Surfin’ USA

Grand Canyon Backpacking

Last week was spring break here at UCI, which three friends and I took as an opportunity to get away for a few days. So on Monday Dave, Kenny, Matt and I loaded our backpacks in the car and headed to the Grand Canyon, leaving civilization behind us!

After a cold night at the South Rim (19F/-7C) we set out from the South Kaibab Trailhead at 7260 ft (2213 m) on Tuesday morning. We hiked 7 miles (11.3 km) all the way to the Colorado river at the bottom of the Canyon, descending to 2480 ft (756 m), where we set up our camp for the night at Bright Angel Campground. On Wednesday we headed up the North Kaibab Trail on the north side of the Canyon, hiking some 8 miles/12.9 km (including a detour to Ribbon Falls) to Cottonwood Campground at 4080 ft (1244 m), halfway up to the North Rim. After a night with wonderful, star-lit skies we did a little morning hike to Roaring Springs before grabbing our packs and heading back to the bottom, where we set up camp once more and headed to bed early. Friday morning we got an early start and set out for our ascent out of the Canyon via the Bright Angel trail, a 9.6 mile (15.5 km) climb from 2480 ft (756 m) to 6860 ft (2093 m)! With sore legs and blistered feet we eventually reached the South Rim in the afternoon, where we camped for another very cold night (16F / -9C) before driving back to Irvine on Saturday.

It was a great trip — even though I’m still sore. The views were breathtaking on every step of the trail, the weather was good throughout most of the trip, and it was nice to get away from computers, email, cell phones, etc. for a few days. Both Kenny and I took our digital cameras with us, and even though it’s hard to capture the full enormity of the Grand Canyon in pictures, the photos we took are still impressive. I therefore invite you to browse through them (and there are quite a few), first mine and then Kenny’s: