South Kaibab trail to Bright Angel | Grand Canyon, AZ

December 2020

Motivation

Kaibab, meaning 'mountain turned upside down' is a suiting name for the Grand Canyon by the Pauite Indian tribe. I have always wanted to visit the Grand Canyon and make the remarkable journey down to the bottom. A week before this hike, we were at Flagstaff, Arizona. My brother and I set out with the goal of visiting the park for the first time, and hiking down to the inner canyon and back up in a single day. Since it was December, the North side of the park was closed and the classic North to South rim hike was off the table. On the other hand, the we welcomed the cool weather this time of year.

The most suiting hike for our goals was the South Kaibab trail to Bright Angel rim hike. Although the NPS advises against tackling this as a day hike, we set out to do just that. On 5:20 AM we took off from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon. It was dark and chilly outside. The drive took around an hour and a half and we reached the visitor center by 6:40 PM. As soon as we had our gear ready, we saw the shuttle pulling into the bus stop and ran to catch it. After what felt like the most unnecessarily long series of announcements, we departed and reached the trailhead.

The hike

The trailhead was frosty and foggy with low visibility. We were not discouraged and set to go down the trail. We quickly began to catch glimpses of where we were descending. "Are we seriously going down there?", we asked jogging down. Soon, we reached a state of flow and we were cruising down. We made frequent stops at the different "checkpoints" on the trail, gazing down at the magnificent views. It became warmer and we descended further down, and the sun began to reveal itself at the edge of the clouds.

After some never ending switchbacks, we reached the tip-off point and took a long break with some food. We were both determined to continue and not take the last exit, the West Tonto trail. As we kept going down, we caught our first closeup of the Colorado River. It was inspiring and motivating.

As we reached the first suspension bridge, my brother, a structural engineer began to study the bridge. "Notice how they used rivets instead of bolts" he said, "must be old. We don't use rivets anymore". (A quick search later show that high strength bolts replaced rivets in bridge construction during 1960s-70s).

After crossing the bridge, we made our way to Phantom Ranch. We were mostly curious to see the structures down there and the first section of the North Kaibab trail. While the Phantom ranch generally serves food, it was on a pre-order system due to Covid-19. We sat outside and ate a quick packed lunch.

We started our way back towards the second suspension bridge and the Bright Angel trial. On the way to the bridge we followed a ranger with a pack of mule, and some deer right on the trial.

Down is optional; up is mandatory. This hike was a huge contrast to the normal flow of events when hiking mountains (up then down). I looked forward to the climb up after descending all day. We made some quick headway to Indian Garden Campground, where we took a break to prepare for the final climb.

The consensus from several trip reports was that the last 3 miles were the worst. Even though there was a lot of vertical gain and it wasn't easy, it didn't seem as bad as others made it sound. With my headphones on, I continued up the trail at a constant pace, only pausing twice for 2-min breaks. We encountered some mist / light rain as we went up. After, we reached the second tunnel, the rain turned into snow. It was beautiful to see the snow build up on the trail. The timing was perfect, since we reached the end as the snow fall began to pick up.

As we got to the top, we put on some layers (it was pretty cold) and looked for the shuttle stop to get back to our car. Due to social distancing, the shuttle had a capacity limit of 15 people, and we had to wait for a second bus. After a long drive with many stops, we were excited to reach our car, which at this point was covered in a thin layer of snow. We quickly packed up and started the long drive to Page, AZ, stopping Flagstaff for some much needed fast food.