Day 3: Black Angel Trail from Black Angel Campground out to South Rim
We woke up the next morning, again, earlier than I wanted to. I even tried to hide in my sleeping bag and tell Potter to pretend I was asleep and not let Miceli know that I was awake. It didn’t last long though. And then when I went to get up...I couldn’t. I literally don’t think I’ve ever been as sore in my life as I was that morning. Two days of hiking, plus restless sleep on the ground and I was in a sorry state. I was able to get one foot and the other knee on the ground, but past that, I couldn’t stand up. I mean really. It was beyond the realm of what my body was capable of. I had Miceli pass me my hiking stick (love that thing) and eventually hoisted myself up, dragged myself over to the picnic table, and made more granola.
We knew that we had roughly the same mileage as the day before, and since we’d been surprised at how quickly we got to camp the day before, didn’t think day 3 would be too hard. We knew there was a steeper incline than yesterday, but how bad could it be? Oh man. We had no idea what we were in for.
The next 5 or so hours were basically just a never-ending set of switchbacks. It rarely leveled out, just continued to climb and climb. The first few hours weren’t too bad, and even after feeling like we’d been hiking forever, were able to look back at where we’d spent the night before and feel a sense of accomplishment. “Hey guys, remember when we were down there? And now we’re up here!” It kept me going.
There were two restrooms (composting toilets) located along the trail, spaced evenly, and those served as good markers of how far we’d gone and how much was left. Getting to the first one was tough, but manageable. By the time we got to the second, I was wearing thin (1.5 and 3 miles, respectively). The last 1-2 hours of the hike were pretty brutal, though. Towards the end, we were stopping what felt like every 5 minutes, and it only got worse as we went up, because the closer you get to the rim, the more day trippers there are. And day trippers have lots of energy. And ask stupid questions like “Did you spend the night down there?” (To which we would snarkily reply in our heads “No, we just like carrying these 40 pound packs for fun.”) And day trippers are bundled up (“because it’s cold out here!”) and wearing normal, street shoes. One guy even had the gall to tell us that we were 10 minutes from the top when we were in fact an hour away. I actually believed him, because I couldn’t tell how far away we were.
That was one part of the end of the hike that I wasn’t expecting. I had imagined that we’d be able to tell exactly where the end was, because, well, it was the top. What I didn’t account for, though, is that the rim doesn’t drop straight down immediately from the edge. It steps out a few times, in such a way that you can’t always see the rim, and in fact you sometimes see ledges that you think are the rim but that are in fact just other ledges that you’ll have to climb past.
On our way out, we were passed by two guys in their 80s, who seemed to do this hike pretty regularly (one of them even knew many of the other people on the trail by name), and a blind hiker. He was with a group of people, but still. A man using a walking stick passed us in the Grand Canyon. We were feeling pretty pathetic by the end. At least the 300 pound guy we had started out with didn’t pass us. At least we had that.
I have significantly less pictures from the last day than I do from the first two. I was just too tired to take off my camera, take it out of the case, and take pictures of things. Towards the top there was actually a lot of ice, and I remember thinking once that I should take a picture of it, then going “....nah” in my head. The three of us started getting pretty loony towards the end of the hike. We debated things like leaving our packs on the side of the trail (“who needs that extra weight?”) and throwing ourselves off the side of the trail (“because then a helicopter would have to come get us and we wouldn’t have to hike out!”). I remember at one point thinking to myself that I didn’t know how I was going to make it to the rim. I knew that my legs would somehow have to carry me there, but I couldn’t understand how that was physically possible. Time for another break. Probably while some crazy runners passed us.
All complaining aside, though, we did make it out. And we did have an amazing time. And I can now say that I’ve hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back. I think all three of us were a little too shell-shocked at the end to feel that sense of accomplishment, but once we got a little distance from it, we were really proud of ourselves. And honestly, in a little bit of disbelief of what we’d done :)
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