Grand Canyon

I am writing this really late but I can’t put this off any longer.  The Grand Canyon trip deserves some attention.

My friend Deanne and I went back to the GC this year, something I have been doing the last 3 years.  Deanne picked me up in Phoenix and we drove up.  We are both very chatty types and we had a blast catching up.  Deanne is my second mom, and just like my Mom is a very cool person.  She is also a pretty private woman so I won’t tell the world all the reasons why she is so cool; suffice it to say that she is a 50+ year old women who loves the outdoors, travelling around the world, and is in fantastic shape.  

A few weeks before the GC I had fractured my right arm (see the last post) so I was a tad bit worried about hiking with a pack.  I shouldn’t of been because it turns out we didn’t get a lodging spot at the bottom of the canyon.  Instead, Deanne decided that she wanted to hike down and up in one day, something she had never done, and I decided to try to run as far South Rim-North Rim-South Rim as I could.

We got a late start; here is a video of us descending down into the canyon:

The first step into the GC is magical (an overused term but one very applicable here).  You know that several hours of peaceful activity await you.  I couldn’t wait to start running and soon enough Deanne pushed me on ahead.  We agreed to meet later in the day on my way back up.  I had a good pack worth’s of food and it wasn’t hot but I had no headlamp so I wasn’t sure how far I could make it.  I descended with a very loose rhythm and soon was down at the bottom running across the bridge.  I stopped and refueled and headed up the North Rim trail, into the Box Canyon.  I felt good as soon as I got out of the sun and into the canyon and I climbed fairly comfortably well out of the canyon.

I calculated in my head what time I needed to turn around, which turned out to be about 6 miles up the North Canyon trail.  I decided to climb one more little hill and when I was taking one final step up onto a big rock, I fell hard with my hands catching my fall and sending the most unbelievable pain through my fractured right arm.  I yelled out, as the pain soared through my body for about 30 seconds, never having felt anything like that.  But it went away and I decided a bit sheepishly to turn around and head back.  I soon realized that I had sat on a cactus and had tons of little needles in my ass.  I tried to pick them out but had way too many.  So thinking that the canyon had cursed me, I headed back.  

As I ran I quickly shed the silly idea that the GC had cursed me or something and just realized that it had happened and it meant nothing, other than that the canyon has lots of needles and every step counts.  I started to run with confidence again and came back up the South Rim trail after stopping for a traditional short swim in the Colorado.  By this time I had run over 20 miles, a lot for me, and was climbing the very steep South Rim.  But I felt great and kept a nice running pace uphill.  Here is a short video of my sweaty self heading up the South Rim.

After about 1 hour of climbing and not seeing anybody else climbing back up I came across Deanne taking a break.  It was great timing and we were able to finish the final hour of climbing, hiking together.  She was pretty tired but soon enough we were back at the top of the South Rim, just in time to catch a bus back to the lodge.  We changed clothes and had a nice cheap steak dinner.

The next day we drove back to Tuscon and Deanne hosted me for 3 days straight.  I had food like this:

and every morning we got out on the amazing Tuscon trails.  I had some fantastic runs with views like this:

As usually happens every year, Arizona reinvigorated me and gave me a nice piece of peace that I have carried with me since.