Grand Canyon Rim to Rim: New Gear and Best Intentions

I pulled my late 1980s backpack out of storage. My first thought was that it was heavier than I remembered, just over seven pounds empty. Backpacking gear has gone through an ultralight revolution. Materials are stronger and much lighter. For my Grand Canyon Rim to Rim and future trips, I bought a new ultralight backpack, and a tent, each weighing under two pounds. The last time I'd gone hiking in the backcountry with friends, I'd carried nearly 50 pounds of gear, food and water. For my hike through the Grand Canyon, I would carry less than 35 pounds and that was probably 10 pounds more than I needed, mostly too much food and water.

We applied for a permit for May. We didn't win the primary lottery. Nor did we win the second chance bid. I re-entered the lottery for June, not the ideal weather window, but we figured we could handle the heat. We live where summers are hot and humid and by June, we would be heat (and humidity) acclimated.

We won the lottery for June. We had backcountry permits to hike the Grand Canyon. I continued my training. Living in Kansas, which is known for being flat and relatively low elevation (866 feet above sea level where I live), it can be difficult to train for climbing at higher altitudes. I was up most mornings before dawn, wearing a backpack, using trekking poles doing hill repeats, but I was gaining as much elevation in hiking four miles as I would gain in a single mile hiking at the Grand Canyon.

I practiced pitching my tent and setting up my gear. I told myself I'd do a dry run at some point before heading to the Canyon, but life gets in the way. I had to help someone move to Chicago the week before my trip. I twisted an ankle four weeks before the trip, which cut into my ability to train. Our spring was unseasonably cool, so much for getting heat acclimated before leaving.

We pulled permits for Mather campground at the South Rim, but could not get a spot at the North Rim campground for the date we needed. We managed to get reservations at Cottonwood, Bright Angel and Havasupai Gardens for the dates we wanted.

I made reservations for the steak dinner at Phantom Ranch and for breakfast the next morning. About a month before our departure, I received an email from the National Park Service informing me that due to work on the Trans Canyon Water Line (TCWL), the trail along the river from Bright Angel campground to Havasupai Gardens would be closed during our trip. This meant we would have to take the more difficult path up the "Devil's Corkscrew" on the South Kaibab trail and then cross the Tonto Plateau in order to reach Havasupai Gardens.

NPS's message warned that this route could be dangerous, especially during the heat of the June day and that there was no shade and possibly no water on the Tonto Plateau. We were given the option to cancel our trip and collect a refund.

I messaged my hiking buddy and we talked about it. We decided we could handle it and that we'd just leave earlier in the day and carry more water. I checked for availability at the North Rim campground again. Apparently some folks had backed out when NPS announced the TCWL work and trail closure. I was able to get a reservation for the date we needed at the North Rim campground, which is a short distance from the North Kaibab trailhead down into the Canyon.

The lesson here for others planning trips to the Grand Canyon is that if at first you can't get the dates or the camp you want, keep checking in as people often book sites even though their plans are tentative, cancelations happen on the regular.

A Walk in the Park

In August of 2024 I stopped in my local book shop (shoutout to The Raven Bookstore) as I often do to browse the shelves and see if there was anything I couldn't live without. A very colorful book jacket caught my eye. It was Kevin Fedarko's A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon.

Fedarko's book tells the story of him and long time collaborator, friend, and National Geographic photographer Peter McBride hiking through the Grand Canyon. McBride approached Fedarko with the idea as a way of celebrating the 100th anniversary of Grand Canyon National Park.

But Fedarko and McBride don't experience the Canyon the way most people do. According to the National Park Service, fewer than 1% of  visitors to the Grand Canyon hike below the rim at all and the majority of those who do are day hikers, who may venture down one of the main trails from the South Rim, most commonly the Bright Angel Trail. They may walk down to one of the first few rest houses, or perhaps Havasupai Gardens, Plateau Point, or maybe as far as the Colorado River.

More ambitious hikers in the Grand Canyon will do a rim-to-rim hike, meaning they'll start at the South Rim or North Rim and hike to the opposite rim. Many fit hikers will do this in one day and some crazy people will even do rim-to-rim-to-rim in one go. 

Aside from looking for a challenge, many choose rim-to-rim because it doesn't require a backcountry permit. If you're not camping overnight in the Canyon, you don't need a permit. Getting a permit isn't easy. You have to enter the lottery four months in advance, if you want to camp and 15 months in advance if you want to stay in a cabin at Phantom Ranch.

Fedarko and McBride didn't opt for rim-to-rim. They opted for a through hike east-to-west. An east-to-west through hike of the Grand Canyon is very challenging. After all the elevation changes and navigating around the Canyon's various side-canyons, a through hike of this type adds up to more than 750 miles / 1207 km.

The Grand Canyon is a desert and it's hot much of the time and in the winter it can be cold, snowy and icy. Logistically, a through hike means you have to set up caches for water and food along the route. The route that Fedarko and McBride took required some canyoneering skills, rappelling and navigating slot canyons. 

Fortunately for them, they had some help from some of the Grand Canyon's most experienced hikers. Rich Rudow and a community of other experienced Grand Canyon backcountry hikers took on the task of helping Fedarko and McBride go from inexperienced hikers to finishing their section hike over the course of a year.

Fedarko's book was my favorite non-fiction book of 2024. It's frustrating in parts, emotional in parts, and triumphant in the end. Fedarko uses his experience through hiking the Canyon to highlight some challenges the Canyon is facing, mostly from developers who want to put in a tram system to ferry 10K people a day to the Confluence, perhaps the most sacred place in the Canyon for many of the indigenous peoples who called the Canyon home before the U.S. Government forced them out.

McBride also published a book of beautiful photographs taken during their year long section hike. The Grand Canyon: Between River and Rim is a stunning book and also worth checking out.

Fedarko and McBride's books inspired me to visit the Grand Canyon. I hadn't been on a real camping and backpacking trip in more than 30 years. Obviously an east-to-west through hike was out of the question. A rim-to-rim hike sounded doable, but not in a day.

I decided I'd do a rim-to-rim hike over four days and three nights, from the North Rim Campground, to Cottonwood Campground, to Phantom Ranch and the Bright Angel Campground all via the North Kaibab Trail, then continue on the Bright Angel Trail along the Colorado River to Havasupai Gardens and finally, up the Bright Angel Trail to the South Rim.

The Grand Canyon had other ideas. Over the next few blog posts, I'll share some details of my adventure.