Burnin' in the Grand Canyon

Well, we finally did it! With lots of Jared's encouragement, we hiked the Grand Canyon last Saturday. It was REALLY hard but still lots of fun!

So here's a quick rundown of our trip:

We pulled out of Utah county on Friday at about 1 pm and drove the eight hours to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We pitched our tent in the dark and crashed at about 11 pm. Boy was it cold that night!!! The temperature dropped to about 36 degrees - luckily we are the snuggly type, so we were okay. The next morning we broke camp in the dark (before dawn) and threw everything into the car, drove to the parking lot where the hike would end and quickly assembled our snacks and lunch (mmm - yummy PB&H).

We took a shuttle bus to the trail head and began our hike at about 7:30 (Arizona time). We hiked down the South Kaibab trail. The temperature was still super cold at the beginning of the hike, but after trotting for about half an hour we were warm enough that we could shed our sweatshirts. We made it to the bottom of the canyon in about 2 1/2 hours. It was so pretty and a really nice clear day. We enjoyed resting at the bottom for about an hour and had a super early lunch while there. At this point in time we thought that this hike was a pretty easy one - little did we know what hiking back up the Bright Angel trail was going to be like.

It took us four grueling, painful, sweaty, aching hours to hike back up to the top. Boy are we feeling muscle soreness and tightness still two days later. Talk about BURNIN' BUNS! All told it was 17 miles round trip. We hung around for about another hour and then started our journey back home.

At first we hoped we could make it home Saturday night, but by the time we made it to Kanab we were EXHAUSTED. Kanab didn't have any vacancies at their hotel/motels, so we had to drive on to Panguich were we found a hotel and after a quick shower fell into bed. (It was much warmer than sleeping in the tent the night before.) We finished our drive home early Sunday morning in time to get ready and be at church for Allyson's sharing time in primary.

Overall it was a fun trip, but Allyson's not sure she wants to ever do it again. (We'll see!)