At noon on October 16, 2009 Grand Canyon Lodge North Rim and Grand Canyon Trail Rides will close for the season. The National Park Service will continue its operations including the North Rim Visitor Center and Bookstore, as well as the North Rim Backcountry Information Center through November 30, unless snow closes Highway 67 leading into the park prior to that date. From October 16 until closure, these facilities will be open from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.
Starting October 16, campsites with limited services, such as portable toilets, will be available for a $12 fee on a first-come, first-served basis. Forever Resorts will also keep their gift shop and gas station open during the shoulder season. Gift shop hours are expected to be from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and the gas pumps will be available seven days a week, 24-hours a day.

• South Rim – 27%
• North Rim – 14%
• West Rim – 12%
• Tusayan or Williams – 17%
• Jacob Lake, Lees Ferry or Southern Utah – 3%
• Las Vegas – 9%
• Sedona – 8%
• Flagstaff – 9%
• Phoenix Metro Area -3%

Assistant troop leader Barbara O’Dear, who has been training athletes for years, knew it would not be easy to train 12- and 13-year-old girls to hike the Grand Canyon.

“As a trainer, I knew it would be impossible for us to accomplish this goal without a lot of hard work,” said O’Dear. “Practice was going to be the key to success.”

The girls began flat road training in June, starting at four miles a week. Eventually they hiked seven miles on Tuesdays and Thursdays along the hilly terrain near Clat Adams Park during the hottest times of day to prepare for the conditions at the Grand Canyon.

“It was tough,” said troop member Mia McNay. “But once your legs got built up, the miles got easier.”

At the end of training, the girls had to pass a 10-mile hike in high grade-hot climate conditions in order to ensure they would be ready to make the actual hike at the canyon. Katarina Bowles, Nicole Duesdieker, Valya and Roza Panos, Mia McNay and Audrey O’Dear were cleared to go, though Bowles had to ride a mule on the hike due to an ankle injury.

While planning the adventure, O’Dear and troop leader Patti McNay also wanted the girls to learn something about themselves and each other.

“The training they went through together really brought them a lot closer to one another,” said McNay.

The hike began Aug. 14 with a 16-mile trek from the north rim of the canyon to Phantom Ranch, a campground at the bottom of the canyon where they ate and slept in a dormitory. They awoke early the following morning to complete their adventure by hiking 10 miles from the South rim of the canyon back to the top.

“It felt like the training was for a reason and that reason became true to us,” said Mia McNay. “I learned about teamwork, trusting in people and to just have fun.”

Troop 119 recently made a 16-minute motivational DVD of their trip to the canyon that includes a song that the girls wrote themselves. Patti McNay said the video will be sent to 109 Girl Scout councils in the United States. Troop leaders can pick up the video up from their local council.

“We’re hoping to motivate other girls and show them that with a little hard work, they too can achieve their own goals,” said Patti McNay.

“It’s wonderful to have a dream, to work your dream and then to live your dream,” said O’Dear. “We are very proud of each and every one of them.”

The Girl Scouts of Two Rivers Council gave all six girls a Bronze Award Sunday night at the St. Francis Hills Boy Scout Camp for their work on the DVD.

Source: Hannah Flesner, Herald-Whig Staff Writer October 16, 2006

By road, it’s a 5 1/2 hour, 220 mile drive.

On foot, it’s just about a marathon – 25 miles, give or take – with around 10,000 feet of elevation change. In what can be brutal conditions.

No wonder, then, that the rim-to-rim hike has been described as one of the best day hikes in the world. And it’s no wonder the National Parks Service discourages trying the rim to rim in a day – or at all, for that matter, by the ill-prepared.

“So many people who choose to do it,” said Marc Yeston, a Canyon District Ranger, “don’t know what they’re up against and end up needing to be rescued. Some even end up dying. If you know what you’re getting into and are prepared physically, it can be done safely. But if you’re not prepared, it’s dangerous.”

Nearly three years ago, Lawrence’s Pat Grzenda vowed to be a member of the former faction.

Part of a group of six women – the other five were Debbie Miller, Katie Becker, Joni Lawrence, Barb Malone and Teri Oberzan – who came to be known as the “Canyon Girls,” Grzenda’s group trained for the rim to rim.

Together and separately, they took long hikes around Lawrence and conditioned themselves as best they could for the searing Arizona heat that awaited them at the canyon floor.

On Sept. 14, 2003, the Canyon Girls completed the rim to rim, from south to north, in around 15 hours.

“It was hard,” said Grzenda, a former competitive swimmer and longtime high school swimming coach. “I was 50 years old when I did it, so that’s a different experience than somebody doing it when they’re 25, but for me that was part of the challenge, part of what made it fun. I felt very proud of myself and proud of the group. All I’d ever done before at the Grand Canyon was stand on the south rim and ooh and ahh.

“But this took preparation. It really was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I had nothing left at the end. I’m not trying to scare anybody off, but it was a challenge.”

Grzenda paused when asked to compare it to any of her other athletic endeavors.

“I’ve never done a marathon, so you’d have to ask a marathoner how they compare, but the distance is about the same,” Grzenda said. “The speed is different, but a marathon usually doesn’t have the elevation change. I was a competitive swimmer, and you train some long hours, but this was a one-shot deal.

“You know, I’ve done a couple of short-distance triathlons. When I did one in the summer of 2004, the summer after I did the Grand Canyon, I remember standing there, putting my goggles on and saying to myself, ‘You crossed the Grand Canyon. How hard could this be?’”

The upside-down mountain

Make no mistake: The rim to rim is no Sunday-afternoon stroll.

Yeston, the ranger, refers to the Grand Canyon as an upside-down mountain, and the metaphor is apt.

Trail head at the north rim is about 8,200 feet, while the south-rim trail heads are around 6,800 or 7,200 feet, depending on the trail.

The inner desert sits around 2,200 feet.

“People pull up to Mount Rainier or Teton and say, ‘Hey, let’s go climb this thing,’” Yeston said. “They get about halfway up and say, ‘This isn’t such a good idea,’ and turn around. But it’s all downhill. Here, you’re on one rim and look down. It’s nice and cool. You head down. It’s easy going. But it gets hotter and drier as you go down. You get to the bottom, and it’s 108 degrees, and you still have to go back up. You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Sometimes it’s more work than hikers can manage.

Yeston said there were between 250 and 400 trail evacuations and one or two trail deaths a year. All told, there are 12 to 20 Canyon fatalities yearly, including drownings, homicides and suicides.

Naturally, the rangers would like to cut down on all those numbers.

After a spate of heat-related fatalities in the 1990s, the parks service started a preventative search-and-rescue program, where individuals head down the trails early each day to interact with hikers they encounter.

“We try to turn people around, or adjust people’s plans about how prepared they are,” Yeston said. “If you’re heading to the bottom with a Diet Pepsi can in each pocket, we might try to turn you around. ‘This is how much water you need. Those two cans aren’t going to cut it.’”

Yeston frequently is asked how best to prepare for a hike like the rim to rim.

“People ask, ‘How many hours a week should I do on the StairMaster?’” he said. “For a lot of people, hiking the Grand Canyon is like being on a StairMaster for 12 to 15 hours. Most people don’t want to be on a StairMaster 12, 15 hours.

“I tell people, ‘You can’t just lose the 10 or 20 pounds you’re hoping to lose and spend an hour a week on the StairMaster and come here and expect to do a rim-to-rim hike reasonably comfortably. There could be a fit 22-year-old with an ill-thought-out plan to go to the bottom. Are they likely to die? It has happened. It will happen again. One thing I can say with certainty is, you can jam a pencil in your eye socket, but why would you want to?”

Nuts and bolts

Logistics makes up another difficulty in doing the rim to rim.

Snowfall closes the North Rim usually from mid-November to mid-May.

The ideal hiking window shrinks even more when factoring in the peak of the summer heat, thus most rim-to-rimmers aim for early or late-season attempts.

And then there are the travel difficulties once the hike is over.

There is a shuttle service to ferry hikers from one rim back to their cars on the other side, but some eschew the shuttle service in favor of the more arduous rim-to-rim-to-rim hike.

“Those animals who do the rim-to-rim-to-rim… that’s just amazing to me,” Grzenda said.

In retrospect, Grzenda said, “just” going from one rim to the other was amazing enough.

But, she said, the accomplishment was just part of the payoff.

“The best part of the whole thing, to me, was the way the group pulled together,” Grzenda said. “Two people had the idea. One brought in one person, the other brought in two more, they knew somebody who wanted to do it. We didn’t know each other real well before we started preparing for it. We trained together and spent many Saturdays doing four-, five-hour hikes around Lawrence and became good friends. It was just a bonding experience with a great group of women, and we’ve remained good friends.”

The improved conditions allow fire managers at Grand Canyon National Park to lift fire restrictions on the South and North Rims of Grand Canyon. Fire restrictions had been in place since June 5, 2006.

Restrictions that are being lifted include: Charcoal grills and campfires (that were restricted in Mather Campground, Desert View Campground, the North Rim Campground and residential areas). The restriction on smoking, which was only permitted within and directly adjacent to buildings that had designated smoking areas and within private vehicles provided an ashtray was used, has also been lifted.

Campfires in Grand Canyon National Park are only permitted in designated grills within established campgrounds on the rim, and along the Colorado River providing fire pans are used.

Historically conditions continue to moderate once the monsoons arrive. However, conditions can again dry out especially in early fall. If this occurs, fire restrictions will again be put in place.

Visitors and residents are reminded that even though fire conditions have improved and restrictions have been lifted it is important to practice fire safety at all times throughout the year.

Arizona: Crossing the Canyon

Over the years, I’ve spent hundreds of days exploring Arizona’s Grand Canyon. I’m convinced that while the view from the top can be stunning, the best way to appreciate the canyon’s grandness is to walk across it.

The easiest traverse begins from the North Rim with a 13.8-mile descent down the North Kaibab Trail. Canyon walls engulf hikers, each stony stratum offering its own textures and colors. Buttes and buttresses reach for cerulean skies. Pastel bands paint distant walls. The sheer immensity inspires awe and incites blisters.

Bright Angel Campground offers canyon-bottom tent sites. From there, the 9.6-mile Bright Angel Trail leads to the top.

At first, the path parallels the Inner Gorge whose metamorphic rock marks the roots of ancient mountains. It then corkscrews upward to Indian Gardens Campground near the halfway point. After crossing the sloping Tonto Platform, it zigzags some more. Finally, atop one broad hairpin stands Kolb Studio at the edge of the South Rim. Brews, baths and beds lie blissfully beyond.

[Visit www.thecanyon.com] for rooms at North and South Rim lodges, [hotels bed & breakfasts and more.] Your inner-canyon campsite, which must be reserved well in advance (928-638-7888; www.nps.gov/grca), is your hiking permit. Technically, if you don’t camp, you don’t need a permit. [Many tour companies on www.thecanyon.com offer rides from one rim to the other, helicopter and air tours as well as guided hikes and river trips.]

See 6 more hikes…
By Dan Leeth
Special to the Chicago Tribune
Published June 11, 2006

Try as I might to allow a rebellious streak to emerge, I have always been a color-inside-the-lines, stay-on-the-trail, follow-all-of-the-rules kind of guy. I almost always go to church on Sunday and spend most of my life trying not to hurt the feelings of others no matter how much I might disagree.

Developed campgrounds make me comfortable. I know the basic needs of a bathroom, a picnic table and a level place to put a tent will be met. There are rules to follow and people there to help you obey them.

For example, there was a fire ban in effect the night we stayed at Jacob Lake. I had called in advance to make certain a small, propane campfire would be legal. Three different campground hosts came to our campsite and told me to put it out before checking with their supervisor who had approved it. That didn’t stop them from glaring at me like I was a criminal. Being a Catholic, I still felt guilty even though the fire was safe and legal.

Left on my own, I would have stayed at the developed campground, visited the safe trails of the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park and been a part of the Memorial Day masses.

But my traveling companions, including my daughter Emma and one of her best friends from Flagstaff, Ariz., who knew the area, had other plans. Since we carried water, two portable tables and a shovel to bury human waste, we would stay outside the lines of the national park.

Such freedom frightens me for reasons I can’t understand. I asked the workers at the North Kaibab Visitors Center plenty of pointed questions about Forest Service travel plans, fire restrictions and where it was legal to camp. They seemed perfectly fine with the entire idea.

There was also the matter of my new pickup. I justified the expense because I could drive it off highway. But, with its inside and outside still shiny and little more than 1,000 miles on the odometer, turning off the pavement for a trip on the long and bumpy dirt road made me cringe.
When we ended up at a remote patch of dirt near an old fire pit, dust covered my newest toy. Worse, someone left a light on and the battery died, giving me something else to worry about.

Everything worked out just fine. Some 30 miles off the highway and well outside of the national park, we pretty much had our Grand Canyon viewpoint to ourselves. We got the truck to start, we didn’t burn the forest down, we left no trace and, most important, we found silence.
Sleeping in the the bed of the truck, I savored black skies filled with stars. Each night, we walked a few yards to the edge of the Grand Canyon and set up our camp chairs to watch the sun set.

I discovered what I knew all along. Leaving the safety of what you know to a place off the beaten track where you follow your own rules can be more than a little satisfying.

June 1, 2006 By Tom Wharton, Tribune Columnist, Salt Lake Tribune

Where do you get the best views of the Grand Canyon?

The North Rim? The South Rim?

Admittedly, it’s a subjective decision, but the South Rim gets my vote.

That comes after making my first trip to the still-impressive North Rim. I had visited the South Rim about 15 years ago.

The North Rim and South Rim are only 10 miles apart by air, but they are 215 miles and five hours apart by road.

The North Rim is higher in elevation at up to 8,800 feet. It is covered with pine forests and open only five months a year because of snow. It gets far fewer visitors than the South Rim. Accommodations are more limited on the North Rim. It has fewer trails that drop into the canyon and fewer overlooks.

The North Rim has higher cliff faces and offers up-high views of the rock formations within the canyon.

But to me, the big difference is that the views from the North Rim are less striking, less dramatic, less gripping.

From the North Rim, you have sweeping giant vistas across the Grand Canyon from Bright Angel, Cape Royal and Point Imperial. From its edge, the North Rim offers an enormity of view.

The North Rim offers one glimpse of the aquamarine Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon. That’s at Cape Royal.

However, you are unable to look into the heart of the canyon from the North Rim the way you can from the South Rim with its numerous vantage points, and that is a significant difference.

The South Rim offers better lighting and offers a wider and deeper canyon than does the North Rim.

That enables you to visually connect with the Grand Canyon in a way that is not as strong from the North Rim. More…

Written and published by Bob Downing Beacon Journal staff writer Akron, OH Beacon Journal May 28, 2006