Heat, Beauty, and Decisions – A R2R2R Journey, Part 2

As I detailed in my earlier article, “Training Switchbacks – a R2R2R Journey, Part 1,” I, along with three other Trail Sisters from Bend, OR, trained for the past six months to attempt Rim to Rim to Rim (R2R2R), a double crossing of the Grand Canyon on October 8. Despite a summer of injuries, smoke and evacuations from wildfires, and at least one COVID infection, our adventure finally kicked off.

Two days before our R2R2R attempt, the four of us boarded an obscenely early flight from Bend, through Seattle, to Phoenix. After flight delays and ridiculous rental car lines, we finally exited the airport around 3pm. It was 107 degrees.

One of the reasons we chose an October R2R2R attempt was the hope for cooler temperatures. Summer in the Grand Canyon can be suffocating, with temperatures near 120+ in “the box,” or the bottom of the canyon. While the rims of the canyon can hover around the 80s and 90s in summer months, warm air gets trapped in the bottom. By October, temperatures usually moderate a bit, often dropping to the 30s and 40s at the rim at night and rising to just the 80s in the box. Unfortunately, this was no usual October. A record-breaking heat wave gripped the Southwest U.S. and the temperatures were hovering around 110 at the bottom of the Grand Canyon for weeks leading up to our journey.

We spent our first night in Arizona in Flagstaff, a mountain town that sits at 7,000 feet of elevation and an hour and a half from the South Rim. We got in late, exhausted from our long day of travel. The next morning, we found a cute breakfast cafe called Over Easy, where we filled ourselves with eggs, coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice. We stopped at the grocery store to pick up last-minute snacks and a 6-pack of beer for after our run. A short drive later, we were checking into our hotel at the South Rim.

We bobbed and weaved through tourists to get our first glimpse of the Grand Canyon. The scale of the canyon catches you by surprise, even though we saw just a small sliver from this vantage point. We could see the northern side of the canyon in the distance… tomorrow we would (hopefully) be standing there, looking back at where we stood that day.

We spent the following hours organizing snacks, making PB&J sandwiches for the run, filling our hydration bladders and bottles with water and electrolytes, and taping IT bands, knees and toes. We ate pizza at the Maswik Pizza Pub and ordered one extra pie to go… figuring we would need food to eat in our room after the run. We set our alarms for 2:45am the next morning and tucked into bed by 8:30pm.

We awoke and started applying anti-chafing gel and sunscreen as the alarm went off. We walked the short distance to the Bright Angel trailhead and met a group of hikers from Texas who offered to take our picture. We started down the South Rim at exactly 4am. It was 61 degrees.

The first few hours of the run down Bright Angel trail were dark. Our waist and headlamps kept the trail illuminated as we started to find our rhythm. At one point, we looked back toward the South Rim to see what seemed like dozens of headlamps coming down the long switchbacks behind us. The contrast between the stars and the lights was breathtaking and almost seemed other-worldly. The other three women needed to stop around 1.5 miles down the trail to use the first available restroom. I hung back to take off my long sleeves, as it was getting warm, and turned off my headlamp. Sitting on a rock, I took in the starry sky and smelled the dry air around me.

We arrived at Havasupai Gardens at the bottom of the canyon just at dawn. An animal, which we later came to realize was a ringtail, trotted across the trail in front of us. We came across two birds that were sleeping in the middle of the trail. We had to wake them so we could get by. We started running along the Colorado River, getting peeks at sandy beaches and the emerald green color of the water. We reached the Silver Bridge, a massive metal pedestrian bridge that crosses the Colorado, and exchanged photo-taking with a couple who was just starting a day hike from Bright Angel campground. We crossed the bridge and took a left at the trail junction onto North Kaibab trail – the one that would take us to the North Rim.

Around 7:30 am we rolled into Phantom Ranch, a historic lodge and canteen nestled at the bottom of the canyon. The canteen wouldn’t open for another half hour, but we used the restrooms and filled up our water bottles as we wouldn’t have these luxuries again for another 7 or so miles.

As the sun started to further illuminate the canyon walls, we stopped regularly to take photos and express awe over what we were seeing. We had descended thousands of feet into a geological phenomenon, carved out over 1.2 billion years. The sheer magnitude of it takes your breath away. We started to see people emerging from the few lottery-assigned campsites that dot the canyon floor. We saw people hiking and running both ways on the trail, smiling and commenting on the beauty around us.

The flat trail across the bottom of the canyon provided us with an opportunity to jog a faster pace. I found it difficult to keep looking up at the scenery, while trying not to trip over rocks and be efficient with my trekking poles. A trip and fall in the canyon could lead to a worst case scenario. There is no cell service, nor ways to get you out other than an expensive search and rescue helicopter ride. We had two satellite trackers with us and there were several emergency phones along the way, but rescue would take hours.

While we didn’t have a particular goal pace or finish time in mind, we had hoped that we could keep a 20-minute per mile pace, including water and restroom stops, to finish our 50-ish mile run in about 18 hours. As we reached the end of the flat section through the canyon, we were way ahead of pace… but we hadn’t done any climbing yet and the sun was just starting to really warm the air.

As we started to gain elevation up the North Rim, it became obvious that we were going to be in the direct sun for a lot of the climb. There were patches of shade as the trail zig zagged up the canyon wall, but sun dominated the trail. I tried to keep my heart rate steady in the 150s as the stone steps and red dirt reflected more heat off of the trail. The four of us started to separate a bit and we agreed to regroup at Manzanita, a stop with running water, restrooms and Cottonwood Creek flowing nearby.

I sat on the picnic table at Manzanita and forced a half of a PB&J down with some water. I ate a couple of dill pickles from a ziploc baggie in my vest. The faucet dispensed blissfully cooler water than the other water stops had provided. The last woman in our group arrived at the rest stop and said she needed time to remove her shoes and dip in the creek. I could tell the heat was taking a toll on all of us.

The rest of the climb of North Rim was a bit of a blur. I remember taking photos at Supai Tunnel, a hole where the trail threads the red rock wall. Three of us were together at that point. We stopped again at a water stop that was bustling with other hikers. One man sat on the ground looking defeated. A woman with blonde braids was consoling her husband who was struggling more than she seemingly was. We thought we must be close to the rim… but we were only halfway there.

At one point, we were approaching a sharp corner when I heard bells. At first it reminded me of jingle bells like you would hear at Christmas. Maybe someone was wearing a bear bell in the canyon? Then we came around the corner and saw 6 or so people coming toward us. Among them was a female park ranger and a man dressed in the most beautiful turquoise regalia and a straw hat with giant feathers. He had a smile on his face and looked each of us in the eyes as he passed, saying hello and asking how we were doing. His energy and presence were light and I smiled in return. We would later learn that this man was James Uqualla, a medicine man and wisdomkeeper from the Havasupai tribe, from the bottom of the Grand Canyon. He often makes pilgrimages into the canyon, where he gets a chance to share information of what his ancestors have gone through.  It felt like a special moment and I will never forget it.

The next several miles were truly a test. One of the women fell behind but we caught glimpses of her on the switchbacks below us. We yelled and cheered her on. Two of us pulled ahead on the climb, trying to keep a steady pace. The woman who needed cold medicine in Flagstaff was starting to slow down too and fell a bit behind us. I knew I should be continuing to take in electrolytes and calories but my stomach was rebelling. Then we encountered the mule trains.

Grand Canyon National Park still uses mules to deliver mail and supplies to Phantom Ranch from the South Rim and tourists can pay to ride mules from the North Rim into the canyon. We crossed two separate groups coming down the narrow and steep North Kaibab switchbacks. We listened to the wranglers’ instructions as to where to stand to allow the mules to pass. This was a tricky balance for both the mules and the hikers dotting the trail and the mules were often defecating and urinating as they were stopped along the way. The smell, combined with the heat and my unsettled stomach, was overwhelming. I remember thinking that I wasn’t having much fun any longer. And I wasn’t even half way done.

As the first two of us reached Coconino Overlook, we knew we must be close to the top. Ponderosas and aspens were becoming plentiful and green bushes looked bright against the red rocks. Tourists without any backpacks or water were coming down the trail. Finally, we reached the top.

The North Kaibab trailhead was a flurry of activity. About a dozen people were sitting on the rocks surveying their blisters and eating snacks before heading back in the other direction. Other hikers were done with their day after one canyon crossing, finding their pre-booked shuttle drivers to take them back to the South Rim – a four-hour drive. While we waited for the other two in our group, I filled my water bottles and assessed my remaining snacks. I tried to eat a handful of Moon Cheese (dehydrated cheese) as I knew I needed the fat and calories if I was going to return.

While I knew I had the fitness to turn around and run and hike 25 miles back to the South Rim, I suddenly didn’t feel like I had the desire to do it. It had taken us 9 hours and 50 minutes to get across the canyon once and it would likely take just as long to get back. We would be going back into that heat and then the dark for hours.

I overheard a man talking to the woman with the blonde braids that we had seen at the Supai Tunnel stop earlier. He told her he was a hired private shuttle for some people who were attempting R2R2R but wanted halfway support and possibly a ride back south if they didn’t want to do the second crossing. I asked him if he had room in his shuttle. He thought I was joking. I was not.

The third person in our group arrived at the North Rim and we got a text from our fourth friend as she got some cell service. She was still about an hour away from the rim and said she would need some time to gather herself at the top. I decided that when she arrived at the rim, I would tell her about the shuttle driver – who at this point said he had room in his car and could take us back to the South Rim for a very reasonable price – and see if she wanted that option. She and I could stop here together. When I asked, her response through emotions was, “fuck, yes!”

With that, we wished the other two a safe journey back across the canyon and walked the 1.7 miles up a paved path to the Grand Canyon Lodge at the North Rim to wait for our shuttle driver while he tended to his original clients. To our absolute delight, we found a saloon and ordered blissfully cold draft beers while eating a few of our remaining snacks. Our car ride back to the South Rim was full of stories from our driver about canyon history and indigenous tribes of the area. We stopped at a lodge on Navajo Nation land and bought cold Coca Colas from the store.

We got back to our hotel at 10pm and immediately took hot showers and changed out of our dirty running clothes. As the two remaining runners from our group got cell service they updated us with their progress. We threw a Coke and canned beers we bought in Flagstaff in a bag, along with some Cheezits our driver gave us, and waited back at the Bright Angel trailhead for them to arrive. At around 11:30 the first friend arrived and then the second at around midnight.

The next day, we checked into a resort in Scottsdale where we ordered hibiscus margaritas and nachos while lounging poolside. We told stories of our different experiences in the shuttle and on the trail. Three of us flew home to Bend the following day while one went on to another fun girls’ weekend on the east coast.

As I look back, I am proud of my one crossing – R2R – of the Grand Canyon. I don’t know how many people actually achieve this feat in their lifetime, but I know it’s few. I also have a bit of remorse for not continuing back to the South Rim. I trained for it and I knew I could do it… I just didn’t want to do it. Whether it was the heat, the mules, the unsettled stomach, or the lack of will, I wasn’t willing to push through to get it done. There is a sense of unfinished business that lingers. We will see where that takes me…