Grand Canyon the Easy Way - Going Down

Sunday, Sept 13 - Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Woke up at 3:45am to break camp and drive to a parking lot to pick up a 5am express shuttle to the trailhead (since there was no parking at the South Kaibab trailhead).

Picture to the right is shortly after heading out down the trail - the sun hasn't even come up yet but its light enough to start walking.

Looking down on the South Kaibab trail. The trail has great views but the trail needs some work. Between the cedar posts laid across the trail are large ruts that you have to step down into. My legs were still sore from the Half Dome hike of four days ago, so they were feeling it almost from the beginning of the descent into the canyon.

Sunrise at the Grand Canyon - the picture doesn't come close to showing how beautiful that is when you are inside the canyon rim.

It was so windy that I took off my hat and tucked it into my waist - makes for a pretty dorky picture!

The first decent view of the Colorado River.

More of the South Kaibab trail. I must say you got pretty tired of stepping over those cedar posts. I didn't count them, but there must have been five or six thousand to step over.

I thought this was a cool view within the canyon and the sun was lighting it just right. One of the cool things about leaving at sunrise was that as the sun came up, the same views got painted in completely different ways, which made it great all the way down - except for those stupid posts!

Our first view of Phantom Ranch - its up and around the corner a bit from the trees - you can barley see the roof of one of the buildings in the picture to the left.

I had never seen a blue and green squirrel before this morning. His coloring was exactly the same as some of the rock formations on the way down.

The silver bridge from the Bright Angel trail over the river. There are two suspension bridges over the Colorado - the black bridge will be the one we cross over from the South Kaibab trail.

And there it is - I liked the reflection of the bridge on the river. Today, the river was green, but the next couple of days it was the more traditional reddish brown that originally gave the river its name. I think the boys upstream controlling the dam decide how much water and silt to release and that dictates the color of the river.

We're starting to get close and its starting to get a bit hot too.

See the rafts sitting on Boat Beach to the right.

The mule train delivering dinner and hopefully beer to Phantom Ranch.

Mules on a bridge! Mules on a bridge!

I thought this was a cool shot coming out of the tunnel that leads to the black bridge.

View from the black bridge looking downstream to the silver bridge.

The cabins at Phantom Ranch. I was in a bunkhouse with ten beds. Tough night's sleep, since the beds were all squeaky and I had a USC fan in the bunk above me.

Bright Angel creek and campsite next to Phantom Ranch. If you stay there, you can always walk up to the Phantom Ranch canteen for air conditioning and a cold drink. Reserve meals in advance though - they don't have any express mules to go fetch extra food.

Timed shot from the bridge - lucky my camera didn't end up in the river.

It was so hot at the bottom, I really, really wanted to jump into this boat as it came under the bridge. Looks like a much cooler way to see the canyon than hiking down into it.

Had a beer upon arrival at 10:45am - probably a record. That evening, had a steak dinner at Phantom Ranch. The steak wasn't that great (probably mules that couldn't cut it), but when else are you going to get a steak at the bottom of the freaking Grand Canyon? And the beer was cheaper than at a baseball game - three cheers for mules!

Drive to Grand Canyon and Elk Infiltrating the Campground

Saturday, Sept 12 - Grand Canyon National Park

Spent the morning with the family and breakfast, then took on the four hour drive from Phoenix up to the Grand Canyon. When I arrived at the park, I immediately checked in and got a site at the one campground inside the park and this is what I found in the campsite next to mine. I had been disappointed that I hadn't had a single good elk encounter on this entire trip, but not any longer. What an incredible creature!

Half Dome - Done!

Wednesday, Sept 9 - Yosemite National Park

Started out the Half Dome hike at 5:45am in complete darkness, wearing only my miner's flashlight. I knew the beginning part of the trail to Vernal Falls was well groomed, so I didn't worry about the dark and wanted to give myself as much time as possible to get to the top and back down again. There is only about thirteen hours of daylight in Yosemite this time of year and they estimate the hike at 10-12 hours round trip.

To the right is me standing in front of Vernal Falls, the first of two waterfalls along the way.

Starting to get a bit winded from the climb so I took a picture down into the valley to show how far we'd come - not far at all - a long way to go.

From the top of Vernal Falls with a long exposure to get the mist effect on the waterfall. Not easy to get a good picture in low light without a tripod, but I did the best I could.

Above Vernal Falls is Emerald Pool and it has this long flat creek bed that feeds it. I had joined another hiking group and an older guy in that group talked about how they used to slide down that into the pool riding their backpacks.

Looking up at Nevada Falls - the second waterfall. We're probably less than 1500 feet into the 4800 foot climb at this point - still feeling pretty good here.

From this point, it was a grind up several hundred feet of steep rock stairs to the top of Nevada Falls. After that, you got a small respite of relatively flat walking through Yosemite Valley before going back into the woods and starting the slow but steady ascent up to the base of Sub Dome - a smaller dome right next to Half Dome.

The picture to the left is near the summit of Sub Dome with Half Dome looming in the background. The climb up Sub Dome was a killer - about 600 feet of rock stairs - steep and narrow. At this point, the stairs and trail disappeared entirely and you were on your own to scurry up the granite to the top. My legs didn't have much in the way of "scurry" in them at this point - the stairs had pretty much done them in.

The summit of Sub-Dome. Its a big gathering place for people to decide if they want to tackle the cables to the top of Half Dome or not. Surprisingly, a lot of people don't go any further than this. You can barely see the cables going straight up the side in the distance. On busy summer days, there can be an hour wait to get onto the cables there are so many people up there. Today was not that busy at all and you could go any time you chose or got up the nerve.

Just in case I chickened out, I needed a picture that I had actually climbed something - Bob, Conqueror of Sub Dome - yes!

Staring at the cables from Sub Dome is not a good idea - it looks like its about a 75 degree ascent, when in fact its not that bad. I needed Garrison to tell me to man up and climb the dumb thing. Fortunately, I had cell service, so was able to text him, to which he responded effectively (if not a bit rudely). At any rate, I decided to give it a try.

The base of the cables. About every 10-15 feet or so are poles and across those poles are two-by-fours (you can see them running horizontally to the left). The basic strategy is to look at the ground and when the person in front of you vacates their two-by-four, you walk up five or six steps to stop on board. Since there are very few natural footholds and it is pretty steep and slow to climb, you really don't want to get stuck between two-by-fours if you can help it.

I was wondering if the same guys who lost control of the fire had built these cables? Hope they are better at cable-building than fire-controlling!

About half way up. Felt good enough to let go of the cables and get out my camera for a shot up ahead. About the only tricky part going up were a few ridges that you had to climb up onto while still holding on or when someone was coming down and needed to pass you. Some younger kids went up without gloves and wearing sneakers. The best they could do was pretty much slide down, which made you wonder what would happen if one if them crashed into you. Far as I know, nobody died today, so I guess they all made it.

The top of the cables. Not quite to the summit but close. Time to relax a little bit.

People hanging out on a rock overhanging the cliff side of Half Dome.

The view from the top looking down into Yosemite Valley. Where its green is where we started the hike from. 4800 vertical feet and about 8.5 miles to this point.

I was dreading the climb down the cables, but with good gloves (Walmart gardening gloves with the rubber dots) and good boots it wasn't bad at all.

Back at Sub Dome, photographed these squirrels that were systematically rifling every backpack that people had left while they went up the cables. Any food not in a zippered pocket was gone. Those were some really fat squirrels!









The hike down from Half Dome was a real grind. Usually, I enjoy the hikes back but the steepness of the descent really did a number on what was left of my legs. And to have to walk another eight miles at that point is pretty tough too, but you just got to gut it out. I was never so happy to see the Pathfinder as at the end of today.

After the hike, I went straight to Curry Village and paid $5 for a long overdue shower. Then I headed over to the Curry Village Bar and had a couple of tall IPAs and some chicken wings. Every bone, muscle and tendon in my body hurt at that point, but the IPAs helped tremendously. I still have the unopened bottle of Aleve that I bought for the trip!

After refueling at Curry Village, it was off again in search of another campsite. Yosemite really needs to spend more time building campsites instead of building fires.

Yosemite Valley

Tuesday, Sept 8 - Yosemite National Park

Today, they announced that the road into Yosemite Valley would open at 5pm. I decided I didn't want to wait for that, so I drove out and around the park to get back in - took about three hours, but it was a fun drive on really windy and steep roads - made me wish I was driving a two-seater convertible rather than a twelve year old Pathfinder!

Down in the Valley, I discovered that all of the campgrounds are generally full, but I got my name on a waiting list and told to return at 3pm. I decided to kill the time by strolling around the valley some.

To the left is Yosemite Falls, the tallest waterfall in all of North America - that is, when there is water in it. If you are planning a trip to Yosemite, plan it for earlier in the summer if you want to see much water. Mirror Lake was another water feature without water this late in the season.

Getting closer to Half Dome (right) - tomorrow is the day! I showed up for the campsite lottery at 3 and got a site for one day. Since I would be hiking the entire next day, I knew I was SOL for getting any site in the valley after the Half Dome hike. Note to self - if you ever come back to Yosemite, don't come back without campsite reservations, no matter how late in the summer.

The picture (left) did not adequately capture this pretty stream with the mountain looming behind it.

The picture to the right was me playing with long exposures on my camera to get the effect of the fire. The resident of this campsite was also camping along and he was planning to hike up to Half Dome at midnight to watch the sunrise from the top. He was working on me pretty hard to go along with him. I gracefully declined. In daylight was daunting enough - there was no way I was going to climb up there in the pitch dark. Since I didn't get to stay in the same campsite the next day, I never heard if he attempted it or not.

Waiting for the Fire to be Put Out!

Monday, Sept 4 - Yosemite National Park

Kind of a slow day today. The road to Yosemite Valley is still closed, so I decided to drive out the Tioga Pass road to Tuolomne Meadows and see the north end of the park. In the picture to the left, you can see Half Dome off in the distance in the middle of the frame. Climbing that is the main objective for Yosemite.

Tenaya Lake (right and below) is a really pretty lake along the Tioga Pass road.

Tuolomne Meadows (below) is along the road near the end. Its a popular destination for hikers as there are a number of day hikes that originate from there to other area lakes and destinations. I ate breakfast instead of hiking.

Didn't do much the rest of the day. Still a bit frustrated to not be able to get into Yosemite Valley, I relaxed in camp most of the day reading a book.