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I plan to solo night hike during winter doing the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim this Thanksgiving and New year Eve. Details is at ( dead link removed ) and

( dead link removed )

I like to know about the snow condition on the North Kaibab trail during the Thanksgiving and New Year day. I have been GC many times including doing the Rim to Rim twice in the middle of Summer. I am a recent Sierra Club WTC 2003 grad (( dead link removed )).

TIA

Chris
( dead link removed )

Thank you. I will go for 12,000' gain/loss conditioning hike tomorow. I hope to end the hike without muscle or joint pain (slow and heavy with plenty of break).

If the snow is too thick over the coming weekend, I will have to postpond it. I just called the ranger. He warned me of the snow towards the North rim.

I can't wait. I have done the Rim to Rim twice. I will make the RTRTR this time, hopefully alone.

Chris

There is a major storm going through AZ right now and there is more snow predicted for Tuesday next week. We had lots of rain and wind last night in Payson and they are saying that we are to have some snow this weekend. Since the north is on the 8200 ft or so I would think that there will be some good snow going. On the web cam for Flagstaff shows new snow and they had .3 inches of Precipitaion. (not sure how much snow) Just be careful looks like winter is going to hit us this next week.

In response to Dschur's reply:

Thank you. The ranger also warned me about this. I will call them to find out bad the snow is towards the North rim. I may have to postpond it for a few weeks. The good side is the lodge should be less $$$ by then.

Thanks again.

Chris

Today is the last day to cancel the maswik lodge reservation. I just did it. I just don't want to go there just to turn back. The lodge is about $360 for 3 nights. I think I'm going for a local 11,000' gain (near Class 3.5 on the ridge). The details is at http://www.mountainnight.com/

This is quite a hike since the hard part is off trail and rated Class 3.5 by some. Now it must be all covered by snow.

Anyone wants to join me? I got to do something. Thanks all. I'll try again in 5-6 weeks.

Chris

P.S. I'm not giving it up for the Winter RTRTR solo night hike. I never will. I will go to Bishop for an Avalance course in Feb. I might have a chance to stop by. I hope it's still cold and lots of (packed) snow.

In response to chris_quan's reply: I ran the R3 on Oct. 6 of this year in around 15 hours. I drank 12 quarts of water, lots of pretzels, Balance bars, 6 GU packets, and Wheat Thins. Four of us left at 11:30 pm on a full moon, went down the S Kaibob to the N Rim and back up the Bright Angel. I experienced no muscle pain or stiffness the next day, but I am a long time runner at age 51. Looking at your equipment plans on both this website and Outdoors Club, you seem to be carrying a lot of weight. In addition to running, I have been an active climber for 30 years in Alaska and the Cascades and one of the main keys to successful climbs and long distance runs is the amount of weight you carry. For what it's worth.....

In response to chris m's reply:
chris,
I saw your post & had to respond.
That's quite a feat, your time on the R2R2R.... but I'm MORE impressed that you could eat SIX, count 'em SIX GU packets.
When the squirrels got into my friends' pack @ Phantom last April, they ate EVERYTHING in his pack... that is, but for the two GU packets of his that they chewed into, but spit out.
I have to agree with the squirrels on this one.

chris m wrote:In response to chris_quan's reply: I ran the R3 on Oct. 6 of this year in around 15 hours. I drank 12 quarts of water, lots of pretzels, Balance bars, 6 GU packets, and Wheat Thins. Four of us left at 11:30 pm on a full moon, went down the S Kaibob to the N Rim and back up the Bright Angel. I experienced no muscle pain or stiffness the next day, but I am a long time runner at age 51. Looking at your equipment plans on both this website and Outdoors Club, you seem to be carrying a lot of weight. In addition to running, I have been an active climber for 30 years in Alaska and the Cascades and one of the main keys to successful climbs and long distance runs is the amount of weight you carry. For what it's worth.....

Thanks. I could not agree more about the weight. However, I start the hike or climb at Sunset and sleep during the day. I only deal with everything from Sunset til around 8 A.M. (then I'll be snoring "loud and clear").

My main concern is safety and fun. Without the sunlight for navigation guide, I would rather take my 3 GPS, 200-lumen headlamp, 2-lb/15F sleep bag&pad, Big wall bivy, and the Satellite phone.

My goal is to never count the completion of the hike/climb as the final stop. If I can push myself to start the hike looking up the formidable dark mountain at night alone. For someone who has always been afraid of the dark, this alone is the summit...

Good that you had never seen me when all my headlamp stop working The night was longer then I expected.

Chris

In response to chris m's reply:

BTW, at adventurehiking.com, Rich Hale mentioned about an R3 running in 8 hours? Is this for real? This is unreal but the gentleman does not lie.

Chris

The record for an R3 is 7 hours 51 minutes set back in the mid or early 80's. The runner was from Arizona and he was 42 at the time. As a com,parison my time of 15 hours was done running a little over half the difference and fast hiking the uphills. Good luck with your R3.

In response to chris m's reply:

Thanks. Your time is impressive. I would have to bail out on this. I will never go light and fast (just a matter of taste). Speed does sound fun, though. I'll have to stay on the sideline to watch.

"Heavy and Slow" is my thing. I actually hauled 65-lb pack up the Cactus to Cloud during the Winter (last January). I hauled it up 8,000' with full winter and summer gear. The hike is 100F during the day at lower evelation and -80F with Windchill at 5 A.M. (January). This was my first solo night hike with the first time using crampon and ice axe. I was taking the Sierra Club Wilderness Travel Courses at http://angeles.sierraclub.org/wtc/ at the time (2003 graduate)

See my website for the hike at (warning: large 1MB+ JPEG map for printing. Please avoid it if you use 56K dial-up) http://www.mountainnight.com/SanJacinto/index.html

Can I go light and fast? Yes, I can but it won't be fun for me. My night hike/climb give me the same feeling as being out there for weeks or months. It's a complete drain of my whole body and mind. It's like reborn again in just about 24-36 hours of night travel.

It's time to go back again soon. I plan for a solo night hiking using complete off-trail route from the floor to the peak with around 11,000' gain. Soon, I hope to solo night climb the Snow Creek with 7,000' of snow climb straight up (see http://home.att.net/~bobsumner/SnowCrk.htm ).

Safety is my main concern. If I can not guarantee safety for myself. I will not do it. This is why "heavy and slow" works well for me.

I'm more like an explorer then anything else.

Chris

Does anyone know what the record is for a Rim-Rim crossing? Or where you can even find odd records like that.

Here are some records for running the GC.

The rim to tim run across the Grand Canyon has always been regarded as an adventure runners great challenge. Not sanctioned by the Park Service, the annual event is held each October, unofficially. For the toughest of the tough, runners run back to the South Rim, completing a rim to rim to rim! Allyn Cureton holds the record of under 8 hours for the double crossing.

Ultrarunning Magazine lists Allyn Cureton, 64 years old today, of Williams, AZ holds the records:

Single Crossing (N. Kaibab - S. Kaibab) on 10-4-81 in 3:06:47 (20.6 mi.)

Double Crossing (S. to N. to S. Kaibab) on 11-9-81 in 7:51:23 (41.2 mi., ca. 12,000' elev. gain)

Note that these two records were established in the second from last year that the National Park allowed organized running events.

I have only been able to verify a few people doing three or four times across non-stop. For the four times across:

Double Double Crossing (Kaibab trails) in 10/87 Wallly Shiel in 24:45:00 (82.4 mi., ca. 24,000' elev. gain)

There have been a number of folks try to break Allyn's records and they were hammered. Note Allyn was 44 years old when he set these records.

Link is http://www.grandcanyontreks.org/faq.htm

These times are old and not valid as records any longer. I know of more than 6 people that break hours for the crossing.

Well of course those times must be old, because our very own SIDHAYES went for S. RIM to N. rim in under 3 hours. which is harder than N. to S.

Thanks for the input guys. I tried finding some info on it, but couldn't because like you said the NPS no longer allows those kind of events.

In response to sidhayes' reply: I had heard that other people had run it in less than 3 hours, but the times I posted were the best times I had found with a specific person's name attached to them and was just posting them to the qustion asked by davis. Thanks for the new information as it is amazing how times keep falling in long runs.