Rim job AKA Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim AKA R2R2R has been on our hit list for awhile! If you ain’t familiar lettuce fill you in! It takes place at the Grand Canyon and all you have to do is run from one rim to the other rim and back again, simple as that! The total run ends up being around 42 miles and over 10k’ of elevation gain, hoooo boy!
What We Learned!
BUT FIRST! Lettuce save you time and brain cells from reading all this banter!
- You can spend the night in the parking lot in the north rim (even in November) and no one will check
- Check the status of the water spigots that are turned on the night before you start this journey
- There are a lot of stairs- so prepare your knees to be creaky the next day! (take ibuprofen prophylactically)
- Salt tabs and lots of food!
- Stash your warm clothes once you get to the Phantom Ranch, so that you save #grams! No need to carry more weight as you make your way up to the south rim!
Okay, continuing now but don’t complain about the blabber U ASKED FOR IT!!! Most people start and end at the South Rim, but since we were coming from Salt Lake we decided to do the thang from the North Rim. An early November storm had closed the road into the park for awhile but luckily things melted out just in the nick of time! There was also a lot of confusion for us because the National Park website said the North Rim was only open for daylight hours. We weren’t sure if we would be able to get into the park after driving down all night on Friday night and were also unsure if we would get locked in if we didn’t finish by sunset! Despite our best efforts to get an answer from someone at the park, we decided to send it and ended up driving down on Friday night, unsure of where we would be sleeping.
Luck was in our favor and we were able to drive all the way into the park, arriving at the North Kaibab trailhead around midnight. The park entrance gate was unmanned, but open! We saw a few cars in the parking lot and knew we had found our home for the night. We got a few hours of sleep in Jarri (Kianna’s Subaru) and woke up dark and early to start the run! Our breakfast for the day was homemade sourdough bread and redbull. No stoves required #fastandlight. There was another large group in the parking lot that morning that watched us struggle as we changed out of our puffy jackets into our running clothes. The North Rim is around 8200′ elevation so it was actually pretty chilly at night, like below freezing (ha!), but we knew we would be cooking later on in the day.
We got our poop in a group eventually and started running a little bit before sunrise. As the light arrived we were treated to awesome views of the canyon and could see the south rim far off in the distance.
Okay whatever the heck these plants were cracked us up. Straight out of a Dr. Seuss book!
Since we were doing North Kaibab to South Kaibab we knew our only operational water pumps were at Mazanita and Phantom Ranch. Manzanita was about 6 miles in and Phantom Ranch is at the bottom of the canyon next to the Colorado River. The NPS does a pretty good job at updating which pumps are turned on, you definitely want to check that out the night before so you don’t get too thirsty #thirsttrap
Eventually we traveled backwards in geologic time all the way to the Vishnu Schist at the base of the canyon, about a mile lower in elevation than where we started. These rocks are 1.75 billion years old, holy moly!!
Yeehaw! We made it to the bridge! Next up was our climb to the top of the South Rim. We knew that there was no water until we made it back to the river again so we tried our best to figure out how much we would need for the next 14 miles, and stashed any extra clothes and snacks behind a rock #shavegrams. We had been in the shade all day until climbing out of the South Rim where the sun beat down and really heated things up.
Finally made it to the top of the South Rim and the official halfway point! Spirits still high! LOTS OF STAIRS!
Time to throw things in reverse and head back down! All of the stairs make it hard to get in a rhythm and run smoothly, also rough on toenails but we will spare you those pictures.
Back down to the river and starting to hurt!
We snatched up our jackets and snacks that we stashed and prepared for the final grind! Now only 14 miles and 6000′ of climbing to go!
Gotta throw in a picture of the Great Unconformity! The Great uncomformity represents the gap missing in geological time of over 100 million years. OH MY GOD! AS THE YOUNG KIDS SAY: OMG! Someone get scooby doo on this case! How could that many layers be missing! Well according to :Ryan the Rock”- the bottom layer is stacked on top of each other over millions of years and then more millions of years happen and then the rock got tilted along the way. Eventually the rock started piling on top. Then there was a flat rock. Then there was more rock. Simple. Easy! That’s the rock lesson of the day!
Keeks looking chipper a couple miles from the top!
Overall, we finished! A picture to let you know, we survived, and our hearts are still beating after 44 miles of banter, and running and hiking! OH MY! Super stoked to complete this run! On the way back from Salt Lake City, we took the scenic route and explored the famous Mammoth Caves! They were cool! Remember kids, don’t eat the bats in the cave, you could catch the Corona Virus!