Our Grand
Canyon Trail Running Adventure - October 18, 2009
Down to the bottom and back up in 7.5 hours! |
23 miles with 4,600'
of elevation change.
Click
HERE to see today's route on Google
Earth.
Some 20 or so members of our
www.SoCalTrailHeadz.org
club were there to run different distances - some going the 44
miles - rim to rim to rim. |
Elevation Profile
|
3D View of our Day |
Breakfast at Mather Campground.
It was 23 miles total of fun trail
running - down to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon
(via the Kiabab trail) and then back up the Bright Angel trail.
|
Eric
Lumba and Doug at Mather Point. 10 years and 6 months since my last
visit in April 1999. |
Heading down the Kaibab trail. Standing near the edge to grab a
neat photo! Colorado River (2,500' elevation) for 3
miles before going back up to the 7,000' elevation at the rim! Was
2.5 hours down and 5 hours up. |
Eric Lumba looking good while blasting down the Kaibab trail. |
Off and running.
|
Our first view of the Colorado River as we headed down. We are
probably half way down at this point. |
WOW! Love those gorgeous rock formations. |
|
Another majestic view of the Grand Canyon. |
Almost down to the river,
which is at 2,500' elevation. You can see people crossing
the Colorado River on the bridge for scale.
|
A good view of the Colorado River looking upstream. We are
almost to the bridge. |
Doug doing a bit of rock climbing. |
Finally crossing the bridge and just a 1/2 mile from the Phantom
Ranch! Food, cabins, camping and pens for the mules used to
carry supplies and people down and up. |
This creek runs down from the Phantom Ranch area and feeds into the
Colorado River. |
Eric & I
at the Phantom Ranch canteen enjoying a Tecate Beer before heading
back up to the top via the Bright Angel trail. |
One of the mules in the pen. Note all the flies on the poor guy's
face. |
And we are off... Greg Hanssen, Sue Rudolf, Eric Lumba and Jon
Resnick. |
Greg Hanssen almost across bridge #2. |
Jon Resnick on the far side of the Canyon. We had about 3 miles
of running along the River before heading up the final steep 7 miles
of the Bright Angel trail. |
Speedy Jon takes off. He got to the top in 3:49 |
Stop for a photo op on the Bright Angel trail. (Waterfall & creek
below) |
The "sign"! Especially
relevant for 70.5 year olds. I would never try this in the
July or August heat! We are now about 1 mile from the top.
|
Doug toodling along on the Bright Angel trail. About 3 miles from
the finish. Very few near-level, runnable sections on the way up.
Was mostly power hiking. |
The spectacular Grand Canyon!
It was 42 degrees at our camp site
first thing in the morning & maybe 80 degrees max at Phantom Ranch
around noon when we started back up. |
Eric at the top. Eric had enough energy from taking it easy
with the old guy (me) that he ran the last 1/4 mile of up.
Here he is with his mitosis buddies at the very top of the Bright
Angel trail. |
4 hours
and 59 minutes after leaving Phantom Ranch! Back to the rim of the
Grand Canyon at the top of the Bright Angel trail. Shown here with
my evil twin who pushed me most of the way up!
(Love the tricks I can play with the automatic panorama feature of
my camera!) |
Monday morning October 19, 2009. One last picture on the rim
before the long drive home. |
Tuesday Oct 20th - Did a
nice easy 11 mile trail run this morning. Up to Turtle
Rock via Ridge Road and back the scenic Quail Hill/Shady
Canyon trail. Felt nice and loose. Just taught me
again that it pays to take it very easy on those tougher
runs like GC.
Wednesday Oct 21st - Our
regular Whiting Ranch trail run. Sleepy Hollow loop.
5.9 miles total.
Already have 40 miles
total in since Sunday morning.
|
