Section 1: Bright Angel Trailhead to Phantom Ranch
We got to the trailhead at 3:15am and had a little moment of brotherhood. This trip was a special opportunity to bond with each other through a Mysogi style activity and we were all pretty pumped after 6 months of training separately, calls, text, etc. We took a moment to appreciate the progress we had made, the joy of that build up and the fact that we were there together about to get this done.
The trailhead at 3:15am
The first descent was wild. Even though the day before we hiked down the trail about a quarter mile to see what it was like, we didn’t really know what to expect and it was so dark that it’s tough to see what you’re really running on. In some ways that might have been a good thing because you’re trying to run downhill on these sometimes narrow trails with massive drop-offs next to you. That’s a bit scary to think about, but chasing where my headlamp shone or following the guy in front of you was a good way to focus the mind.
The trail was pretty good. Well traveled and a bit dusty. There are plenty of embedded rocks that make rolling an ankle a real possibility, especially when those rocks are covered in dust, which makes them slippery. This is something you should be very cautious with on the descent, but it’s a characteristic of the entire trail so stay focused.
These trails are heavily traveled and very well maintained, so what that also means is that there are a ton of in-built steps that were added with rocks or small logs, and there are also water diversion channels built with large upstanding rocks that cross the trail periodically to channel water down sections of the cliffs to avoid washouts and erosion of the trail. These steps and water diversion rocks mean that you’ll be jumping down and up the entire way down the hill. This is another reason why focusing on the trail in front of you is critical to avoid injury and also a great motivator for using poles. I had never run with poles before, but one thing they’re really good for is planting in front of you and helping reduce the force of landing as you’re jumping down off these steps or other rocks. This shifts some of that force to your arms, which is a real benefit to your legs, especially your quads on the way down. They’re also really helpful for going up, as I’m sure I’ll cover more later, but even for helping propel you up onto these large water diversion channel rocks when you plant your poles in front and essentially use them as mini pole vaults.
Despite the help of the poles, when we reached the bottom of the first section and made it to Phantom Ranch, my quads were feeling it. They weren’t blasted, but I could definitely feel how hard they’ve already been worked. I knew this was going to be my wild card going into the day because, living in Austin, TX, I had gotten a limited number of real elevation runs in for training. There’s a big difference between training on a single hill that’s 800 ft. of elevation over a half mile vs. running down, or hiking up for 6 miles. I highly suggest trying to find the latter during training.
One interesting thing we experienced on the way down, that we wouldn’t appreciate until the next morning, was the quantity of people we passed on the way down. It was 4am and we passed a lot of people on the way down, which for some reason didn’t strike us as too strange since we were so happy to be out there. We said good morning to most of these people but only got responses from a couple. Most of them seemed pretty beat down. There were groups of young people in their 20’s to a group of people who I would judge as probably in their 60’s. In retrospect, they seemed like they had bitten off more than they could chew and were hiking all night to try to get out of the canyon. When we told them they only had another mile or so, they sounded so relieved.
Looking back, it’s a weird thing that there were so many people who must have been hiking all night. A lot of these people were probably doing a rim to rim, or the full rim to rim to rim, but I imagine some of them simply went down to the river, only to realize they have to hike 10 miles back out, up. This serves as a warning that it’s a hell of a lot tougher than it seems so if you’re not well trained, you better think twice, or you just need to be prepared for a long slog that may take you twice as long as you imagine.
Anyway, back to our story…
We reached Havasupi Gardens, at ~4.5 miles in a little over an hour, which meant we were averaging between 15 and 16 minute miles. This sounds pretty slow relative to our normal running pace, but it felt fast going down these switchbacks in the dark. When we got to Havasupi Gardens we tried to be very quiet since it’s a campground and it was still only around 4:30 in the morning, which was tough because we were all so energized to be out there getting this day going.
It took us a little less than an hour and a half from Havasupi Gardens to get all the way down to Phantom Ranch, which was far less steep, but still definitely going down fairly swiftly to the river. It was a bit of a trip going around one of the final curves along the canyon wall toward the river in the dark. For one, you can see the tops of the canyon walls if you look up, but you can’t really see much around you. The other weird thing is that there is a section of the trail that’s a very fine sand, and at that point you’re hearing the river rushing loudly past. While we were walking on that sand I’m thinking we’re down at the river bed walking on a section of the beach only to see later that day that we’re like a hundred feet up from the river. It was so strange. And finally, when we looked out across the river, we could see lights emanating from an area that looked more look a construction site than a campground, so we weren’t sure if that was Phantom Ranch or not. It turned out to be flood lights from a part of the campground area that had a bunch of construction equipment that they had helicoptered down to do work at the River Resthouse, which isn’t quite up to the Bright Angel Campground or Phantom Ranch.
The final stretch to Phantom Ranch had us cross the silver bridge. This is a massive suspension bridge that crosses the Colorado river and is an amazing feat of engineering. The bridge itself is very narrow, only room for two people wide, and very long as it spans the whole river. When we crossed, it was also really windy, so I had to hold my hat on tight. In the dark it’s pretty weird to cross because you can’t really see the expanse of what you’re crossing and the scale of what's all around you. It was very cool nonetheless.
Here’s an image of what this was like at 5:30am. You can see the lights across the river where the construction team was getting set up, and apparently Vijay was going ghost mode.
As we crossed the river and we’re heading toward the campground we could smell food. At the Phantom Campground Cantina they serve breakfast as early as 5:00am so they were starting to prepare food and the smell was magic. We knew we were heading in the right direction.
As we passed the construction equipment at the River Resthouse, we saw some folks filling up their bottles at a water station in front of a bathroom. We stopped there to do the same thinking we were there at Phantom Ranch. It turns out that this is a bathroom at the Bright Angel Campground, which was fine, but we weren’t quite there, though they’re basically part of the same compound.
One thing I’ll say about this spot is that the bathrooms are real with actual flushing toilets and a sink to wash your hands, so if you need to use the bathroom, this is the place to do it.
That completed section one, which was great. We were all feeling really good and ready to keep moving. This was a quick stop to refill and refuel and get back out on the trail. On to section 2!