Grand Canyon Rim Trail: 7 mile walk. Preparation for Descent.

Day 7 - Stops: Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.

Hikes:  Rim Trail (7 miles). 

After very little sleep due to my sickness, Jeremy and I decided to forego a hike into the Canyon today and take a leisurely stroll along the 7 mile Rim Trail as I recovered and we both took this time to rehydrate. Aside from the GI distress I was being pounded with an insect in my ear, a splinter in my hand, and an enormous blister from hiking in Sedona. Jeremy had one small blister on his right foot. This recovery time was necessary. With the help of Jeremy I performed the following minor, non-sterile procedures on myself: 1. Insect removal from inner ear. 2. Cut open a blister on my heel with a semi-clean knife that we use to cut our meat 3. Splinter removal from the palmar surface of my hand with a nail clipper.

Prior to our hike we took showers (with hairdryers!) and ran into a couple that were walking their cat on a leash. We then stopped at the General Store and spoke with the cashier about our potential hike down to the river. She looked at us with doubt in her eyes, stating that she does this hike in 5 hours and insinuated that we could not hike for 14 miles straight. She also suggested we not attempt it. Which had us asking the question, do we really look that weak? I felt like it was regionalism if there is such a thing. Like people outside of the southwest can’t handle the hike. It was clearly too late to start the hike today anyway so we decided to continue with our plan for the Rim Trail.

We learned that in the Grand Canyon you can’t really drive anywhere yourself because they don’t allow parking. They’re very eco-friendly here, everything runs on natural gas and has solar panels. The shuttles cut down on traffic since there is really only one route from end to end. So we took the shuttle out to Hermit’s Rest where there is an old general store and restaurant built in the early 1900s. There we got pretty close with a Raven that was chillin on the cliff and started the 7 mile (hike?) around the rim. It’s really more of a long walk than a hike in my opinion. Of course there is fantastic scenery all the way around. We stopped and ate some cliff bars along the way. I did the whole thing in flip flops due to my blister but my feet were pretty achy at the end of it. And then we shuttled our way back to the car.

Rim Trail

The Raven

Zoom lens view deep into the Canyon

A Toad

I was feeling better and thought I could handle the hike into the Canyon so we decided to begin our preparations for the hike. We first headed to the General store and purchased more gear for the next day’s hike: a hiking hat (sombrero of sorts), blister pads- called Glacier Gel (highly recommended), and freeze dried Pad Thai just in case we should have to spend the night in the Canyon.

We arrived back at camp before sunset so that we could prepare for the next day’s epic adventure down into the Canyon. We packed the following: a Mess kit (pot/sporks/MSR propane tank and burner), Freeze dried Pad Thai, Water purifier, two 1L Nalgenes of water, a 3L water bladder and a 2L water bladder, extra blister pads, 45 SPF sun block, 2 head lamps, 1 emergency flashlight, 4 Strawberry-Lemonade power gels, 4 Cliff Bars, 4 Crunch bars, 2 peanut butter and Jelly Sandwiches, 2 packs of Beef Jerky, Trail Mix x 2, 1 map of the Grand Canyon and Trail information brochure, each of our Licenses, insurance cards, and credit cards, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, leatherman, a Nikon D300 camera with Sigma 10-20mm lens and a Nikon 55-120 lens, gloves,  2 extra hiking socks and 1 set of hiking poles.

Of course when packing for such a thing you tend to forget some important items: Albuterol Inhaler for Jeremy and the Emergency Blanket.