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| Backpack | 9.40 Miles |
4,390 AEG |
| | Backpack | 9.40 Miles | 4 Hrs 30 Mns | | 2.09 mph |
| 4,390 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | Finally getting around to writing my reports for my trip into the GC for the GCHBA. I got out of the canyon, had 2 days to catch up with my online students, then had 5 days in San Diego for a conference. I've been buried since!
This was day 1 of 6 days below the rim, which I just have to say freaking kicks butt! Chris Forsythe had advertised that he had spaces available on the GHBCA Volunteer project in October, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I arranged with Kurt to carpool out to the canyon from Phoenix - and despite our political differences we had a great trip! In his massive truck, I felt like we were just sailing up to the canyon. We left Phoenix a little after 9am and made it to the canyon right at 2pm. Kurt said he prefers heading in on the Bright Angel trail, and as I hadn't done that down in quite a while, I was excited.
Needless to say, Kurt is a bit faster than me, but he was very nice about hanging back so I wasn't hiking all alone all afternoon. Though I'm sure for him the pace was pretty low, I felt like we were flying along. When we hit Indian Gardens, it was only 4:15. Kurt suggested that we take the short segment of the old BA trail down to the top of the Devil's Corkscrew. I was so glad he was along, because otherwise it would have been very unlikely that I would have found that little gem of a trail! Though the horse/mule poo had been better on the BA than I'd seen it in years, the Old BA was pristine and fun - and in the afternoon light it was just beautiful.
We made it down to the Pipe Creek Beach at about 5:30, which left us an hour to get to Phantom if we were going to make the dinner bell @ the bunkhouse. No problem! We pulled up only to find that dinner was late anyhow. No worries there - we're in the Grand Canyon and schedules mean bubkiss!
I wasn't able to find a place to hang that night - the trees were all off limits (after all we were working with Sjors the tree keeper). So I crashed on a pad on the front porch along with a team of ethnobotanists who were staying at the cabin. It was like a uber-fun plant-nerd sleep over! |
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Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.- Barack Obama |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
