This Thanksgiving, while friends and family and people the country throughout were stuffing their faces with copious amounts of food and passing out on the coutch watching the Cowboys or Longhorns get whooped by rivals, I was cruising down some barren Arizona highway with a unexpected friend en route to one of the most amazing places in the world, the Grand Canyon. I’ve been here before, when I was like 13, as part of a youth group trip to tour the southwest. That same trip was also the one that gave me my first taste of Durango, so when I think about it, there is this subconscious connection between Durango and Grand Canyon that lies hidden somewhere deep inside me. It was only fitting that I make a return trip to this awe inspiring place, and even more fitting that my time spent here would change my life profoundly.
I met Chrissy back at 24 Hour Nationals in September. If you recall, she was the one I flirted with by slapping her on the butt as I lapped her on my most magical lap that I rode that day. We hit it off well at that race, and I thought she was cute, but because she’s a bit older, has two kids, and lives in Boulder, I didn’t really expect anything more to develop between us.
Sometime in mid October, my phone rang with her name on the caller ID. She wanted to know if I had any plans for Thanksgiving. “Not really. I’ll probably just hang out around here, why?”
“Do you want to go with me to the Grand Canyon and run the Rim to Rim to Rim?”
Wow, I thought to myself. Sounded pretty challenging, yet, it seemed like something I was up for, so I told her “sure, let’s do it.” Following 24 Hours of Rocky Hill, I took a little time off before starting to run and hike a lot. The R2R2R via South Kaibab trail is 42 miles and I think around 12,000 ft of elevation gain/loss. I’ve never even ran a road marathon before, so I knew this would be tough and take a while. A little under 1 month of training would be pushing it for sure, but I was counting on my mountain bike fitness and mental toughness to make up for lack of running prowess.
Then, bam. Broken elbow and a cast one week before we were going to drive out. I knew 42 miles of running was definitely out of the question. I wasn’t even sure I could still commit to the trip at all at this point. I gave the elbow a few days to heal, at which point Chrissy called to say she thought I should still tag along, and could just hike a few miles and enjoy the scenery while she was out doing the full run. I told her I could probably do that. The next day, I decided to get off my butt and walk to church from the farm, a roundtrip walk of about 9 miles. After doing this without much discomfort, I called her back and fully committed to the trip.
She drove down from Boulder on Wednesday and stayed the night. After breakfast Thanksgiving morning, we hit the road. We stopped in Tuba City, AZ for a light Thanksgiving lunch and gave thanks for all our blessings while praying for a fun and safe trip to the Canyon. The park entrance was another hour drive, and a few miles after that we came upon the Desert View visitor center, and the first view of this unbelievable hole in the ground:
If you have been here before, you know that pictures simply cannot do this place justice. Texas is big, the Colorado Rockies are epic, but after this visit to Arizona, I truly have to say the the Grand Canyon is grander than them both. Over 270 miles long, 18 miles wide in some places, and over a mile deep, it is not only huge, but full of variety and secret spots that take your breath away, if you have the courage and strength to even get to such places. You cannot even come close to understanding the enormity and complexity of this place by simply viewing it from the rim. You must descend to to the depths of the mighty Colorado River, and then go back up. Even once inside, you could probably explore this place for years and always come across something new.
The plan for Friday was for me to drop Chrissy off at the South Kaibab trailhead at 6am where she would begin her incredible journey. It was dark and cold at this time of day, so my plan was to drive back to the main visitor center and find a place to park near the Bright Angel trailhead, take a nap until sunrise, figure out something to do with the dog (we decided to bring Rocco since I didn’t make any plans for him to stay in Durango, and dogs are not allowed in the Canyon), and then hit the trail myself for a shorter hike. Rocco and I took a leisurely stroll over to the kennels to see if they could take him, but they were full. On the way back to the car, he took care of LOTS of business, so I felt comfortable leaving him in the car all day, knowing that I might not get back til 10pm later in the night.
I got all my layers on and gear together and hit the trail at 8:30am. My plan was to mostly hike, but maybe run a little bit. I would take the Bright Angel Trail down to the river, then take the River trail to Phantom Ranch where I would hang out for a while and hopefully meet Chrissy here sometime around 4pm, and then hike back up with her the way I came. She was going down South Kaibab, swinging by Phantom Ranch, up to the North Rim via North Kaibab trail, then coming back down to Phantom, and then up Bright Angel. Her total mileage would actually be around 44. Mine should have been around 20.
All was going according to plan. I switched back and forth between hiking and running on my way down to the river. For the first 6 miles or so, I was wearing my 4mm Huaraches from Invisible Shoe. They felt great and turned a lot of heads! I came to a part of the trail that was very steep and rocky and they started to not feel so great since I haven’t been wearing them much lately, so I switched over to my Merrell Tough Gloves. Still a minimal shoe for such a hike, compared to the burly hiking boots most everyone else was wearing, but they offered plenty of protection for my taste.
This steep section leveled off into a tamer flowing creek bed, and before I knew it, I stood before the roaring Colorado River. It was surreal, the size and force of this rushing water. To sweeten the experience even more, the corp of engineers had decided to perform an experimental flood from Glen Canyon Dam upriver a few days before we were there. The last of the floodwater was finding its way through the river at our checkpoint. Normally the river runs at 8,000 c.f.s. This very day, it was somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000! Incredible! And to think during a heavy snowmelt day in the San Juans, our dinky little Animas River peaks around 4500 cfs. The Colorado River is the king of the west!
By 1:30 in the afternoon I had made it to our rendezvous point at Phantom Ranch. I took a nap in the sunshine since the temp down here at 2400 ft was much balmier than at the rim at 6700ft. I drank a lot of water and downed my two Larabars that I brought with me. I was still a little hungry since all I had from breakfast was a little bit of leftover pollo mole from dinner the night before, but my energy felt fine and I really wanted to see just how fat adapted my body has become from eating like a caveman. More on that later, but I had with me a couple of energy chews just in case I did bonk.
As I was reading some pages from Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, a hiker approached me and asked if I was the man waiting for Chrissy to show up. I told him yes, and he replied to me that she was doing fine, just that she had a way to go when he saw her and that she wouldn’t be here for a while. It was nice to have some news of her, but I wish that guy wouldn’t have told me anything, because it was bad intel. In fact, Chrissy was out there kicking ass and making much better time than this gentleman had suggested. 4pm rolled around. Our very loosely planned protocol called for me to start heading back to the South Rim at 4 if she wasn’t there yet. Instead, I decided to start heading up North Kaibab intending to intercept Chrissy within an hour or so. I was feeling good, and was interested in seeing some more of the park, so I set out.
I ended up hiking another 2 hours and 6 miles to Ribbon Falls. The sun had set, and the stars and moon had taken its place. It was a peaceful and beautiful experience being out there alone in such grandeur, but something wasn’t right. I should have seen her by now. My math and logic based on what the old man told me should have had us crossing paths by this time. I turned around and looked to the south. I could see the faint glow of lights from the buildings up on the South Rim several miles away. Realizing that it was dark, getting cold, Rocco was still in the car probably about to bust a nut, and I was at least 6 hours away from those glowing lights, I decided to end my pursuit and head back to base.
The moon was about 5/8 full and provided plenty of light for me to see the trail without artificial light, although I had my Ayup bike light with 6 hours of battery if I needed it. Still feeling ok, but now a bit concerned, I ran just about all 6 miles back down to Phantom ranch at a pretty good clip. By this point, hunger and fatigue were setting in. It was about 8:30 at night. I knew I had a long, hard hike back up Bright Angel that would get me back to the car between 1:30 and 2am. Probably a daunting thought for most, but not for an experienced 24 hour mountain bike racer. I had no doubt I would make it back safely and that I would somehow really enjoy this challenge. I went ahead and opened a package of energy chew and ate it. I had one package left, which I would ration throughout the remaining 5 hour trip.
Crossing the Colorado once again using the Silver suspension footbridge was humbling. The floor of this thing is metal grate which you see straight through down to the powerful flow of water. The bridge is about 3 feet wide, and there is 42″ or so of chainlink fence as a guardrail. The closer you get to center span, the more it begins to sway. You can’t help but think, that if you fell over, you would be dead. If you didn’t die from hitting a rock directly below, you would probably get sucked into an eddy you couldn’t swim out of. If that didn’t happen, you would probably get smashed on a rock downriver. If you’re still unlucky enough to be alive, you would get hypothermia since this water is probably 40 degrees. As tired as I was, with motor skills starting to fade a bit, I took my time to cross this bridge.
The river trail back to Bright Angel trail was very sandy, and I didn’t remember it sapping that much energy from me when I hiked it earlier in the day. I eventually made it to my trail junction and began the long arduous task of climbing back out of the canyon. There are warning signs posted all over the trails to try and dissuade folks from hiking down to the river and back in a day, let alone Rim to Rim, or even Rim to Rim to Rim. These signs are more in place for summer visitors since it almost always gets well over 100 degrees in the canyon floor, but even in late fall I can see where they have their place.
My logic was telling me Chrissy was still somewhere behind me, but my instinct was telling me somehow she slipped passed me and was now ahead of me. For all I knew, she was back at the car waiting for me. At this point, I had to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other. The higher up I got, the more I struggled. Not only does the air get thinner, the trail gets steeper and muscles get more tired.
At about 1:30am I crest the rim and make it to the car. My whole body is aching, especially my feet. I am exhausted beyond belief, but so relieved to see Chrissy bundled up in her sleeping bag in the passenger seat. Come to find out, she had indeed slipped past me at Phantom ranch right as I was leaving, and right as she was getting there. I still have no idea how we didn’t see each other, and this will forever remain a mystery that put me through a little more “adventure” than I was bargaining for, but in the end we both made it out of the canyon safe and sound, we both had amazing hikes, and we both had breakthrough achievements that will stick with us for a very long time.
Busting Limitations
Chrissy completed her 44 mile journey in about 14 hours flat. I think she had a few ups and downs along the way, but she avoided injury and didn’t seem to have any major problems with nutrition or getting sick, which has been an issue the past couple of 24 hour bike races. Overall, she freaking killed it. She had never done anything like this before, so there was naturally a little doubt, or maybe uncertainty would be a better word. I’m ecstatic for her, and so glad that she asked me to tag along.
I ended up covering somewhere around 35 miles for the day, much more than I planned on. Considering I had a broken elbow in a cast, I was extremely pleased with the effort. My total time out there was 17 hours, but I hung out at Phantom ranch for a while, took lots of sight seeing breaks, and took lots of breaks on the hike up North Kaibab hoping Chrissy would come around the corner. Had I been out there to take care of business, it probably would have taken 12 hours. Based on how I felt after just 35 miles, I don’t think I could have done 44, much less in 14 hours-even without a broken arm and cast. I just wasn’t prepared for something like that and she was!
Still, this trip sharpened my mental toughness a lot. It has expanded my imagination immensely. It has taught me that limitations should not always be accepted, they should be challenged. If you told me ten days ago after my arm was just put in a cast and I was in a great deal of pain that I would be hiking 35 miles in the Grand Canyon the day after Thanksgiving, I would have told you “not a chance”. Yet, I did it. My little nutrition experiment was a huge success too. I may have consumed 700 calories all day, and I probably expended at least 7000. I got hungry, but never felt starved or bonked. Something like this is where the paleo diet really shines. I think with a little more training in this arena, a 50 mile footrace in the mountains is completely doable. I do that, and then all of a sudden, a 100 miler comes into focus. Perhaps this trip is the birth of a new sport for the Caveman?
If you know who this is, you know what I’m talking about.
This holiday season, I give thanks for all my blessings. My wonderful friends and family. My health. The boundless opportunities for adventure. My freedom. Rocco. and so much more that I don’t deserve. I hope you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and carry that love into the Christmas season.
God Bless,
Caveman
Partner in crime Chrissy, taking a pit stop at 4 Corners National Monument. Thanks for letting me tag along!