Rim to Rim to Rim

The rim-to-rim-to-rim is a reasonably well known trail run that crosses from the south rim of the grand canyon to the north rim and back. Mary and I were meeting my family for Thanksgiving in Sedona in Novemeber of 2023 and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to give the rim to rim to rim a go . We departed Sedona around 4:10pm, and immediately encountered quite a lot of traffic. We saw a dude get pulled over for trying to skirt by it in the left-hand turn lane (sucker!). We continued uneventfully to Flagstaff, where we got gas and 3x chicken burritos + 1x quesadilla. Then, we proceeded to the Grand Canyon along a surprisingly busy highway. At the park entrance the rangerinformed us that it was less busy now because “it’s pretty dark so you can’t see the canyon.” We made it to Mayer Campground after one confusing loop through the parking area. Set up a tent, got in sleeping bags, and devoured burritos. We organized snacks (4500-5000 cal for the day) and went to bed.

Alarms went off at 3:30am the next morning, so we packed up tents and headed to the Bright Angel trailhead. Both of us commenced in a puffy, light windbreaker, shorts, and gloves, plus our trusty headlamps. Mary had her Salomon 12L pack, whilst I had my newly purchased Black Diamond Distance 15L. We descended rapidly in the dark down Bright Angel. I shed some layers, managed to break my pack (design flaw - the webbing from the buckles on the chest strap to the pack is weak; luckily there was an easy workaround). The mile flew by, lovely trail, well-travelled and signed. We were slightly perplexed when the trail briefly turned into a creek, but that didn’t last long. 8 miles in and we were at the Colorado river!

We passed a group of walkers (maybe doing rim to rim?) and traversed upriver. Crossed the suspension bridge (later learned it used to be a cable car but was built as a bridge in 1920), we turned off our headlamps and began the ascent toward the North rim via the North Kaibab trail. We saw a couple at a picnic table, who responded “trying to” when asked if they were rim2rim2rimming. Very gentle, slightly uphill to Phantom Ranch, and then continued upvalley along the creek. Rolling net uphill miles flew by, and we made our left turn to the steep ascent. It was beginning to warm up, we saw a helicopter, and mostly marveled at the general scenery.

A couple thousand vertical feet later, we saw our first bits of snow (not quite warranting the microspikes worn by some day hikers) and then crested over the last switchback to the North rim. I acquired water from a couple, who turned out to be the support crew for the couple we’d seen earlier (the girl’s parents). The dad had completed many a traverse of the canyon in his day, and they’d brought a camo microwave, set up in the back of their truck, to heat up snacks for the young couple.

We ate a quick bite, and began a rapid descent back down. Saw a few more hikers, at least one dude doing “R3,” and were amazed by the trail work (dynamited canyons are epic). Got back to the creek, were delighted to find the water spigot on, filled up and snacked. Then we began running back to Phantom Ranch, thankfully a slight downhill but in the hot sun.

Made it into the blissful shade of the canyons and then a few miles later, to Phantom. Took an excellent bathroom break in the top-notch facilities and powered onwards. Arrived back at the Colorado river, splashed water on our faces, and crossed the bridge.

Rolled back down the river along the traverse (we’d both managed to forget that some sections of the trail were sand) and then turned left to commence our final climb. My stomach was not having its best day (note: Mary’s was performing better than her average). The climb to the section of trail that was a creek felt ~5x longer than it had on the descent, but stoke was great, fueled by Sour Patch kids (we both wished we’d had salty snacks, specifically Cheezits or Goldfish). The trail leveled off a bit, and we came across all kinds of very underprepared-looking people, concluding that Ranger Jen (a very negative ranger we had met the previous year when backpacking the Escalante route) may have had better reason for her adversarial nature then we had realized. The sun began to set just as we got a view of the canyon. Gorgeous colors and low angle light. The last few thousand vertical feet up were long, but spirits were high and views were superb. We passed a bunch more hikers in various states of lucidity. With about a mile to go, we donned headlamps, and the world was reduced to a small patch of light where putting one foot in front of the other was all that mattered. Finally, we arrived back at the Bright Angel trailhead and jogged back to the car, at 6:15pm - 14:00:02 later. We booked another night at Maher campground after deciding it made little sense to drive back to Sedona. We decided to check out the cafeteria, and got a $24 veggie pizza plus bread sticks. We headed over to the campground, set up tents, and bundled into the sleeping bags. I was likely at a calorie deficit, and was quite cold, although I warmed up quickly. We fell asleep around 7:30pm.

Woke up the next morning at 6am, packed up camp, and returned to Sedona, greeted in Flagstaff by stunning mountains and a glorious sunrise.

Big lessons: Pack more cheezits! everything else went about as well as could be!!

Final stats:

• miles: 48.6
• elevation: 13,500
• moving time: ~12.9hrs
• elapsed time: 14hrs
• water drunk: ~8liters/person
• calories consumed: ~5,000/person