I've been thinking about this trip for a long time. Even as a kid, I loved the idea of the Grand Canyon. It just seemed like something that everyone should see. Of course the only way that I knew of back then to see it was to stand on the rim and stare out across the abyss. I'd heard that you could ride mules down into it, but I had no interest in that. In case you don't know, the Grand Canyon is about a mile deep. 7,000 ft on the south rim where we started and finished, 2,200 ft at the bottom (Colorado River), and 8,300 ft on the north rim.
When I started running longer distances in 2013, I started reading about people who could run from one side (rim) of the canyon to the other side and back in one day (rim to rim to rim, or R2R2R, or even R3 if you like). That sounded insane of course, but that's how ultrarunning gets you. You start thinking about running these crazy longer distances, and then reading about it, and actually talking to people who've done these things and after a while it doesn't sound so crazy anymore. It's not for everyone of course, but I've seen several folks go through the whole progression from running 5k (3.1 miles) to marathons (26.2 miles) to 50k (31 miles) to 50 miles, to 100k (62 miles) to 100 miles, to 24 hour and even 200 mile races.
Sometime after running my first 50 miler, I decided that I might have a shot at running R2R2R. It's about 22 miles from one rim to the other, but it's also around 5,000 feet of descent and 5,000 feet of ascent each way. So for a R2R2R, we're talking 44-ish miles and 10,000-ish feet of ascent and 10,000 feet of descent. Being from Kansas, I really had no grasp of what even a 1,000 foot climb meant, but I knew that I could cover the distance part anyway. After a few more years, I understood a bit more what kind of runner I am and what my limitations are. I realized that if I did attempt a R2R2R, it would take everything that I had and that I would have to start in the dark and finish long after dark, and I would be completely wrecked for a good portion of it. Since it would likely be my only trip to the canyon, that didn't seem like it would be enjoyable at all. I'd never have time to stop and enjoy my surroundings. Eventually the idea of doing it "old man style" came to me. Why not just break the run into 2 days, stay overnight on the north rim to rest up and return to the south rim the next day. So, in 2019, I really started thinking/planning for a R2RX2.
The best times of year to run the canyon are in April and October. In between those months, the bottom of the canyon just gets too hot (100 degrees plus). If you get to the bottom and overheat, your run is very likely over. Hopefully you could make it to a water stop or a ranger station where you would eat/drink/rest until you could go on again, but that likely means waiting until things cool off in the evening and staggering back out in the dark. As the park rangers tell everyone, going down is optional, going up is mandatory. As I like to say, it ain't Disneyland. Looking at average temps, rainfall, etc, I decided that the best month would be October. There is less rainfall than in the Spring, and the temps are normally in the 30's - 40's in the mornings on the rims, and a high of 80 - 90 degrees in the bottom of the canyon. Quite a temp range, but it seemed pretty doable.
The south rim is where all of the tourists go to visit the Grand Canyon. There are several options for lodging (although they fill up quickly) and it's relatively accessible, just a 3.5 hour drive north from the Phoenix airport. The north rim however is pretty remote. There is only the Grand Canyon Lodge and some cabins all within a quarter mile-ish area. Also, the entire north rim shuts down in mid-October for the winter. So if you want to reserve a place to stay on the north rim, you have to do it a year in advance, because the rooms are reserved as soon as they are made available. I made reservations for six of us in October of 2019 to stay on the north rim in October of 2020. This was the plan until I got an email in May of 2020 that due to COVID, they were cancelling all reservations for the rest of the year. Curse you COVID scum!! Undaunted though, I made reservations for seven of us in October of 2020 to stay on the north rim in October of 2021 and this time they did not cancel them. After getting the north rim dates locked down, it was just a matter of getting the south rim lodging reservations made and transportation (Southwest Airlines flights and a 12 passenger rental van) reserved. Since there's only one place to eat on the north rim, I also made dinner reservations for the 7 of us at the historic Grand Canyon Lodge (also a year in advance). The time they gave me was 6:15 PM, I later got nervous that we might not make it there in time, but we did, by an hour or so.
I won the lottery at least 3 times in planning this trip. First, that my sweetheart would let me run off for most of a week just 2 weeks before my daughter Caroline's wedding (thank you baby!).
Second lottery win was for the super group of guys that joined me, (above l-r, Maahi Yarlagadda, Dan Kuhlman, Miguel Arellano, Bill Loats, Pete Benson, me, and Todd Chandler). Since this trip was planned over several years, you can imagine the cast of characters changed over that time due to injuries, sickness, second thoughts, real life getting in the way, not being able to train properly, etc. The six guys that went with me were all rock solid, great guys, awesome friends. I know them from races, group runs, hanging out after runs, or just sharing info on FaceBook/Strava/Garmin Connect. I have no doubt that if push came to shove, I was the weakest link in the chain. As it actually went, I was was bringing up the rear of the train at the finish of both days. In the two days of running there wasn't even so much as a blister in our group, everyone was well trained and experienced enough to deal with things like hydration/calories/hot spots before it became a problem. It was a true dream team, plus me.
Third lottery win was the perfect weather. It rained all day on Tuesday as we drove (a 12 passenger van that we called The Beast) from the airport in Phoenix to the canyon. The rain stopped just as we arrived, allowing us to grab some quick views from the rim before sunset, but the temps had fallen into the 40's. Our two days (Wed & Thurs) in the canyon were perfect, no rain, moderate temps. Morning temps on the rims were really mild, in the 40's both days. I don't think it got above mid-80's on either day inside the canyon. As we left on Friday the forecast was for rain all afternoon. The weather gods truly smiled upon us.
We stayed Tuesday night on the south rim (some of us in the Bright Angel Lodge, some in the Maswik Hotel, no camping), got up early Wednesday morning, got to the visitors center (that is a whole other story in itself) and started running to the South Kaibab (SK) Trail Head. We ran the SK down to the bottom and then ran/hiked out to the north rim on the North Kaibab (NK) Trail.
We stayed overnight in the Frontier Cabins on the north rim on Wednesday night, got up early Thursday, ran the 1.5 miles to the NK trailhead and then ran back down to the river. On this return trip we used the Bright Angel (BA) Trail from the bottom to the south rim. The BA is a few miles longer than the SK, but not quite as steep (at least initially) and there are more water stops along the way.
By the way, when I say running, I mean that we ran the downhills and flat sections and a few miles of the uphills on day 1. Most of the ups, we hiked using hiking poles (except for Speedgoat Dan, who didn't need them). On day 2 we ran the downhills, most of the flats, and some of the ups (personally, I ran none of the ups on day 2, but it was amazing to see our guys taking off running the switchbacks in the last few miles!).
On the return trip, we got separated into a couple of groups, and I happened to run by myself for most of the first half of the day in between those groups. We had planned to take a sidetrip to a place called Ribbon Falls (we didn't go to Ribbon Falls on the first day because I was nervous about making our 6:15 dinner reservation) and it was definitely worth it, really beautiful. As I approached the side trail that leads to the falls, I was hoping that the group in front of me would be there. If they'd decided not to go, and I spent an hour on a side trip, we might not all meet up until we finished. As it turned out, I did meet up with the group in front of me at the falls, and the group behind me didn't go to the falls, so we all met up at Phantom Ranch. We're so used to texting each other, that we didn't make concrete plans ahead of time. That can cause problems in the canyon as there's no cell service. All told we ran about 26 miles each day in around 10 hours. Amazingly, my overall pace was exacly the same (to the second) for both days.
If you make the trip, don't forget to have at least one lemonade at Phantom Ranch, they're $5 each, but just $1 for refills and even though I'm sure it's just a drink mix (not fresh-squeezed) it really tasted good!
One last story regarding the one thing that did go wrong for us on day 1. Our lodging places for the first night (Bright Angel Lodge and Maswik Lodge) are on the west side of the south rim park, near the Bright Angel Trail Head. The North Kaibab Trail Head (which was our starting point for the run) is about 4 miles away on the east side of the south rim park. There are free shuttle buses that will take you to the NK TH since there is no parking lot there. We were all ready at 6AM at the Back Country Info Center to be picked up by the shuttle bus. But before we could get on the bus, the driver announces, "bus is full, there should be another in just a few minutes". We were reallly confused because the bus looked half empty (we later found out that they were limiting seating due to COVID, curse you COVID scum!). We were also confused because as we were waiting to load the bus, another bus had pulled up, sat there for a minute or so and then pulled away, we later figured out that this was the "other" bus that the driver was referring to. In other words, we'd somehow been bypassed by both busses. It took us about 20 minutes to figure out that another bus wasn't coming until 7AM and that it would likely be full too. So we loaded back into the Beast and drove to the Visitor Center on the east side, because it is as close as you can park to the NK TH. So we had a two mile run along the rim from the Visitor Center parking lot to the NK TH before we could start our planned route. One nice tidbit that I learned from the front desk of the Bright Angel Lodge is that as long as you are parked in a parking spot on the south rim, you won't get a parking ticket. Since you need a $35 park pass to get into the south rim park, parking is free. So if you're a camper, you could just leave your vehicle for several days, and not have to worry about getting towed.
The other downside to the above shuttle bus fiasco is not just that we had to run a few extra miles at the start (I mean, that's what we were there for right?), but that when we finished our R2RX2, we would come out of the canyon via the BA trail, which is about 4 miles west of where we parked the Beast. Again, there are free shuttles that will take you there, but could we actually get on one this time? The answer is yes, but it got exciting. Dan and I went into the Bright Angel Lodge to get the info on the departure times of the busses from the nice lady at the desk. She said that the shuttles run every 15 from a bus stop that is just a 5 minute walk down the street. As we got back outside to pass that info to the group, Dan sees the bus driving by and shouts "Here we go guys!" as he started sprinting the quarter mile down the street, fully loaded pack still on after just running across the Grand Canyon. We had no choice but to hobble after him as fast as we could. The bus driver had no choice but to hold the bus for us, because I don't think he was about to argue with Dan after watching him chase down his bus. It was a perfect finish to the day, at least until we got to our hotel in Tusyan (Red Feather Lodge, just 5 miles south of the park) and sat down to some Mexican food and ice cold pitchers of beer for our victory dinner.
Here is the link to Todd's video of the trip. https://youtu.be/K26on9elQfk
