Amazing, Spectacular Arizona Trail – Bright Angel CG (Colorado River)-South Rim

Took a rare opportunity to sleep in a bit this morning. I’m familiar with the hike out from Phantom Ranch to the South Rim, even along the steeper South Kaibab Trail, so I’m relatively confident in even getting a slower start and still making it out by early evening. (Note – If I had not spent 6 months working here and accustomed to hiking here, I would not do this, so for those of you who may be considering hiking at Grand Canyon, please allow yourself plenty of time to hike out to the South Rim – ideally twice the amount of time that it took you to reach the bottom if you start from the South Rim, or about the same amount of time it took you to reach Phantom from the North Rim.).

I get some breakfast at Phantom Ranch, the famous lodging within the Canyon designed by Mary Colter for the Fred Harvey Company and built at the bottom of Bright Angel Canyon just up from its junction with the Colorado River. Originally named Roosevelt Camp, Colter had the name changed to Phantom Ranch. All building materials other than rock (a prominent one, unsurprisingly) had to be hauled down by mule. Today, it is one of only two places in the United States where mail is still mailed by mule (and the cancellation stamps at the canteen proudly say so).

Around 11, I’m hiking out. The South Kaibab Trail turns east along the Colorado River from the mouth of Bright Angel Creek and passes Bright Angel Pueblo. The pueblo is 900-1000 years old, and was visited by John Wesley Powell’s 1869 Colorado River expedition, the first successful non-native attempt to raft the entire Grand Canyon.

From the Pueblo, the trail reaches the Kaibab Bridge, or Black Bridge, over the Colorado River. A 440 ft suspension bridge, it is the crossing for all mule trips from the South Rim to Phantom Ranch, and along with the Silver Bridge downstream (visible from the Kaibab Bridge) it is one of only two crossings between the Navajo Bridge at Lee’s Ferry and Hoover Dam. The construction materials for the bridge were carried down the newly constructed South Kaibab Trail in 1928, with 42 Havasupai tribesmen carrying each 1 ton, 550 ft suspension cables down the trail. The materials weighed 122 tons in total. It is a major civil engineering landmark.

Visible from the Kaibab Bridge are the Silver Bridge downstream, which the Bright Angel Trail uses to cross the river, as well as the cableway next to the bridge. The Black Bridge is the fourth crossing of the Colorado at the location. The first was a ferry, but this was extremely perilous. The second was the cableway, a 6×10 ft steel cage to carry passengers (mules and people) across the river. Theodore Roosevelt used it on a 1913 visit to then-Grand Canyon National Monument. A successor suspension bridge opened in 1920, to be succeeded by the Kaibab Bridge in 1928.

The river itself, unlike when I departed from Lee’s Ferry, is a deep brown today due to rain upstream. At such times, the river takes on its natural brown color, which in fact was what led to its name – “Rio Colorado,” meaning “colored river” or “red river” in Spanish. It’s refreshing to see it as it was seen for all of history before the construction of Glen Canyon Dam in the 1960s.

In stark contrast to the North Rim at around 8800 ft, the Colorado at Phantom is only around 2500 ft, or around the same elevation as Phoenix, so the weather it experiences is more akin to Central Arizona valleys than it is the rims of the Canyon. A hike through Grand Canyon crosses between 5-8 ecosystems, depending of where the precise boundaries are drawn, and can be like hiking from Mexico to Canada from an ecological perspective. Below the rim, one passes through the riparian zone along the river, the Lower Sonoran Desert, Upper Sonoran Desert. The North Rim features ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests, and the South Rim ponderosa pine and pinyon-juniper forest.

Kaibab Bridge to Red & Whites Rescue

Passing through a brief tunnel on the south bank, the trail quickly ascends around 1500 ft to The Tipoff on the edge of the Tonto Platform, the rim of the Inner Canyon. During this climb, I am treated to some great views of river trips launching again after having lunch at Phantom Ranch. The trail crosses the Tonto Platform and begins to climb toward Skeleton Point, through sections of the South Kaibab with colorful names such as the “Red & Whites,” and with outstanding views of the formations and scale of the canyon.

Arizona Trail: Red & Whites Rescue to South Rim

And then everything changes.

I came around a corner below Skeleton Point, just below the Red & Whites to find someone sitting in the middle of the trail. Upon my asking if they were OK, they said no, they thought they had broken their ankle. When I asked why they thought that, they said that “I tried to stand up, and it just flops to the side.” Yes, that’s a break. I say that I can splint it, but other than that we’d have to get more help down to get her out. But I ask if they want me to use my new inReach to contact GRCA SAR and get it, which they accept. I hit the SOS button on my inReach, and a hiker behind me helps splint it using their poles and cord that I carried while I ran to Tipoff to call GRCA SAR directly.

Unfortunately it was too windy for a helicopter medivac at that time, so we had to wait about 2-3 hours for a medic to reach us on the trail. We got a firm splint on the ankle and lucked out – eventually they did get a helicopter window and managed to land and take the individual down a slope to where they had landed. Ended up hiking out with the husband of the individual in question; we topped around around 9-10. I have to say, given the wind we experienced on the upper South Kaibab, I’m shocked the helicopter managed to reach us at all. The backup plan was apparently to have them spend the night near Tipoff and launch in the morning.

So glad that I opted to carry an inReach for this trip, now. I didn’t expect it to pay off so soon, but, of course, that is the nature of an emergency.