Section 3: Manzanita to North Kaibab Trailhead

The Manzanita rest area was full of people. Most of the people there were heading south where this was their first stop along the way, but there were a few of us heading up to the North rim.

There was a couple ladies that had caught up with us from Cottonwood that were also doing R3. They were really moving up to that point, but one of them decided to bail at Manzanita and the other kept going, charging up the final stretch (we would run into her again at the trailhead).

This seemed like a fairly regular occurrence where you would have a group and some of them would peel off and take a slightly easier route, not doing the whole thing. At this point on the run, I was starting to understand how someone might make that decision. The first 10 miles to Phantom Ranch were all energy and fun. The second section started getting hard at the end, and now 18 miles in, I was realizing just how far we were going on this trek. The elevation gain was starting to get real and we hadn’t even started the steep part.

But we were here to reach a goal, so off we went up the final section to the North Kaibab trailhead.

This section of the trail was very different from everything we had experienced so far. The trail seemed to be carved into the side of sheer cliffs where one misstep would result in a fall nearly straight down for hundreds of feet. This made for an incredibly exciting experience up this section.

Maybe my favorite shot of the trip. The drop-off in the middle of the canyon here is much more severe than it looks! Some sketchy sections of the trail for sure.

Saying that “pictures don’t do it justice” has become kind of a cliche for describing the Grand Canyon, but I have to agree. It’s something that is hard to fathom until you experience it. Even this picture makes the trail look pretty tame and cliffs small. And while the trail is very well built and maintained, it’s also mind-blowing at points when you look just a couple feet to your side and it just goes down forever. There were sections where we would run up behind other people and we would have to wait to pass them for a while until we could get to a section of trail that had enough room to safely go by.

For me, this section of the trail was the most stunning. There is an intimacy with the walls of the canyon that’s a feeling unlike any other and the views looking back are just incredible.

This is also where it really started getting steep and seemed to go on forever. At this point we’re mostly hiking, though any time there was a flattish section someone would say “want to trot?” and we’d jog. Because you’re doing a few thousand feet of elevation gain over this section there are a lot of switchbacks. They wind through the features of the canyon and make for what I would say is the most interesting terrain of the whole trail. The crazy part is that as you’re going through this part of the canyon you can’t even really see where you will come out, so it’s hard to gage your progress or how much more you should expect until you get really close to the end, near Coconino Overlook.

At this point you really start to feel the effort now that you’re getting to much higher elevation. The trailhead is at 8,200 feet, which if you haven’t trained at this elevation, you’re sure to feel the effects. They come in the form of heavy legs and heavier breathing. Keep in mind that as you increase in altitude the air pressure decreases and the amount of oxygen you take in each breath decreases as well, which means less oxygen in your blood to fuel your muscles. As a reference, at 8,000 ft elevation, there is 20% less oxygen in each breath than at 2,000 ft so your body compensates by increasing your rate of breathing and heart rate. All of this makes the effort feel much greater as you make your way up the North rim.

I live in Austin, TX, so elevation was not something I was too prepared for. I did a few training runs at 9,000 feet in Angel Fire, NM while on vacation, but that was fairly short distances, so it certainly didn’t compare to what we had going here. My struggles up the North Rim were at least in part due to elevation, though it’s tough to separate the factors.

In addition to the elevation, the heat of the day started kicking in, which had an impact on me (not to mention the stink of the more increasingly prevalent mule shit littering the trail - more annoying than impactful). Because you’re hugging the winding walls of the canyon on your way up, there’s a surprising amount of shade at this time of day, but it was still getting really hot. At this point, it was probably around 85° F or so. That’s not too bad for me, living in Texas, but combined with the climb I was starting to feel a bit of heat exhaustion as we neared the top. I had to take fairly regular breaks and last couple miles up were at a snail’s pace of around 30 min / mile.

This pace was all on me. The other guys were charging and ready to get to the top, but I was on the struggle bus. My right hip also started hurting, which is weird because it never hurt once in all of my training. I was also struggling to get food down and was consuming water faster than I had intended. Luckily, with about 1.7 miles to the top, we ran into a ranger perched lazily at the corner of one of the switchbacks who told us that the Supai Tunnel water stop was working, which was welcome news to get a break, refill waters and soak my hat to cool down.

When we were planning out our day, Supai Tunnel was the only water station that was off and apparently it springs random leaks so often that it’s almost never on. The ranger told us that because of that they just leave it as “OFF” on the website that lists water status (see image in top gallery) and sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise for hikers like us lucky hikers that day.

Water Status: https://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/key-messages.htm

Water status listed on the day of our run.

From Supai Tunnel, we pushed the last section slowly, me taking a quick one or two minute break every 10 min or so, and we made it to the top. Along that last stretch was when I had some of my most negative thoughts of the whole trip. I was overheating, didn’t want to see another gel again for the rest of my life and my hip was bugging me and so my mind went to dark places. I thought “I’m not sure I can turn around and do this again” and “I wonder if I should just stop here and take the shuttle back.” These thoughts floated around in my head as I marched up the trail, but at some point my resolve set in and I thought “if I don’t do this, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life,” so from then on, quitting never crossed my mind again.

On to the North Rim!