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Welcome to THE home of Grand Canyon hiking. If it happens below the rim—from short day hikes to Rim2Rims and beyond—you'll learn all the tips and tricks to have your safest and most memorable Grand Canyon experience.
Host Brian Speciale brings you stories of triumph, tragedy, and trail-won wisdom—told by first-timers, seasoned vets, and Canyon insiders alike.
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This is the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude Show presented by Hiken. Hiking plus kinship. That's Hiken. Together, we roam. Here's your host, my hubby, and cofounder of hiKin, Brian Speciale.
Brian:Well, I thought it was, something else. Let's just say recently when I saw an Instagram comment after my conversation with Canyon Ranger Lisa Hendy. Here's what it said. Oh, and I I do quote. The Ranger is awesome, but the hiker dude, in my humble opinion, I m h o, is dangerous.
Brian:I've told him directly that he is creating a false sense of security with his podcasts on how to hike in the heat in the Grand Canyon. He goes round and round as to why he thinks it's okay to teach listeners poor information that may kill people. I guess when he's finally responsible for the death of a hiker is when he'll finally listen to the naysayers, end quote. Oh, boy. Where or where do I begin with that one?
Brian:And I know any of you who have listened to any of our 90 plus episodes are having the same reaction I did. Listen, person, you quite literally described the opposite of everything I stand for and everything I preach endlessly here and in our Facebook group and in the many direct messages I get from folks seeking help with their hikes. I am pretty comfortable in saying that it's unlikely there's anyone who talks about the dangers of hiking in the heat more than I do. In fact, I often worry that I do it too much, and y'all are gonna get tired of hearing it. I also know though that people are still going to hike in the heat no matter what anyone says.
Brian:So that's why I also think it's important and a responsibility to share strategies on doing it as safely as possible, which we do often. So I'm not sure if that's where this quite, quite insane comment came from, but I guess that's all I'm gonna say about it. Today, how fitting. Another warning about the danger of hiking in the heat with help from our friend doctor Tom Myers, he of thirty five years and counting as a physician at Grand Canyon Clinic. When we had Doctor.
Brian:Myers on to talk about his book, The Grandest Trek, a few weeks ago, this is what he said about summer hiking in the Grand Canyon.
Tom Myers:I don't like it when people choose to do something like a rim to river or a rim to rim hike in the summer because they're putting a lot on the line. If they overestimate what they're doing and they underestimate the heat, that's the the most lethal combination. And what they have to understand is if something horrible happens down there horrific, especially if it involves a child that they're hauling in or somebody who's put their faith in the person who's leading the hike that, oh, you know what you're doing because you've hiked the Grand Canyon before, that if they have something horribly tragic happen like a fatality, the family has to live with that forever.
Brian:And he says it because he's seen it and been the one to break the bad news to those families. And there's one particular story that really stands out and encapsulates everything doctor Myers just said. This is the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude show powered by hiking. Hiking plus kinship, that's hiking. Together, we roam.
Brian:It started out as the adventure of a lifetime for 10 year old Philip Grimm. His first ride on an airplane and his first hike into the Grand Canyon. It was all part of his grandmother's dream of sharing her love of the canyon with her family. Doctor. Tom Myers was the attending physician at Grand Canyon Clinic on the day of their hike.
Tom Myers:Big Grand Canyon fan. She really loved it. She had hiked the Grand Canyon. I believe it was, like, at least once, maybe twice before, and thought thought so highly of it in that experience that she had these hats made where she embroidered Grand Canyon on the front of the hat. And I thought it was so cute.
Tom Myers:I mean, she obviously cared, and she told me she said she wanted Philip to experience the Grand Canyon that she loved and had experienced as well, and they wanted to take him on a hike.
Brian:So 11 members of the Grimm family headed west from their home in Ohio. Four of them, Philip, his grandma, and his great aunt and uncle, planned on a two day, 21 and a half mile rim to rim from South Kaibab to North Kaibab with a night in between at Bright Angel Campground. The others, including Philip's mother, would meet the triumphant hikers on the North Rim. It sounded like the perfect plan. The four were likely teeming with excitement as they thought about the grand adventure that lay ahead.
Brian:But there was already a problem that they likely had not spent much time considering. It was July 23, the hottest and most dangerous time of the year.
Tom Myers:She said that the only reason that they had chose that date was because they're only one available, that they could be stay down there at Phantom. And there's a reason for that. It's the heat. Most people at Grand Canyon wouldn't wanna be down there or hiking there in that kind of heat.
Brian:Undeterred, the four started down at around ten that morning, at least six hours later than would be advised for such a hike, with little Philip joyfully leading the way.
Tom Myers:She said that Philip actually started, you know, skipping down the trail and was happy as can be.
Brian:At Cedar Ridge, just a mile and a half down, a ranger was on duty, warning hikers about the dangers of descending any farther on what would ultimately be the hottest day of the year with a high temperature at Phantom Ranch of one sixteen. But Philip and his elders had a plan, and they were sticking to it.
Tom Myers:They get down in there, and I don't know at what point, but I'm sure it was before halfway down that he started to bonk. It was really hot. And after a while, he decided he started complaining that he wasn't feeling great and his pack was heavy, and he handed his pack off to his his great uncle. And they were out in front.
Brian:By this point, the group had split up. Philip's grandmother and great aunt were falling farther and farther behind as the effects of the heat started to take a toll. Philip and his great uncle moved farther and farther ahead even as they struggled themselves.
Tom Myers:He wasn't drinking much, if at all. You know, he was a trooper. He kept pushing down and to get to the Black Bridge, and he ran across it. He was pretty excited. I'm sure he saw the river, and, you know, he's probably in full blown heat stroke with there, or he's really well, he's in the edge on the edge of heat stroke.
Tom Myers:I mean, he probably had a very high core temperature even at that point because he sprinted across, and that might have spiked his core temperature.
Brian:Within minutes of running across the bridge and now just a short walk from the cold water of the Colorado River and Bright Angel Creek, Philip stops and sits and waits for his great uncle to catch up.
Tom Myers:His uncle caught up with him and said, Philip, we need to get going. We'll get to Phantom. We're gonna get some Gatorade and some cold drinks, so let's keep going.
Brian:And he walked off. The uncle continued on the path to Phantom Ranch, just a quarter mile away at this point. Eventually, Philip tries to follow.
Tom Myers:That's why I understood it. Philip sat there for a while, and then he stood up, and he fell face first into the trail. He wobbled and fell face first, and some hikers came across him. They rolled him over. His eyes were open.
Tom Myers:And the sand at that point, it was a 115 that day, so the sand was probably at least a 170, a 100, you know, blazing hot. Still had a pulse. He was still breathing. You know, it was really, really rapid, fast, really rapid. They tried to cool him off at least with the water they had, you know, if they if they had had the opportunity to hauling them all the way to the creek and trying to immerse his whole body in there where the Colorado would have been the best chance to save his life.
Tom Myers:But they got help, and they cooled him off there in the trail the best they could.
Brian:Soon after, more help arrived.
Tom Myers:The ALS rangers, advanced life support rangers, were there on scene, and they started advanced life support measures. Unfortunately, they got him cooled off, they flew him out to the clinic. We had heard the on the radio, our EMS radio, what was going on and that he was even coming up. And so we prepared for that. Remember when he came in, he wasn't much bigger than my my daughter who was eight years old at the time, and Philip was not a not a big 10 year old, but it was tough.
Tom Myers:You know? It was it was very, very, yeah, emotional because clearly, you know, he was at the end. You know? He he was we ran we finished running the code. He was asystole, basically flatlined.
Tom Myers:His core temperature is normal. His pupils were fixed and dilated. You know, he had no response. He was, you know, he was dead. And so all I could really do was run the final stages of that code and and pronounce his death.
Tom Myers:And there wasn't a dry eye in the clinic. It was pretty sad.
Brian:Back in the canyon, a mile or so short of the river, Philip's grandma and great aunt, oblivious to what was happening on the rim, were in the throes of their own heat emergencies, dire enough that they too would need to be evacuated first to the bottom and then by helicopter to the same clinic where Philip was. Doctor Myers treated them and delivered the news that would forever alter the Grimm family.
Tom Myers:Yeah. All I could do was just try to console him the best I could. I just didn't know what to say. There are no words.
Brian:What is that like as a you know, not just as a doctor, of course, but as as a dad, and especially, my god, as with kids that are the the same age?
Tom Myers:Overwhelming sadness, you know, sleep deprivation. You know, I stuff like that, especially with kids. You know? And even even, you know, for me as a physician, maybe, you know, deaths like those as you know, you think if there's anything else that could be done, you replay things over in your mind or what could be done. And and for me, I've never been a great sleeper, but I just remember having, you know, several nights of insomnia back to back, you know, just kind of thinking about it.
Tom Myers:And seeing him there, all the little tubes hanging out his body. You know? He's he's he's got a tube down his throat. He's modeled it, you know, his his appearance. And knowing that he's dead and that family's gotta live with that and that the parents is like losing a child who was skipping down the trail at the beginning.
Brian:About a year later, the phone rang at Grand Canyon Clinic. The caller asked for Doctor. Myers.
Tom Myers:Philip's mother, she just said that, you know, this destroyed my life. It destroyed my family. We're not talking, you know, and I know how much she she missed Philip. It was really sad. I mean, I was, you know, crying on the phone with her.
Tom Myers:Was like, I I really didn't know what to tell her. Then she said to me, did he die alone? And, you know, I thought about it in the moment when he when he actually succumbed, you know, he was by himself. That incident, you know, I thought no child should ever suffer and die that way. The family had to deal with that.
Tom Myers:You know, that and the mom, you know, I just really wanted to try to do something so that wouldn't be the case for another child, another family.
Brian:Not long after, doctor Myers did do something, coauthoring Over the Edge, Death in Grand Canyon, a book that's a testament to those like Philip who succumbed in the canyon, and a survival guide for those who might otherwise make the same mistakes. That was the single biggest impetus, you know, to to wanna do a book like Over the Edge,
Tom Myers:you know, that Philip is not forgotten, that the lessons that lessons can be learned from his his death to hopefully save others. And so, yeah, I think about him all the time. That was a bad year, 1996. We had a probably, I think in that clinic that year, looked in our ER ledger. We had, like, a 100 cases of heat exhaustion, dehydration, and over thirty cases of hyponatremia.
Tom Myers:It was a bad year. And then we had five deaths from heat stroke. So, yeah, never forget it.
Brian:What do you think can be learned most from from Philip's death?
Tom Myers:I think the biggest thing from Philip's death is, you know and I I say this about Grand Canyon all the time. It's like, far too often, people will overestimate their abilities, and Philip didn't. You know, he was led in there by adults who you would have hoped would have known better, but they overestimate their ability and then and on an equal level or more, they'll underestimate the Grand Canyon. They'll underestimate the hazards there, and that's a that's a lethal combination. You know?
Tom Myers:Right? Under yeah. I overestimate my ability to swim and underestimate the the power of the Colorado current. But Grand Canyon in general is like, you don't wanna underestimate the hazards there and how this this place is it doesn't give a wit for us to be there. Right?
Tom Myers:You know, the hazards are what they are. And so you you just don't wanna take the place lightly. You know, do your due diligence to prepare and use good common sense and good judgment so you, you know, you don't end up in over the edge.
Brian:That is the story of little Philip Grimm. He would be 38 this year. Okay. Let's dive a little deeper here. What if you came across someone having a heat emergency?
Brian:Would you know what to do? Well, it happens almost every summer day in the Grand Canyon. And while few require hospitalization, imagine all of the near misses that we never even hear about. Let's say you come across a situation like that when you're in the canyon, God forbid, and someone is passed out by themselves, or they're showing advanced signs of potentially having heat related issues that could potentially be life threatening, if you come across a situation like that and there's no help anywhere around, what can you do as a as a as a hiker, as an everyman who just happens upon a situation like that to to help and potentially maybe even help save someone's life?
Tom Myers:If you were to come across somebody in Grand Canyon, let's say they're collapsed and and you're not sure and it's really hot and you're not sure the cause. Is it a stroke? You know, is their blood sugar? You know, is it a heart attack? You don't know.
Tom Myers:But if it's really hot and they're collapsed, you gotta assume it's heat stroke until proven otherwise. So the first thing we do is immediate cooling. It's like you would try to get them you remove them from the heat source if you can, first of all, you know, get them in the shade, you know, try to cool them off. If if you really really pretty confident or you you feel like, yeah, they are their skin's hot. It's red.
Tom Myers:It's dry. You wanna try to get them to the coldest water you can as soon as possible. That would be like the Colorado River. If you had access to that, you gotta try to cool them off. And fanning them, pouring water on them, you know, getting them in a creek if they're available, pothole water, whatever, try to cool them off.
Tom Myers:That's that's numero uno. You know? That's what you would try to do.
Brian:How preventable was was Philip's death?
Tom Myers:Oh, hugely preventable. I choosing to be down there in the summer is a choice. So you you that's the the biggest thing I would say. Grand Canyon is not that fun in the summer. It's not.
Tom Myers:And why make it epic? You know? You know, the misery that, you know, you live to tell the tale, and it's like, oh god. You know, I nearly died. It's like they're maybe they're kind of, you know, getting the the way people talk about, oh, man, you should hear what I went through.
Tom Myers:Fine. I'll give you some bragging rights. But to to suffer that way, it's easily avoided. You know, I I tend I try to avoid the Grand Canyon in the summer for sure just because it's not fun. Even on the river trips, it's just too dang hot.
Tom Myers:And so the time of year, the time of day, avoid the hottest times, go for the spring and the fall, and and enjoy it. You know, enjoy it a lot more. If you go in the spring, there's probably be more water. If you're remote and it's you know, in the fall, be aware. You know, you might not find water.
Tom Myers:So, you know, use all those good things to get yourself as knowledgeable as you can about where you're going, where's water. If I if I run out, where can I find more? And, yeah, am I prepared for the what, temperatures and weather I'm gonna encounter, that kind of thing.
Brian:Could someone have recognized what was happening with with Philip? I know he when he when he passed, when he collapsed, it's gotta be so maddening to you because he was so close to the to Bright Angel Creek, and he was so close to the river, both of which provided cold cold water sources.
Tom Myers:Yeah. I think the big failures there were his uncle not monitoring how much Philip was drinking and when he was urinating and trying to keep him wet maybe with a little I mean, if they did do it, then if he just said, hey, Philip. You know? I know you know, do you feel thirsty? And I woulda had I woulda had drinks that maybe would be more appetizing than blood warm water or worse than blood warm hot hotter than blood warm water, which is repulsive, you know, like Gatorade or something like that.
Tom Myers:Monitor how much he's drinking, is he urinating, get him wet, things like that. The other thing that, you know, I would say for people who do summer hikes, and I've done them. I you know, I'd I'd I'd be, like I said, a hypocrite if I didn't. There's things that you can prepare for. You can acclimatize just like acclimatizing for altitude if you're gonna go do Everest or, you know, Mount McKinley.
Tom Myers:You know, if you exercise, you start with some cardio in the heat. And I know your friend, Arnie, talked about this. But if you exercise in the heat and you gradually build that up, you know, it takes about five days to start to get the benefit of that. And then if you do it solid for two weeks, you're gonna actually produce more sweat, and you're gonna you got the cardiovascular benefit. Right?
Tom Myers:Your cardio cardio your exertional tolerance will improve. But when you acclimatize the heat, you produce more sweat. You produce a lower core temperature. Your sweat has less electrolyte loss in it. It actually evaporates off your skin, you know, better than really salty sweat.
Tom Myers:Like water, plain clear water evaporates really quickly off of skin, whereas sweat has got a lot of salt in it. And so it evaporates a little less less fast or slower. You know? So but the evaporative cooling is really important. So people, if they're gonna do that right, will acclimatize the best you can.
Tom Myers:If you can't, you stay wet as much as you can. You try to stay cool. It's like, well, I know you're if you're sure where it's gonna be sticky on the hot out, hike out, well, it's better than dying of heat stroke. You know, if you're going along, you know, Pipe Creek and then Garden Creek and then mile and a half you know, any Hive a Supergarden, three three mile house, you know, mile and a half house, you can get wet. You know?
Tom Myers:Just stay wet. You can actually enjoy it. So there's ways you can do heat and mitigate the risk. Know, You if you if you feel strong, you ought to be down there in the summer, and I get it. You know?
Tom Myers:I I it's not impossible. It's not the best time, but, yeah, there's things you can do to to actually enjoy it. Like, if I if I was gonna have like, on from river trips, I would do this. If we had somebody hiking out from, like, canyoneers at Pipe Creek where we do exchange. Passengers saying, people hike in.
Tom Myers:The upper half peep the the people who were on the upper half, they're hiking out. The people who are on the lower, hiking in. I tell the people hiking out, it's like, look. There's two ways you could die from heat down here. It's like, you don't drink enough.
Tom Myers:You know? You will overheat and die of heat stroke. You drink too much, you get too much you'll dilute all your blood, sodium, and brain as well. You die from that. The way to prevent both is you drink according to the dictates of your thirst.
Tom Myers:You stop and rest. You eat salty snacks. You get yourself cool, and you take advantage of evaporative cooling. You know, that's sweat. You don't have to yearn or or earn.
Tom Myers:You know? And and you you keep yourself covered. You know? You have a nice big, you know, hat, and you can actually enjoy a hike out of here and not be at high risk for either either problem.
Brian:Philip would be 38 years old today. I mean, he would be in the I mean, he'd in the he'd be in the prime of his of his life, essentially, probably becoming a dad. So I mean, do you ever do you ever think about that?
Tom Myers:I do. You know, I think about some of the you know, as a physician, for sure, you think about some of the the tragedies, some of the losses, especially if it's a child who's, you know, in a situation like that where he was just an innocent child. And, yeah, it's it's or a young person who dies from some other traumatic thing. It's tough. It is stay with you.
Tom Myers:And so I I do think of Philip all the time, and I think of his mother a lot. I wish I could, you know, reach out to her. I I wouldn't I wouldn't do that unless she wanted if she reached out to me, I like she did way back. But, yeah, I think about her all the time and and the years that she's hasn't had Philip in her life. Yeah.
Tom Myers:So sad. Yeah.
Brian:Folks, Doctor. Myers and Michael Gullieri's book, Over the Edge, Death in Grand Canyon, cannot get a high enough recommendation from me. When I first picked it up not too long ago, I initially thought, well, this sure is gonna be depressing, But it didn't take long to figure out that the opposite is actually true. It is a survival guide. Through their storytelling style as they document these deaths, you're able to learn what not to do, which in an unforgiving environment such as the Grand Canyon is just as important as knowing what to do.
Brian:If nothing else, buy it and read chapter three where the stories of the heat related deaths are told. You know, I know we harp on it over and over and over here on the show. Choose the time of year and time of day of your hike very carefully. But we do that because if you're unfamiliar with the nature of hiking in this environment, and so many are through no fault of their own, you could be making a life and death decision and not even know it. Our thanks as always to Doctor.
Brian:Tom Myers, the Canyon Doc, for his invaluable insight and information that he provides to our hiking community, all based on his extensive experience in the canyon, and of course, his thirty plus years at Grand Canyon Clinic. He is just a remarkable resource, and we are so grateful to have his support. Doctor. Myers, thank you. Alright.
Brian:On to another Canyon expert, coach Arnie, Arnie Fonseca Junior, with his training tip of the week on the importance this time of strength when venturing below the rim.
Coach Arnie:Today's tip is another fairly general, but one that is near and dear to my heart as a former power lifter turned canyon aficionado. It is about strength because that's been my whole life, has been centered around being strong. And I think that's really helped me as I become much older. You know, I didn't get to the canyon until I was 55. And I think the main reason that I can do these things is because of my physical strength on the trails because I'm not a great runner.
Coach Arnie:I've done many marathons and ultramarathons and 100 mile races. But a lot of that was due to my ability to be strong, be able to recover better, all the things that strength allows you to do. I don't fall apart like a lot of runners do. And if I do get an injury, I have I have systems that help me to recover quicker and to avoid some of the running pitfalls, you know, the the knee problems and the hip problems and the back problems and the ankle problems and all that stuff. So the bottom line is this.
Coach Arnie:The stronger you are, especially for those of us in our fifties, sixties, and beyond, the stronger you are, the better you're gonna do in the canyon. The canyon is a tough place. It will eat you up if you are weak. If you are older and you don't have the muscle strength, the tendon strength, the ligament strength, you're gonna get yourself in trouble. You've gotta build those muscles and tendons and ligaments.
Coach Arnie:You gotta get them stronger. I promise you, if you do if you do, your Canyon experiences will be memorable. I love you guys.
Brian:Coach Arnie, Arnie Foncica junior, our exercise physiologist and Canyon coach. His contact information is in the show notes. Alright. That's it for now. My name is Brian Special, encouraging you as always to go hike the canyon.
Brian: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 magnificent Grand Canyon. We'll see you next time on the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude show powered by hiking. Hiking plus kinship, that's hiking.
Brian:Together, we roam.
Zeena:This is the hiking podcast network. Look for new episodes of the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude show on Wednesdays, Tales From Below on Fridays, and hiking meditations in my separate show, sacred steps on Sundays. Hiking. Together we roam.