Friday 15 May 2009

A river runs through it

All the posters, signs and guide leaflets are quite specific round here - "Do not attempt to hike down to the Colorado River and back in one day"

Err, oops!

With no bike to ride tomorrow, today didn't need to be a rest day. So, on the way back from having watched the sunrise over the Canyon I spotted a sign pointing to the start of the Bright Angel Trail - one of the infamous mule trails down from the rim. Now that looks like fun, I thought (well minus the mule). So I packed up some kit and set off for a long and hot reverse climb (descent first then climb out). The signs and posters were absolutely everywhere warning just how tough it can be down these trails, and to be fair, I can't really blame them as some of the shapes and sizes of folk I saw down there I'm certain wouldn't dream of climbing a hill the same elevation as they were descending (3,000ft) obviously only to then have to climb out in the afternoon heat. Rather than give myself a target place to get to I just decided to use the mountaineering favourite of setting a time at which I would turn back, wherever I was. In this case, having set out at 8am I chose 11.30. I set of at pace down the seemingly impossible trail zipping past the crowds until I hit traffic, Grand Canyon traffic, as I found myself staring at a mule's @rse, indeed nine of them for the next half hour on a track not wide enough to get past. Now this was not really the stunning views which I'd planned for the day! A hairy short cut at one of the hairpins got me (closely accompanied by a football-sized boulder) ahead of the train and I bound on down the remainder of the path, into the growing heat, continually marvelling at both the scenery (obviously) but also the trail as it snaked it's way down, around, under and even through the rock before it finally brought me down to the mighty Colorado at 11.10. A quick bit of lunch and bathing later and I set out bang on 11.30 on the 8 mile, 5,000+ft climb out. I knew it would be longer to get back up than the 3hrs 10mins it took me to get down (when I hadn't been hanging about, with the exception of the mules) and had assumed that, perhaps, five and a half hours would be reasonable. Well, It did take me longer than the descent, all of 5 mins longer. I really don't know how I did it. Maybe I have gotten quite fit.

As for the much more important bigger picture issue of not actually having a bike to ride on my Ride Across America, the plan is to head to either Flagstaff or Moab tomorrow to investigate the bike shop options in one of those towns and make a new plan from there.

Today, though, it was all about this astonishing place.