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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.
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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:Well, just one week ago on March 25, boy, the National Park Service shocked us all, announcing the North Kaibab Trail is scheduled to reopen reopen on May 15. Boy, I I did not see that coming. I'm not ashamed to admit it. To say I was shocked would be a huge understatement, and here a week later, I still am having a hard time, honestly, making making sense of it as exciting as it is. But at least for now, rim to rim is back in the conversation and much, much earlier than I ever thought it would be.
Brian:And if you're listening to this, well, there's a good chance that that date means something very specific to you as well with rim to rim being back on the table. Maybe you're wondering whether it's time to start training. Maybe you're thinking about booking flights, reserving shuttles, or putting vacation time on the calendar. Maybe you're looking at the calendar right now and realizing that if this reopening holds, your window to prepare just got a whole lot shorter than you expected. Because for months, most people assumed rim to rim wasn't happening this year at all.
Brian:Yes. I know there are a few of you out there, coach Arnie, who are holding out hope no matter what. Most people though were not training. Most people were waiting. And now suddenly there is a date, an earlier one than we ever expected.
Brian:But even with that clarity, a lot of uncertainty that's been hanging over the North Rim has not gone away. So before you commit to travel, before you commit to building a training schedule, before you lock yourself into plans, it is worth stepping back and understanding exactly what is happening and what this realistically means for hikers. Because this is not just about a reopening date, it's about decisions that you are about to make. Alright. To understand why May 15 caught so many people off guard, you really have to go back to last summer, of course.
Brian:That's when this story began with the Dragon Bravo fire. That fire burned across large portions of the North Rim, including the upper stretch of the North Kaibab Trail from the trailhead down to Supai Tunnel. Some areas burned lightly, others burned severely, but across those upper miles, the terrain has changed. We know that. Vegetation that once stabilized slopes was damaged or removed.
Brian:Soil conditions shifted. Drainage patterns changed as well. And once that kind of burn happens, the concern isn't just the fire. It's, of course, what happens afterward, especially when rain returns. By July, the upper portion of North Kaibab, roughly the upper nine miles, was closed, closed indefinitely.
Brian:And once that happened, most of us started thinking the same thing. Rim to rim probably wasn't coming back anytime soon. Not this year, maybe not next year, possibly longer than that. Nobody knew, and uncertainty became the theme for months, and it's still that way. Then in February, we got the first meaningful look at what was actually happening on the ground.
Brian:That wasn't too long ago when I sat down with Adam Gibson, the Grand Canyon Trails supervisor, after he had been into Upper North Kaibab for an assessment and to see that damage firsthand. And what he described was not theoretical. It was physical damage already caused by debris flow on Upper North Kaibab, powerful enough to move infrastructure, not just loose material. And one of the things that stood out immediately was how much force those debris flows were carrying.
Adam:So knowing that there was some severe burn through the cochineal layer, you know, definitely through the Kaibab layer, I know that we have a pretty daunting task. And having assessed it and seen some of the debris flows, they are they are very much a red flag to me. But what I've been able to see is that there's a lot of force in these debris flows, and they're taking out berms, and they're taking out trail structure and and and and infrastructure we have pretty easily. And and it's gonna take a pretty robust, a pretty heavy amount of construction work with some heavy stonework for us to be able to have the strength to withstand the debris flows that are gonna be coming through there, at least, you know, I say for the next several years. Because as it is now, it's it's taken out trail.
Adam:It's it's tearing it up. It can be fixed, and we will fix it. But it's gonna be an area that's problematic. The the Supai Day use area, the Supai Tunnel day use area, it's that debris flow that's come through there. I I'm not sure.
Adam:I think it's been a couple of different ones that have come through there, but that day use area kinda sits in the Roaring Springs drainage. You know, we have the hitching rails there in that drainage, you know, and, the main hitch rail has been taken out from the reflows there. It's it's deposited a lot of pretty large boulders and a lot of ash and lot of lot of just sand and woody material right there on that clean slab that is normally there next to the to the restroom. You know, that's now filled with about five or six feet thick of rock and ash and and and dirt, and it's it's clear that that moves with some significant force in those heavy precipitation events.
Brian:And that description matters because what Adam's talking about there is not surface damage. When berms are removed and trail infrastructure is buried under several feet of debris, it's structural failure in a lot of cases, and that's the kind of damage that requires rebuilding, not simple patchwork. Rebuilding is exactly what crews are now preparing to do. After the March 25 announcement, I did reach out to the park and asked what had changed since Adam and I spoke in February. In their response, they confirmed that staging of equipment is scheduled to begin around April 8, with crews expected to begin working on the ground around April 11.
Brian:We're still a little bit a ways from crews even starting that work. That's when the rebuilding effort truly begins. Once that work does start, crews will be operating in terrain that is now more exposed and more dynamic than it was before the fire, which leads into another reality that came up during that February conversation, the fact that even after repairs are made, the trail environment itself has fundamentally changed.
Adam:One thing that is clear to me is when we do have rain events up there, that that that is gonna be a more hostile area, than than we're really than users are gonna be used to. There there are gonna be heightened levels of risk associated with using that trail moving forward, I think for the next several years, than than they have been in years and years past. And and, and not there's no way that that all the hazards are gonna be able to mitigate it, that everything's gonna be mitigated out there. It's just it's just not realistic.
Brian:What do you mean by that by mitigated? You mean you can't get everything back to the way it was essentially?
Adam:No. It's it's time's gonna have to do that. Progress is gonna be slower than normal for us in in in the rehabilitation just because the area that there's there's an elevated level of risk, particularly in from my point of view for the construction worker because they're they're in these zones, you know, for nine to ten hours a day. Right? And so, you know, we're gonna have standards of safety in place to ensure that that we're not putting workers we're not we're not exposing them to more risk than we should be.
Adam:Right? Such as putting them in, you know, down there working on the trail during a monsoon. Right? Something that we quite frankly, do all the time, but we're not gonna be doing it so much in that situation. It's because the risk is higher.
Brian:Now that idea that Adam talked about that not all hazards can be mitigated is one of the most important things I think that all of us hikers need to understand, because rebuilding infrastructure is one thing. Restoring stability to burn terrain is something else entirely. Vegetation, the once held slopes together, does not grow back overnight. Soil systems do not recover instantly. Some of that will take years, and that, of course, affects how work gets done.
Brian:It also affects how fast progress can happen. If risk levels are elevated, especially during monsoon conditions, crews won't remain in those areas unnecessarily over safety concerns. That slows the pace of rehabilitation, but it protects the people doing the work, and that leads directly into the biggest unknown still hanging over this entire situation on Upper North Kaibab, not manpower, not construction, but weather. Until we really see a heavy monsoon happen, a heavy rain sail hover over those canyons and over those watersheds, we're just not gonna be able to know fully until we see
Adam:it, until it happens. Right? And I think we've done as this park's done a pretty good job to plan and to anticipate for that and to and to get the data and the science in in for it to where they can monitor it and and set themselves up into a place to where they can adapt and adjust the plan as they need to as they take this information, all while trying to strike the balance of keeping trying to keep parks open and accessible to the public to the extent that we can. And I think that messaging from, superintendent Kaibab is is a pretty I I think it's a pretty fair message to say we'll open what we can, where we can, when we can, and just knowing that the park's also gonna be taking all this information into account and adapting as they need to as things develop and as things occur.
Brian:Yeah. And that's the reality everyone is working under right now, including the park. They're planning forward, but they are also preparing to adjust. And from what they shared with me, the scale of work this season reflects that balance. They expect between two and three trail crews, about 15 people total, working primarily between the North Kaibab Trailhead and Redwall Bridge.
Brian:That's 2.7 miles from the trailhead down to the bridge and about 2,200 vertical feet. That's not for a short window of time either. It's for the entire season, and probably more seasons to come. That tells you again something important. This is not about cleanup, it's about reconstruction.
Brian:And even when the trail does open, the work will not stop. It will continue right alongside us hikers, which means trail users should expect something different than what they remember from previous years.
Adam:It it is possible for the North Kaibab to be open in to users at a at a at a decent time frame this year. May maybe it's not May 15. You know, that might be a bit early considering some of the construction we need to do. But it it's it's a goal. It's not entirely an achievable goal either.
Adam:It's a if we continue to have a very mild winter and we understand people understand that that the conditions up there are gonna be quite different. There there are gonna be additional risk. There's gonna be a lot less services available up there. But kinda take more of a, you know, backcountry user, wilderness frame of mind, it is possible for that type of user to to be able to get up and navigate through the North Kaibab. Whenever the park does decide to open it, there will be the presence of several construction crews on the North Kaibab continue to to do work.
Adam:And so, you know, there will be temporary closures even on a day to day basis on the daily, where people are having to wait while we have rigging operations and fall protection systems set up. You know, even if they were to open it, that's that's gonna be something that the hiker is gonna have to face.
Brian:And that last point is really where this comes back to you. Because if you're planning a rim to rim hike this year, this isn't just about whether the trail opens. It's about what kind of trail you'll be walking into. For months, most people assumed this wasn't happening at all. That meant training schedules stayed on hold, travel plans waited, expectations stayed low for most of us.
Brian:But now there is a date, and May 15 is it, and that changes everything. People are gonna start training now, start booking, start committing, but the trail that opens will not be the same trail that we all remember. It'll be a trail under reconstruction, adjusting to burned terrain, and a trail that has not yet been fully tested by monsoon rains, or even heavy precipitation, or even a heavy winter snowpack for that matter, and the runoff that comes with it. That of course does not mean that you shouldn't go, it just means that you need to take this all into consideration, and be prepared, give yourself enough time to train, build flexibility into your travel, and understand that conditions may change without any notice. Because at the end of the day, this isn't about fear, it's about preparation, and making good decisions with the best information available.
Brian:Right now, that means May 15 is a go, and it would seem conditions would stay pretty favorable into July, which is when monsoon season starts in Arizona, and that's when the potential for afternoon thunderstorms and sudden and heavy rain events really begins, and that's when Upper North Kaibab might get its first big test. Now monsoon seasons are unpredictable. Some years, there's not much rain at all. Others, it can feel like there's a thunderstorm rolling in each day, and we haven't even talked about the potential for damage below Upper North Kaibab. There's a lot of burn scarred land both above and below the rim that feeds directly into Bright Angel Canyon, through which Bright Angel Creek and the lower eight plus miles of the North Kaibab Trail run all the way to the river.
Brian:That entire section is now under increased threat from flash flooding, so we don't know what will happen there either. So as you can see, and as you can hear from all this, most of the uncertainty that we've talked about for months still remains. It hasn't gone anywhere, and that's what you'll have to consider before making your plans, and I'm speaking for myself as well. The early part of the season seems fairly safe, but planning something during the summer or into the fall, well, that's where the real question marks remain. And so if this is a bucket list trip that you'll be investing a lot of time and money and physical preparation into, you might wanna consider next year when we should know a lot more than we do now.
Brian:Or take your chance and just go forward with with your plans. If you do do decide to go through with that fall trip, you'll just have to be flexible. If for whatever reason, rim to rim is not an option, well, you can still adjust your plans and take on the iconic Grand Canyon hiking experiences that start and end on the South Rim. As far as consolation prizes go, they get no better than that. So you can still come to the canyon regardless of what happens, but just keep your eyes out for any changes that the park service might be announcing.
Brian:Stay on top of it so there are no surprises when you do get here. Well, one thing about coach Arnie, and I can say this because we still hike together most Saturday mornings, is that he never lost faith in North Kaibab opening sooner rather than later. Coach is an optimistic guy, and he stayed that way even as he had me in his ear each and every week saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that all sounds good, Arne, but I just don't see it happening.
Arnie:This one's a little special because we just got some special news that the Grand Canyon is gonna open on schedule on May 15. And so if you're like me, you are excited to get back to some normal just normal stuff about the canyon. Let's get back to some positivity. So first off, I wanna share with you guys a little bit because some of you may not understand this or know this about me. You know, back in the day, I was known for being the guy that worked with people that had traumatic injuries, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries.
Arnie:And people would come to me, and I never I got accused of telling people they would walk, which was never the truth. The truth was I never told somebody they weren't going to walk. I always said, where are we gonna start from? What are we gonna do? What do you wanna do?
Arnie:And then if they wanted to work hard, well, who knows? Because some people could walk. Wasn't my determination. That was theirs. And I always figured the worst that would happen to somebody that tried to reach their dream was that they'd be a little better off than when they started.
Arnie:So that's why I I have two really favorite words. One is earn, because we're gonna earn everything we get. The other is hope, and I love to use the acronym for hope, having only positive expectations. And I know that I've shared that with Brian, and it kinda drives him crazy sometimes. But at the same time, from the very beginning of this whole FIRE thing, I had hope.
Arnie:I had positive expectations that once the fire was out, that the damage was not that bad, and that the the canyon would be open on time. And he he'll tell you. I was driving him crazy because I told him, I'd go, Brian, it's gonna open. It's gonna open. And guess what?
Arnie:It's gonna open. Now listen. Here's the catch though. This is what the tip is all about today. If you're somebody that might have waited because you weren't listening to coach Arnie and you weren't getting yourself or staying in shape and now you're getting all excited, you're running around with all your friends and you wanna do this really cool canyon thing and you haven't been training, you haven't been getting healthy, step one, depending on when you're gonna do this thing, because if you're trying to do this in a quick fashion, you're gonna make some mistakes.
Arnie:So you gotta look at your health. If you are not healthy, you're gonna make a mistake if you don't work on your health. If you're dealing with knee pain, back pain, foot pain, use some kind of pain, and you're not addressing that, and you're gonna go out and strap on those shoes and get busy, you're gonna make things worse. You're gonna you know, somebody's gonna go get a shot, gonna take some pills, and, you know, all these silly things that people do, you're asking for trouble. So you gotta get healthy.
Arnie:You gotta get healthy. Number two, you gotta look at what you wanna do. You know, like we were just talking about the walking thing. You gotta look at what you wanna do. So if you wanna do something big, like a rim to rim or bigger, then you have to be looking very closely at how much time you have, where your health is, and what do you need to start doing.
Arnie:Okay? Where are you at? If you wanna do a rim to rim, which is 22 miles, let's say, and you haven't been hiking more than four or five miles, you may have a problem because you gotta you gotta work in somewhere there, the the 6,000 feet of elevation, the potential very hot temperatures at the bottom, the planning involved, who are you going with, what are the logistics, you gotta look at all that stuff. So you've got to be careful on the size of the dream depending on the length of the runway. And I look at runway as my preparation, my health.
Arnie:So if your if your dream is big, you're gonna need a bigger runway. So you may have to kinda delay your big dream and do something smaller. Maybe a rim to river, something that's more manageable, a rim to Phantom Ranch, or even smaller than that. Maybe you wanna go down to Havasupai Gardens, or maybe you wanna go down to to Tip-off, or maybe you wanna do the Tip-off to Bright Angel and Up Hike, all these things. But everything needs to be looked at in relation to your health.
Arnie:And then you look at your health, you look at what you wanna do, you look at where you're at fitness wise. So if your fitness is not at a great place, then you're gonna have to do more work, again, depending on your dream. Then you gotta put together your fitness plan, like how many I like to get people to at least at least half of what they can do up until like, if you if you're doing a rim to rim, you gotta be consistently doing at least 3,000 feet of vertical gain a month out. Consistent. Consistent.
Arnie:That doesn't mean once. It means consistent. Alright? If you wanna go to the river, same kind of thing. You need to be doing at least 2,500 feet in elevation gain consistently a month out.
Arnie:If not, you're asking for trouble. You're asking for trouble because the canyon is about down and up. You gotta get down and up. And then, you know, if you're going across, you've got to be working on that, you know, your your gait, your your pace. You gotta know your pace.
Arnie:If your pace is not good enough to to get out in a healthy time, then you gotta work on that. That's all part of your fitness. You know? So your health, fitness, and then your planning, your preparation. So everything goes into this little into these little buckets that you have to look at prior to, you know, you because like I said, you have a dream, then you gotta look at what's what's gonna take to get to the dream, then you gotta put all the things into your buckets.
Arnie:And if you don't have time, then you may have to adjust the dream. Okay? Just gotta be realistic, guys. Depending on because when people try to do things in a compressed time without addressing all these issues, that's when you have big, big, big problems. Okay?
Arnie:Now listen. All of you know that I will pick up the phone. If you have questions on any of this stuff, on any of this stuff, call me. Call me. (602) 390-9144.
Arnie:I will pick up. A lot of you message me. That's fine too. But listen, if you have questions, just let me know because I don't want you to make big mistakes. But you gotta do the preparation, you gotta do the work, and you gotta think, and you gotta plan.
Arnie:If you don't have a good plan, you're starting off wrong. Things that start well, end well. Thing things that start badly normally end badly. Okay? So listen.
Arnie:Don't make mistakes. Don't be a knucklehead. I love you guys, and I wanna help you. Let's talk to you later. Have a great, great hike, adventure, whatever you're doing.
Arnie:I'm excited. You better be excited. I'll talk to you later.
Brian:Coach Arnie. Arnie Fonseca Jr, our exercise physiologist and Canyon coach. His contact information is in the show notes. Arnie is a happy guy to be around these days because North Kaibab is back, at least for the time being. Well, folks, please remember to leave us a rating and review wherever you are listening.
Brian:That helps us get the show to those who need us, and we will, of course, keep you updated on any changes that are coming both here and in real time in our Hike Club Grand Canyon Facebook group to join. Just search for Hike Club Grand Canyon on Facebook, and you are in coach Arnie, me, just about everybody who's ever been a guest on this show. We're all in there because we are there to help you have your best possible Grand Canyon experience. Check us out. Alright.
Brian:That is it for now. My name is Brian Special encouraging you as always to go hike the canyon. 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.
Brian:We'll see you next time on the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude Show powered by Hiken. Support the brand that supports this show at hikin.club. That's hikin.club.