North Side Story

This blogpost is written by Jasper and will tell of Frans’ and my adventures in the Grand Canyon. The day we left for our four-day hike we got up at 4.45 (at least, we should have; the alarm didn’t work). So, the day we left for our four-day hike we got up at 5.15 (pretty impressive without an alarm!) and ate a very cold breakfast of yogurt, cornflakes and banana since it had been freezing that night. Frans took his shot of ultra-concentrated Redbull which he needed to start him up for the day and we were off at 6.11 am! We walked for fifteen minutes to the rim of the canyon and followed the rim trail to our trailhead. Alas, we didn’t check the distance it was to the trailhead too closely and after walking for 45 minutes we were still some 5 km from the trailhead. So we took the bus which took us back to the village first before dropping us of at the trailhead. By then it was eight o’clock and we could start our descend amidst the host of people who had come up with the same idea of descending the South Kaibab trail.

When we descended some 1000 meters, we decided it was time for lunch; we checked our watch and it was only 09.31! So a grain bar would have to do. We managed to get to the Colorado river in three hours and since we thought we were almost there (by then it was only 10 km to the campground) we settled ourselves and read a book for an hour. Then we were off again into the smaller canyon which would take us to the campground. However, we hadn’t realized our poor shoulders still had to get used to carrying the weight of a tent, a sleeping bag, an air matrass, 2.5 litres of water, clothes, 40 wraps, 20 grain bars, 2 cans of pasta sauce, 2 blocks of cheese, 2 crops of lettuce, 4 sausages and two bags of peanuts so it took us another 3.5 hours to get to Cottonwood campground. There, we set up our tent, placed our food and garbage in the metal boxes which were provided and had to make sure the wildlife stayed wild and got to bed at sunset (8 p.m.) after which we slept for twelve hours straight. Except for one incident at 4.45 am when the alarm decided to work properly this time.

The next day, we had to climb 1400 meters to the North Rim which was pretty easy; we walked in the shade most of the way and we left a part of our food at the campground to which we would return the day after. When we got up the North Rim in the late afternoon, we were greeted by patches of snow and a completely deserted camping because the season starts only at May 15^th. We ate our dinner at the lookout point on the rim and watched the sunset before going to bed. Again, we slept for twelve hours and again, we woke up at 4.45 am because Frans had forgotten to turn off the alarm. Time to get back to the Colorado. The killer canyon from the first day proved even more of a challenge this time because there was scant shade to be found. At five in the afternoon we arrived at Bright Angel Campground and washed ourselves in the stream before eating our last dinner (wraps with pasta sauce again, yummy!). All was left for us to do the next day was to get up at 4.45 and climb back to the South Rim, which we managed in 5 hours; just in time to wake Sander and Kaylee with our amazing stench!