Keeping Current: South Kaibab Trail

We awoke early on the morning of the third day of our trip to begin our hike down the South Kaibab trail. The trail is only six miles long however it descends over 5000 feet down to the Colorado River. We started at dawn and arrived at the Colorado in the early afternoon. We took plenty of pictures as you can see below.

The view near the start of the trail looking towards the northwest. The morning sun had just begun to strike the upper portions of the canyon as we began our decent. I tried to enjoy the view as Sara mumbled behind me something about having to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn. I like to think of it as her way of thanking me for getting her up in time to see the sun rise.

The troops as they descent. Pictured first is me with my pack and a breakfast of bagels hanging off my pack in a plastic bag. Christina is directly in front of me while Quent leads the way. Steady as we go. No one wanted to accidentially take the short cut down over the edge to our right.

Quent and Christina pictured as they followed the trail down. The first part of the trial was mostly switchbacks carved out along the face of the canyon wall. This allowed for a scenic yet shaded path for a good part of the morning.

A view of O'Neill Butte below. The sun is starting to encroach on the depths of the canyon below.

A quick stop to put on our war paint for the impending battle with the sun. Us folks from Minnesota and especially our friends from Wrangell, AK aren't use to the blazing Arizona heat.

A black and white of the canyon below us. Smoke the from forest fire along the north rim fills the canyon to the east. The plateau shown below is about 2000 feet further down. The Colorado River is an additional 1500 feet below that.

Another view of the O'Neill Butte from the trail. How much further?

A view of the trail as is disappears behind the rock in the foreground and snakes around the butte and into the canyon in the background.

Sara and I stop for a photo opp. We are both about 3 inches shorter in this picture after having our spines compressed from our backpacks. We welcome the break from packs about as much as we were enjoying the view.

Looking back along the trail we had just come. The South Rim dominates the background which reminds us we are only about half way into the canyon. This section of the trail was much less aggressive the the first portion as it leveled out as we neared the plateau.

A view of the canyon as we neared Skeleton Point. Aptly named as temperatures were soaring above 100 degrees at this point. Still another 2000 vertical feet to go. Quent and I started to overhear rumors of mutiny at this point.

One of the first glimpses of the Colorado river since leaving the south rim. We were somewhat surprised to see how much sediment was being carried by the river. This view reminded me of a quote I'd read earlier from a 19th century explorer of the Colorado. "Too thick to drink and too thin to plow" - Major John W. Powell, 1869. That may be so, but at this portion of the trip any ribbon of water was looking awfully inviting.

We ended up skipping the Colorado and headed straight for tributary stream. This is called the Bright Angel creek or heaven as we were calling it that day. Quent immediately shed his pack and jumped into the cool water. The rest of us sat in the shade as we tried to muster the energy to walk the last 50 yards to the creek. It didn't take long before we were all soon in the river trying to escape the 107+ heat.