Let me preface this post by saying the Grand Canyon is just over an 8 hour drive from Los Angeles, NOT 6 hours (as we had planned for). But once you behold the majesty of this hole, you forget all about the drive. We left abruptly Friday Night (10pm) after we realized this, planning to crash at a Motel 6 just 2 hours outside of the Canyon entrance (in a town called Kingman). We got in at 3:00am. In the morning, the drive out to the park was much more pleasant than I expected, Northern Arizona really is beautiful, and I am already looking forward to visiting the North Rim of the Canyon next time!

It was opening week for the National Parks, so the entrance fee of $25 was waived--awesome! We had a good trip planned, entering Tanner Trail on the Eastern side and going along the Escalante Route and Colorado River back West, and exiting near Grandview. When we arrived, there was a slight storm brewing in the West...

We stopped by the Backcountry Permit Office to check the weather to see what we were in for. Luckily, it was the end of a storm headed out and the weekend forecast was clear. We asked the ranger a few questions about water supply options down in the hole, and off we went....to pack and hitch hike. Can I just say how much of a bum I felt like hitch hiking in Arizona? People would drive to the other side of the street and speed up to go around us. We have never experienced a problem hitch hiking in the Sierras. In fact, we've always been picked up by the first car that drives up. But I think maybe there is a "mountian-nature-lover-you-must-be-safe" mentality that people in the Sierras have. Must be.

We parked at Grandview so it would be there when we exit the trail and eventually got our ride to Lipan Point, where we would head down the Tanner Trail as far as we could for the day. This all took much longer than we had anticipated, and we didn't get on the trail until nearly 4pm! That's ok, we were going downhill, and it should go fast, right?...

I tried to capture how steep the trail was right out the door, but its always hard to document that sort of thing. Plus, its slows you down to stop and take pictures, and we were racing the light to get as far as we could. The trail was also slippery from a little bit of rain, and some of the rocks were loose. Every step took caution. Sam fell twice, once almost sent him tumbling all the way down. It only takes a tiny miss-step or loose rock and off you would go...

I hadn't prepared myself for the mental challenge that hiking into a (ginormous) hole would be. In the mountains, you hike up and up and up...and every step you take up, you know the way back is still easy and downhill. So in a way, home and safety don't feel so far away. As we hiked in, with every step all I could think was "I have to hike back out of here..." It kind of gave me the feeling of being trapped, and I felt a little nauseated. But in and down we went...

We got to enjoy a little sprinkle as the storm passed by on its way out.  It was actually nice, because we wanted to test out these emergency ponchos we picked up for only $1.50 at Target. They fit over our packs too! 

The terrain as we headed down was beautiful. The Sun even started to come out and cast light on the mountains, making the colors more vivid...

We had to stop about 4.5 miles in, but it was worth the epic camp spot we found on a ridge, boasting 360 degree views of the canyon. 

Home for the night...

Catching that last glimpse of daylight...

We woke up at first light, around 5am, packed up camp and hit the trail. We've learned its better to get on the trail and work up an appetite than sit around camp and not get going right away. As a plus, you get to watch the sun rise from the trail. Have you ever seen a sunrise in the backcountry? I could hear the canyon singing for joy...the glory of the morning had arrived. 

As we went further in and further down, the terrain changed dramatically. Trees turned to bushes and then grassy fields. Flowers turned to cacti with the sweetest blooms. 

And finally, we reached the Colorado River. She was beautiful, blue and green and shimmering in the morning light. I was glad is wasn't all brown from the sediment run off as it often after storms. We didn't even need a pre-filter. 

We took a short break to eat breakfast, drink as much water as possible, and fill up with as much water as possible, and kept on going. We had a long day ahead of us. We had originally planned to reach the river the night before so that we could trek about 10-12 miles today, but we had lost some time in traveling, packing, and hitchhiking. So today was going to be a long one. 

The terrain continued to change. We had this idea that we would be walking next to the river the whole time, cruisin' on mostly flat ground, so the mileage would be a piece of pie. Well...no, it wasn't pie. Or cake. Definitely not ice cream. It was hard, that's what it was. Constant ups and downs, halfway back up the canyon and down to the river and up again only to come back again. Don't get me wrong, it was soooo beautiful. I mean...

I assure you, these are not photoshopped. For the record, I don't even know how to photoshop. 

We stopped for a lunch break and these river dudes gave us (Sam) a cold beer and offered to let us use their grover. We said yes to the first, the second seemed weird...

That was refreshing, and got us through the rest of the day. We had to hike straight through the hot part of the day because we had so much mileage to make up for. 

It starts to look the same after a while, but that's ok, because its still beautiful.

We found the only shade in the canyon that day...

Everyone we passed on the trail asked us where we were coming from, and where we were headed to (that's just what you do on the trails). When we told them our route, the usual response was nervous laughter and/or "Really? WOW! You guys must be fast!" So we started thinking...are we crazy? Did we calculate this wrong? We busted out the map and realized, Oh, ok, so today is more like a 14 mile day, not 10-12. Ok, fine, we've done that lots of times before...

The trail would constantly go up and in, and then drop into a canyon/wash back to the river, and then up and in...etc. It was really cool, but really steep and tiring. Plus, there was some more shade in the canyons.

This is Sam's "Are you serious right now, trail?!" face. It was loose sand, straight up. 

And then came the scrambling the ranger only mentioned to us as it if was a 5 minute section. Nope. How about 2 miles of straight crawling on your hands and feet and passing our packs to each other. Then there was this wall we have to CLIMB up. Like a ladder.

You can see me sitting at the bottom of the wall, Sam had climbed up first to make sure it was actually the trail.

Then Sam came back down to spot me as I climbed. I snapped this of him still climbing to try and show how big of a drop it was should you fall. 

I have no idea how some of the people we passed on the trail had come from this direction. It's much easier to climb up a wall than go down one. Neither of us are rock climbers nor have we done any bouldering, so this was exciting, and scary. 

We were so tired by the end of the day, and also started to believe the people that had convinced us we were crazy. We were not going to make it to the Grandview trailhead in time, we need to bail early. We looked at our map, and our permit...doh! New Hance Trail was the trail we were SUPPOSED to be leaving from. Details...ha!

So, it was a loooong day. Our maps did not have trail mileages on it, so we were relying on the "one square is a mile" kind of thing. When we got home we looked it up: 17 miles we did that day (2 of which we were practically crawling). Dang. No wonder we were dead tired. 

That night we set up right next to the river at Hance Rapids. I had never been so happy to be next to water...

The sunset that night was beautiful, and I sat by the water watching it, too tired to snap another picture. Too tired to even eat dinner. I started crying because I was so tired. All I could think about was "Now I have to climb out of here..." But that's me: I cry about everything. 

I was sound asleep by 8pm. We had set an alarm for 5am, just in case. But I woke up wide awake at 4:45am. So we just packed up and started walking. I had the most terrible nauseating feeling in my stomach. I ate my "safe" food: dried mangos and beef jerky. No matter what, I will always eat those two foods on the trail. They got me up Whitney. They're my go-to trail food when everything else tastes like crap. 

We hiked for about 1.5 miles up this wash...

And finally the trail started to go up....and boy did it go up. We were quickly way above the Colorado River and halfway up the canyon. 

This was our last water source. Thank you MSR filter. 

Look how far we have come already! 

I apologize for lack of photos going up (just the previous few), but I was not doing to good. We are pretty sure I had heat stoke, and every bit of food and liquid that I ate/drank managed to came up shortly after (sorry if that's TMI). To sum it up, this was a loooong 8.2 miles. I had to take a lot of breaks because I was weak...a LOT of breaks. Like every 2nd switchback....or more as the day went on. Luckily we had gotten an early start and were tucked into the canyon in such a way that we stayed out of the sun for the most part. The last mile and a half took us about 2 hours. We were sitting on a rock in the shade, I was crying, feeling like I had come to the Grand Canyon to die...then I heard what was the most glorious sound ever...A CAR! I nearly ran up that last switchback and we were out...

Wow. What a trip. We managed to eventually get a ride back to the car (because it was parked in a different place than we came out). I couldn't believe how many cars would fly by us like we were serial killers. I was crying and waving my arms...good job Arizona for training your people to not pick up strangers. I made it out of the hole, and now I was going to die on the road (the car was a good 15 miles away). Finally an elderly couple from Colorado rescued me (us). She even gave me a coke, and it never tasted so good.

I'm not sure I would backpack the Grand Canyon again with such high mileage expectations. So we learned our lesson: Canyons are much different than mountains. I did not realize how tiring bouldering and scrambling would be. Now we know. 

But it was worth it. Because...

Little Sam...doing what he (still) does best...

Can you even take in the beauty when you limit it to a picture frame?

'NO!' is the correct answer.


Mt. Whitney is the highest summit in the United States. Sure, there are 11 other taller mountains in Alaska, but since I'll never summit a mountain piled under several feet of snow and ice...should we even count those? Technically Mt. Whitney is just the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, but to me, it's the tallest I'll climb in this country. Maybe one day I'll hit up Kilimanjaro, but given the cost of something like that, it's low on the bucket list.

A few weeks prior to climbing Whitney, we went on a "tester" hike and tried to summit Sawtooth (12, 343 ft). According to how that went, we might have been doomed. But we had gone on other training hikes and backpacking trips all summer both trying to figure out how to work with my altitude sickness, and trying to build (extra strong) mountain climbing legs. Mt Whitney sits at the end of the John Muir Trail, with the West side facing the Sequoia National Park, and the East side facing the Inyo National Forest. We were entering from the East, so our permit needed to come from Inyo.

Driving out to Lone Pine and beholding Mt. Whitney's point with the naked eye for the first time. It's actually the one that appears smaller (and to the right of) the middle peak:

After having attained a permit for the John Muir Trail, I look back at the permit system for Whitney and laugh at it's ease (though it's still not just your average 'just log on and get it' experience). We were set to enter into the Whitney zone on Friday, after a night or two of sleeping at Whitney Portal (the base of the mountain, just 11 or 12 miles form Lone Pine). There's an awesome backpackers camp there, for $6/night. We hadn't heard of it from any blog or person, but stumbled across it when we got there and all the campsites were full.

I was anticipating waking up feeling sick and doubting (and probably crying) if I could do this trip. I woke up at what seemed like early with the light, but Whitney Portal (elevation is 8,300ft or so) is so nestled into the mountains that it was actually not 5am (closer to 7am). I woke up more because I was hungry really. That's a first...better do what my stomach says and feed it while there's an appetite!

The sun bouncing off the rocky walls surrounding me made my cliff bar and fruit rolls taste good. How can you complain about food when watching the first light of day break?

We had another day/night to hang around here before our actual permit allowed us to enter onto the trail. The plan was to stay at Outpost Camp (10,400ft) and then summit the next day, with an option to stay at Outpost Camp again or come all the way down. Since I was feeling fine we went down to the permit office, entered a lottery with about 30 other people, and got a spot for entry THAT day (we got lucky and drew #2 from the lottery draw, the girl who got #1 was solo. I'm not sure how many others after us got permits at all). Our thinking was something along the lines of "Katy doesn't feel sick, let's make a break for it!"

Off we went, with a combined weight back of 32 lbs between the two of us (if this scale was correct). That's including 3 days of food AND a bear can.

 Here's a shot of the pack I was carrying (below): A REI flash 18 day pack, with our UL2 Big Agnes tent strapped to the outside. We saw people hauling up what could have been entire hotel rooms in their bags. Nooooo thank you....

In 2.8 miles, we reached Lone Pine Lake (elevation now at 9,900 ft). We stopped for water and a good break. We had all day to get not that far. The point of going up was just to hang out in the 'thinner air.'

I tried to eat...it didn't work. Good thing I scarfed a burger before we hit the trail. My body was starting to not liking it up here already...

In one more mile, we climbed another 500 ft to Outpost Camp, home for the night at 10,400 ft. We set up camp nestled in some bushes to try and get some privacy in case I was going to get sick...but there is no such thing as privacy up here. Something like 150 people are permitted to stomp up and down this mountain EVERY day, and half of those people are staying either here or Trail Camp. 

We took our sleep aid and tried to go to bed at around 7pm. I was feeling SO sick, and I was crying, as usual. I resorted to declaring to Sam I would not be going forward in the morning. I would climb the few miles back to the car and wait for him while he summited. It would be completely safe to separate on this trail, as we had already made a slew of friends and neither of us would be alone no matter which way we went.  I went for a walk to see if getting my blood pumping would help. I spoke with a man we had seen a lot on the trail already and struck up a conversation. I then politely asked if he would mind if Sam tagged along with him up to the summit as I would be turning around. I went and got Sam and introduced them, and all was set to go at 4:30am. 

At 4:15am when the alarm went off, I felt ok, and I had actually slept. Thank you little purple sleeping aid pill! I didn't feel so bad, so I tried to shove a granola bar down and started walking with them. It was PITCH BLACK. We weren't the only crazies doing this though, it's actually a common practice on Whitney. It takes so long and the weather is so fickle you have to aim to reach the summit by 11am in case thunder and lightening decide to show up. We were right on time. The few times we've watched the sun come up in the wilderness have been some of my favorite moments. This must be how Patagonia got it's inspiration for their label design/logo:

RIGHT as the sun was rising, you could almost hear it singing, announcing it's arrival, all three of us stopped dead in our tracks at a strange noise...tumbling...crackling...a GIANT rock, falling down a mountain, echoing throughout the valley, but nowhere in sight! It gave us all goose bumps, and a good reminder we were in Mother Nature's territory, and that she was in charge out here.  

At this point I was surprising myself (and the guys) with every footstep. Sometime around 5am, I had told myself in my head 'turn around at first light and give up,' but out loud when the guys asked me how I was doing, all I could respond with was "I'm still alive," and they took that as a sign I was doing ok, and marched forward. We passed Mirror Lake and trailside meadow in the dark, so I didn't get photos of them. 

At mile 6 we had made it to Trail Camp, 12,000ft. My last attempt at this elevation was aborted, but here I was. Debating if I should turn back now or keep going, we stopped and hung out with some other hikers and swapped stories. This is always a fun thing to do on the trail. We always get a lot of questions about our gear, and how little we actually carry. Sam goes into teacher mode and they walk away with a wealth of information and (hopefully) go home and change everything. (Side note: Sam will be posting a ton on going lightweight, lightweight gear, and MYOG-Make your own gear, soon)   

We took a picture in front of Whitney and the Needles before we left Trail Camp. I had decided I would keep going. Though I'm not sure why, I felt terrible. 

The next 2.2 miles and 1,700 feet of elevation gain consisted in the famous 97 (or 99) switchbacks. You hear horror stories about these and how they're never ending. Well, almost the whole trail is switchback-y, as are a lot of trails, so we didn't think much of it. We were actually having such a great conversation, that we reached the cables and had to stop and go "wait a minute, we're halfway up the switchbacks!"

The cables were put there some time back to prevent people from sliding down this part when it's iced over. Wow! That means we are almost to Trail Crest, 13,700 feet up, and every step I took was higher than I had ever been before. This thought, and the great conversation with our new friend Wade, kept me going. 

Before we knew it....TRAIL CREST!!!

Looking back at those crazy switchbacks:

And you could now actually see over to the other side:

The views just kept getting better and better as we climbed. We were now only 2.8 miles and another 800 feet of elevation gain away from the summit. At some point the little hut became visible, and then disappeared again. Then we actually lost some elevation (NOO!!!), and had to go up that same amount again. Every step was a step closer. Every step, at this point, was already a victorious step. 

Looking forward as we approach the needles (Our Friend Wade was setting the pace, so he ended up in a lot of our photos):

Getting closer and closer...

At some point, we passed through the "windows." This is where the trail is about 5 feet wide, with sheer cliffs on both sides and you can see straight down...not for the faint of heart. Sam, who has skydiving in his blood, loved it of course. 

Another window:

Looking through a "window." It's blurry because I took it quickly walking pass. 

Sam peeking his head into the frame in front of a "window."

One step, one step, one step....This is what it looked like looking back at the needles before we made our final ascent up to the hut:

...and eventually, the hut was within reach. I reached out and touched it, with my own hands:

 I had brought my OWN pen to sign the registry (just in case). I hadn't come this far to find no pen, or worse, a pen that doesn't work! There were a few pens, so I wasn't the only one who did this. We all added our names (and I left the pen there for future summiters):

So what now? Sit down and have lunch? No thanks. Pictures and a quick escape. I hope the next time I'm there (that's right, THE NEXT TIME I'm there), I'll be able to take in the beauty a little more. At this point though, the victory of making it up here that flooded my body and filled me with adrenaline for a few minutes, was now quickly vanishing. The summit was only the halfway mark; we still had to get off this mountain.  

But first, documentation of this victory...

Looking to the South-East I think??

Victory kiss (Lone Pine 14, 505 ft below us in the background)

The obligatory photo for the jewel in our hiker crown

Looking back toward where we approached the hut from

Hey Lone Pine, you sure are small!

Sam, wishing he had a base rig to get down

The US Flag blowing in the wind on the Summit Hut

Success. What a glorious world it is out/up there. What a beautiful God there must be, to create all of this.