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You can get lost in there 20 feet from each other. There's so much brush and so many weird rocks and so many I mean, I had no clue.
Zeena:You're listening to the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude Show, the voice of Grand Canyon Hiking, presented by Hiken. Hiking packs and gear built to help you hike your best hike. Here's your guide, Brian Special.
Brian:Yeah. That's the thing about the off corridor rim to river routes. Getting lost is not out of the question. Now my big goal for this winter season when there's no heat to contend with was to day hike all of the realistic off corridor rim to river routes on the South Rim, Tanner, Newhance, and Hermit. And after knocking off Hermit last week, that mission is complete.
Brian:So let's talk about them and also talk about all the Bright Angel and South Kaibab Rim to river routes as well. My hope is you'll hear something that resonates with you and inspires you to give one of them a shot, especially with rim to rim being unavailable for the foreseeable future. Turns out there is a big old canyon out there to explore. With me for this rim to river breakdown is Eric Nelson, a physician from Prescott, Arizona, about two hours or so south of the canyon, who I met in our hike club Grand Canyon Facebook community and who invited me along for the Hermit Rim to River just last week. Here now is part one of our Rim to River review on the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude show powered by Hiken.
Brian:See our front access canyon designed hiking packs at hikin.club. That's hikin.club. The first one that I wanna talk about is the one that's your favorite, and that is what? On the spot,
Eric:I think I man. I kinda think New Hans. Oh. I'll go with New Hans as
Brian:my the most gnarly one of all. What is it about what is it about the New Hans to the river and back, which by the way is 13.4 miles, 5,144 vertical feet. It is a burly, beastly, big Grand Canyon hike with a lot of adventure along the way. What is it about that one that you love so much?
Eric:It has a little bit of everything that I I like. One is, it's just finding the trailhead is an adventure. Right? Because I I I almost always will drive past it, you know, and they're like, crap. I gotta turn around and go back and park.
Eric:Then you kinda go through the woods, you're like, are we lost? And then all of a sudden, you see the sign. Right? And then you just drop in, and then you're also like, are we still lost? Because you get on this trail, and you have to follow these cairns, and these there's these big step downs, and, you know, it's one of those ones where the first time I did it, I actually just had a paper map, and I was just you know, you almost make a wrong turn at the anyway, it's it's a blast.
Eric:You come down. There's that there's that saddle that you come to that's beautiful, and then you work your way around, and you finally get down through this gnarly, difficult section, and then you come into another gnarly, sick, or difficult section going across the supine for a mile or two. It's not as bad because you're not climbing, but they're just rubble. And then you come down to a beautiful you know, as you come through the Red Wall, it's quite beautiful as as pretty much all these trails are, and you just kinda work your way down under Red Canyon. I I love Red Canyon.
Eric:I think it's it's very interesting terrain. The rocks are really interesting. And you finally get to the creek bottom, and then you think, oh, I'm done. But no. You you run into these big rocks.
Eric:You know, these house sized rocks you have to navigate around and climb over, and then you get this massive payoff at the end with Hance Rapids. And so, I mean, for me, that is just that's just kind of the whole the whole thing. In fairness, I've never done it down and back. I've only done it oh, no. Wait.
Eric:One day. I'm sorry. Did one time and did it down and back. But usually, it's on the you know, I'm either going down or I'm going up Hance from somewhere else.
Brian:Yeah, if I'm recommending rim to river routes, this is probably the one I'm gonna recommend the least, and the only reason for that is because of what you talked about in the very beginning. Hard to find off the road, first of all. Oh, yeah. Now, I can enter my GPS, and it will find find it and take me right to it, essentially. But when you get there What's GPS?
Eric:I'm just kidding.
Brian:But when you get there, there's not a parking lot. There's not a turn There's not a viewpoint. There's nothing like that. It's just if you're just
Eric:There's not on even parking there. You kinda have to park like a quarter mile, you know, an eighth of a mile down you're
Brian:driving on Highway 64, it's you would unless you know what you're looking for, you're not gonna see it. So you've gotta follow your GPS, and then you've gotta look for, you know, a little pull off, not a turn off, but just a pull off off the side of the road, where they will leave your car alone if you leave it there for the day, just pull it far enough Just off the
Eric:on the south side of the road.
Brian:Yeah. And then on the north side of the road, obviously, as you head toward the rim, it is nothing but a little forest there, and you will see the spot where it's really well worn, where you can work your way back to the trailhead, which is a quarter of a mile through the trees. And if there were not a sign at the trailhead, I'm not sure Yeah, would know there was a trailhead there, No.
Eric:I think that's my favorite, though.
Brian:Yeah, so when I did this hike, the first time, I've been on Nunhansk only a couple of times, and the first time I did it, there was no snow, and I went down, dove in through where the sign is there, started on down, it's extraordinarily steep, it's one of the steeper trails on the South Rim. Yeah. And you wanna talk about rugged, primitive, unmaintained, that is new hands, because I remember looking at my watch the first time I did this trail, and I was six one hundredths of a mile down the trail. Six one hundredths, and about 50 feet, vertical feet below the rim, and I lost the trail.
Eric:Barely in there.
Brian:I mean, so easy to do, right?
Eric:It is, it is, it is. Especially in the Coconino. I mean, there's not much to market in there. You just kinda zigzag down.
Brian:Yeah. I think I lost it four or five times just on the way down my first time. One one thing I did find, though, when I went back and did it with Joe Adlock to the river and back just a couple months ago, is there was snow on the ground, which actually made it easier, because there were some poor souls who had marked the trail up before. So, yeah, New Hance, I guess I'm not surprised to hear you say that, because I know you like the big loop hikes in the canyon. I'm not I guess I'm not surprised that you picked the gnarliest of the rim to river routes.
Brian:What is it about those the these big off corridor hikes that you love so much?
Eric:Number one, they're they're challenging, but don't I know that they're necessarily more physically challenging than a rim to river or rim to rim. Maybe a little bit more. I I like it because I don't see any people. You know? You you did Tanner.
Eric:You guys saw I mean, typically, I will see one to three people in a day. That's just kinda awesome to be out there from the morning, you know, till night, and and see nobody. And to be in the Grand Canyon, you really feel that you're in the wilderness for once, you know. Not sharing the corridor trail with hundreds of of friends, which is fine, but it's a it's a different experience.
Brian:It is a different different experience. Yeah. Yeah. When I did Tanner a couple of months ago, we saw zero other people the entire day. When I did New Hance, we saw zero people the entire way Wow.
Brian:Until we saw a river trip come through at the bottom, but no other hikers. And when you and I, along with Doctor. Myers, did Hermit to the River just a week or so ago, we saw no other day hikers. We did see a lot of backpackers. Yeah.
Brian:But no day hikers, so to your point, it it's it's kinda cool to just be out there by yourself. But do you bring anything along, like, are you always hiking with someone, or do you bring a GPS, like an inReach along just in case on these off corridor trails?
Eric:I should, but do I know? I guess I just I am stupidly overconfident in my ability to find what I need to do to not get hurt, and to get out of the canyon. And kinda came from, you know, mountain biking out here in Arizona, in areas with no cell service for a long part of my life, and just, I don't know, just not getting hurt. But I've been incredibly lucky when it comes to injuries and that sort of thing, and I do think an inReach would be a good idea. I just take an iPhone.
Eric:I do use Caltopo as my mapping program, and that works offline. So you can put the thing on airplane mode to save your battery, and Caltopa will still follow along. It's an interesting program in that you can create maps. You need to kinda use it on a desktop and a mobile device. But you create the maps on the desktop, and then they download to your account on your mobile device, and it it will follow you very accurately once you're in the canyon.
Eric:So it works with a pretty good GPS device. And then then with the new iPhones having the satellite capability, I don't feel quite as strongly about needing the inReach. However, as you saw, the saddle and Hermit, you know, the satellite doesn't work a lot of times. You know? You gotta have a good view of the sky, and then a lot of the Grand Canyon, you don't.
Brian:You know, I think I'm gonna call us out here, Eric. Okay. Because I've never had a I've never taken an in reach with me. And when I've done all these off corridors, I've done it with someone, which gives you, you know, a level of of confidence if something were to go wrong. But, you know, if you're if you're out there by yourself, I mean, listen, no matter how careful you are, you can get yourself hurt.
Brian:In the canyon. I mean, even something as simple as a bad twist in your ankle, right, and breaking your ankle or something, suddenly you're immobilized, well then what the heck are you gonna do out there? On these trails that we just talked about, you might not see another person for a day or two, and if it's Right. You know, night nighttime and it gets cold and you're immobilized, I mean, yeah. I I I'm not gonna be going without an inReach by myself on any of these
Eric:I should get one. Mean, it's not like it's not a question of yeah. They're not that expensive, and you and you can turn the subscription on and off for it. It just seems stupid not to do it. I know friends that would definitely say it's stupid not to do it.
Eric:It's because it's not the seventies. We're not, you know, Benson, you know, breaking his it wasn't Benson that broke his neck and then had to crawl out the North Rim, that that crazy story. In Tom's book?
Brian:The Grand
Eric:In Tom's book? Yeah. You know, he's like crawling, you know, he's in the middle of nowhere in the North Rim, and had to crawl to this cabin and kinda recuperate for a week or so. You know, but we're we don't have to be that tough in some ways, because it's not this, we have better technology we could be living with nowadays.
Brian:Yeah. So I guess I'm trying to say, I think we're making a mistake by not having the unreach. I'm gonna call myself out on that too, because I feel like, I don't know, it's just one of those things, if something were to happen, I mean, you'd be kicking yourself to no end. You're like, why didn't I just get that thing? Why didn't I just have that with me?
Brian:Right?
Eric:Yeah. So Yeah. And it's it's it's the bias that you have from your experiences. Right? And so my experiences have been very positive.
Eric:I I essentially never get hurt. And I've been around friends that got hurt, though, and you're like, well, yeah. I I should be smarter.
Brian:Yeah. I mean, I've got a my mom's cousin, actually, his name is Nick Cordy, and he's a Mhmm. Big time Grand Canyon backpacker, and has been for a long time. And he is actually in Tom's book, Over the Edge, Death in Grand Canyon, but he is alive. Right?
Brian:He survived. I mean, he's one of those cautionary tales in that book of someone who, you know, took a wrong step, and ended up going down a cliff 20 or 30 feet, and becoming immobilized, and only because he was with his son-in-law, who was a paramedic, and his daughter who stayed with him, the son-in-law was able to make a run for the river, flag down a river trip, and they eventually were able to get help. Just But imagine something like that happening if you're out there by yourself, you know? Right. There's there's nothing you can do, and then you're just waiting for, I mean, you're just waiting for a miracle, or you're waiting to die.
Eric:Or you you harden up and crawl out, you know? If you remember, Tom, he had that injury where he he missed a he missed a step, you know, and just went down straight onto his sternum, crashing, you know, the rock right into the center of his chest
Brian:Yeah.
Eric:With his pack crushing him. And he luckily, he was with his son in another group, and his son took his pack because he he couldn't he couldn't care. He could barely move. In fact, he thought he was done for. Yeah.
Eric:Yeah. So if he'd been alone, that that's a different that's a different story. And here's a guy with hundreds and hundreds of of canyon miles to his crowd.
Brian:Thousands. For sure.
Eric:Thousands. Yes.
Brian:Thank you. Yeah. And and Tom, when we when we talk about Tom, we're talking about Doctor. Tom Myers, of course, who's been on the show so many times, great friend of the of the program here, and you feel a kinship with Doctor. Myers as well, and Tom made a point to come up and hike with us for the first four and a half miles, or first four miles, I guess it was, of the Hermit To The River route that we did just a couple of weeks ago, and you were pretty pumped to hike with him, and and and hang with him, weren't you?
Eric:But he's, I mean, he's the man. He's he's such an easy And guy talk we had some things in common, obviously, and it was just, it was really really fun to get to know him a little better.
Brian:It was fun for me to just kinda hang back and listen to you guys chat the whole way down, you know, talking about your doctor things, and using this terminology that I've never heard before. But giving me also a lot of confidence that if something were to go wrong, like we talked about, hey, I got a couple of doctors with me. My wife Zena actually was not nervous about me going on this hike for the first time ever. But Hermit Rim to River, okay. This is the second one we'll talk about.
Brian:We talked about Newhance, that's a good one. This one I think is better for, maybe for someone who's just stepping off the corridor trails, might be a little nervous about it, maybe.
Eric:I 100%, 100% agree.
Brian:Hance is much harder to find, much harder to follow, much more rugged, much more primitive. Hermit, 18 and a half miles round trip, 5,200 vertical feet, and this trail is a piece of cake to follow the whole way until the turn off to Hermit Rapids. But before that Yep. I mean, the trail is easy to follow.
Eric:No? It's very easy, I think. You know, you can get lost a little bit in those rock falls as you come across the never ending Supai Traverse. Never ending. That's that has got to be two to three miles.
Eric:It feels like it anyway. Yeah. And I think it's really easy to follow. Things only get confusing as you get down to the Hermit Camp area where there's a turn off to the rapids, or you can continue to your left onto the camp where there's a group campsite. And then from the group campsite, you can actually go down, I found out, down the canyon to the you know, and meet up with the other trail.
Eric:Yeah. So I you know, take a look at that before you do it. I loved that hike, and I thought I thought it was pretty hard, actually. I I you know, not that anything in the Grand Canyon is a gimme or easy, but you you look at it. You know, I got 18 and a half miles.
Eric:You know? It's not even well, know, rim to rims are typically what what are they? Like, twenty two? Twenty one to 24. Yeah.
Eric:21 to 26, maybe, if you take the Bride Angel or the 24 if you go to Bride Angel.
Brian:24 and a half.
Eric:Yep. So you're thinking, oh, I can do that. If I can do a rim to rim, I can do that. I I felt it was significantly harder than a rim to rim in some ways just because of the ruggedness of the creek bottom. That surprised I mean, it shouldn't have surprised me.
Eric:I sort of expected that last little bit in the creek to be difficult, but it was still more difficult than I I hoped. Let's put it that way.
Brian:Yeah. You follow the trail down through the through the Coconino, which is always somewhat steep. There's a lot of riprap that they have on the trail there, which is really, really cool to see. We've done some podcasts recently with the trail supervisor for Grand Canyon National Park, Adam Gibson, and gotten I've gotten some lessons on, you know, what riprap is, and what Okay. How methodical they have to be to lay that trail that it looks like cobbles.
Eric:Some of that's probably a 100 years old. Absolutely.
Brian:And it's amazing just the intricate detail they had to go to lay that. There's long stretches of it on the upper part of
Eric:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Brian:Of Hermit. So that was that was really, really cool to see, and the fact that it stood the test of time says a lot about how strong and necessary riprap is. But get you below the Coconino, you start working your way through that supi layer like you talked about. And for some reason, where this trail is situated, you're always looking able to look right across the canyon and see all the layers. Right?
Brian:You know?
Eric:I think that's the thing that's really special about Hermit is that that that feeling of being deep in the canyon, but always kinda able to, you know, assess kinda where you are Yes. If that makes sense by comparing yourself And to the mirror image on the other
Brian:it feels like, with that mirror image, that when you're in that red supi layer that looks like essentially a layer cake, it goes on forever, it feels like you are in that thing forever. Right?
Eric:Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:It just never, it just never never ends. But, I mean, I guess another cool part of the trail, but after that, you dip down through the Red Wall, which is amazing. Yeah. But I also wanna talk about before we get there, as you just enter into the sup high layer, you get to Santa Maria Spring. Right?
Eric:Yeah. That was beautiful. Little rest house there, and nice water trough, which is a good, you know, reliable water supply most years.
Brian:Yeah. Nice little rest house that they have Mhmm. Which they got they got a chair in there. They've got
Eric:Grapevine. What was that plant running on the outside of it? Really pretty flowering vine is on the outside of it, it's pretty cool.
Brian:Yeah, definitely water in the area, and they have a register where you can write your name down, and then down just below it, as you mentioned, just built right into this giant boulder, they've got these old, I guess, pit toilets.
Eric:Yeah. I I had gone past them multiple times on this trail before I even knew they were there, and then one day I was like, what the heck? You know? And I never I'm usually too tired to wanna investigate, but this time we investigated on our way down, which was smart. Yeah.
Eric:Yeah, have pit toilets, so you know, with locks on them, they don't they're not open anymore.
Brian:Yeah. But we were able to one of one of the doors was open, so we were able to get in there for a little photo op. Yeah. The boys boys like to do, right, Erica? They had a Yeah.
Brian:Someone can you explain to me, is there any medical reason for this? Or can you use your
Eric:So the side by side?
Brian:Your doctor intelligence, why why we would have a, yeah, a side by side
Eric:Side by side toll? Because I guess because when you gotta go, you gotta go is is all I can think. I never understood the side by side, but, you know, that's the thing. Asking in the military, still is. I don't have enough military experience to
Brian:Oh my gosh.
Eric:To comment.
Brian:And when I say side by side, Eric and I sat there and kind of Yeah. Yeah. We were we were right next to each other. Got a great photo out of it. Got a great photo So out of we'll post that in our hike club Grand Canyon Facebook group if you wanna check that out.
Zeena:The show never ends in our Facebook group, and you're invited. Hike Club Grand Canyon is our private hiking community where you'll find Brian, coach Arnie, and a legion of passionate Grand Canyon hikers of all experience levels there to help each other have their best possible Grand Canyon experience. So if you're serious about hiking the canyon the right way, this is where it starts. Search for Hike Club Grand Canyon on Facebook, and join our conversation today.
Brian:Okay. Talk about another feature on Hermit. You know, going through the Red Wall, always an interesting experience no matter what trail you're on, but here especially.
Eric:Yeah. So they have the cathedral stairs, they call them, and they're very steeply built. It looks like they brought in concrete even to build the help build these. But it just you just go through these large red wall spires, and it's really it's really fun. And as you do it, the the one of the other cool things about Hermit is you can see the trail.
Eric:You can almost see where you're going the entire time. In some ways, it's almost you know, if you're at this at the top of Bright Angel and you look down and see Indian Garden, you can do that. You from the top of Hermit, pretty much, once you get on the trail, you can see the Hermit Camp way down there, and you can follow the trail backward. It's really a cool experience. The downside is you don't get the those expansive views like you do on the South Kaibam, but I don't know.
Eric:It's just a different feeling. You're inside this cozy canyon, I guess. It's not a cozy, it's giant, and you just kinda follow the trail as it walks down the side of it.
Brian:Yeah. And those cathedral stairs through the red wall, I mean, if you just picture very, very tight, it's almost like the chimney, I think you mentioned that, on South Okay. Yeah. Very tight tight switchbacks, except even tighter than South Kaibab, and even even steeper than the than the chimney at the top.
Eric:And the red wall's kinda green here too, which is which is kind of a cool effect. It's more green gray.
Brian:It is. Yeah. Yeah. And then we get down and traverse our way along the I'm trying to remember the layers. By the way, as I try to remember the layers here, you got the temple, and then you got the Muav, and then you've got the Bright Angel shale, which is at the top of the tanto layer.
Brian:That's another thing. Recently, I've made it a point to to learn the layers and really memorize them.
Eric:Me too. Yeah.
Brian:It makes it more interesting, doesn't it?
Eric:For me, it does.
Brian:Yeah. I think we've reached official canyon nerd dom when we're worried about all the layers,
Eric:but it is The sub layers of the yeah. Because yeah.
Brian:The sub layers for sure. Yeah. But it does make it just more interesting. Okay. So we I know.
Eric:It it does. And and in some ways, if you know the thickness of each layer, you kinda know what suffering is ahead of you. I mean, you'd always know the supah is gonna be hard, and and the Coconino and kaibab are always hard. And the Redwall's hard. So I don't know.
Eric:I I guess it's all hard, so just don't worry about it too much.
Brian:Yeah. So we get down on, I guess, the Bride Angel Shale, get down to the Hermit Camp area. Kinda describe what happened when we got down there because this is where some lessons were learned.
Eric:Okay. So lessons learned. I I I've been interested in this Hermit Camp mostly because I I dug up this old silent movie from 1922 that was filmed down and around there, and I thought there was a lot of infrastructure. There was a lot of stuff down here. And as I researched, there was actually a tram that went off Pima Point and was unsuspended all the way to Hermit Camp.
Eric:I mean, you're just hanging on this wire going down. It's gotta be 4,000 feet. It's crazy to think that they had this there. And the tram wheels are still there. The anchor for that tram is still there.
Eric:The foundations of all these buildings. There was a camp there for about years, I think, from about 1918 to, and then they they eventually decommissioned it and burned it down. But I wanted to see the remnants of that camp. So we got to the turnoff for Hermit Rapids, is off to your right, off the Tonto, and I said to you, I'm gonna go up here and take a look, and then maybe head to the bathrooms. And what I think you heard was, I'm gonna come up go up there and go to the bathroom.
Eric:Yeah. So I I went up one way, and you gave me my space, which makes sense, and I I just kinda felt like you you just didn't wanna see the ruins, and I didn't know. And then I came back to the Tonto Trail about, I would say maybe 100 to 200 yards down or further down the trail toward the Hermit Camp than where the the sign was, where you were at, and you couldn't see each other. And I continued down to the hermit camp where they had really nice, I don't know, those self regenerating toilets, those ones with the self composting. And I get there, and I'm like, oh, no.
Eric:Brian's not here because I fully expected you to be up there waiting, and that wasn't the case. So from that point, I ran into, luckily, some other hikers that were leaving. Otherwise, I would have turned around and gone back, but there were some other hikers heading out. And I said, well, if you see Brian Brian, tell him I'm to head toward the river, and we'll meet up.
Brian:From my perspective, I was I followed you in there, you veered off to the left, and you were going up.
Eric:We we had a
Brian:it was a miscommunication. Yeah, obviously. Absolutely. And I thought I kept on following the trail. I came to this old, like, horse stable and trough livestock area, which I thought was cool because it had been abandoned for so long, and just kinda taking pictures down there.
Brian:And then it was a little chilly in there, and so me being the soft Arizona boy that I am, I had to go look for sun at that point, and I just decided to backtrack because I figured we were meeting at the sign that said, Hermit Rapids, this way. That's where I went. I went right That made sense to me. I went back there and stood on a rock in the sun, and just waited and waited and waited and waited, and waited, and was really trying to figure out what the heck had happened here, because I did not know about those toilets you were going to. Did not know about the campground up there.
Brian:I did not know there was another way down. To me, it said Hermit Rapid, this is where I'm staying until and I'm not moving, period. Right, right. And sure enough, here comes this family, this family of backpackers, and from a distance they go, Brian. I'm like, oh boy, what has happened here?
Brian:And then she doesn't say anything else until she gets right up on me, and then she told me that your friend had gone down. We showed him a way to go down toward the rapid that way, so if you just head down here She's like, by the way, this makes a lot more sense to go this way. And she said,
Eric:if She you just go down didn't tell me that. They were like, oh, yeah. You can just head down this way into the canyon, and it was gnarly. Yeah. From the camp, it was it was it was very no.
Eric:I would have much been better off just coming back down a trail and going down with you, but
Brian:And at one point, I did hear some whistling coming from down there, so I
Eric:was like Yeah. That was me.
Brian:Not before before I talked to her. So there I was like, there's somebody down there. So anyway, I I head down that way, and I'm just like, what the heck? And sure enough, it didn't take me long before I was like, I look up, and there you are just Yeah. Having a little break.
Brian:Was like, thank goodness. But it was a relief. It was a relief to see it.
Eric:Well, the crazy thing is in my little pea brain, I'm like, oh, well, you know, we'll just cruise down to the river. He'll be waiting at the river. It'll be no problem to find each other. And then now that we know what we know about Hermit Canyon Yeah. It it's you can get lost in there 20 feet from each other.
Eric:There's so much brush and so many weird rocks and so many I mean, that was I had no clue.
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Brian:But before we go the rest of the way to the river Sure. And yeah, that was an interesting mile and a half to the river, 1.7 miles, I think it was, from that point.
Eric:Yeah.
Brian:But I think there are lessons to be learned there
Eric:from you
Brian:and I hiking together. First time we've ever met, first time we've ever hiked together. Right. And I think that even if you do know someone, that same thing could happen in that situation. I think it says a lot about just, you really can't overcommunicate in a place, especially like the Grand Canyon, where if you just It was hard, I thought it was pretty hard for us to get lost from each other because it was a relatively small area, but still, it's big enough down there.
Eric:It's still big. It's still really big. It was shockingly big. And then you get the noise from the creek, you can't hear a thing. It's really don't break up the party is what the what I'm trying to you know, that's that's probably the take home message.
Eric:And if you have to, you've gotta be you've gotta overcommunicate.
Brian:Yeah. Like, hey, what are you doing? Where are you going again? What are you doing?
Eric:And don't feel free to ask the stupid questions and to to maybe overemphasize things, because that just I I should have communicated better.
Brian:And then the communication. Yeah. The communication as well. When we started down, you know, we've been Yes. Kinda just meandering, all been taking a time around time.
Brian:Enjoying everything, spending a lot of time. And I was looking at my watch, I go, I and think I said something to you like, hey, man, it's this time, and I'm doing the math backwards, and I don't know if we're gonna be able to get out get out of here by dark. Yeah. And you thought that I essentially was meaning something else, when really, the the only thing that I was worried about is I really wanted get out of there before dark to finish the entire trip. And we still had to get down to the rapid, and we didn't know how long that was gonna take.
Eric:Right. We didn't. And so my experience of that was I I was ahead of you trying to blaze trying to find the trail, essentially blaze through it, And I you know, again, it's hard to talk because you're hiking fast. There's a loud river next to you or a loud creek. And I was just like, man, I'm thinking to myself, because I've done this to people actually quite a bit.
Eric:I've gotten them in over their heads. They go quiet. They they start to stew or or whatever. They start to feel uncomfortable, and I'm like, oh, shoot. Did I is Brian just mis in misery trying to make his way back and forth across this creek?
Eric:The trail is very not clear. We don't really know how far it is to the river. We know it's down there eventually, but it seemed like, again, forever in that last mile and a half. It was taking a long time. Probably took well over an hour.
Eric:And then, you know, I'm worried you're you're sweating time. You need to get back to Phoenix and all these other sorts of things, and I'm just like, oh, maybe we shouldn't have done this. And I I I essentially, I'm codependent enough that I thought you were miserable, and that was kinda making me, like, dang it, you know, feel bad about the the experience. But that wasn't the that wasn't the case at all. Right?
Eric:You were loving it.
Brian:No. Wasn't wasn't the case at all. I absolutely loved it. I was glad that you were, you know, leading the way through the through the the canyon down there trying to get us to the river. No.
Brian:Truly, the only thing that it was in my mind was that I wanted to get out of there before dark, and I should have done a better job communicating that to you. And we ended up doing a negative split on the way out, which I did not see coming. We had plenty of daylight, it turned out, at the end of the day, but we didn't know that at the time. So was it, man. That's all I was worried about.
Brian:And boy, it was interesting going down that side canyon. I mean, you wanna talk about gorgeous. I guess it's probably the Tapeats sandstone that's
Eric:Oh, yeah, it is, it is, yeah.
Brian:Just carved out, you could tell just eons, generations of just water running through there. It's just cut out this magical side canyon. In fact, that lady who the backpacker who had told me where you were had said, as I started down, she's like, you're about to see one of the best parts of the entire canyon. And I think ultimately she was right.
Eric:She was, and I I agree with that. I've never been down Hermit Canyon before, and boy, would that was a mistake to not have gone there before. It it is it is truly beautiful. As I think, you know, the Grand Canyon is such a dry place that when you get a place with water in it, especially perennial flowing water, it's just really special. Yeah.
Eric:It's also really bushy. So that's where all the plants decide, hey, man, we're gonna grow here, and you gotta work your way through them.
Brian:Yeah. The good part about this is that the canyon is narrow enough that you're eventually gonna get to the rapid, I think, but it is extremely difficult, because there are little social trails going everywhere. Don't know where the main trail is. You're just going crisscrossing the creek, you know, just back and forth, and you know, there were times when you were over on one side of the creek, and I was on the other side of the creek, and I'm like, I think I got it. And you're over there going, I think I got it.
Brian:Yeah. Know, essentially, we just made our way down there.
Eric:Yeah. And then you come to the rapids.
Brian:Oh, man. You can hear them coming, man. Yeah. Listen, to me the best part about these off corridor trails that I have found, Tanner, Hermit, and New Hance, is that they end at significant rapids on the Colorado. Yeah.
Brian:And there is just something about that payoff, man, that's it's exhilarating. It's exhilarating. We finally break through that brush, like, literally, break through the brush, and then right there in front of us is Hermit Rapid. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric:Yeah. Now that was it was almost a Niagara Falls moment to me. That's the only other thing I can compare it to where you watch a large river just sorta fall over. Now, obviously, it's not a large waterfall like that, but you can see this it's almost like there's a lake of smoothness above it. And then as soon as it hits the rapids, you can just see the water just go through it.
Eric:It was a beautiful rapid. I'd be hard pick pressed to pick my favorite, but I think Hermit was my favorite of between Hans and Tanner and Hermit. I liked Hermit the best as far as just the the feeling of being next to that one. And it's just so Hans is so loud.
Brian:Yeah. Hans is it's so long, and it's wide. Yeah. This one Yeah. Hermit is a little narrower, it's not that far to the other side, you know, it's just kind of a shoot where, like you said, you just look barely up, and the water's just still.
Brian:And then it gets in this tongue where it just starts zipping, and boom, suddenly becomes this major rapid on Colorado. And there's just something about just sitting there and just, you know, having your lunch, and listening to the roar, and watching it, and just thinking about where you are, and being at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. How much better does it get than that?
Eric:No, it's amazing. All the beaches are amazing.
Brian:By the way, I did find out that you're not the biggest fan of rivers.
Eric:No. Well, I know. I'm not, I guess. I don't I I don't know how to describe that, but I the noise gets at me after a while. I'm ready to just go upstream a little bit and be quiet.
Eric:I guess I'm more of a rock guy than a than a water guy. So I need to do I need to do a river trip sometime. I camped one night by the river, and I actually was kind of I found it really annoying. Now, know a lot of people, it's just great white noise, and they sleep great, but I'm I'm I just wanted to get out of there.
Brian:Yeah. Would sleep right on I would sleep on a rock in the middle of the river if I could just I bet
Eric:you would love it. Yeah. It's it's surprisingly loud, these rapids, surprisingly. Yeah.
Brian:That's it. Another thing I wanted to talk about, as we talk about wanting to sit down at the river, and again, I would I wish we could've spent more time there, because it's fun to just chill, and just observe, and listen, and just it's just a smorgasbord for the senses, and it's just a beautiful thing. But this time of year, the days are shorter, and we're talking about wintertime, we did this in February. The days are shorter, and I I do wanna mention that, you know, maybe if you did this another time of the year, you could spend more time at the river because there's more daylight. But the other times of the year, these are not hikes that you want to be doing because No.
Brian:Talking about very little water the entire way, very little shade, extreme temperatures. You know, the same rules apply times about a 100 on these trails versus the corridor trails. This is the only time of the year to do it, isn't
Eric:Right. No. For me, the Grand Canyon is a is a place to hike between probably October and May. That's anything outside of that, I'm really not interested in going there. And even then, if it's a if it's a shoulder, you know, month like a May or September even, boy, you really wanna check the weather.
Eric:It's dangerous. The other thing about Hermit to remember is you can drive your car out there between, what is it, November, December, January, those three months, you can drive your car out to the end of Hermit, which is really nice to have that in case you something happens, you get out late. If you get out late, and you're dependent on a shuttle, and the last shuttle has left, well, you're stuck there. I mean, you got or you got another seven mile walk to Bright Angel Lodge on the road.
Brian:Yeah. And just to clarify, December, January, February are the months when you can drive out there.
Eric:Oh, thank you. Yeah. December, January, February, yeah.
Brian:Yeah. And it that makes such a difference. First of all, it is really cool to be able to drive between the village and Hermits Rest. So many incredible overlooks that you can pull off, Powell Point, just all kinds of cool things that you can see out there, and then being able to drive to the trailhead, and then finish at the trailhead and finish at your car, versus having to shuttle out there the rest of the year, what a hassle that would be. So Yeah.
Brian:That's another reason why this is definitely the time of the year to be doing hermit. Okay. On the way out of there Yes. For some reason, remember we were looking at each other? Like, the trail was a thousand times easier to follow on the way out.
Brian:Why was that?
Eric:It was completely obvious on the way And I I felt like an idiot. Like, how did I miss this so much coming down, and coming out, it just was right out of the canyon. Yeah. That's probably why we negative split it, because we weren't trail finding it.
Brian:Yeah. Did make a big, big difference. The climb out of there listen, the the hermit hike overall, for some reason for some reason, I think it's what we talked about earlier, where you're you have the mirror image of the canyon on the other side, and it just looks so big and imposing. That's how this hike feels to me overall. Yeah.
Brian:It feels big. And there
Eric:are Yeah.
Brian:You know, 5,200 vertical feet with the downs on the ups, and the ups on the down is what I got Yeah. At the end of this thing. Okay. This is this is overall, this is just a this is a a big satisfying hike.
Eric:It is. And it's a real steady climb, and then a real steady flat for a bunch of years, and then or a bunch of it feels like years.
Brian:Feels like years. Yeah.
Eric:And then you got the final, you know, push through the through the Coconino and the Kaibab, and that is never never easy. It's just slow and steady.
Brian:Yeah. And we had snow that we were contending with Mhmm. As well, which makes it easier in some cases and makes it harder in some cases. But, you know, eventually then, boom, you're out just like that. Canyon hikes always seem to end abruptly to me.
Brian:Do you feel that way?
Eric:Like, that's true. You know, and yeah. They really do.
Brian:Know, you're kind of like,
Eric:Alright. Oh. Alright. That's it. We did it.
Eric:Cool. Yeah. Right?
Brian:The suffering's over.
Eric:Yeah. Yeah. That was great. It was a great day. Really appreciated you doing that with me.
Brian:No. That was amazing, man. There will be there will be many more. I think we're out there, what, ten and a half hours, eleven hours, something like that. I don't even know.
Brian:And aren't those the best hikes anymore? Because, you know, I've been a guy who follows the watch and personal best and everything for a long time. Yeah. But the fact that I don't even really know how long we were out there, that's really what it's that's really what it's all about. And I know that's how you are.
Eric:Yeah. I mean, for I mean, I don't really care too much about the times. But I do I am much more of a day hiker, so I have to be a little bit time conscious if you're gonna try to finish in, you know, in daylight, or whatever. You I'm usually on some kind of a clock, but it's that day. I think you should really you should get into backpacking, Brian.
Eric:Maybe it's time to time to go camp by the river on Hermit. You know?
Brian:I hear that all the time, man. And it's like, okay. One step at a time here, guys. One step at a time here. Maybe.
Brian:Maybe. I don't know.
Eric:You know, I wanna do the Escalante route this this spring.
Brian:We'll just do
Eric:another easier to do as a three day than it is to as a do you know what that is? I do. I mean and and I wouldn't come up Grandview. I think I'd go down Tanner and come up Hans. Okay.
Eric:It's only 30 miles old.
Brian:Is that all?
Eric:Is that all? Yeah. But if you camp two nights, it's not too bad.
Brian:You know, I really do feel like I'm under assault from the backpackers in our community, whether it's Eric or Joe Adlock or Tom Myers or Caleb or Aaron. I'm feeling a lot of peer pressure, fellas. Look. I'll probably break at some point, but I'm not quite there yet. Part two of my conversation with Eric Nelson will come next week when we tackle the Tanner To Tanner Rapid rim to river as well as all the routes from Bright Angel and South Kymab, so don't miss that.
Brian:Well, coach Arnie's talking about something this week that's second only to the heat in hikes that it has completely wrecked for me, and that something is the downhill. It's the very thing that makes Canyon hiking so unique because unlike most hikes, you go downhill steeply for a long time before you have to ever climb. So it's kind of a backwards way of thinking in the Grand Canyon and a backwards way of training as well. But it's something you have to think about before you ever drop in.
Coach Arnie:This tip is about something that is probably the core and the reason for my program. The reason for what I teach now, and that is focus on the downhill. And you're all saying, why? Well, because we're at the Grand Canyon. No.
Coach Arnie:But seriously, because by working on the muscles, tendons, ligaments that help us to slow down, stop, and change direction. That will allow us to to save the muscles necessary for those big climbs. Does that make sense? If we're using the muscles properly going downhill, which is what I call our braking system, those hamstrings, glutes, the the muscles that slow us down, the anterior tibialis, strong, mobile, bouncy feet. Okay?
Coach Arnie:Those will allow us to save the muscles necessary for those big climbs. So we must also focus on good posture, which is pelvic position. That's that area in the middle of your body. That thing has to be teetering back and forth, back and forth, and keep a nice neutral position. And that is so important.
Coach Arnie:And you must again, you must have strong or build strong and mobile feet. All these things allow us to have a better downhill, and at the same time, allow us to have a wonderful uphill. Alright? And lastly lastly, by working on the downhill muscles, you will learn, and I mean regardless of age. And I go to the mat on this one all the time with people.
Coach Arnie:Regardless of age, how to be bouncy again. Bouncy is has to do with your fascia, your tendons, your ligaments, and all those things can be trained, and all those things can be strengthened regardless of age. So don't listen to anybody, and I mean anybody, that tells you you can't do it. Alright? So and in time in time, all of you will be doing the coach Arnie dance in the canyon.
Coach Arnie:I promise you. I love you guys. And as usual, if you have any questions at all, please get ahold of me. I will talk to you, and we will straighten you out if that's what we need to do or give you a big hug or some encouragement. I love you.
Coach Arnie:Talk to you later.
Brian:Coach Arnie Arnie Foncica junior, our exercise physiologist and Canyon coach. His contact information is in the show notes. Two things I would like to add to the downhill talk. Number one, poles are your friend. Being able to take some of the load off your legs helps immensely.
Brian:And I will tell you, I hiked Rimser River once without poles, my first time, and I have not and will not be without them ever since. Never again. Number two, being intentional about your pace. I used to bomb down South Kaibab, but feeling lousy at the bottom and knowing you still got the toughest part of the hike ahead of you can be simply soul crushing. So I found that being conscious about what I'm doing and simply slowing down helps a lot.
Brian:Takes a lot of the beating off of your legs, and you're gonna need them for that long climb out of the canyon wherever you are and whatever hike that you are doing. Hey, folks. A favor. I have to ask of you. If you like the show, would you please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or anywhere you're listening?
Brian:That helps us get in front of those who need us and helps ensure that we'll keep at this for a long time to come. Please, please go leave us a review. It just takes a minute, and we would be so grateful. Thanks again to Eric Nelson. He'll be back next week for part two of our Rim to River breakdown.
Brian:Until then, my name is Brian Special, encouraging you as always to go hike the canyon. You got this. Take that first step. Embrace the journey. And when you get there, whether it's for time goals or taking your time, just hike your own hike and savor every step in the majestic Grand Canyon.
Brian:We'll see you next time on the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude Show powered by Hiken. Support the brand that makes this show possible at hikin.club. That's hikin.club.