dangerous. This article is about Margaret Bradley a marathon runner who died here in the Grand Canyon in July 2004. She underestimated the food and water required for her hike.  We made sure that we had the items we needed for each leg of our trails.  We also carried some survival items, that if needed, would allow us to safely camp overnight, then proceed the next day.