Surreality

So apparently, surreality is a word. I thought I made it up to describe surreal reality. But apparently it actually means the state of surrealness. Huh. Well, I guess either works.

One week ago tonight, I was sweating bullets in anticipation of getting up at 4 a.m. to hike from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, down to - and across - the Colorado River, and back up. (Also, the people in the hotel room above me were super noisy, which didn't help.) A 19.2-mile hike with a change in altitude of over 5,000 feet in each direction. I whittled down the photos in a way that I hope tells the story. There aren't as many photos of the journey back up to the rim. By then you're more tired, and you kind of don't want to think about the fact that you're just going up and up and the top doesn't really seem to be getting much closer.

The captions in the photos address many common questions, except the following: 

1. How did I feel at the end? Remarkably good, considering I'm in the worst shape I've been in for several years and that my training was minimal (e.g., lots of long walks and some runs with the dog, when not sitting for way too long working lots of extra hours). 

2. Would I do it again? Yes.

3. How long did it take? We went slow and steady, with decent breaks (including about an hour at the bottom of the canyon, drinking lemonade from the little store at the campground that is serviced by mules - I mean restocked by mules, not staffed by mules), and it took us 11 hours. We could have done it in 10 if pressed. But we had plenty of daylight.

Without further adieu (okay, I know, I know - - ado): 

I had never been to the GC before. I've been to Colca Canyon
in Peru. Colca is deeper. The GC is so vast! I loved looking
at all the different layers and types of rocks as we hiked
through the different elevations.

If you zoom in, you can see a little white line.
That is the South Kaibab trail that we took down.
Gulp. Yes, it is on the edge the whole way down.
On the way up, we got a little bit of a break from cliff edges. 
I took this the night before, thus the nervous energy all night.

Waiting for the shuttle to the trailhead at 6 a.m.
It was just above freezing, with 40 mph winds.
Kim and I flew from MN to AZ, where Matt (aka the
best guide/companion) lives.

At the trailhead. It was cold and my lips got
stuck on my braces, it seems. Also, I was
trying not to freak out. I'm really scared of heights.

That's the trail behind us, it kind of goes... down.

A different angle of the trail.

Switchback down, if you look, you can see a person
three levels down from us. This is how a lot of the
trail was on the way down.

Zoom in - the little zig zag ladder looking things
is the trail, broken up by little tiers of rocks
and timber to help make it more like slanty steps
than a ramp you could slip down. Although I did
slip a few times and let out a yelp.

We had to go to the right and loop around to get on that trail
over yonder.

Here is where we got the first glimpse of the Colorado River.
We were about halfway down and had much more to do
before we got to the river.

It doesn't really look like it, but this is the trail,
on the edge of the cliff. If you zoom in and look in the lower left corner,
that helps show it.

Mules carrying trash and other things from the store down by the
river. I would never ride a mule on those trails. 
This was a wide part of the trail. The trails 
weren't a whole lot wider than the mules' packs.

That little thing just below/left of center
is a big suspension bridge across the river, which we hiked to.

It was really stable.

Crossing the suspension bridge.

We took S. Kaibab down and Bright Angel up. All the
literature says not to do it in one day. You can if you're in decent
shape and you have the right gear/weather. I highly recommend
hiking poles. It would have been much more painful and slow
without them. And more scary.

Gonna head up. It was nearly 90 degrees
at the bottom. And dusty, dusty, dusty! 

A nice break on the way up.

Three miles to the end. I didn't
see a phone.

Not a flattering photo, but 
it is proof that I was there.

The last 4.5 miles are pretty much a steady slog up steep switchbacks. Once we got within a half mile of the top it started getting windy again and as soon as we got to the rim it was super cold and windy. We just went straight to the car and hit the showers. I'm so glad I did this, and very lucky to have the means, the physical ability, and the time to do things like it. Even though I was there and it was very real at the moment, it was also very surreal. 

I came back to Minnesota, where it's been snowing some pretty much each day. But it looks like good weather is coming soon, which means you'll be seeing biking posts from me soon as I train for my July BikeMS ride.