How I almost died hiking the Grand Canyon Rim 2 River 2 Rim in one day - Sept 2020
JDS54 JDS54
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 Published On Oct 15, 2020

A few months ago I came across some Grand Canyon Rim to Rim hiking videos on YouTube and was immediately drawn to the experience. I’m a very fit 66 year old who runs 20 – 25 miles a week and have done marathons, triathlons and climbed 20,000’ ft. mountains in the past so this kind of challenge fit me perfectly. I had no doubt that given my fitness and past experience with extreme physical challenges that I could handle the hike and estimated I could go from the North rim to South rim in 12 to 14 hours.

While planning the trip I learned that the shuttle from the South rim to the North rim was not operating due to Covid so I had to modify my plans and “just” do a Rim to River to Rim hike which reduced the mileage from around 25 miles to “just” 18 miles… A piece of cake… WRONG!!!

I went down the South Kaibab to Phantom Ranch and then up the Bright Angel… 5 miles in, down the South Kaibab my legs were shredded, by the time I made it to Phantom Ranch I was dehydrated and low on energy, at Indian Garden with 4.5 miles left to go I was completely drained of energy and starting to fear that I wasn’t going to make it to the rim.

I did finally make it after almost 14!!! Hours… Hands down, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I made a lot of mistakes that made it way harder than it should’ve been but I don’t regret the experience and I learned a lot of hard lessons that I hope will help anyone else that’s thinking of doing this hike. Check out my video for all of the “gory” details.

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