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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 Hiken, Brian Special.
Brian:Alright. It is Friday, 07/18/2025, a week ago at this time. Man, I mean, who knew that we would be in this predicament? A year ago today, I surfaced on the North Rim at the end of a fairly rough overnight rim to rim. I met my parents who were camping in their RV.
Brian:We had lunch at the lodge. I stayed in the motel that night. And, oh, what I would not do to have those days back again. But here we are two weeks to the day, two weeks to the day from the start of the Dragon Bravo fire lightning caused, and so so much has happened, and it appears so so much is still to come. As of this morning, the fire has consumed 11,742 acres.
Brian:There are 662 personnel assigned to this fire. And most daunting of all, containment still sits at 0%. From the morning briefing, cooler, wetter weather helps slow fire behavior temporarily. The fire, though, is expected to intensify yet again as hotter, drier weather returns for the weekend. Crews are continuing to build fire lines, clear hazardous trees around the North Rim infrastructure, and assess and protect structures.
Brian:Maybe a little bit of good news, but for very few people, Boat Beach at the bottom of the canyon in the Phantom Ranch area is now open again for river runners to refill their water, which they can do at the spigot down there. So that's a little bit of good news. Again, mop up and tree removal in the administrative loop area. Crews are working with utility teams to evaluate fire damage to power lines and generators, and then there is protection still going on preemptively at many, many places. Some rim some rain Thursday.
Brian:Missed the fire zone, unfortunately. Didn't they didn't get too much of it. 40% chance of rain today, and then hot and dry conditions return for the weekend, the worst possible news that we could have. Closures. Still North Kaibab Trail, of course, is closed.
Brian:South Kaibab remains closed because of the smoke. Bright Angel Trail below Havasupai Gardens is closed. The River Trail between Pipe Creek and South Kaibab, that's been closed for the waterline project anyway. Tonto between Tip-off and Havasupai Gardens remains closed as well, as do Phantom Ranch and Bright Angel Campgrounds. And the North Rim, of course, will remain closed for the entirety of the 2025 season and maybe much longer than that.
Brian:We just do not know. And tonight, well, there is a little bit of a new threat, though I do want to stress it is minimal at this point. But crews are assessing what to do with Kaibab Lodge outside the park should that become truly threatened. It is preemptive what they're doing right now. They're just assessing the situation, but even talking about it, even talking about it does show us that this fire is not slowing down.
Brian:Rob Roy Williams of the Southwest Area Incident Management Team 4 briefed the media earlier today.
Rob Roy Williams:One of the other big things that, we'll be having our firefighters do is, go up and start evaluating, structure protection needs around the Kaiabab Lodge and the gas station. Right now, that's outside of anywhere of our primary control lines. But what we don't wanna have happen is if we do potentially get a spot fire activity picks up, we wanna make sure that we protect those values there, so we we can ensure that there'd be no damage from the fire. We think that's kind of a low probability, but we definitely, don't wanna make any assumptions, and we wanna make sure that that, that those structures, and that value stay stays good for the duration of the fire.
Brian:Meanwhile, around the lodge and developed area of the North Rim, well, there's a little bit of potential good news, I guess you could say.
Rob Roy Williams:Down around the developed area on the Southeast corner of the fire, we continue to have our structure group and firefighters down there working, mopping up, securing around the structures. One of the big things that, they were able to to start working on yesterday is some, hazard tree removal. So they started working around, the North Rim Hilla Base. And today, they're gonna be coming in down around the admin loop and evaluating those trees and and taking a look at which ones are fire weakened that can potentially come down in the future and, get those put down on the ground and and remove those hazards so we can, look at, you know, trying to get folks back in that area as soon as we can to just kinda start evaluating, you know, their places and get their their personal belongings.
Brian:I know there are many anxious folks hoping that happens and soon. Closer to the North Kaibab Trailhead now we still haven't heard a word from anyone about the fate of the trailhead area or anything below the rim. So all we can do is speculate, which is extremely, extremely frustrating, especially considering maps show the fire is burned all the way down to Supai Tunnel, which is 1.7 miles down the trail. But adjacent to North Kaibab, just above it, is the Ken Patrick Trail.
Rob Roy Williams:There is a couple trails, the Ken Patrick Trail in there, and we're gonna be evaluating to see if there may be any options to go direct in there with some firefighters and maybe some equipment. So maybe we can just lock in that corner of the fire so we don't have any, additional growth. So they'll be up there today really evaluating that and coming up with a plan to see if that's a viable option for us. As well as just some of the other values at risk we have over there, our our firefighters went out there. They've got the Green Lake Cabin.
Rob Roy Williams:It's all wrapped. We've got some sprinklers around it. So that's looking really well. As well as there at the, Bright Angel Canyon, there there's an old old historical water tank there. They were able to go in and put some mitigation measures in place there, just so we can kinda protect that that historical value right there for any fire infringement in the future.
Brian:Back on the north side of the fire, let's talk about Highway 67. That's the main entrance into the park, the road you pick up at Jacob Lake and take in the rest of the way, past Kaibab Lodge and the gas station, and those gorgeous rolling meadows where you see the bison sometimes, and then finally through the gate at the entrance station where you pay your fee and get your map. Well, crews have been working back toward that entrance station since yesterday.
Rob Roy Williams:They've continued to prep that all the way up to the park entrance. That's looking real good. As well as they were able, to do a little bit start the mitigation work around the North Park entrance and the structure. There's a few structures just on the west side of that. They they went in there, did a little bit of work in there yesterday.
Rob Roy Williams:They're gonna be back in there today. We're gonna put some structure wrap, which is basically some foil, type material that can go around those wooden structures that kinda help protect it from ember wash and radiant heat. And they'll do that with the, North Cabin entrance as well as the structures there on the West side. They'll also be setting up some sprinkler kits and a tank around that area as well too so we can protect that value, from any impact to the Dragon Bravo fire.
Brian:It was a bit interesting today that there was no mention whatsoever of the fire below the rim, which I guess I guess is good news, but I'm just not sure. These press briefings are fine, but without reporters having the ability to ask questions, they are only so valuable. Which brings up another topic, one that is someone who's been in the media in one form or another for most of my adult life is extremely, extremely important to me. Transparency and accountability, especially when it involves the government and public entities. Remember, we are talking about taxpayer funded entities.
Brian:They are the public. They are me. They are you. And often it seems they forget that at all levels of government. I'm not saying that that's happened here, but others are starting to.
Brian:Now we had Kroqi Meshkin on the other night, and you no doubt remember how serious and stoic that he presents himself. Well, there's some growing frustration out there from those actually affected by the fire, and here's what Krocke posted on his Facebook page earlier today.
Krocky:The fire in the Grand Canyon is bigger than ever today. It is continuing to grow. Today, July 18, marks the one week anniversary of the press not even being allowed to the North Side of the Grand Canyon to document what is happening. We are getting images leaked by National Park Service employees. We are getting images leaked by firefighters.
Krocky:However, the media is not even allowed over there to cover as this fire goes deeper down into the canyon and is destroying a national landmark. The leader of our nation the leader of our nation has not said a single word, zero, about what is going on at the Grand Canyon. We need you guys. We need you guys to share these videos. We need this to get out there because people are outraged.
Krocky:I speak for everybody at the Grand Canyon. I mean, maybe 99%. When I say, what the f is going on? You guys need to share these videos. You need to keep telling the story because these fires are growing.
Krocky:They have not gone out. This is not natural. Every once in a while, I get a hater in the comments saying, boo hoo. It's a lightning strike. Boo hoo.
Krocky:This is natural. They purposefully allowed this fire to grow to the size statement that they purposefully allowed this fire to grow. We need to talk about this people.
Brian:So the situation continues and that is the update for today. The anticipation is for the fire again to start growing again this weekend as hot and dry conditions return. Hopefully, there's a big monsoon storm that hammers this fire first, but I'm just not sure how much optimism that there is for that. Oh, by the way, don't forget to grab one of those North Rim Rising tees on our website, hiking.club.hiking.club. All profits will go to those affected by this fire.
Brian:We just added a women's cut today to go with our unisex tee and our hoodie, North Rim Rising, all with a cool design featuring Brighty, the Burrow, and the Grand Canyon Lodge. Again, please check those out. It's all going to a good cause at hiking.club, hikin.club. Alright. We will be back as events unfold.
Brian:In the meantime, please join the conversation in our Hiking Grand Canyon Facebook group. I am posting updates in there as I get them, and I'm doing it all day long. I think that that is probably one of the best places for you to stay informed. So please join us there in the Hiken Grand Canyon private Facebook group. In the meantime, have a great weekend everybody.
Brian:My name is Brian Special, and this is the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude Show presented by Hiken. Hiking plus kinship, that is Hiken. Together, we roam.