Down is Optional, Up is Mandatory

No truer words have ever been spoken when it comes to canyon hiking.  When you’re hiking up mountains, the harder part of the day is usually the climb, but at least that’s the first part of your day when your legs are fresher.  Coming down can still be tough, but at least you’re working with gravity instead of against it.

Canyon hiking is the exact opposite.  Your day starts with the “easy” downward trek, but then you have to climb up and out to finish the day when you’re at your most exhausted.  The canyons I’ve hiked have been in hot desert climates, so that makes the exhaustion all the worse on the way back up if you’re not careful.

Whether it’s mountain or canyon hiking, it’s still worth it even though there’s different physical and mental challenges involved.

On our 2nd full day in Grand Canyon National Park, it was finally time to dive into the Canyon a little.  Before we did, I had to get out to try for sunrise shots again though.  I’m happy to say the weather cooperated a bit better than the day before!

Our plan was to head down the Bright Angel trail as far as we could reasonably go on a winter day hike.  We fueled up with a good breakfast, grabbed our gear, and off we went.

Trail conditions weren’t too bad, though we found ourselves walking on snow and ice for the first 1.5 miles of the trail.  Thankfully, we brought our traction devices to shore up our footing, though that didn’t mean we could blaze down the trail.  It was slick and steep enough that one slip in the wrong place and – whoop! – you’d be off the trail and taking a really bad downward plunge.

A little ways down the trail, we came across what may be one of the most amusing – and useful – signs we’ve ever seen in our hiking travels.  Aside from providing important safety info to novice hikers thinking they could slay the Canyon on an easy long walk, we enjoyed the artwork.  My husband correctly pointed out that the National Park Service probably commissioned someone draw that puking hiker on the sign.  That thought gave us a good laugh.

Our goal at the start of the day was modest – just make it down to the 1.5 Mile outpost that’s – you guessed it – about 1.5 miles from the trailhead.  Not knowing what the trail conditions would be or how steep the decent would be, it seemed like a reasonable goal.  I think we shocked ourselves when we made it that far in good time, even though I was snapping away during the hike as the lighting and shadows changed on our view of the Canyon.

Pleasantly surprised by how good we felt, the trail conditions, and the time we made, we decided to plunge onward and shoot for the 3 Mile outpost.  (Yes, about 3 miles from the trailhead.  Such creative naming conventions!)

We arrived just in time for a spot of lunch and for the lighting and shadows to go flat on the Canyon.  That didn’t mean I didn’t take a picture though because we came across another new trail sign favorite that inspired this post… down is optional, up is mandatory.  So succinct and so true!  I couldn’t leave without snagging a shot of that sign.

We were still feeling good after lunch and the weather was still pretty stellar.  As much as we were tempted to press on a little further down into the Canyon, we decided to be smart and head back up.  It was a looonnnngggg, steep, slick, mushy climb, but we made it back out with relative ease.   We even found a fossil in rock along the way!

We weren’t sure how far we descended into the Canyon in terms of altitude on the way down, but when we reached the top my watch estimated we had climbed up over 2200 feet in elevation over those 3 miles of trail!  They say the Canyon is, on average, 1 mile deep, so we made it a little shy of halfway down to the Canyon floor.

Once we got back to the trailhead on the rim, we got some perspective on how far down we went because we could see the 3 Mile outpost.  Yeah, it’s a ways down there!  (The oval is an approximation of where the 3 Mile resthouse is along the trail.)

Maybe next trip we’ll get a little more ambitious and climb further down this trail or a different path.  For my first journey into the Grand Canyon itself, it was a pretty awesome day!

– JC

PS – The Canyon treated us to a pretty spectacular sunset as the cherry on top of our day.  We even came across a little snowman family someone had made, complete with bits of carrot for the noses!

Unholy Hot Getaway

One of the big things that happened to us over the summer was my husband taking a new job where he gets to build parks and trails and preserve open space (lucky!).  With his vacation allotment about to reset to zero, we took advantage of his little bit of time off between jobs to scoot out of town for a long weekend. Getting away was especially important because other than our long-planned trip to Great Sand Dunes NP, we weren’t sure when we’d be able to get away again.

Since this trip was a last-minute thought, our options for where to go were a little limited because every mountain town’s hotels were fully booked or just insanely expensive.  Eventually, we zeroed in on heading to Grand Junction about a 5 hour drive away from our home so we could see some decidedly different scenery.

We’d only been to Grand Junction once before about 5 or 6 years ago as part of one of our big vacations.  We didn’t spend much time in the town then because we were camping at nearby Colorado National Monument, but we’d heard good things about the town since that trip.  We’re always up for going to new places, so why not check it out?

As departure day got closer, the weekend weather forecast kept getting hotter and hotter.  We were in the middle of a big heat wave in the Denver area, but that was nothing compared to Grand Junction.  Grand Junction is normally hot because it’s lower and flatter and closer to the deserts of Utah, but it’s not usually 105+ degrees every day of a weekend.  (Yowza!)  Knowing the heat would be brutal, we packed up, sucked it up, and got the hell out of town.

Grand Junction itself was pretty cool.  The downtown area was cute with some good shops and a few restaurants.  Just a good general place to hang.  There’s plenty of outdoorsy things to do outside of the city limits, and one of the most well-known attractions is Colorado National Monument.  Even with the ungodly heat, that was where we were going hike at some point in the weekend.  So long as we got an early morning start, it wouldn’t be so bad, right?

Up before dawn and on our way, we picked the Monument Canyon trail that takes you out to the Independence Monument rock formation.  We hiked part of this trail before on our previous trip, but this time we decided to do the same trail again and go a little further out because we had a lot of fun the first time around.

Very quickly we were reminded of how different canyon hiking is from mountain hiking.  With mountain hiking, you start your day climbing uphill and finish it coming downhill with little or no flat spots in between.  Canyon hiking is the exact opposite.  You start at the canyon rim, descend (sometimes rapidly) to the canyon floor, trudge through the flat for a ways, then climb out at the end of your day when you’re dog tired.  In a lot of desert canyons, the floor doesn’t have a lot of trees or shade, so it gets hot – and fast.  By 8am it was already pretty toasty and we were barely an hour into our hike.

Red Hot Day Dawning

Once you reach the canyon floor, it’s fun watching the little details of rock formations, desert plants, and even some critters.  Ecologically it’s so different from the areas we hike in around our home that it’s visually and mentally refreshing in a lot of ways.  We got lucky on this day and even bumped into a nice-sized collared lizard along the trail.  (This guy was colorful and much bigger than the little lizards zipping around all day.)

Risky Shelter

Colorful Trail Guide

After a while, we turned around a bend and could finally see our destination – Independence Monument.  (The Kissing Couple formation is just to the left of center in the picture below, with the shorter Independence Monument just to the right of center a little further back in the distance.)

The Destination

As I took this picture, here’s a snippet of the conversation I had with myself in my head:

Is it seriously that far away?  Can’t be.

… Damn, it’s hot. …

Really?  It’s still that far away?  We’ve already gone a few miles, so how is that possible?

…. Dear Lord, I think my boots may melt today if we’re not done by noon. …

But if I do this, that justifies having beer and bad-for-me food when we get back to town!  Hmmm…

… Holy hell – this is getting seriously hot.  Can I manage to keep my yap shut about the heat all day to get to the beer and fried food?  I think I can. …

(It’s truly amazing what you can motivate yourself to do by rationalization or visualization.  For me, both rationalization and visualization usually involve food.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve mentally pushed myself through a workout I didn’t want to do in the first place by bargaining with myself using pizza & beer on a Friday night as a bargaining chip!  But I digress…)

We did get to Independence Monument and it was really cool.  I think enough of my brain cells had melted by then that I forgot to get a picture of the rock up close.  Oh well!

Once we got back to our car, we spent the weekend operating like most Southerners do during their sticky, humid summers – dashing between air-conditioned cars and buildings as much as possible.  (Lucky for us we just had the heat to deal with – not that icky humidity added onto the heat!)

In the end, we had a good hike and a fun trip in spite of the wickedly hot weather.  We also zeroed in on where we want to hang out the next time we’re out that way, so maybe it’ll be less than 6 years between trips to Grand Junction this time.

-JC