Category: Arizona

R2R2R – Crossing the Grand Canyon and Back

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Grand Canyon National Park, AZ – October 25, 2023

3:50am – The alarm goes off. I feel like I haven’t slept at all. I tried to go to sleep at 10pm last night, but I’ve barely dozed off, coming in and out of consciousness throughout the night. My watch says I’ve gotten 30 min of deep sleep over 4 hours. I got this new watch specifically for this trip. My old watch had a battery life of about 7 hours, which obviously wasn’t going to be enough. This watch is much fancier than my old watch. It’s got all these bells and whistles and data tracking and sleep pattern. For the last few days I’ve been doing HRV tests in the morning, comforted by the fact that my watch has been telling me that I’m “ready for peak performance”. This morning I don’t do the test. I feel nauseous and out of it. I don’t need my watch to tell me I should stay in bed.

Instead I think back on times when I’ve had to deal with jet lag. Eating and drinking water usually helps my body stay alert. So that’s what I do. I eat dry granola straight out of the pack. I drink a big glass of water. That seems to do the trick.

4:30am – Deanne, Dasha, Wiebke and I are all dressed, running packs on, and pretty much ready to go. The earliest Park shuttle this time of year starts at 5am from the Visitor Center. We want to be at the trailhead by 5, so we call a cab. You can’t book one ahead of time as we found out last night, but apparently, this early in the morning it’s easy enough to get a ride.

4:37am – Cab is here to pick us up. The excitement is growing. Radio in the car is playing “We will rock you”, seems like an appropriate song to start this day.

4:50am – We’re at the trailhead. Last bathroom break before we start going down. I don’t really feel nervous anymore, I’m ready to go.

5:00am – We’re shuffling down South Kaibab trail. It’s still complete darkness, except for our headlamps lighting the way. The trail is narrow and rocky and we can’t quite see the drop on our right side, but we know it’s a big one. “Hug the wall” and “Stay on the mountain side” become our first couple of mantras for the day. The excitement is palpable, we can’t wait for the sun to start coming up.


6:17am – We’ve already been on the trail for 1 hour, but we’re pretty slow-moving in the dark. The sky has been slowly getting brighter on the open side of the trail. We’ve jogged passed the Ooh Aah point without seeing much of the view, but now the trail is becoming clearer, and the vistas start to reveal themselves. We stop at every bend, every switch back to take in the views and snap the first or many photos of the day.


We get to the short switch backs at Skeleton Point, just short of 5km. The Grand Canyon National Park official trail information says that you “Should not go past this point as a day hike”. There’s also an illustration of a guy puking. I think they’re trying to make a point. But it’s an important one. The Grand Canyon gets incredibly hot in the summer, and it’s easy to venture downhill without realizing how hard it might be to come back uphill. There’s also no water source on this trail until you get to the Colorado river at the bottom. This is definitely not a hike you can just improvise. We’re far from improvising. We’ve been training for this for months.

We come across a couple going down the trail. Their plan is to go to Phantom Ranch and come back on Bright Angel, another popular route – and a much shorter one. We ask them to snap a group photos of us, right on the bend of the trail, looking out to the west.

Dasha on my right, Wiebke and Dea on my left

The trail is now clearly visible and the views all around are incredible. This place is so vast, it loses all sense of scale. The Grand Canyon isn’t just a massive cliff over a big flat desert. It’s the largest expanse of sprawling mounts and rocky summits, criss-crossed by other, narrower canyons. The Colorado River runs at the bottom, carving the main divide between the South and North Rims, but other tributary streams connect with it, having created their own path through layers of rock, separating the earth into a dusty jigsaw puzzle. The sun is just starting to graze the very top of the highest summits.

7:13am – We’ve made it to Tipoff, a plateau about 7km from the start, 1000 meters down from the South Rim. This is where the East Tonto trail crosses South Kaibab and continues west to connect with Bright Angel, the trail that we will take later in the day to go back up.
From the plateau we get a first peek at the Colorado river, glowing orange from the early rays of light reaching it. The sun is finally peeking over the top of the South Rim behind us, but it will disappear again as we continue to descend.
We stop quickly for a bathroom break and a “costume change” for Dasha.

7:41am – We’re almost at the river. As we come to a short tunnel, we meet Ty, who is also on a Rim to Rim journey – although he plans to come back up the same way he came down, on South Kaibab, because “Bright Angel is so much longer and you’re staring at a rock wall for the longest time” (he’s not wrong as we will find out 14 hours later)

He offers to take another photo of our group in front of the tunnel. As we do, we spot a group of mule-riders on the other side of the river. They’re coming down towards the bridge and we want to make it across before they get there, or we’ll have to wait for them all to cross. So we start running through the tunnel and over the bridge, and we make it across just on time but have to tuck into a trail pocket right off the bridge, so we can be out of their way.


Mule riding looks pretty smooth and relaxed, but I honestly don’t know how comfortable I would feel perched on top of a swaying/bobbing quadruped, as it goes up a narrow rocky trail, with a 1000m drop on one side. I think I’ll take my chances at a long day on foot instead. (At some point we debated which would be faster, going up the trail on foot or on mule. But we didn’t get a chance to race them, so jury’s still out…)

As we cross the Colorado, we see the light glowing around the river bend. A raft floats down under the bridge. Could this get any more picturesque. I think not.
On the other side of the river, we join with North Kaibab trail, which we will follow for roughly 21km up to the top of the North Rim, and 21km back

8:13am – We are at Phantom Ranch. This is a pretty awesome spot. It’s the only commercial building in the canyon. You can buy snacks and even small lunch boxes, but it’s also famous for it’s lemonade. By all accounts, you HAVE to have the lemonade. The shop is still closed when we get to it in the morning, and although it will be open when we come back later that night, coffee will seem more appealing to us at that point. I guess we will have a reason to come back.

The ranch is surrounded by a campground, as well as a few cabins. It’s a popular destination as a turn around point, or as an overnight. You can actually book a full steak dinner at the Ranch for your night out in the canyon… There are a few people around. We chat in particular with one guy. We’re curious about the bicycle-looking contraption that is attached to his backpack. It is indeed a bike. He says he’s biking the Arizona trail. It goes across AZ from Utah to Texas, and crosses the Grand Canyon. Only one small caveat. You’re not allowed to bike in the Grand Canyon. Hence why he’s carrying his 70-pound bike on his back. For 36km. Way to make our day’s effort seem like a jog in the park. No matter how hard you go, there’s always someone going harder.

We take a bit of time to reset at the Ranch, filling up our flasks at the tap. We’re lucky that the water points along the trail have not been closed yet. The Grand Canyon National Park website mentions that they can be closed at any point between mid and late October, but it’s been warm enough that there haven’t been any freeze concerns. There are several campground along North Kaibab, as well as Bright Angel, so we’re able to plan on re-filling frequently along the way. Since we didn’t have any guarantee before-hand, we’re still all traveling with filters, so we could get water from the creek if needed.


8:29am – We’re now in “the box”, as the bottom portion of the trail is called. It’s quite a contrast from coming down South Kaibab, which has wide open views to the horizon. North Kaibab trail snakes through one of those cracks that we saw from above. We’re now flanked by high rock walls. A creek runs through it, and the abundance of water creates a true oasis of green, after all the rocks and dust of the descent trail.

We continue to “hug the wall”, not so much to avoid a drop, there’s just the creek off to the side, but more so because the trail is still pretty narrow, sometimes it even seems carved into the rock wall, as we shuffle below some impressive overhangs.
This whole section is fairly flat and run-able, and we make good progress on our distance. We go back and forth between either side of the creek, via wood and metal bridges.

9:46am – the scenery opens up and the canyon walls start spreading out. The sun is starting to hit the walls on the opposite side. We’re preparing ourselves for the heat, the bottom of the canyon is where it gets the hottest. But we continue to be in the shade for a good while, as the trail starts to very gradually go up – not a climb per say, more a gentle incline, elevating us slowly from the creek bed.

A man and a woman come up from behind and pass us. I do a double-take and as they get away from us in a swift shuffle, I turn to Dea and say “I think I know this guy”. Well I don’t know him-know him, but I think I recognize him. No more than a week ago I came across a short documentary called “The seven summits of of my neighbourhood”. In it, Brendan Leonard recounts how he set out to summit seven of the mountains around his house – none of them extremely challenging, but all of them closer and more affordable than going on the classic “7 summit” objective of climbing the highest mountain of each continent. A somewhat arbitrary goal, with an embraced Beau Miles-esque approach to backyard adventures, for no other purpose than …creating his own fun.

I very much enjoyed his film, and may or may not have gone down a rabbit hole of reading his articles and illustrations for Outside Magazine. I might even be following him on Strava, because he mentioned he started writing short poems as descriptions for his runs, which I think is cool – It’s a nice break up in my feed amongst all the local runs titled “another wet one! 🏃🏻‍♀️🌧️ ”.

So this couple who just casually past us on the North Kaibab trail, I’m pretty sure that was Brendan Leonard and his wife Hilary. What a random coincidence. I’ll have to check his Strava.

10:40am – We’ve traveled about 11k since Phantom Ranch and arrive at Cottonwood campground. Time for another round of water re-fill, fuel intake, bathroom break. All the campgrounds have outhouses, and I have to say, they’re all very clean and perfectly pleasant to use, if not for the fact that they’re all up a set of stairs (but we don’t mind the extra elevation, do we?)

After Cottonwood, Manzanita Campsite is only a couple of kilometres away, so we reach it pretty quickly, and then we start the climb towards the top of the North Rim.

11:53am – The beginning of the climb is very enjoyable. We’re all excited to be on the way up to our turn-around point. We take photos as we come to various scenic spots along the way. This side of the canyon is relatively closed-off compared to the south rim, but looking back the views are still quite spectacular.

12:52pm – Still climbing. We get to another small tunnel carved in the rock, Supai Tunnel. On the other side is another water station. I forget exactly when it hit, but I start to bonk big time. I feel that jet lag sensation returning and my legs becoming heavy and all my energy seems to drain into the ground. I start to worry about whether this is the lack of sleep catching up with me, or maybe the heat starting to have an impact, as the sun has finally caught up with us on this latest section of the climb. Or maybe it’s the elevation (the North Rim is higher than the South, at 2500m above sea level – South Rim is at 2000).

Either way, I’m struggling to keep up. We get to a bend in the trail and there’s some shade underneath a small tree, so I sit down and start assessing what to do. Dasha offers me some Tailwind powder with caffeine in it, which I gratefully take. In doing so I also chug the last quarter of Naak powder in my flask. In retrospect, it likely wasn’t the lack of sleep, but rather that I probably got behind on my nutrition while we were lower down, being distracted by the views, the photos and the conversation and less consistent with my calorie intake.

1:37pm – The Naak and the Tailwind combined, plus some additional fruit bar or waffle finally kick in, and I feel much better by the time we get to Coconino overlook, a popular viewpoint and turn around destination for shorter hikes from the top of the North Rim. We’re only about 1km away and 150m of elevation from the top.

At one point I look up, and the couple from earlier is coming back towards us. They’ve made it to the Rim and are on their way back already. I get a boost of confidence and blurt out at him, as they come near us “hey you’re the guy who made that movie about 7 summits?” (sadly my boost of confidence doesn’t prevent me from blanking out on his name in that moment). For a second I brace for a “what? ah sorry no, not me”, but instead I get a “what? oh yeah thanks” as he glides downhill past us behind is wife. I was right. It’s him. I guess I can keep going uphill now.

1:53pm – We’re here! the North Rim! How different it is from the other side!
We’ve crossed the Canyon and somehow found ourselves back in our Pacific Northwest forest! Douglas Fir, Alpens, Spruce densely line this side. Lichen on the rocks and pinecones on the ground. We’ve also left summer heat at the bottom and traveled up into autumn, as suggested by one short section of trail covered in fallen red and orange leaves.
This unexpected scenery adds to our excitement to finally be here, the halfway point, the middle R in our R2R2R journey.

It’s been a challenging climb for all four of us, at some point or another, in different ways, but we’re finally here. Ready to refill our water at the trailhead tap, take a moment, and then head back the other way. Except. Turns out they ARE closing the water today. At least on the North Rim. They in fact did, just minutes ago, as a park staff casually informs us. “Oh but there’s water at the Backcountry office, it’s only 1/2 mile away”.

Now. What’s half a mile, 0.8 km, when you’ve already traveled 36km and have another 40 to go (we still have another 40 to go!!). Well, if you haven’t mentally prepared for it, that half a mile might as well be a punch in the gut. That half a mile just kicked you in the groin and is now pointing at you and laughing as you lie on the ground, the last drop of water falling off that trailhead tap onto your face, one slow tear down your cheek.
A bit dramatic you say? Anyone who’s ran an ultra, and has come across a course marshal cheerily yelling “only 2 miles to go!” when your watch has already gone past the projected distance will know what I’m talking about. For the rest of you out there, how about you run 36k, with 1700m of elevation across the Grand Canyon and get back to me after.

With that said. In an ultra, mental is basically everything. On one of the last few week-ends before the trip, I spent a couple of hours studying the trail, writing down distances between each campgrounds and other key milestones. I also looked at where there would be water, in case the main system was closed. I knew we could filter from the creek, I had noted that the backcountry office had water year-round. I had made a mental note that we might have to travel an extra 1/2 mile for water. I was mentally prepared for the additional 0.8km. I’m not saying this to say ”look at how well prepared I was ”. With the exact same information, I very well could have been hoping the whole time that the water would be on, and crossing my fingers we wouldn’t have to go any further. I could have been hit even harder by the realization that unfortunately, we did. I’m mainly mentioning this to illustrate how a rather small change in plans can have a pretty big effect on the mental. And preparedness can, sometimes, help get past it.

“That’s ok” I say” it’s not that far to the backcountry office”. And so we figuratively picked ourselves up our from the ground and continued walking. It wasn’t actually as simple as “just go straight this way”. We had to go up a road and a trail and take a turn and look for it a bit. But eventually we find it and get our water. We even get to use a flushable toilet and wash our hands with clean water. Another small thing that can make a big difference.

As was part of my plan, now is the time i have my ham and cheese sandwich. Not sure if it is the cooler temperature, or the clean hands, but it tastes amazing. Summit-views levels of reward. We didn’t just make it to the North Rim and turned around. We worked for it, worked for our water, and worked for our appreciation of making it to this point. And it was worth it (yes, yes it was).

As I am mid-bite into the best ham and cheese sandwich there ever was, Wiebke does a quick time check and suggests that we probably don’t want to linger on too long, if we want to get back to Phantom Ranch before night fall. We do still have 40km to go…And with that it is time to head back…

3:08pm – Running down the steeper portion of North Kaibab is very fun, and we enjoy moving fast again and riding that high of being halfway through our day – well, technically not quite halfway since the way back via Bright Angel is longer. But again, it’s all about those mental checkpoints and as far as we’re concerned, we’ve completed the first half of the journey and then some. 2Rs down, one R to go.

4:17pm- After the big descent we reach the open canyon vista, funneling us back towards the “box”. For the first time since my bonk on North Kaibab, I start to feel a bit tired. That stretch of trail seems longer and more monotonous than on the way in. I start to notice that my feet hurt, and I am not so excited about running. I don’t remember exactly what I do about it. I want to think that i just stuck to my strategy of eating and drinking, and eventually somehow, my feet don’t hurt as much and I am running again.

5:37pm – We’ve made it back to the narrow part. The light is starting to fade. We likely won’t be at Phantom Ranch before dark, but we’re moving fairly quickly, the trail now on a gentle downhill from here to the Colorado river. I set my pace behind Dasha’s and follow her on the narrow passage along the creek, rock walls towering around us. There won’t be a sunset for us tonight, only our ability to see the trail until we don’t.

We cross the last bridge over the creek and put our headlamps on. The rest of the way goes by fairly smoothly. I do remember being interrupted mid Gopro monologue, by jumping over a big spider on the trail. For dramatic effect we’ll say it was a tarantula (evidently all spiders in the Grand Canyon get to be called Tarentulas…according to Dasha).

6:00pm? I’m a bit fuzzy on the actual time. It’s now pitch black and there’s not much point in taking any photos (except, now that I think about it, to be able to go back and look at time stamps).

We’re back at Phantom Ranch. We weren’t sure if the small cafeteria shop would be open, but it is. As I mentioned earlier, we’re not so much into lemonade now. We’ve been ingesting sugary snacks for the last 12 hours. Also it’s starting to be a bit colder. Chicken broth would be amazing right now. Or miso soup. Dasha gets us all coffee and we cheers at a picnic table. Cheers to having made it this far. Being so close to the finish. What an adventure this has been already. We’ve got one more climb to go? Bring on the climb! We’ve got warm coffee in our belly and the spirit of friendship in our souls, we’re good to go!

We leave Phantom Ranch and make one last stop at the restrooms before crossing the Colorado (What do you know, another toilet with running water. Can’t believe we had to go all the way to the backcountry office to wash our hands…)
We cross the bridge and start following Bright Angel Trail, ready for the climb. Ready for the uphill. Ready for the steep finish. Ready for…what’s this? soft sand under our shoes? are we on a beach? is this trail going down? Are we about to dip into the river?

You know what’s harder for the mental than an extra half a mile? A trail that goes down when you know, you KNOW you’re ultimately going up.

The first few kilometers though, are pretty fun. The caffeine, the darkness, the accumulated hours on feet, all contribute to some group silliness. I can’t remember specifics, but since we can no longer be distracted by the view, we distract ourselves and each other.

There are a couple of campgrounds along the trail, and we see people coming down even in these late hours of the day. One older gentleman warns us that there is a section of the trail higher up that is flooded by a nearby creek. “ You WILL get you feet wet” he says. Oh we will, will we? Clearly this gentleman didn’t account for where we come from and the extensive amount of practice we’ve had with jumping over trails-turned-torrential-waterfall, post atmospheric river. It is pretty clear to us that we are going to do everything in our power to NOT get our feet wet. Not after 16 hours on dry desert trail. Even if it means hopping from wet rock to wet log after 16 hours on dry desert trail.

And hop we do, balancing precariously from one foot to the next and climbing off to the sides to avoid the water. Or at least three of us do. Wiebs takes one look at Dea, Dasha and I, exerting all our remaining caffeine-fuelled energy into avoiding puddles. She shakes her head and without hesitation, wades ankle-deep right through the stream. And we all respect her for it. (but between you and I…hopping rocks in that moment was actually quite fun and took our mind off of the fact that we still had a bit of a ways to go).

Bright Angel is 12km long. Roughly 1400m of elevation. When you look at the elevation profile, it looks like it climbs fairly evenly all the way through. But I swear it felt like we barely climbed at all, except near the end. It was mostly a long, gradual grind to the top. What did Ty say? “you’re staring at a rock wall for the longest time”. Fact.

9:44pm – We pass Three-mile Resthouse and stop for one last water refill. I get splashed all over my upper body by water aggressively shooting out of the tap. But at least my feet are still dry.

According to Wiebke, we only have about 1 to 1.5 hour to go. According to Deanne, we’ve only got about 600meters of elevation. According to my watch, we’re at 71k. When about half an hour later, Wiebke announces that we probably only have about 1 to 1.5 hour to go, and Dea concurs that indeed, we only have about 600 meters of elevation to go, I let them both know that from now on I would rather not be aware of how much time or climbing is left – thank you very much. Instead I’ll just be staring at my watch until it reaches the distance that I think is to the finish.

One interesting thing about the R2R2R is that in all our research we couldn’t seem to find any consistent result for distance or elevation between all the people that had done it. I guess GPS signals down in the bottom can get a bit wonky, and different watches have different levels of accuracy. While we have apparently been stagnating for 30min at the 600m elevation mark, Wiebs’ watch already has her at near 75k, while Dea, Dasha and I are much farther behind. (Granted, Wiebs is the fastest of the group, but not so much that she would have done an extra 5k by the time we were done – and I don’t believe all those Naak-induced pee breaks off the side of the trail account for that difference either).
Dea’s watch in the meantime must have indeed gone for a dip in the Colorado river because, as we find out the next morning, it indicates that she had done 17,000 meters of descent.
All that to say, that it is virtually impossible for either one of us to know for a fact when we will be done. But I have my heart and mind set on 76,5km and so that’s what I hang on to in those last gruelling kilometers.

To be fair, the trail isn’t even that technical or steep. We’re mainly just, well…tired. The one annoying thing is that large pieces of wood punctuate the trail every few feet, but not really evenly spaced or evenly high. So it makes it very awkward to keep a consistent stride, and know whether to step ON the wood or OVER the wood and doesn’t the wood know that we’ve been at this for 17 hours – 17 hours! Damn wood…

Every once in a while I do look up at the silhouetted black wall against the dark sky and say to myself “that can’t be right”. But it is. We have to get all the way up there.
I don’t feel like eating anything else at that point, but anytime I feel fatigue creep up more or my moral go down, I take one big gulp of my Naak water and that seems to actually help, one push at a time.


10:30ish pm – By that point we all have our heads down and even though it feels like it will go on forever, all we can do is keep going, keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep stepping over that damn wood as gracefully as a baby deer. Speaking of deer, we’ve been noticing pairs of glowing eyes around us, shining in the cone of our headlamps, up on the canyon walls.Someone mentions mountain lions and we’re all in agreement that, for sure, we’re surrounded by big cats. And then two long-horn sheep bounce up the side of the wall right above us. It’s a cool moment, captured in my mind pretty much as if I had tried to take a photo of it in the dark. Out of focus, fuzzy, under-exposed, with glowing eyeballs

And then I see the tunnel. I recognize that tunnel, remembering it suddenly from the trip we took with Brice back in 2016. On a whim, we had decided to travel 4 hours from the Mohave Desert to the Grand Canyon. After driving 272 miles in the rain, we parked the car and walked up to the South Rim and marveled at ….a complete white-out. Thick fog obscuring any view beyond the edge. Our first time at the Grand Canyon, we almost didn’t see the Grand canyon. We hadn’t planned for a big day hike, just a short one, but with the rain and fog we debated even hiking at all. Then the clouds started to dissipate, so we decided to venture down the nearest trail, Bright Angel, and we made it down a few switchbacks to a short tunnel in the rock, a good point to stop and take in the vastness, slowly revealing itself from behind the white veil. And that tunnel, THAT tunnel, is what i see now, just a few meters away, which means the top is near. We are almost done.

The first time I saw the Grand Canyon in 2016
Bright Angel trail, that same rainy day, after the clouds started to dissipate. The tunnel is up on the right

Dea is slightly ahead and as she gets to a bend in a switchback she stops and turns around and points up to a building and a sign. I mistakenly think that we’re at the trailhead but turns out there is one more stretch, just a few extra meters and then finally the four of us are up there, off the trail, feet on the South Rim. The last of the Rs.

11:00pm. 18hours after we started. We are done.

The rest is a bit fuzzy. We might have high-fived or fist-pumped or something, or we might have done none of the above because the truth is the wind is howling and it is incredibly cold, so we hastily retreat to the nearby restrooms and then there is some confusion about what exactly we are doing there, are we just taking a moment to put jackets on, are we all going into one stall to keep warm and celebrate or?

Luckily our hotel is only a short walk away (I know, more walking, but contrary to the “North Rim water debacle”, we already knew about that part, so it’s ok). Except we haven’t really planned that part, and between arriving in the dark last night and starting in the dark this morning, we haven’t quite gotten our bearings in terms of where exactly our hotel is located in relation to the Rim.

Dea is pretty certain that if we just go straight ahead we should get there, but after going down into a ditch and across the train tracks we decide to maybe take shelter from the freezing wind and consult google maps on our actual location and destination.
We didn’t make it 77km across the Grand Canyon only to get lost in the last 500 meters to our hotel.

After looking at the map we establish that following the road might be more efficient than going down ditches, although we still end up crossing train tracks twice more somehow, and I also decide that I would rather jump over a small rock wall rather than go around it because that makes total sense after an 18-hour run/hike, and then eventually we are in the parking lot of the hotel and shortly after, we are inside. For real this time, we are done.

The next day I will laugh to tears after we realize that we likely added another 0.75 kilometers to our day, based on the fact that I forgot to turn off my watch and it kept running through the “South Rim Expedition of 2023” to get back to our hotel – and that we can actually see the trailhead from our window.

But in the meantime, we each enjoy a well-deserved warm shower before passing out on our beds.

I wonder what my watch will say about my sleep pattern tomorrow.

Epilogue

We had given ourselves a two-day window, in case weather was an issue, but since we did the run on the first day, we enjoy day two as a rest day at the Grand Canyon. Dea has made plans to see a friend who works in the village, so Dasha, Wiebs and I go out for a stroll around the South Rim.

Finally we get to see it in the daylight, and really appreciate the scenery from the top. It’s also pretty neat to be able to trace our itinerary from above, from different viewpoints.

From Bright Angel trailhead, we can clearly see the Colorado River, as well as the narrower canyon through which runs North Kaibab trail.

From Mather Point, a bit more to the East, we think we can actually see the bend in South Kaibab trail where we took our first group photo.

From both places we can see the North Rim, far in the distance. It quite literally puts into perspective what we did the day before.

Later, Dea joins us again and we go to another viewpoint, this time in the West, to finally watch a beautiful sunset over the Grand Canyon.

Sedona, AZ – Bear Mountain, Bell Rock, Courthouse Butte

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Day 5

It wasn’t raining when we got up, but the sky wasn’t clear either. Still we decided to chance a sunrise. Since we were not sold on the outcome, we decided to pick a spot that didn’t actually require any hiking – a viewpoint near the trailhead to Devil’s Bridge.

Devil’s bridge by the way, listed as a “must-do” on every Sedona list. But we decided to avoid it. From what I understand Devil’s bridge is a rock platform that people get their pictures taken on. And there’s a line up just to do that. Even that morning, waiting for some sun rays to peek through the clouds, we kept getting distracted by the headlights of multiple shuttle buses driving to the trailhead, unloading people eager for the IG shot. No thanks!

After a cloudy sunrise we grabbed breakfast nearby at Layla’s bakery, and since it was still pretty early, we decided to go for another short hike.


We started heading down the trail to Chicken point, which is supposed to be another nice view point. There was no one else on the trail, so in my head was already celebrating having the view point to ourselves.

Well…clearly I forgot about one of Sedona’s favorite tourist activity: Jeep tours and ATV riding on rocks. We got to the viewpoint to found a circus of pink jeeps and muddy off-road vehicles, and people everywhere. It actually was pretty comical, and to be honest, those ATVs looked like they would be quite fun.

The view point was very nice nonetheless, and we went a bit higher up on the rocks to get away from the crowd. We could see Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte, which I had planned to run around on later.

Next, we headed back towards Sedona and spent a few hours at the Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Village. Its architecture copies that of an authentic Mexican village, with little streets and alcoves. Most of the shops are expensive art galleries, fancy gift shops and restaurants. It was definitely a higher-end experience from the two blocks of tourist shops at the main Sedona road junction.

After some window shopping and grabbing food in a Mexican restaurant, we headed out for one last outdoor activity.

We ran a roughly 8k loop at the base of Courthouse Butte and Bell Rock. A really fun trail and a nice way to shake out the legs after walking in and out of stores for the last few hours.

Day 6
Last day in Sedona, we hiked Bear Mountain as our final hike of the trip. This was an 8km out and back with about 600m of elevation gain, so definitely on the steeper side. When we got to the trailhead clouds obscured the top of the mountain, but we didn’t get too phased by it.

The hike had a mix of steep sections and sections across flatter grounds. When we got to the first plateau, we looked back and were able to see where we started down below.

Then we continued climbing into the fog. It actually made the hike pretty cool. Even though we missed out on views, it gave the trail a more intimate feel, especially since it wasn’t very busy.


We’re pretty used to running in the rainforest in BC, and fog, or being shrouded in clouds is a pretty common occurence, so this felt both familiar and new since the terrain was very different from home. There were very little trees, and mostly low, dry bushes on rocks.

We got to the end of the trail and couldn’t really see past the edge of the mountain (thankfully there was a sign at the top to tell us we had arrived).

As we made our way down the lower portion was clearing up a bit more, so we did get some views of the valley.

We had lunch at the car, then since it wasn’t very late yet, we decided to squeeze in one more short hike/cave sighting from a nearby trail.

That last cave was called “Birthing cave”.

Sedona, AZ – Cathedral Rock, Cottonwood, Jerome

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Day 3

Sunrise: Cathedral Rock
Hike: Munds Wagon Cow Pies and Hangover Loop trail
Sunset: n/a

The sunrise hike we had planned for today was another Sedona must-do : Cathedral Rock.


Its one of the most notable, stand-alone formation in the Sedona landscape, and a fairly accessible hike – albeit pretty steep, which makes it the #1 hike in the whole area. To the point where driving to the trail head is nearly impossible after 8am, and there are shuttle services that take people from the town center to the trailhead during the day.

At 5am though, we found a parking spot without much problem – but even at this early hour, we were definitely not the only ones there.


The hike is less than 2k, with 220m of elevation, so it’s on the steep side but it’s short. The trail climbs up to the base of the big rocky spires that give it its name of Cathedral Rock.


The sunrise was indeed quite spectacular. Sun rising from between the spires on one side, and colours on all the surrounding landscape changing from blue to pink to orange.

We took a good amount of photos and enjoyed the views.

As we made our way down around 8:30, there was already a line of people hiking up.

It was still fairly early so we went for a sit down breakfast before starting our next trail adventure.

Pancakes and bacon at the Secret Garden Cafe


This time we decided to venture away from the beaten path, and do a loop following three trails: Munds Wagon, Cow Pies and Hangover Loop trail.

This wasn’t on the original list that I had compiled, but after re-considering it, a lot of what I had were shorter, busier hikes, so I went onto Alltrails to find something a bit longer and less busy. This hike checked all the boxes, including some really cool views.

We started at the Huckaby parking lot, on the Munds Wagon trail. After running along the trail for a bit, we came to a junction marking the start of the loop.

We did the loop CCW, which is the opposite from what people recommended – but I didn’t actually realize it until later. That said, I think the way we did it gave us a bigger pay off.


The trail starts fairly flat, and follows a dry creek bed for a while, at the base of the main rock formations. Once it connects with Cow Pies trail, you start going up onto a higher promontory, which you then follow for a while on Hangover trail, with a gradual uphill.

From there you get really cool views on a multitude of other, lower rock features to the South.

Eventually the trail climbs to a small pass, and this is where our CCW direction feels like it gave us the best reward. As you get into the pass between two rock features, you discover an expansive mountainous view to the North, and Sedona to the west.

The trail then goes down beyond the pass and it’s a relatively steep and narrow downhill from there, circumventing “Tea Pot” and “Queen Victoria”, the nearest summits.

There are views all along the trail until you get back to the junction, which made me even more glad we did the loop in this way, as we got to enjoy the views going down at a leisurely pace, which I feel might have been more enjoyable than seeing these same views while hiking up.

It was a really nice hike, not very trafficked, especially on the earlier section. We only saw a few people and some mountain bikers in the upper section near the pass.

It was pretty overcast so we decided to skip the sunset and head home from there.

Day 4

We woke up to rainy skies and decided to skip the sunrise this time, as we would likely not get much of the beautiful light. Since the forecast didn’t show signs of much improvement, we decided to stay in the Cottonwood area for the day.


Cottonwood actually has a charming old town center – one stretch of street lined with old buildings housing restaurants and shops.

We walked along the few blocks for a bit, checking out the crystal and art shops and various thrift stores, and eventually sat down for brunch at Crema Kraft Kitchen.

After our meal we drove out to the Tuzigoot National Monument, just a few km outside of town. The monument was established to preserve the ruins of a hilltop pueblo, built by the Sinagua people between 1125 and 1400 CE. The pueblo was composed of over 100 stone rooms, accessed most likely from the rooftops (there are no opening for doors).

The site was likely a busy hub back when it was inhabited, located near an offshoot of the Verde River, and surrounded by agricultural land.
There is also a small museum displaying objects from the pubelo, found during the 1930’s excavation of the site.

After this we continued driving west and made a quick stop on Clarkdale, a former mining town that is now mainly home to retirees and artists.

According to Wikipedia, Clarkdale was once one of the most modern mining town in the world, equipped with telegraphs, running water. and sewer. But as for many of those towns built around single-industry, when said industry slowed down, so did the town.

The mine itself was located near another town called Jerome, higher up on Cleopatra Hill.
That’s where we headed to next. Before reaching the town center, we stopped at the old mine museum.

Jerome is bulit of the side of the hill, with views towards the red rocks of Sedona. It has fully embraced the “ghost town” vibe and shops are mainly artsy or touristy.

One store is completely dedicated to kaleidoscopes – it actually takes us a minute to figure out what all these wooden glasses and telescope-looking objects are…until we look into them.

After strolling around the couple of streets, he headed back to cottonwood. For dinner, we went to Colt Grill for some BBQ.

Sedona, AZ – Soldier’s Pass, Boyton Canyon, Subway Cave

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This is the first of what may be a couple of long-overdue post, about trips we took in the last couple of years.

In October of 2022, Brice participated in Javelina Jundred, a 100miler race down in Phoenix Arizona.

Our friend Dea had mentioned that she had always wanted to visit Sedona, which is a couple of hours north of Phoenix. After doing a quick research, we agreed that it looked like a really cool spot to explore, so that’s where we decided to go.

Accommodations in the Sedona area were quite pricey, so after looking around for an airbnb, we chose one in Cottonwood, a town 20min south. In hindsight I’m really glad we stayed there and not in Sedona proper. It turned out that Cottonwood was a much cuter small town.

The town of Sedona itself was quite underwhelming. There’s the main road that goes east-west and is lined with strip malls, and then the “center of town” is no more than a couple of blocks of tourist shops and restaurants, none of which appealed to us whatsoever.

The appeal of the town lies in the incredible landscape around it. Impressive rock formations that seem to have sprouted in the middle of the desert, and the easy access to most of these spots, pretty much off the side of the road, makes it a very, very popular tourist destination.

After reading a bit about hikes and scenic spot in the area, I learned that to really enjoy Sedona, you have to get up early. Catching the sunrise on top of one of the iconic rocks is a pretty magical experience, and certainly the best way to avoid the bulk of the crowd. Trail heads start getting busy at 8am and by 9am the parking lot to some of the most popular hikes is full.

With all that said, we really did enjoy our trip a lot, even if we had to adjust our morning routine. Getting up a 4:30 or 5am everyday, to drive out to a short hike and catch the sunrise from a elevated vantage point.

As always I planned a bit of a trip itinerary, and tried to keep our sunrise and day hikes within the same areas.

We flew out on December 24th, and landed in Phoenix around 12pm. We had rented a car with an online service called Turo – basically like airbnb but for your car – which turned out to be very effective, especially in saving us the wait time at the airport car rental counter.

After stopping to get groceries, we drove out to Cottonwood and made it there just after sunset.
Since it was Christmas eve, I had looked ahead at restaurants for dinner, and we opted for Merkin Vineyards.

Day 1

Sunrise: Little Sugarloaf Summit
Hike: Soldier's pass Cave and Loop
Sunset: On the road

On Christmas morning, we headed out early so we could catch our first sunrise.
We drove to the Thunder Mountain trail head, and hiked 1.8km to Little Sugarloaf summit. The first sunrise did not disappoint.

Afterwards, we headed out to a bakery to grab coffee and breakfast, then we drove to another trailhead, this time for a longer hike.
We hiked/ran a 15k loop on Soldier Pass trailhead. The first half of the loop was the busiest, because it lead to one of Sedona’s classic attractions: a cave.

Caves are all over Sedona. Some are more accessible than others, but all are appealing because they make a great backdrop for photos. And of course they attract a lot of visitors.

What’s funny about all those cave shots you see on social media is how different the caves often look in real life. When you get to the cave, you realize how the photo seen online only shows a very specific angle of the cave, or had to be taken with a wide lens from a specific spot in order to get that result.

Soldier Pass cave was down a small spur off of the main trail. It was definitely busy, and also, a lot more challenging to access than most people probably expected. You had to climb short but quite steep and technical slope to get there. After we left the cave and returned to the main trail, we kept going around the loop, and pretty much left all the crowd behind. We only passed one other couple of hikers in the whole rest of the way after that.

We did have a fun wildlife sighting, an actual pair of Javelinas, which look a bit like wild boars that eat cactus.

By the time we were done, it was just after lunch time (so really a lot of daytime left :P)
We had brought sandwiches which we enjoyed at the trailhead, then decided to head out to the town to see what it was all about.

We drove through the main intersection then headed south on 179. We drove down a bit and then stopped at a store off the side of the road, which had just the most eclectic assortment of every trinket imaginable. We spent some time just wandering the various parts of the store.

The store was near another Sedona landmark, the Chapel of the Holy Cross, listed as one of the popular spot to catch sunset. And yeah, popular it was, just parking was a bit of a zoo actually, but we were there so we found a spot and walked the short distance up the road to the Church plaza. The view was definitely worth it, especially seeing the minor effort it took, but it was still a bit early for sunset, and we didn’t feel like hanging around the crowd, so we left and drove out to a more residential area.

The nice thing about Sedona is that those massive rock features are visible pretty much every where you look, so we parked on a quiet street and watched the warm light slowly go down behind one of them.

After that we continued South on 179 and eventually turned off onto a couple of smaller country roads, taking us back to Cottonwood.

Day 2

Sunrise: Doe Mountain
Hike: Boyton Canyon & Subway Cave
Sunset: On the road

Another early rise, this time we headed out to Doe Mountain for Sunrise. the hike was only 2.4k return, with 156m elevation.
the top of Doe mountain is really a flat plateau, with wide open vistas towards the south east.

As the sun was coming up, we also saw witnessed another tourist favourite: the rise of hot air balloons, in sync with the sun. It was really beautiful.

Doe mountain trail head was a bit more remote from the main road, so we planned on doing another hike nearby, without going into town. After some breakfast by the car, we headed to Boyton canyon.

The trail was a difference experience than the day before. Running through a narrow canyon, it was definitely cooler and more humid. the vegetation was completely different from the desert, it was like a microclimate caught between high rock walls.

We went all the way to the end of the trail, where the canyon walls meet. Our timing was pretty impeccable, as we arrived at the end just in time to see the sun start to rise over the wall, and we could sit for a minute in the warm light, after running in the shade for a bit.

On the way back, we took another detour to another cave. This one is probably one of the most popular and photographed on Instagram: Subway cave

The cave was actually for the most part, a natural path carved into the side of the wall, snaking around a few bends. It was wide enough to walk safely but also wide open to the outside.

We had to climb, once again a bit of a steep section to get there.

As expected it was quite crowded, but we managed to capture a few people-free shots.
The shot that the cave was most famous for was a narrowing of the walls on one end, with a wider opening in the center.

After we finished the hike, we had some food off the side of the road, then went to look for a coffee shop to just relax for bit. We found a spot in one of the strip malls of the main road and enjoyed some quiet time there for a bit, then we went back out to find a spot for sunset.

It was a bit overcast, so we didn’t get a clear view of the sun going down, but it was still really cool to see the colours change over the rocky landscape.

Road Trip Through the American Desert

Posted in Arizona, California, Road TripLeave a comment

In September, Brice and I went on another road trip in the United States.

More specifically, we drove from Big Bear, Ca, to Las Vegas, NV crossing through a couple of national parks and making a one-day detour to the Grand Canyon.

The idea of this trip actually started with a trail race. Our friend Tyler had signed up for his first 100-mile race (160km), the Kodiac 100, which was taking place in Big Bear on September 16-17. Brice offered to come down to pace him during the race. For those who are not familiar with trail running, a pacer is a person who runs along the runner for portions of the race. They are not allowed to carry anything for them or help them in any way while running, other than bring company and mental support on long races. They can help at aid stations though, in making sure the runner gets food and drink or anything else they need available at the station. Usually pacers are allowed to come on 50-80km into the race, and runners can have several pacers taking turns throughout the course.

After a bit of planning, we agreed that Brice would pace a first time between km 50 and 90. Then another friend of Tyler, Philip, would take over from km 90 to 128. Then there was a short stretch of 8km between two aid stations, and I offered to run it with him. Then Brice would come back on at km 136 and would finish the race with Tyler.

The 100 mile course map. That year the race followed the route clockwise

The race started on September 16, but Brice decided he was going to drive down and take a week to explore the country while on his way down. Originally, we thought I could fly down for the race, then Brice and I would drive back up together and make stops on the way. Looking at how much time I could take off though, and how long it would take to drive back up, we realized it would be a better use of my off-work time to stay down in California/Nevada and explore the area, rather than spend most of our time driving and only stopping on the side of the road.

So after Brice had been on the road for one week, I flew down to LA after work on the 15th. Brice picked me up in our little jeep and we drove to Big Bear, two hours east of Los Angeles.

Tyler and his pacers

The race started at 12pm (midi) on Friday. We were able to see Tyler at a few aid stations along the way: He came through the first one (km20) at around 3pm. Then we saw him again at around 8:30pm, at the aid station Brice started running from. Kaitie (Tyler’s girlfriend), Philip and myself went back to the cabin to get a couple hours of sleep, then at 2am, we drove to the next aid station (called The Dump) where Philip took over pacing. Brice and I were able to get a few more hours of sleep while Tyler ran from the Dump to a station called Sugarloaf. Sugarloaf was the start of an “out-and-back” portion of the course, which means the runners go in one direction for a number of kilometers then turn around and run the same path in the other direction. In this particular instance, although the out-and-back was only 16km return, it started with a gnarly ascent of about 3000 feet (1000meters), followed of course by the descent of the same.

Checking out the route and figuring out how to go from one aid station to another.

Tyler came through Sugarloaf for the second time around 1pm, and that’s where I started running with him. It was really impressive to do to a portion with him. At this point he had been running for over 24 hours, and through a full night, so he hadn’t slept for over 30 hours! Those 8km were fairly easy (for me anyways, i was running on fresh legs :P), no significant elevation, and some nice downhills on smooth wide trails, mostly covered in a thin layer of sand, actually quite nice for running. The section ended in a residential area, and I passed the baton back to Brice, who paced Tyler for the last 25km until the finish line. Tyler finished at around 6:30pm, for a total of 30 hours and 32 minutes of running! Definitely one of the most impressive accomplishments I have been fortunate to witness!

At the finish line!

It was really fun to be there to support him, and be a part of his adventure! And, since the 17th was my birthday, we even had cake (thanks Kaitie!) Doing something I’d never done, in a place I’d never been, was definitely a good way to spend my birthday.

Happy birthday to me!

The adventure didn’t stop there of course. The next morning, Brice and I woke up before sunrise and hit the road for the first day of our exploration. First stop: Joshua Tree National Park.

The park is a very popular destination, and it is pretty easy to explore several areas in just one day.  Although it is considered a desert, there is an amazing variety of plants and animals that live in the 800 000 acres of the park. Some of the most famous features are of course the Joshua Tree (which is in fact a Yucca, not a tree), and the formations of rocks which seem to have randomly sprouted from the earth in the middle of otherwise very flat desert valleys.

Breakfast in the shade after the 2-hour drive from Big Bear

We entered the park through the Cottonwood visitor Center, on the Southern side of the park. After taking a quick stroll on the Cottonwood Spring trail, we hopped back in the car and drove along Pinto Basin road, to the Cholla Cactus Garden.  Cholla Cacti are notorious for being “jumping” cacti. If you come too close to them, and brush up against them, a whole chunk will separate from the plant and attach to your skin via hundreds of spines. Spines are really hard to remove due to the microscopic barbs that covers their surface.

We (carefully) walked around the Cactus garden – but I still managed to get a couple of spines right through my leather boot. Thankfully they didn’t get into my foot.

The temperature was close to 35 celsius, which made it a bit challenging to stay out in the sun too long. So jumping in and out of the car and driving to different locations was a pretty practical way to get through the park. In the winter when temperatures do drop a bit, there are a number of hiking trails throughout the park that are probably great to explore. But for now, we kept with the AC-ed option of driving.

As a side note, as for any road trip that is going to take us into remote areas, we made sure to have some essentials in the car: a 10-gallon container of water (we went through a LOT of water on that first day, a lot more than we thought we would need), 5 gallons of extra gas in the trunk, firewood, food for 4 days and a generator/car booster in case our car battery went dead.

After the cactus garden we drove a little while longer on the same road until we reached the first rock formations that the park is famous for. The rock piles are indeed pretty impressive. They started as eruptions of molten lava through the ground, which then solidified as it settled on the surface into what is called monzogranite. Water erosion and flash floods sculpted those monzogranite over millions of years, into the curved, smooth shapes that they are now.

There are several areas of similar formations in the park, most of them in the North-west portion. We explored a few of these areas,  Jumbo Rocks and Hidden Valley mainly. Those are also very popular with rock-climbers.

After a few hours of climbing, jumping and running around the rocks, we headed to Keys Views, which was recommended as being a great spot to watch the sunset. It did not disappointed…

Once the sun had set, we made our way North. To access Indian Cove, the campground that we had picked for the night, we had to drive out of the park through the West Entrance station, then head east on road 62, and then enter the park again on Indian Cove Road.

The campground, which offers about 100 spots, was nearly empty that night. We only saw one other car as we drove in, and another one turned out to be set up further passed our camp, as we found out the next day. Since the spots are nestled along the rock formations, it was easy to find an area where no one else was in sight (which would probably be impossible however is the campground was full).

Being in a desert, I was expecting temperatures to drop at night and having to put on some extra layers to stay warm. But actually, the temperature only lowered to a very comfortable 25ish degrees Celsius. Being used to camping in the BC rain-forest, where it can get cold and humid even in summer, I was pretty pleased with this new camping experience. The moon was nearly full that night and pretty much lit up the campsite enough that we didn’t need head lamps to walk around. We decided to keep the top cover of the tent off and sleep in the moonlight…

The next morning, we packed up and got back on the road, headed north towards the Mojave National Preserve. which is US’s third largest national parkland outside of Alaska.  Once again, since we only had one day to explore, we looked up some of the most interesting spots in the park and drove from one to the other. It was another very hot day, so hiking was not in the cards, but we still managed to see quite a bit. We started from the western-most south entrance, and drove up Kelbaker road, 23 miles until the Kelso Sand dunes, the second largest dune system in the United states.

Then we continued on North, past the Kelso visitor center, all the way to the Cinder cone lava bed. The official park map indicated a “lava tube” in that area, so we decided to go check it out. After seeing a tiny sign on the side of the main road, we turned off and drove down a dirt road til we couldn’t drive any further. We parked and went up a hill, not quite knowing how far we would need to go. Just at the top of the hill, we found a big hole in the ground, and another one just a few meters further, with a metal ladder. So down we went into the earth. The hole turned into a tunnel with a short section which we actually had to get on all-four to get through. On the other side was a small cave, with beams of light shining through the bigger hole we had seen at the top.

It was actually the perfect spot to hang out for a while, as the temperature underground was much more bearable than outside (I think it was close to noon when we were there).

So we stayed there a while, mainly playing around with the camera and throwing dirt up in the air to see how much we could make the beam of light pop in our photos.

For our next stop, I figured we would drive across the desert on Mojave Road, since on the map it seemed to be the shortest way to get to Mid Hills and Hole-in the-Wall Canyon. The road started off fairly smooth, with tracks going somewhat deep into the sand, but nothing that our little jeep couldn’t handle. We drove about 45 minutes on the narrow path, surrounded by Joshua trees. Eventually though, the road became more and more rough, with rocks and small boulders sticking out of the ground. Brice showed off his mad 4×4 maneuvering skills, but we ended up facing a rock that just wouldn’t let us pass. Our jeep didn’t have the clearance and no matter which way we approached it, the bottom would end up resting on the rock, preventing us from passing through without damaging the underside of the car. We checked the GPS to see how far down the road we were. We might have attempted one more time to pass  if the GPS had indicated we were near the end. But it turns out, we were barely halfway across to the other side.

So we decided that instead of getting stuck on this rock – or another one further down, we would just turn around and drive back, taking the long way around onto the main paved roads.

Somehow we only took 20 minutes to drive back to the main road, and we drove down Kelbaker, back to the Kelso visitor center. We were pretty hungry by then, but with temperatures close to 40 degrees Celsius outside, we weren’t too keen on having an outdoor picnic. The two park employees at the visitor center let us have our lunch inside – there was actually a huge bar in the main lobby, and what seemed to be a kitchen under renovation in the back, so I’m guessing they might actually plan on having a restaurant of sorts there at some point.

After lunch we got back on the road, and up Kelso Cima Road this time, then turned right onto Mojave road (the same as the one we almost got stuck on earlier, but that portion, east of Kelso Cima, is wider and much more driveable than the western portion). From Mojave we turned right on Black Canyon road and drove south to Hole-in-the-Wall. We didn’t really know what was going to be there.  We found ourselves at the entrance of the Banshee canyon. The canyon was formed millions of years ago when a volcanic eruptions covered the ground with lava and gas. The gas dissipated, leaving holes in the solidified lava formations. A short trail takes you down into the canyon, and out the other end. You can continue walking all the way around the outside of the canyon back to the starting point, or go back the way you came through the canyon, which is what we did. The trail is called Ring Trail, mainly due to the few metal rings that have been anchored into the rock to help descend a few meters into the lower portion of the canyon.



The area was pretty incredible to see, this sudden eruption of rock walls in an otherwise flat desert landscape. It was even more surreal that there was no one else there, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. After walking and jumping around on rocks (and trying to chase wild rabbits that were hopping around in the surrounding desert shrubs), we said goodbye to our unexpected playground and headed out. We had about 45 miles to drive (70km) to get to our campground for the night, but we got to enjoy a pretty amazing sunset as we were driving back on Black Canyon road. It was dark by the time we got back to the Mojave/Cima Road intersection, so we didn’t get to see much of the park on the last stretch of northbound road.

The campground we decided to stay at was clearly indicated on the Mojave Preserve map, in Nipton, just a few miles east of the north entrance of the park. When we arrived in Nipton though, all we could see in the dark was a closed coffee shop on one side of the train tracks, and a RV park on the other side. We drove around the RV park, thinking the campground must be there, until a young guy on a bicycle rode up to us, asking us what we wanted. He didn’t seem too welcoming at first, but got much friendlier when he realized we were just tourists looking for the campground. He told us the campground was on the other side of the road, near the coffee shop. So we drove back there. As we arrived, another man came up to us and took us around behind the coffee shop. The campground was there, in an area circled by trees. He then showed us the amenities: 2 fully-functioning toilets and showers (with hot water), along with a large sink and mirror, enclosed in a  building of corrugated sheet walls. After the sponge bath we’d enjoyed at the tap outside the ranger station in Joshua Tree, a hot shower seemed like a luxury.

The small campground also had a large fire-pit on the one side, so we enjoyed a nice comforting fire before going to sleep. The next morning we were able to see the full extent of the place. Aside from the campground, there were also a few huts that didn’t seem too shabby.  The only thing to mention is that the campground is located about 100 feet from the train tracks. A couple of trains came through during the night, which woke us (a train passing 100 feet away might as well sound like it’s going to drive you over), but even with that, it was a pretty comfortable stop for the night, and the access to hot shower definitely made this our fancier camping spot of the trip.

Before the trip, we had debated whether it would be worth it to drive to the Grand Canyon. There are several rims that you can access, but the one that is supposed to be the most scenic is the South rim, about 4 hour east of Las Vegas. We decided that yes, we should definitely do it, since we had come this far anyways.

So on the day after exploring the Mojave Preserve, we got up early and headed East for the world’s most famous canyon. The drive there was pretty underwhelming, mostly highway, and even more so that it rained all the way there. I’m grateful for Tim Ferriss’s podcast interviews that Brice had downloaded, for keeping us entertained all the way there – his interview with coach Christopher Sommer was particularly interesting.

So 4 hours later, we arrived at Grand Canyon National Park. It was still raining pretty heavily, but we put on our jackets and were ready to explore. We walked to the closest view point over the rim and …there it was:

Or was it? Hard to tell, with the thick layer of white clouds that covered the entire stretch of the canyon and obstructed any view of the valley below. Boo. Oh well, it was still pretty cool, we took lots of photo of cliff sides disappearing into the fog.

A few trails will take you from the top of the rim down to the bottom and the Colorado river, and even back on the other side (North rim) if you take a couple of days to hike through. Originally I was hoping to do a day hike as far down as time would allow it, but in those conditions, that plan got pretty compromised. We still walked down for an hour or so along Bright Angel Trail, and managed to get below the clouds and get some views, albeit foggy ones, of the valley.

When we came back up, the clouds had somewhat thinned out a bit, so we walked along the rim some more and got a few more, clearer shots of the Canyon. The original plan also intended for us to camp in the area, and drive back towards Vegas the next day. But we didn’t really feel like setting up a tent under the rain, and since our hike had been on the shorter side, we decided to head back West that same day.

We drove back for four hours and arrived near Lake Mead around 9pm. During his road trip alone down to California, Brice had used the app Ultimate Campground to find camping spots along the way. We looked up camping options near Lake Mead and there was indeed a campground on the shore of the lake. We turned off the highway into a dirt road and drove 3miles in the dark until we reached the lake shore. A couple of other vehicles were already there but the unofficial site was big enough that we could set up our tent away from the other campers. 

We were pretty tired after driving 8 hours that day and walking in the rain for 3, so dinner was quick and off to bed we went.

The beauty of arriving at a campground in the middle of the night is that you don’t know what the place really looks like until the next morning. This one (as the previous two nights) didn’t disappoint. This particular shore of Lake Mead might not have been the most scenic, but waking up by a lake is rarely a bad thing. The shore also curved in such a way that if you walked to the left, you’d eventually go around a bend and disappear from the view of the main campground. I walked around after breakfast, and found the perfect spot for a quick dip – and the water was actually warm enough for me to get in. The one sad thing about the place was the amount of garbage left behind by people – mostly empty beer cans and bottles, along with plastic wrappers. I grabbed a garbage bag and picked up everything I could find along the shore on my walk between our camping site and my bathing spot.

 

Then it was then time to head to our last destination: Red Rock Canyon. But not before a quick stop at the Hoover Dam.

The Hoover Dam, formerly known as Boulder Dam, was built on the Colorado River in the 1930s as an effort to limit floods and provide hydroelectric power. Lake Mead, the largest reservoir (volume-wise) in the United States, was formed as a result of the dam.

My flight back to Vancouver was leaving from Las Vegas at 6pm, so that gave us enough time to spend the day outside. We didn’t really feel like exploring Las Vegas during the day – it seems like more of a night-time destination if you want to get the full experience. So instead we drove past Las Vegas to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, about 30 minutes west of the city. Once again we were greeted by a spectacular landscape:

 

There’s a small fee to enter the park, and from the entrance, a 13-mile road loops along the edges of the various canyons. We drove about 2/3 of the way and stopped at the Ice Box Canyon trail head. The trail takes you through the open desert for about a mile before entering a narrow canyon. The terrain was pretty rocky, with lots of small boulders to climb over, so it wasn’t very runnable, but the hike was really cool nonetheless. At the end of the trail, we were faced with the vertical wall of the canyon. There was supposedly a way to get to the top, but we couldn’t find it, and we weren’t really equipped to climb straight up, so we headed back the way we came.

We finished driving around the loop and since we still had a bit of time, decided to drive south on 159 (we had come from Vegas on the same road, but from the North). On the way we saw a sign for Bonnie Springs Ranch and decided to go check it out. They offer quite the variety of activities (horse back riding, climbing, zoo….), but turns out the place is pretty un-welcoming if you’re only there for a stroll and don’t intend on taking part in any of those. There were signs forbidding from doing pretty much anything. No picnicking on the picnic tables, no parking, and there was even a no hiking sign at the start of a trail that lead into the desert. We turned around and decided to go look for a different spot to enjoy our afternoon snack. Further down the road was the small town of Blue Diamond. Surprisingly, the town itself had a bunch of signs up forbidding visitors to use most of the small parks around. We did find one park that seemed open to the public (!) and finally had our “goûter”. Both this and Bonnie Ranch were a bit of an odd experience. In hindsight though, both of these were somewhat a sign of one of the major difference between Canada and the US: population.  The sheer amount of people that potentially flood any sort of touristic area in the States especially at high seasons, would most likely be a lot more overwhelming than in Canada. Unfortunately, this also probably explains the amount of garbage found at Lake Mead.

And then it was time for me to fly back home. Brice dropped me off at the Las Vegas airport, and after connecting through San Francisco I was back in Vancouver, 6 days after leaving. Brice drove back up and this time didn’t stop much (apparently it rained most of the way back up), arriving in Vancity friday afternoon, after only a couple of two days of driving.

Flying down to LA and back from LV only cost me about 350 CAD, actually less than what it usually takes Brice to fly to Edmonton. This got me thinking that I really want to try and do more trips down to the States. Adding a couple of days vacation to a long week-end would be enough to go explore other areas – I’ve got Utah on my short list…We’ll have to make that a plan for 2017!