Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim in a Day

It was maybe three months ago when my friend Eric had returned from a yoga retreat at the Grand Canyon. His wife dropped by, and mentioned that after looking over the canyon for a week, Eric had this fantasy of running rim to rim to rim. Of course I said "Well if you are telling me because he needs some company, I’m in!" Just like that, I had committed to running across the Grand Canyon. Twice. In a day.

I figured I had a couple of things going for me.

1) I had just completed the Western States 100 mile Endurance Run. That was way hard, and Grand Canyon or not, this distance would only be about 44 miles.

2) I would be training through the summer to prep for the New York Marathon. So while I wasn’t running the trail volume that I was doing while leading up to the Western States, I wasn’t exactly laying on the couch eating donuts. However, I was doing mostly flat road miles to prep for NYC, which is not exactly how I’d lay out a Grand Canyon training plan.

3) Eric was serious, but not too serious. In fact, he has never done an official ultra run (but has done ultra-plus length training runs). The plan was definitely to run, but also to bring his camera. Since he had never been in the canyon before, I knew that the scenery would mean some must-stop photo ops. We pretty much agreed this was a have-fun first, speed second event. So Dave Mackey’s 6:56 rim to rim to rim record would likely live to see another day.

We left on Friday night for the GC, with a plan to do a little truck camping overnight and be on the 5am shuttle for the South Kaibab trailhead. On the way up, we stopped off in Prescott for dinner at a little Indian restaurant. This was notable not so much for the meal, which was great, but for the appetizer – which on the menu was the "assorted appetizer sampler," but which our server put on our check in shorthand as shown below:

Tastes like……

Yep, that’s an “Ass Platter.” Well, as you can imagine, the Ass Platter was a source of much juvenile caliber amusement throughout the weekend. Such as “How you like those Hammer gels?” “Well, its no Ass Platter, but they’re still pretty good.” Or “I’m so hungry, I could eat an Ass Platter.”

Fueled as we were by the Ass Platter, we finished our drive to the Grand Canyon, arriving around 11pm. Eric’s plan was to sneak the truck into a group campsite for a few hours snooze. After an aborted 1st stop (complete with beer-toting redneck coming over to say “Whar you boyz frum? Cuz we waitin’ fur our friends from Tucson. But yin don’ look like yur from Tucson. Mebbee you should move yur truck.”), we found an uncontested spot, and set up some sleeping bags in the truck under the stars. Well, under the stars and about a 300 watt harvest moon, that was literally so bright I had to cover my head to have any hope of getting to sleep. Though the low was supposed to be in the upper 30s, a warm front came in and if anything, I was a little warm despite being under the stars. After a couple hours of fitful sleep, I was almost grateful when the alarm went off at 4am.

Eric whipped up a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs & we hopped the shuttle with buttered bagel in hands. Almost immediately, the bus driver shouts into the speaker, “no food on the bus!” I hide my bagel below the seat where he can’t see it. He starts the bus, and the bagel promptly flies out of my hand, landing butter-side down in the middle of the aisle. This elicits surprisingly robust laughter from the jovial 5am Kaibab shuttle crowd. I guess I was living out their rebel dreams, surreptitiously sneaking bites of my bagel on the ride to the trailhead! I’m sure I impressed them with my tough guy show by still eating the slightly grimy bagel, noting to Eric “its not like this is a New York City bus or something.”

That adventure aside, we arrived at the trailhead just pre-sunrise, enjoying the crisp air at 7200 feet of South Rim elevation. After a few last minute adjustments, we were off & running on the trail by 5:45 am. The plan was to take it relatively slow down the Kaibab in order to:

1) Avoid plunging to our early demise by tripping in the pre-sunrise gloom
2) Avoid blowing out our quads in the first 7 miles of a 44 mile day
3) Prevent the worsening of a couple of modest aches & pains I was nursing (a sore knee and calf; surprisingly, after the first few miles of descent, they gave me no problems whatsoever the rest of the day)
4) Get a few photos of sunrise in the canyon

That’s the Moon – at dawn in the canyon

Sunrise in the canyon

Jules still hanging together with only 42 miles to go!

Along the way, we passed probably all of the people who had gotten on the trail before us. Eric has a great little bell he hung on his pack, which lets out a cheerful little jingle that helps let hikers know in advance that a runner (or possibly Santa’s sleigh) is coming up behind them. Although the main purpose is to avoid startling people into accidently leaping off the side of a cliff, in practice it gave them time to process, “Holy cow, somebody is trying to run this thing!” This led to many fun little exchanges and shouts of encouragement, especially when we told people the plan was to both cross and back today. We came across one other runner, a woman named Renee, who was running alone, but had a posse of hiking friends behind her that were going to catch up at the bottom. They were also going to do the R to R to R – cool to meet a kindred spirit! In total, we made four brief stops on the way down, but still made it to the Kaibab bridge over the Colorado river in 1:29. Off to a great start!

That grey speck is Eric blazing down the South Kaibab!

Jules displays fine form crossing the bridge over the Colorado river

Rafters on the Colorado as seen from the bridge

Sunrise over the Colorado in the Inner Gorge

The next section, roughly from Phantom Ranch (at the bottom of the canyon, best known as the place that people ride the mules to for their stay in cabins in the bottom of the canyon, and perfect for a quick water refill) through Cottonwood Campground (14 miles into the trail) is a slight incline that is largely runnable. Initially, it goes through a narrow, shaded canyon for a few miles of absolutely blissful running along Bright Angel Creek. Several bridges cross the creek, and we saw a few deer along this section, including a speckled baby fawn. This was Grand Canyon running at its best.

However, after about five miles, the canyon opens up into an exposed area, and the trail leaves the creekside. Suddenly, I started to really notice the steady, slight uphill. In addition, for the first time of the day we were really exposed to the sun, and it was getting warm fast! As the day went on, I couldn’t help but note to Eric – “hey, I thought it was supposed to get cooler as you climb in elevation – why isn’t that working today?” We finally pulled into Cottonwood about 3:15 into our day (or 9am). After a bit of a snack break & water refill, we again got on our way for the bulk of the climb to the North Rim. After about another 1.5 miles of modest incline, we hit the Pumphouse, where there’s a guy that lives in the canyon year round. He is rumored to put lemonade out for people en route, but alas, there was none to be found today. At this point, the trail turns sharply uphill, and the 1st real challenge of the day begins.

Although the day was continually getting warmer, we attacked the climb with some vigor. Eric generally is faster on the downhills, which meant he had to slow down for most of the trip into the canyon to avoid leaving me in the dust; we agreed that was probably a good thing for us both. I’m generally a little faster on the uphills, so now it was Eric’s turn to keep me from burning us out on the uphill. The climb from the Pumphouse to the North Rim is about 5.5 miles, so we had some serious work ahead of us.

Along the way, the trail passes a beautiful waterfall that plunges down the side of a red rock cliff. Significant portions of the trail is pretty much a sheer drop; fortunately, the trail is fairly wide, so by staying to the inside there wasn’t too much vertigo, and when people were coming from the other direction, I had to use caution, but managed to avoid outright fear. Also, since the uphill was quite steep and climbing in elevation, we probably ran less than 20% of this section – this was pretty much a power hike. I figured that we could have run a little more, but I kept reminding myself that this was the struggle to just get to the halfway point. With about 2.5 miles to go, there is a stunning bridge that crosses Bright Angel canyon, and signals the most brutal final portion of the ascent. Fortunately, about halfway into that you reach the section where there are finally some sizable pine trees, shade, and cooler air, making the last mile almost pleasant compared to the ones that preceded it.

Crazy sweet views on the ascent to the North Rim

North Kaibab Trail at its finest

One funny thing about the approach to either of the rims is how much the demographics changes. One great thing about being in the Canyon is that when you are deep in there, you know everyone there pretty much has to know and love what they are doing. It’s pretty tough to be a looky-loo and make it far into the Canyon. One sure sign as you approach the top is you start to see people who you know shouldn’t be going much farther. Like the guy wearing jeans when its 90 and sunny out. The girl in her sweater that would be a perfectly appropriate for the office or mall. The old couple walking in jeans, professional blouse, and with no water. My most amusing part was passing 3 teenagers on their way down, one who was speculating in all seriousness how “it must get colder as you get further into the canyon.” We were by too quick to catch the rationale behind that theory, but Eric noted, “Yeah, I’d like to see them put that theory to the test today!”

We finally emerged on the North Rim after 6:40 elapsed time, or about 12:20 pm. We got up there to find a small crowd sitting in star-spangled chairs, generally cheering anybody that came up the trail. After a short round of applause, a lady asked me if we had lost a camera. I couldn’t resist a smart alecky “I don’t know, depends on how nice it is!” Then an old timer, who was working on a beer that clearly wasn’t his first, told us about some hikers that had come out of the canyon previously and forgotten their camera. He said they started at midnight, and were planning on doing the rim to rim to rim in 24 hours. Well, then I said,

“Hey, we’re doing the R to R to R too!”
“Really? What time did you leave?”
“5:45.”
A lengthy pause as this gets processed. “Seriously?”
“Yep, we’re running it. We’re heading back over in a few minutes and plan to be back in time for dinner.”
“Well, then I don’t think you’ll have any problem catching them!”

This lead to a fun conversation with the group at the trailhead in which they questioned our sanity, mortality, and such. The old guy took my name and number, partly because I don’t think he quite trusted me (not surprising in my mid double-crossing bedraggled state), and partly because, as he said, he just wanted to know how it all turned out. He then took a picture of us at the trailhead, we took a picture of him with the wayward camera so we could show the hikers who they had to thank, and finally off we went around 12:45.

Billboard waiting for us at the North Rim – Would this be our fate?

Eric and I both agreed that we felt amazingly fresh for having knocked out 21 miles of a Grand Canyon crossing. The crossing took maybe 30 minutes longer than I expected, but that was really due to a couple of the breaks that we took where we weren’t necessarily looking to rush out of there.

Heading back down the North Kaibab

Jules heads across bridge over edge of Bright Angel Canyon

The return back down from the North Rim was some seriously fun but challenging downhill. Just the sheer constancy of running down steep downhill for several miles meant giving our feet a serious toe mashing. By the time we finished the steepest part of the descent and hit the Pumphouse again (still no lemonade), my quads still felt surprisingly fine but my toes felt like they’d been run over by a car.

Part of the fun of running down this section was that we passed many of the people we’d said hi to when we were passing on the way up. We again passed the 3 teenagers who had pondered the frosty nature of the inner gorge – as we cruised by them at full running speed, one of the girls declared “My God, they’re just so much better than us!” The all-encompassing nature of the comment made me laugh – ahhhhh, youth! We passed several other folks that had left the South Rim with us that morning, including Renee, now hiking with her full contingent. We were pretty easy to recognize & remember, due to Eric’s bell, and his outfit.

I should take a moment to describe Eric’s running attire, because it was a source of much amusement. I’m pretty much a “hat, shirt, shorts, lets go” guy, but Eric’s getup included a bandana that he wore around his head in what I called “Russian Babushka style;” sizable sunglasses, lending him a little Unabomber flavor to his Russian Babushka; arm sleeves, compression shorts and compression calf sleeves, leaving virtually his entire body snugly covered and meticulously protected from the sun. However, he did seem to note that his knees were dangerously exposed, because I found him liberally applying sunscreen to his knees during a couple of our rest stops. Can’t be too safe! Fortunately, Eric took my comments over his garb in good stride.

Inspiration for Eric’s Trail Running Attire?

Jules & Eric at the North Rim, about 1230pm; Eric’s babushka is now a fetching neckerchief

As we approached Cottonwood, sure enough, we caught up to the guys who lost their camera. The look on their faces when we told them we had their camera and I fished it out of my bag was priceless! The one guy had been seriously bumming – they had figured out they lost it, but weren’t sure where, and just didn’t have it in them to hike bike up the North Rim. Worse, he thought he had left it at a rest area part way up instead of at the top of the rim, so if he had hiked back, he wouldn’t have gotten to it. He was doing the hike with his buddy for his 50th birthday, and was using his wife’s camera do document the trip. So he had lost both his priceless photos and was looking forward to sharing THAT news with his wife. They best part was probably when we showed him the picture of the beer-swilling old gut at the top of the rim who gave us the camera – he said “Hey, I asked that guy for a beer and he said he had none left!” We assured him that it appeared they were continuing to flow freely, but he could still thank the guy for handing over the camera to us. The spirit of goodwill flowed through the canyon, and we headed on our way!

As we headed out of Cottonwood back towards Phantom Ranch, it was getting later in the day, and the crowd of hikers heading towards the North Rim slowed to a trickle. We came across one small group, with a woman in front who shouted “Hey, you’re the guys running rim to rim to rim today!” I had to chuckle over that one – as if word of our undertaking had swept through the canyon. Actually, its not that rare for there to be R to R to R runners – as the weather cools, there are some trying it every weekend I’m sure. I was surprised actually that we didn’t come across any other runners going R to R to R.

Photo op? Any excuse for a break!

As we continued towards Phantom Ranch, the heat at the bottom of the Canyon started to take its toll – we estimated it in the 90-95 range, not too bad for a couple Scottsdale boys but still enough to start to sap my energy. By the time we reached Phantom, it became clear that we were not likely to make it out of the canyon by dark. We had lights, so we were prepared, but the grim notion of the long, tiring climb up Bright Angel hung over us.

After leaving Phantom, we ran across the river bridge and along the river trail above the Colorado River. As we made the left up the Bright Angel trail, the tough part began – the steady run on a runnable upgrade, with the knowledge that if we walked, that would be that much more nighttime in the canyon. We managed to run most of the way until we reached the despicable Devil’s Corkscrew, the brutal climb that takes you out of the inner gorge of the canyon. After slogging our way to the top of that, it was more largely steady uphill incline until we reached Indian Garden as dusk settled in. I was pretty worn at this point, while Eric seemed to be hanging in there pretty well. However, we still had the last 4.5 miles of steepest climb to the top to look forward.

As we got inside 4 miles, nightfall hit and it was time for flashlights only. At this point, I started to rally but Eric began battling some nausea. During we of his barfing-prevention breaks, I asked Eric if he was “planning a trip to Yaki Point.” He didn’t respond, so I almost asked the same question again, but then decided all might be best if I just kept my mouth shut. Sure enough, Eric noted the comment later, although did not seem to find it nearly as clever as I did (Yaki Point is a well known Grand Canyon lookout point; and Eric was getting to yack on the trail. Yaki Point. Get it? If not, don’t feel bad - my wife didn’t until I explained it to her either. Sigh.).

Our progress over the last 3 miles was slow, painful, but finally, after 15 hours and 15 minutes – over. Eric insisted on sprinting the last 50 yards, to the cheers of thousands of adoring crickets. We then trekked over to Maswik cafeteria to have something resembling food, followed by the drive back to Prescott to overnight at Eric’s folks place. The drive there was probably the most dangerous part of the trip – we were both so tired that a couple of hours of night driving was a pretty tall order. But we made it safely, and woke the next morning in relatively decent shape, all things considered.

Eric is pretty game to try the run again, with more a focus on time. A few lessons I learned on this trip:

I had taken 2 water bottles, as well as a small backpack. Two bottles was perfect, as all water stops were running. The pack included 10 gels, some cashews, two almond butter sandwiches, peanut butter pretzels, some veggie chips, Nuun, and some first aid stuff. Next time, I’ll leave most, if not all the food behind. The almond butter sandwiches were barely edible, while I nibbled the cashews & pretzels, it was more out of obligation since I’d gone to the trouble to bring them. I’ll be able to get everything I need in a lighter waist pack next time, which will save my shoulders and the heat retention of the pack. A few more gels would have been a plus, which was a little surprising as a conclusion – I’m usually not a huge gel user, but the Hammer gels seemed to really be doing the job on this trip.

Definitely, we spent a lot of time on breaks 20 minutes on the North Rim, nearly 30 at Cottonwood at one point. It was fun chatting with other hikers, and several photo stops along the way were great diversions. However, they obviously took their toll on our time.

One key thing we did right was taking it easy on the way over. Getting there in 6:40 wasn’t too shabby considering the breaks & photos along the way, but the real key was not going too hard down the Kaibab or too hard between Phantom & Cottonwood. I was amazed how fresh we felt when we hit the North Rim – there was no hesitation to turn around and head back down. Considering we were on our way back down by 1pm, it still felt like we had the whole day ahead of us at that point, and with 14 runnable downhill miles to look forward to, we couldn’t wait to turn it around and rip it up down the trail.

Overall, it was a great adventure, and very cool to have a Rim to Rim to Rim odyssey in the books!