Sarah and Sandy Hike the Grand Canyon... Part 1

this is going to be a long story, because so many funny little things happened, and i just don't have the ability, nor the desire, to leave any of them out. so i'll post our story over time, so y'all aren't just completely overwhelmed (and so i can actually get it done).

Part 1: Preparations

last summer i decided to go to Utah for my birthday week. my dearest friend Sandy was there to visit her parents, and i seriously needed a vacation from work, Fort Worth and this little thing called ugly ugly divorce. so i saw DMB in Dallas on friday night, and saturday morning (my birthday), i took off for St. George. i stopped by Sandy's and got my Harry Potter book from Sean-o, who also gave me a huge plateful of brownies to take to Sandy & the kids. Mwahahahahaha, i had brownies! so off i went in the comfort of the Explorer, just me, my book, mySandy's brownies, a case of water, a case of cokes, my fabulous mix cds and my brand-new hiking gear.

see, Sandy had called me after she'd already dipped down to the North Rim with her family and told me that she'd always wanted to hike the Grand Canyon. "would you want to go hike it with me when you're here?" she asked. "yeah, that would be awesome!" "oh, good, i was hoping you'd say that, because you're the only person i know who's dumb enough to hike it with me." love you too.

i stayed Saturday night in Amarillo and karaoked much with Bikermommy and Pappy. Sunday i drove to Flagstaff and immediately fell in love with it and decided that is where i shall someday make my home; en route to Flag, i stopped and took my own picture at the continental divide.

i arrived in St. George on Monday, and Sandy and i spent much of our week preparing for our hike. we read Grand Canyon National Park's entire website and took it all very seriously. now, i'd never been on an extended hike in my life; sure, there had been hikes through the woods, little day-hikes in the mountains, all-day rock-climbing trips and the hikes to middle school (uphill in the snowblistering heat both ways, i tell ya!), but no overnight vertical hikes in steep, scary places. and though i'd been to church camp and stayed in those screened-in, rickety, scorpion-filled cabins many a summer, i'd never actually camped in a tent, and certainly never without camp counselor supervision! nor had Sandy. so we were determined to not be that guy in the picture on the website that they're trying to resuscitate because he was a moron and didn't appropriately prepare for his hike!

we went to Wal-Mart and scoured every inch of the store to make sure we didn't miss any essential items. in the food department, we bought lots of tropical trail mix (Wal-Mart's brand, and lemme tell ya, that is by far the best trail mix out there), beef jerky, some little canned dinners, Gatorade, Chex Mix, cheese & crackers, Power Bars, trail mix bars and water. oh, did we buy water.

still at Wal-Mart, we procured ourselves a tent -- let me tell you about my tent while i'm here. this is the lightest, most handy little tent ever (based on my extensive experience with exactly one tent)! i bought it for seventeen bucks, and it weighs maybe three pounds; a 5x6 junior tent (plenty tall for my 5-foot frame) that does what it needs to do, has the cutest and tiniest rain fly and is truly so light that it bounces when dropped on the ground. a great buy. anyway, we picked up a first-aid kit, a garden spade (yes, a garden spade), a bottle of iodine, little freezer pack thingies to keep the water cold (no, i'm not joking), cargo-ish pants (because you always wear long pants when you hike in the Grand Hot Canyon at the end of July, right?), t-shirts, toothpaste gum (because while a garden spade is essential, there is just no room for a toothbrush in a 2-day pack), baby wipes.

and somewhere along the line, i bought a hat.

into the wee hours of Wednesday night, we loaded our packs with all of our purchased items (except half of our water), plus: a Thermarest, extra shoes for walking around at camp, a sheet, as we just couldn't make a sleeping bag fit, even one of those bundled-up-really-tight NorthFace ones. flashlights, sunscreen, water filter (just in case we ran out of bottled water), underwear changes (thank goodness, that little detail came in handy), little tiny rolls of toilet paper, camera, film, socks, bug repellant (how were we to know there aren't any mosquitos there?)... seems like i'm leaving something out... ah yes, long-sleeved shirts just in case we got cold at night in the Grand Canyon at the end of July.

we got up early Thursday morning, got the other half of our water out of the freezer and ditched the freezer pack thingies. the packs looked heavy, yes, but we were quite sure that we would need four 20-ounce bottles of Gatorade as well as 20 bottles of water. each. all packed up, we were ready to leave the house.

Comments

[jonag]

Have you read the book: Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon? After reading that I will never hike there unless it's under 75 degrees and over 55 degrees. Scary. People die.

[Brandon]

I've done it during the summer before- you just need to stay very hydrated.

[sarahk]

jonag, that's basically the gist of the grand canyon's website, too, which is why we had 20 bottles of water each...

brandon, that was our thinking.

[Brian]

Beware cheap tents! As an Eagle Scout and an avid backpacker, I have to warn you about cheaper tents. This might not matter as much being in the SW, but the first night you are in it when it rains will prove me right.

Go buy seamsealer and seal all the seams on both the tent, the rainfly, and the floor. Bring along a thin painter's plastic sheet that is big enough to cover the outside of the tent. Just a little FYI.

I am cheap and know the allure of low-priced gear. But I've been burned (and drenched and frozen and muddied) too many times by the Taiwanese junk and now I just buy straight Eureka, Kelty, or Marmot equipment.

[sarahk]

thanks for the advice, Brian. too bad you don't give me a real email address, because i'd probably hit you up for advice at some point!

my daypack is a kelty, my 2-day pack an osprey. i have a thermarest for my camping pad, and i don't have a sleeping bag yet but will be getting a marmot.

the tent is perfect for its purposes, lightweight, middle-of-summer-in-the-desert camping. i do plan to get a better and different one, but i love this one for needing to pack light.

[Brian]

I have always had good luck with Eurekas. I've been all over the place in Timberline's and my newest tent is an Apex XTA. I'm in the NE, so there have been times in the winter when a good tent meant the difference between hypothermia and being cozy.

My backpack is a Kelty as well and I have no complaints. As far as sleeping bags, I've had good luck with the $10 fleece bags (only 1 lb!) at Target for weather that is above 50F at night.

Sorry about the fake email, but your site doesn't obfuscate our addresses. [those mean ol'] spammers and their harvesters! They ruin the Internet for everyone!

[sarahk]

brian, my new blog won't show email addresses, so you'll be able to comment fer real.

i love my kelty day pack.

[Chad]

Oh, And make sure you pack a .44 Magnum. You might need to use it on some of them rattlers. :)

I know, you're probably thinking 'thats overkill' ... but I'm a big fan of overkill.