Day 1: South Rim to Cottonwood Campground, May 12, 2025
A dawn start on the South Kaibab, everything misty blue:
A very, very, very windy sunrise from Ooh Ahh Point:
The most beautiful part of the trail (especially during this time of day):
For any day-hikers out there who just want a little taste of the canyon, I highly recommend the first bit of the South Kaibab (at sunrise, if possible). Go at least 10 minutes or so past Ooh Aah Point and you'll see the above section of trail, which is one of my favorites anywhere. Remember that going back up will take twice as long, and there's no water and practically no shade, so carry enough water and go when it's cool.
Me at Skeleton Point. Note the scarf to protect my ears from the continuing and very aggressive winds, the knock-you-off-balance winds. This was my fifth hike into the Canyon and the only one with this particular weather feature. Luckily it calmed down a little on the few parts of the South Kaibab where you really don't want to be knocked off balance.
Well-loved trail:
Me at the fork where normally you can go left on the River Trail and right to Phantom Ranch, but the River Trail is still closed for pipeline work (as is the Bright Angel down from Havasupai Gardens). The South Kaibab had a lot more traffic on it than usual because of the closures. People going from the river to the South Rim had two choices. First option: Go up the South Kaibab to the Tip-Off and then across the Tonto to Havasupai Gardens, where they could pick up the Bright Angel. This added significant mileage. Option two: Go straight up the South Kaibab (steeper than the Bright Angel, really exposed, and without water). This unexpected prolonging of the closure didn't affect my itinerary, so I was lucky.
I met a mule train right about here on my very first trip. What a cool echo.
After playing in the Colorado, having some lemonade at the Phantom Ranch canteen, writing postcards, and filling up with water, I started through the Box on the North Kaibab:
It was getting pretty warm, so I took every opportunity to get my hat and scarf wet in Bright Angel Creek:
Some of the many colors of prickly pear blossoms I saw on the trail:
And there were so many gorgeous, lush sotol blooms, towering over the rest of the vegetation. Very cool.
The aggressive wind, however, was dehydrating me even more than the 90+degrees Fahrenheit would normally have, and I ran through my water faster than expected. I was down to my last quarter cup or so (not as dire as it sounds, because I could have backtracked a bit and found a decent route down to Bright Angel Creek or just pushed through to Cottonwood Campground, less than a mile away, but I was still sooooo happy to find this beauty crossing my path:
I sat down in the shady-ish banks of Wall Creek and filtered about 3 liters of water.
By the time I got to camp, I was hot and tired and happy. I felt a little bit like this squirrel:
I relaxed the rest of the day, snoozing in the shade of my campsite, chatting with others by the creek--including a cool thru-hiker who let me pick her brain, wondering whether the wind would die down enough for me to put up my tent, cold-soaking my dinner, and then watching and listening to a bunch of bats who were chowing down on bugs at dusk. What a lovely, lovely day.
By the way, I finally set up my tent before dark (still in the wind), and even though the ground was so hard I could hardly get my stakes in partway and had to shore some of them up with rocks, my tent did really well. It flapped noisily, keeping me awake for a while. But it didn't fall down. Spoiler: and it wasn't until the next afternoon that one of the less-secure pegs finally pulled out. So now I've had my first rainy test (last Grand Canyon trip) and my first windy test (this trip), and the tent's going strong.
It's the Naturehike Cloud Up 1 (20D nylon variety). I'm not crazy about some aspects of it. It's kind of cramped (but what do you expect from a one-person backpacking tent?) The tunnel design is not as handy for getting in and out as other door designs. There are rather of a lot of stakes and guy lines, so it's not as quick to set up as it claims unless you have really nice, soft ground (but those stakes and guy lines probably help it take the wind as well as it seems to). However...for the money, it's the lightest tent I've found, it's just big enough for my needs, it packs down fairly small, it has nice features like reflective strips to keep you from wandering off in the night and losing your tent, and so far it's been good in rain and wind. So...I would recommend it for budget backpackers or people just testing the waters before they invest big.
