Continuing writing about my recent trip out west, on June 5 I was still at the Grand Canyon. On all of my previous trips I’d backpacked to the bottom, but my knees (going down) and my hips (coming back up) are appreciating that extra weight less and less as I’m getting older, so this visit I decided to take it easy and just do day hikes.
Fortunately, the Grand Canyon offers plenty of opportunities.
The day before I took advantage of a Ranger-led Fossil Discovery Walk. On the 5th I thought I’d go down the South Kaibab Trail a short ways on their Cedar Ridge Hike.
Regularly-Scheduled Hike
Discover the canyon’s beauty and natural history while descending 1,120 feet (340m) on an unpaved trail. Strenuous hike; not recommended for people with heart or respiratory problems or difficulty walking. Bring water, snacks, sunscreen, and wear sturdy shoes.
“Wear sturdy shoes.” Man, that admonition seems to show up in just about every organized hike I go on. Yet somehow I always manage just fine. (Maybe they’ve misdiagnosed the problem.)
On the other hand, I’ve never had a Ranger (or equivalent) tell me I couldn’t go on the hike because I was barefoot.
Today was no different. The Ranger didn’t even mention my choice of (non-)footwear.
I’d actually already seen him the night before, where he did a fascinating presentation on Mountain Lions at the McKee Auditorium, which sits behind the Park Headquarters. (These evening presentations, which almost all of the National Parks put on, are always worth considering going to.) The organized hikes are also mini-presentations in their own right, since the Rangers make stops along the way to talk about geology, or history, or other relevant information. Here’s out first stop on the way down (at about 7:07am).
First Stop
According to the Ranger (named Rader Lane), only about 5% of Grand Canyon visitors ever actually go below the rim. I found this absolutely amazing. They don’t even go down a little bit? Nope.
(Of course, with 6,000,000 million visitors last year, that puts 300,000 people below the rim. But still, I’d really expect a lot more people to venture down even if just to say they did it.)
Oh, let me present the map.
Topo Map Near South Kaibab Trailhead
That’s the South Kaibab Trail (accessible only via the Bus System). It starts with a huge number of switchbacks down a small opening in the cliff face, then slowly eases its way further down the side of the ridge. Our goal for the hike was the restrooms (restrooms, no water), but the first intermediate goal was Ooh-Aah Point (named for obvious reasons).
As we were working our way down there, I made a point of telling the other hikers about those overlooks to the south. Most of them seemed to be pretty interested to hear that, after the hike, if they stopped at the overlooks they’d be able to see the South Kaibab Trail that they’d just hiked on. They’d be able to take a nice photograph that they could show their friends: “See, that’s where we hiked!”
It seems the Rangers have their set items they are supposed to talk about—this was just another item I thought could add interest for everybody.
It took about 40 minutes to get to Ooh-Aah Point. Here I am.
At Ohh-Aah Point
That’s O’Neill Butte way down and behind me.
That was actually a pretty fast descent. Usually, I do descents more slowly (because of my knees), but Rader, being tall and lanky (and even more importantly, young), zoomed along like a jackrabbit. So, I worked a bit harder than usual in order to keep up.
And you can see Rader behind me, catching his breath (yeah, right!) leaning on that rock.
Here’s my own shot of O’Neill Butte from Ooh-Aah Point, and more scenery. You can even see the trail winding its way towards and then below the butte.
O’Neill Butte
Usually from Ooh-Aah Point we’re looking down at and admiring the Canyon. On a guided hike, though, with the Ranger talking, I finally had the presence of mind to look at where we’d come from.
Ooh-Aah Discussion
[Reminder: with almost all of these pictures, you can click on them to get their larger versions.]
With this shot you can see even more of the trail we came down.
Whence We Came
And with this shot you can see the notch that we had switchbacked down (barely in the sun on the right).
Switchback Notch
When I went to write this up, I discovered that I hadn’t taken any pictures of the Cedar Ridge restroom area, which is a broad respite before another steep descent. However, I do have this picture I took back in 2012 on my way down to the Bright Angel Campground, so it’ll have to do.
Cedar Ridge Rest Area
The rest area is where all the people are gathered. You’ll notice that the shadows look steeper—that year I hit this point at around 7:40am as opposed to around 8:00am for this year’s hike. There are also more people, since people trying to get to the bottom leave earlier in the morning than the day-hikers.
We spent about 30 minutes at the Cedar Ridge rest area, and then we were on our own for the hike back up.
And that was something new for me!
In the past, I’d always gone down the South Kaibab Trail, stayed at the bottom, and then come up the Bright Angel Trail. There’s a reason for that: there’s water along the Bright Angel Trail, so you can carry less water (and less weight) for your trip back up if you do things in that order. But that meant that I’d never climbed up the South Kaibab.
So it was whole different scenery. (You pay much closer attention to what is ahead of you than to what’s behind.)
Here’s how the ascent starts.
Ascending Cedar Ridge
As I first looked at this picture I was wondering, shouldn’t the cliff be on my left? But if you look at the map (and I’d forgotten this from all my trips down), just above the Cedar Ridge rest area the trail is on the other side of the ridge.
Continuing up, I stopped for a moment to take a picture of an area I’d seen and passed on the way down. These trails get a lot of use.
Maintenance
There hadn’t been any workers on our way down, but in the interim they’d arrived and started working on trail maintenance for this section of the trail. I did have to slow down a bit in my bare feet in order to traverse this section.
Heading up again, well past Ooh-Aah Point, there was a good view of the switchback notch. (Again, on all the times on my way down, I’d never turned around to enjoy the view in the other direction.)
Heading for the Switchback Notch
And here’s where I used my camera to zoom in. You can maybe almost see the switchbacks.
More Switchback Notch
In fact, when I crop the original and display with full resolution (btw, this is all a camera is doing with “digital zoom”), you can even see hikers approaching the bottom of the switchbacks and see some hikers just starting up.
It’s Ready for It’s Close-Up
At this point, let me put back up a photo I took last year. This was taken at the overlooks (the ones I told the other hikers about) and shows where the trail sits along the side of Cedar Ridge. On the blue highlighted trail, Ooh-Aah Point is on the left, and the bottom of the switchbacks, at the notch, is on the right.
The Beginning of the South Kaibab Trail – Highlighted
Eventually, I reached the switchbacks myself. Here’s the view from their bottom.
At the Bottom of the Switchbacks
And for good measure, here’s a close-up showing some hikers ahead of me (and this is “optically zoomed”, i.e., using the lenses of my camera).
Switchback Hikers
And again, this was the first time I’d really seen this. Going down, I was always so intent on where I was going that I didn’t even think of looking back up.
The trip back up took less than an hour. Again, for me, going up is easier and faster than going down. I can train my lungs (for the uphill) but not my knee joints (which take the stress for going down).
This was the time of year when the Grand Canyon gets pretty hot, so for the rest of the day I mainly hung around the Grand Canyon Village seeing the more tourist sites. And then I needed to decide what I wanted to do for a hike the next day.
Ahcuah 
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