Over the years the Canyon has been host to a lot of different people with their own agenda as to what they expect to get out of the experience. I guess the big issue is how the various participants will tolerate each other as they go for their own goals.
I was one of the ‘Baby Boomers’ who showed up at the Canyon during the late '60s. Imagine long-haired hippies (and a cloud of happy smoke) instead of marathon runners in the photo posted of the crowd at Phantom Ranch. Without a permit process, NPS had no way to control the number of Boomers on summer break from college who gathered inside the Canyon. So many were using the swimming pool at Phantom (creek water diverted into a man-made holding pond) that the Health Department deemed it a health risk—Park Service even tried adding a chlorine unit but that had no effect. Park Service eventually filled in the pool to get rid of the Boomers who were living at Phantom to the dismay of the paying guests. The goal was to control potential health risks (lots of fecal bacteria in the water with skinny-dipping hippies using it as a community bathtub). Paying guests staying at Phantom complained about the hippies who were living at Phantom and using the facilities for free (including the restrooms meant for the mule riders). So many Boomers showed up at Indian Gardens on spring break—I believe it was 1972(?)—it turned into a mini- Woodstock in the middle of the Canyon. (If you remember the ‘70's you didn’t live the 70's). Soon after, NPS initiated the Permit process to limit numbers and to require overnighters to stay in designated campsites.
Another event occurred in the '60s when people responded to President John Kennedy’s fitness challenge to do ‘50 miles in 24 hours.’ Kennedy got that notion from reading Teddy Roosevelt and his fitness criteria for marines to be able to do that time and distance. Kennedy put together his fitness challenge criteria (baby boomers will recall doing the push-ups, rope climb, ½ mile run, etc. in gym class.) The R2R2R was a natural extension of that challenge since the mileage is right at that 50-mile goal—shuffle over to the BA ice cream stand and you have it. For a time, it was an annual thing at the Canyon for groups to show up and do the Kennedy challenge—the Boy Scouts even came up with a ‘50 mile’ merit patch (it has since been reduced to 50 miles in 5 days and not 24 hours). I think that hiking challenge naturally blended into the ultramarathon runner and the goal to do it faster than the 24 hours. It would be interesting to see how many of the ultrarunners who showed up participated in the ‘50 mile’ challenge at some time in their life—either directly or via parents/grandparents.
The BA-North Kaibab route is perfect for runners with water access, trail width, relatively easy trailhead access, support services along the route, motel rooms at the end of the run, and sufficient physical challenge but not too severe that running shoes/shorts are adequate gear. The trail was designed for mules, not hikers. It is one reason the erosion control berms are spaced the way they are—it is for a mule stride, not a human stride. It does accommodate the stride of runners better than the stride of backpackers. Watch backpackers as they struggle to find a comfortable stride going down long stretches of the BA.
The death of marathon runner Margaret Bradley in 2004 sent a warning message to those who want to challenge the Canyon with runs outside the corridor R2R. She and her partner tried a loop run down Grandview–over the Tonto–and back up the South Kaibab. Heat and the lack of water did her in. NPS has used her death-run in some of their trailside warning posters over the years. As soon as the running community figures out how to get water stations established for events along the South Rim Tonto, we will have people running the ‘Colin Fletcher Marathon.’ It may take longer to see them on Nankoweap.
(Do a simple web search on “Margaret Bradley Death at Grand Canyon” for details).
The backpacking community has their Canyon heroes—some still follow in the footsteps of Butchart, Steck, and some even Colin Fletcher. I know I was fascinated by Fletcher’s ‘The Man Who Walked Through Time’ even though in retrospect his hike has been accomplished by many hikers and was not really as dramatic as portrayed. I made it a point to not just do their hikes but to meet them in person.
Harvey Butchart was as dour and dry as a desert scorpion fart the few times I bumped into him in the Canyon. He was on a mission to get in as many miles and establish new routes. He’d only grunt as he hurried by and could qualify as a marathon runner when in a hurry. He even asked me to leave when I showed up at one of his hiking club meetings (he taught Math at NAU) because I was not enrolled in school at the time. Later, I made the mistake of approaching him with my copy of Fletcher’s ‘Man Who Walked Through Time.’ I asked HB for his autograph next to Fletcher’s. I got silence and a cold angry glare for my request–I later learned that Butchart resented Fletcher for ‘stealing his Thunder’ in regards to Fletcher’s success and fame with his book. Fletcher gave Harvey his due in his book and describes a section of trail with Harvey’s footprints appearing in the mist. Fletcher took it that Harvey had gone down this section to determine how safe the route was—I think HB did it to establish the claim that he and not Fletcher was the first over that section. Many years later, I was doing consulting work for a nursing home chain and walked into one of their facilities in Sun City (in Phoenix). Listed as one of the residents was ‘H. Butchart.’ I was anxious to see if this was one of my Canyon heroes and I stopped by his room and glanced in—I wanted to thank him for his work at the Canyon that had provided me plenty of hiking adventures—but he was out of it. Hopefully, he was route-finding and happy in his mind during his last days.
George Steck had the exact opposite personality to HB—I bumped into him and a group at Clear Creek. I was on the CCC version of the hike while Steck was mapping a loop route from Nankoweap. He loved to talk Canyon and had me over to his campsite for an evening martini—that he carried the makings for a martini and an extra glass for the company tells you a lot about his personality. I wished I got to hike with him and after his books on Loop Hikes came out I was attempting each one.
I met Fletcher at a book signing—didn’t get much time to talk one-on-one.
The running community has its own long list of heroes Grand Canyon—that history traces back just as far as the backpacking community. Here’s why I think backpackers are caught by surprise with the number of runners at the Canyon and showing up at Phantom: Once backpackers do a corridor hike or two, they extend their sight on the more difficult backcountry trails. I’m sure a good number on this forum would as soon not do a Canyon hike at all if it required using the Bright Angel. It is essentially a mule excrement through along with plenty of human waste left by the day hikers who can’t wait for the next rest house. Because the hiking community avoids the BA, we miss bumping into the runner crowd—who use the BA almost exclusively as their one and only trail. It comes as a shock then for backpackers to see a group of marathon runners at Phantom. It shouldn’t . . . they’ve been doing the distance endurance runs as long as backpackers have been humping the Canyon with backpacks and all their gear.
https://ultrarunninghistory.com/grand-c ... -to-rim-5/
I enjoy being in the Canyon, not running through the Canyon in a competition to shave seconds from someone’s best time. I always make it a point to be the last hiker out—which makes me the winner since I got to spend the most time inside the Canyon. Guess I'll never cut it as a marathon man.
