Grand Canyon Hike

 On Memorial Day, my Dad invited me to fill a slot on the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim Hike that he  had planned for the coming Friday.  My dad has done this hike for the last several years and invites all of the family and tons of friends in January to fill a chartered bus and hike the Grand Canyon starting on the North Rim and hiking 24 miles to the South Rim.  I was thinking I would be busy with other things at this time so declined the invitation.  When he asked me a few days before the hike, I realized I was free and that it would be a lot of fun so I took him up on the offer.  My dad was great and had sent out emails throughout the months leading up to the hike giving advice on how to train and the type of nutrition that might be good during the hike, which he forwarded to me once I committed to going.  Since my training consisted of my daily morning jogs, I wasn't too concerned about that aspect.  But I recognized that I knew very little about nutrition so I tried to follow his advice very closely and it served me very well.

We started the hike at about 9:30pm on the North Rim and I was actually a little glad it was pitch black outside while we descended since I'm a little afraid of heights, I was glad I couldn't see how far down it was from the trail. We had head lamps of course, so every once in a while someone would shine their lights down, such as when we crossed the river on the bridge and I'd get a sense of the terrain.  My biggest fear was of seeing a rattlesnake.  I said a few prayers about that and I later learned my children did as well, on my behalf.  I never did see a rattlesnake.  I saw a few scorpions, a bunch of bold squirrels, a fawn, and an elk, but no rattlesnakes.  When the sun finally rose, we were about 4 miles from the end, but they happened to be the hardest 4 and it took us 3 hours to climb those 4 miles.  At the picture I took of the sun shining on the ridge of the Canyon, I remember looking up and thinking: "how are we supposed to get to the top?"  After a ton of steep switch backs, we reached the top incredibly sore, blistered, and exhausted, but so happy!  

Some of our crew took naps where they could while we waited for the bus to arrive.  

One of the group over-hydrated (had never heard of that happening before this) and was stuck down 3/4 a mile.  Her symptoms were similiar to that of someone experiencing heat exhaustion.  My dad asked our group if there were any volunteers to go get her.  Keeping in mind that we had all just hiked through the night a pretty grueling hike.  Most of us weren't even sure we could walk a few more steps, let alone descend down the canyon 3/4 a mile and climb back up while assisting someone the entire time.  Thus you can imagine my awe over the 4 high school boys who jumped up without any hesitation to rescue her.  To the rest of us who were absolutely exhausted, these boys were heroes, two of whom were my nephews Christian and Caleb. Since the person stuck down the canyon happened to be a childhood friend whom I hadn't seen in years, I was very concerned in how this all turned out so I walked back to the edge to watch and cheer them on as they grew closer.  I couldn't believe how fast they moved- they all ran down the mountain, then brought her back up faster than I'm sure I came up the first time.  It was very inspiring and I'm sure something that none on the bus of 50-something people, will forget.  

Overall, I was extremely glad I took my dad up on the offer to go.