A Grand Canyon hike after cancer
I’M HAVGIN a moment. The Colorado River, flowing fast and brown after several days of rain, is 6 metres below. The South Rim of the Grand Canyon, my destination, is nearly 1,525 metres above, 14 kilometres away via the Bright Angel Trail. It’s only 8 in the morning and already upward of 26 degrees. I find a smooth granite boulder in a patch of shade and sit and start crying.
Hiking from the Grand Canyon’s South Rim to its North Rim and then back – rim-to-rim-torim, or R3 for short – is the most epic hike in this national park. The only thing that surpasses its beauty is its difficulty: It is 67 kilometres long and includes about 3,350 vertical metres of ascent and descent.
To do this hike at all, you have to be a certain type of adventurer. To do it in one push – no breaking it up by spending a night along the way – you have to be a certain type of crazy.
Last July, living in Flagstaff, Arizona, 125 kilometres from the South Rim, I was a certain type of crazy indeed. For the prior 18 months, I had been in treatment for Stage 3 breast cancer – chemo, a double mastectomy and radiation. When that was all done, I had reconstructive surgery.
My last week in Flagstaff was my eighth week after reconstructive surgery. That was the week the surgeon said I could resume my normal level of activity. It was the first time since December 19, 2014, that something related to cancer or to the treatment of cancer wasn’t hurting and/or weakening my physical being.
Anyone who has had cancer will tell you it’s never over, but this week was a cancer graduation of sorts for me. Hiking an R3 would be my thesis.
This would be my third time doing the hike.
But you can’t just come off the couch and hike 68 kilometres. Two weeks before I was to do it, my boyfriend, Derek, did a warm-up with me: We hiked down the South Rim and back up in one day.
I used the excuse that this was Derek’s first trip to the Grand Canyon to rest my quads frequently. We took lots of breaks and exponentially more photos, none of which, when we looked at them later, captured the enormaculousness of the canyon.
Between the rim and the Colorado River are almost 40 layers of rock, ranging in colour from white to red, pink, orange, grey and black. As remarkable as their colours are, their history is even more so.
When Derek and I reached the bottom, we were more interested in the river than any rocks. It was only 9 in the morning, but the temperature had already reached 37 degrees Celsius.
Taking the River Trail to the Bright Angel Trail to head back up, we crossed our fingers that there would be more cancelled reservations before we left Flagstaff in 10 nights.
Compared with the South Kaibab Trail, the Bright Angel Trail is a rainforest. South Kaibab has neither running water near it nor spigots. Bright Angel has four spigots and two perennial, spring-fed creeks.
The first kilometre up Pipe Creek was easy enough – flattish and partially shaded. But then we hit the Devil’s Corkscrew and felt the full force of the sun. This section is only a kilometre. But the trail climbs six times as much as it does in its first 5 kilometres combined. Steep, exposed switchbacks rise out of Pipe Creek and into the Garden Creek drainage.
The 365-metre climb wasn’t as bad as we expected. Small springs occasionally seep out from the Vishnu Schist the trail is carved into.
At the top of the corkscrew, Garden Creek greeted us, along with the first views of the rim. At one step, the South Rim looked reasonably close. By the next, the rim was definitely very, very far away. Both assessments were correct: Distance-wise, we were nearly halfway there.
I wanted to break at Indian Garden, one of the lushest and shadiest spots in the canyon and an area once farmed by Native Americans.
When we arrived at Indian Garden I was glad I had already rested. Six hikers were splayed out on six wooden benches in shade cast by giant cottonwoods. Some had covered their faces with wet bandanas. A man napped wearing only his boxer briefs. Not one of them moved as we passed.
One kilometre past Indian Garden, we met Jacob’s Ladder.
It is generally held that South Kaibab is the steeper of the two trails on the south side, but I disagree. South Kaibab’s stats are 1,370 vertical metres over 11.2 kilometres. Bright Angel does 1,340 metres over almost 16 kilometres. But South Kaibab doesn’t have any flat sections. So really, there, you climb 1,220 metres in 8-ish kilometres. South Kaibab’s steepness is more sustained, but when Bright Angel climbs, it really climbs.
Five minutes up Jacob’s Ladder, I definitively decided there would be no R3 this month. The appeal of the goal was to test myself, not engage in a battle with Mother Nature.
I know we passed the two water stops between Indian Gardens and the top, but my mind had melted by this point, so I have little memory of either.
When we reached the top, a celebration was in order. But I was too spent even to wander the extra couple hundred metres to Bright Angel Fountain for a scoop or three of hand-dipped ice cream.