Where I come from...: Grand Canyon - Rim to Rim to Rim 11-29-08

And so it began, on Thanksgiving Day, that Jen and Mike and I embarked on our southward journey for the weekend. Destination? South Rim of the Grand Canyon. But first, we were stopping for the night at Jen's cousin's house in Salt Lake City. Then, after waking at 6am, and a brief stop at Best Buy to purchase a new battery charger for my camera (which was horrible timing due to the 6:30am consumer-madness on the day after Thanksgiving. That place was infested with a ridiculous amount of impulse buyers. And they'd been open since 5am! WHAT?! But that's a whole other issue...), sigh..., we finally hit the wonderful I-15 and promptly accelerated up to 88.8 mph to begin our travel through the space-time continuum. Unfortunately, our flux capacitor was malfunctioning so we had to settle for the old fashioned method of travel. We need to get that thing fixed.

Upon arriving at the South Rim, we noticed small traces of snow alongside the road, evidence of the recent snowstorm that blew through the region on Thanksgiving Day. Just missed it! We rolled in around 3:30pm to mostly sunny skies and temps around 45 degrees. The forecast was for improving weather. More sun and more warm.

We dropped Mr. Fuzzy Buddy off at the kennel, set up camp while we still had light, drove into Tusayan for the traditional pre-run pizza dinner at We-Cook-Pizza-etc, then finished packing our things for the early start in the morning.

We woke at 5am and left camp on foot at 6:05. The route was to begin from the South Kaibab TH (a 4-5 mile jog from camp), descend to the river, cross over to Phantom Ranch, go up the North Kaibab Trail to the North Rim, turn around and go back to Phantom Ranch, cross over to the South Bright Angel Trail, and ascend that back to the South Rim where we would have a 1.5 mile jaunt back to the car. Jen's plan was the same except without the out-and-back to the North Rim. This way, we'd get to see more of the canyon (especially for Mike and Jen cause they'd never been there before), and this would leave a shorter distance back to the car at the end of the day.

We all left the South Kaibab TH at 7:10. From there, everything went almost perfectly.

Mike and I were down to Phantom in 1:45. Roaring Springs in 3:45.

North Rim in 6:00.

Back to Roaring Springs in 7:30.

Back to Phantom Ranch in 9:30.

And 3.5 hours later, at 8:10pm, we were standing on the South Rim.

Total time: 14 hours.

Trail time: 13 hours.

Total distance: 50-51 miles.

Trail distance: 46 miles.

Nutrition*:

3 Clif Shot Bloks @ 200 cal ea = 600 cal

2 Clif Shot gels @ 100 cal ea = 200 cal

8 PowerBar gels @ 110 cal ea = 880 cal

4 GU gels @ 100 cal ea = 400 cal

1 Hammer gel @ 90 cal

3 LARA BARS @ 200 cal ea = 600 cal

2 Clif Kid Organic Twisted Fruit (Yummy!) @ 70 cal ea = 140 cal

1 bagel @ 200 cal

2 funsize Snickers Bars @ 100 cal ea = 200 cal

Total calories: 3310

12-13 bottles of water @ 20 oz ea = 240-260 oz

*I had planned on running with a multi-hour bottle of Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem as well as two bottles of Sport Quest Carbo-Pro, but I mindlessly left it all at home which explains why my caloric intake was a bit on the light side. 'Way to go smart guy!' So, I guess this was a good test to see how my body held up when using straight water and also to see how my body would react to a rather low fuel supply while out there. I ended up with zero food left and I only had to bum one Power Gel off Mike about an hour under the south Rim before we finished so apparently it wasn't much of a problem.

We had zero problems out there sans for a brief, 5-10 minute stop for Mike to tend to a developing sad blister. Back at the South Rim, we met up with Jen at the Bright Angel Lodge for some much needed food and I devoured a burger and a half, fries, and two cokes in 9 1/2 minutes. And then, as soon as I was done, I began to nod off whilst sitting in the restaurant booth. Time for bed. Unfortunately, the shower schedule had just been modified to winter hours and closed at 6pm so it was a not-so-fresh-and-clean feeling that night. Yuk. But we got up at 7am the next morning, had some food, had a shower, packed up camp, and went off on a quick photo shoot posing in front of the Grand Canyon in our bikinis. Rawr...