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Welcome to the home of Grand Canyon hiking. The Grand Canyon Hiker Dude Show helps hikers plan, train for, and better understand hikes below the rim, from short day hikes to Rim-to-Rim, Rim-to-River, Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Trail, South Kaibab Trail, North Kaibab Trail, backpacking trips, heat safety, water planning, shuttle logistics, and more.
Host Brian Speciale shares Grand Canyon stories, trail-tested advice, safety lessons, interviews, and community wisdom from first-timers, seasoned hikers, rangers, Canyon insiders, and everyday people who have learned powerful lessons below the rim.
Whether you are planning Rim-to-Rim, dreaming of Phantom Ranch, preparing for your first Grand Canyon hike, or looking for honest stories of triumph, tragedy, mistakes, and trail-won wisdom, this podcast will help you hike your best hike.
Listeners call the show “an invaluable resource,” “the perfect mix of inspiration, realistic caution, and tips for success,” and “a welcoming place and wealth of information.”
New episodes weekly. Join the conversation in the Hike Club Grand Canyon private Facebook group.
It shouldn't be for anyone an example of why you don't go to the Grand Canyon. It's an example of why you do go.
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:Oh, yeah. It's the adventures of Gary and Amy. They are regulars on our hike club Grand Canyon community, and they loved them some summer hiking. So when the opportunity popped up to grab a couple nights at Phantom Ranch and a few more at the campgrounds, well, the Teals hightailed it west from their home in Texas for what was to be an epic nine day adventure on the corridor trails that they hope to take them from South Rim to North Rim and back again. But in the canyon, one wrong step can change everything.
Brian:Yeah. I actually got to see the aftermath for myself. This was just a week or so ago, and I knew of Gary and Amy's plans. And with the Silver Bridge finally reopening after more than a year, I was below the rim for a long awaited South Kaibab to Bright Angel rim to river. So we loosely arranged to meet that evening near the Silver Bridge.
Brian:Now I had just missed Amy, unfortunately. She had headed back to Phantom to get ready for dinner, but I did run into Gary who was hobbling but in good spirits. And behind that limp, yeah, he already had quite a story to tell. Gary and Amy Teal and a hike down South Kaibab that changed their entire adventure on the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude show powered by hiking.
Gary:South Kaibab, it's a joke to everyone else, but we don't really like going down before the sun comes up because it's only 60 degrees and we freeze to death. So we wait for the sun to come up and we got down to Ua Point at about seven, I think. We we got down to Cedar Ridge at about 07:30. Everything going pretty well. I mean, we just really didn't have any problems and met a lot of interesting people and all of that, it was just a perfect kind of corridor trail experience.
Gary:We left Cedar Ridge and made it down to Skeleton Point and down the reds and blacks.
Amy:Reds and whites.
Gary:Reds and whites. And when we got to the bottom of the reds and the blacks and whites and whatever they are
Amy:Reds and whites.
Gary:We noticed that the weather was turning bad. Bad weather is so dramatic in the canyon because you can say there's a rainstorm five miles away from here, and you just know you know that it's coming. And in in a way, it gives you more of a sense of dread because you can see it headed your direction. And it's quite possible that in our enthusiasm for getting to the shelter before the the rain really started pelting us, maybe I was hurrying a little more than I should have. I had 40 pounds on my back.
Gary:Now when you're going into the canyon for nine days, you don't have much of a choice. We maximize our meals at the canteen, and and so it's not a 60 pound pack, but it was more than I usually carry. And I don't think there's any doubt that even though I was fit enough to do a rim to rim, once the 40 pounds started headed in the wrong direction, it was a little more than I could handle to get it balanced again and so over I went. I admitted at the time and would admit it every time, those those people who spend a lot of time in the Northeast, you know that when you slip on the ice, you can't really reconstruct it. You're just there, everything's fine, and all of a sudden you're on the ground like a hundredth of a second later.
Brian:So you turned you turned your ankle, you took
Gary:a bad step. I took a bad step and as I hit the ground, I looked down and I realized that I had twisted it badly. I I can't even tell you whether it was turned out or turned in, but I know that the first instant my eyes saw it I thought, this is not good news. This is not gonna be a good thing.
Amy:I was about 20 feet ahead, just around a little bit of a curve. So, you know, he would stop and take a picture every once in a while, and I'm I'm the slower hiker, so I'm in front. And if I turned around and didn't see him, I would just call out Marco. And and and and and if he's behind me and he can respond, you know, he'll say polo. And I didn't hear him this time around, so I stopped.
Amy:You know, because if I get too far ahead, I have to go back up the trail to to to get get with him. So, so I waited to see if he caught up and just didn't hear me because the wind was high. And and then I called out his name a little bit louder again, and he says, I fell. And so I dropped my pack and and and went back up and, helped him get up and off the trail and, over to one of the the rocks that he could sit down on.
Gary:It was absolutely not crowded. But while I'm on the ground, and I'm I was in a lot of pain, Brian. I I'll admit that. I've I've been in pain before. I've had kidney stones.
Gary:I could see that there was a lone hiker coming up from the bottom and walking into the shelter, and I thought, I hope he can come up here and maybe give us a hand, and he did. Yeah. He walked up and he said, hey, how are you guys doing? And I'm like sprawled on the ground like a cartoon, and I said, could you get my pack down to the shelter? And like a, you know, a real hero like you see every time you go to the canyon, He dropped his pack and he started down with mine, and that's when the rain really hit hard.
Gary:And I was thinking, this poor guy, he's gonna have everything's wet, and he didn't even cover it up, and and so he he went down, dropped the pack, started back up toward us. Now we've got pictures. I would say now looking at the pictures in the map that we were about five or 600 yards away.
Brian:Five or 600 yards away from tip-off, from the shelter at the tip-off.
Gary:From the shelter. So you can see the shelter. It's just tantalizingly right in front of you. We had spent four or five hours there three years ago because when we came down, we ran into people who were out of water. And so this was a familiar place to us and everything.
Gary:Of course, the you know that the barrels are gone now, so there's no water even to filter, and we knew that as well. But I did wanna get out of the rain. I I I I love a nice sprinkle in the forest when you're hiking and you're overheated and it starts to to sprinkle through the trees. But this this was this was deadliest catch kind of weather that was coming and made a hell of a noise on the roof of the shelter. But this guy, not surprisingly, he he dropped my stuff, he went back up, he picked up his stuff, and he's gone.
Gary:I have no idea who he was. Really, really wish I could take him to dinner.
Brian:So you guys get into the shelter, which is I mean, how lucky were you that you were so close to it and could hobble your way there?
Gary:No place better in the whole canyon to have an accident.
Brian:It could have been a lot worse. So you get into the shelter, and there are benches inside the shelter. There's an emergency phone. So what happened next? I mean, you start to assess what's going on, and it's like, okay, we still have a very steep, just over two miles just to get down to Black Bridge.
Brian:What starts going through your mind as you start to assess this situation? Because you said you were in a lot of pain before. As soon as you sit down, anyone who's had a sprained ankle knows as soon as you sit down and it starts to swell up, and then starting to walk on it again can be very, very, very painful. So what were you guys thinking at this point?
Amy:Well, and before I As soon as he was up and off the trail, the first thing I did was give him some pain meds because we knew it was it was gonna be bad. This is gonna hurt, period. And and so when we got to the tip-off, we spread out the sleeping pad, and there's a picture in my in my trip report of of him on his back with his with his foot elevated up on the bench. So at that point, that was get the shoe off, rest, elevate. You know, we didn't have ice at this particular point.
Amy:But, and then I used the emergency phone just to contact the rangers and let them know that there was an injury, but that we were still assessing and we're gonna stay here and rest.
Brian:That's always fascinating to me, because you see those phones, and you don't know what happens when you pick it up. What happens when you pick that phone up?
Amy:You pick up the phone and it rings, and then they answer on the other the other end. And and they'll ask you specific questions to, you know, verify the you know, things that they can write down on their government documents to track everything. And so she said, you know, give her a callback and let her know what was happening. And and then if she rings back, the the ringer is very, very light. Very wanna light.
Gary:Emphasize this, Brian. By contrast with every every other aspect of this entire story, You know, just from start to finish, the rangers were amazing, amazingly well trained, amazingly supportive. The the Zanterra people, amazingly supportive. Everything was wonderful, And the one thing that the National Park Service ought to look into tomorrow is changing that telephone because when they call you back, you can't hear them. You can't hear the phone ring.
Gary:You and and and, you know, you can it's not hard at all to envision a situation where someone lies down 15 feet away and takes a nap and they never get the return call and then the window closes for the helicopter. And so I hope that they will take I I've I've said that very seriously to several people. I said, I think you could have a flashing light. And someone said, well, I don't know how you'd rig that up. And believe me, you could do it, Brian.
Gary:I could do it. We could get when you think about the cost of sending a helicopter down, fixing the phone would be on the short list of things that that need to be looked into.
Brian:Yeah. You think it would be like a like a bat phone. Right? You think that that thing would be so loud there's no missing. Because that that tip-off shelter, when that wind gets blowing, I mean, it's just whistling through there, and it gets very, very loud.
Brian:And just so everyone knows, tip-off is down South Kaibab, four and a half miles and about 3,200 vertical feet down. So you're down there in no man's land. So okay. So Gary is all sprawled out on one of those nice benches down there. So what happens next?
Brian:What are you guys thinking? What options are going through your mind about what you're going to do? Go back out, go down, call again, try to get a ride out? I mean, what are going through your mind?
Gary:It's limited because
Brian:Yeah.
Gary:It's not like you can check your schedule and see when the next bus is coming by. You you you know that even if there are hikers coming down, it's not like they have a litter or a bicycle or something like that. So the the choices are just two. It's either wait for the helicopter or try to go on. And, you know, there are there are older stories about this scenario and and sometimes it has a great ending and sometimes it doesn't, and that was much on our minds.
Gary:We were familiar with the choices. We I I wanna tell the part where suddenly there was a woman and and her child were there, and she
Amy:started Either asking adult or older teen daughter.
Gary:So she she she said, maybe I can help. And and we were like, oh, you're a doctor. And she said, no, I'm a vet. But anyway, I had I had a vet wrap my ankle, and that helped immensely. And all due respect to to the best hiking partner in the world, it's better if you're if if you've wrapped if you've wrapped 500 joints, you'd do a better job than if you've wrapped 10.
Gary:And so having the support on my ankle really made a big difference. One thing we didn't do, Brian, was that we never at any point said, hey, lady on the phone. We didn't say, hey, we know you've got big lockers over here. I had seen them, and I knew they were there. You know, there's a story in one of your write ups where you and and Buffy.
Gary:B b p, we'll we'll make fun of her. She was cold. She was really cold, and she needed to get help, and she sort of forgot the phone was there, and she pressed onto the rim. So we we definitely want people to understand about the the the park service. They can do some amazing things and you have to ask.
Gary:You just have to say, is there anything you can do for me? I probably should have said, do you have crutches or do you have a boot in the lockers? I coulda used either one. The boot, when I finally got it, made a world of difference, and the crutches made a world of difference. You know, Brian, that twenty four hours later I was at the bottom and I still didn't have crutches or a boot.
Amy:Well, and something else is, you know, at this point, we knew from previous trips, and there's a sign at the Bright Angel Transportation desk that that tells you if you're gonna go into the canyon, you need to be prepared to self rescue. I mean, there's just not a lot of resources. So we knew that there was a helicopter. We knew that there was lock boxes, but we also did not want to dip into either of those unless it was life threatening. And and we didn't want to use up resources in case somebody else showed up and needed the water, needed the meds, needed whatever it was that we accessed out of the lockbox because it can't be replaced immediately.
Amy:And so at this point, the biggest thing going through our head was this is not yet a life threatening emergency.
Gary:And it wasn't gonna become one.
Amy:We didn't. We yeah. We were pretty confident that it was a situation we could handle with what we had. So that's where we started.
Brian:So you were the opposite of an hiker, which is I think music to the park service's ears.
Gary:Yet another reason to thrust the rangers because, you know, you're you're certainly hurting, but you need them to tell you. They may know that they've got three heart attacks on the North Rim. They may know something you don't know. They may know that their best pilot is out and that it's windy today, and they don't wanna send the new guy. They know stuff that you don't know.
Gary:You just don't have all that information.
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Brian:I think it's a great example that you guys treated this as not being entitled. I think people would be looking for the easy way out in far less dire straits than than you were. So props to you guys for that, for realizing that, hey, we've kinda gotten ourselves into this, so we're gonna do everything we humanly possibly can to get ourselves out of it without having to tap the resources, the limited resources of the Park Service. So props to you on that. But ultimately, you guys make the decision that you're gonna keep going.
Brian:That you're gonna suck it up, Gary, and you've got that nice veterinarian wrap now on that ankle, and you don't realize yet folks that he has two broken bones and doesn't know it at this point, and won't know it for a long time, but you guys decide to keep going. So what happens next?
Gary:Well, we did make a fair trade for the for the medical services. We told the woman, we're gonna miss our stew dinners, and we paid $50 apiece for them. So you and your kids should run down there with this note, and we gave them the carte blanche, the the the Bearer bond. The bearer bond and and and that worked out. They presented that when they got there.
Gary:The people knew we were still on the way and shouldn't give away our cabin and they got to eat a nice dinner. As it as it turned out, to skip forward, we did make it to Phantom Ranch by 10:30, but everybody was asleep. So they they left our cabin open. We had a bed that night and very much wanted to get to that point, but we didn't have any we didn't have any stew. So we we had been down the the the trail before.
Gary:We knew the landscape. We knew where we were at each point. Amy's nickname after our first rim to Yeah. Rim is slow grit. Slow grit.
Gary:Amy is not an experienced hiker. She's not an athlete, neither one of us. It's so great when you're on the corridor trails. You know there's not gonna be a rope climb. You know there's not gonna be a a boulder in the way that you have to scramble up.
Gary:You know there's not gonna be a cliff that's 900 feet down and only 18 inches wide. You know, that's something that's it's easy to imagine that that's up ahead because you've never been down this trail. Or you've seen pictures by Cedar Ridge and those pictures at Cedar Ridge make it look like you're on the spine of one of the Alps and it's 900 feet down on both sides. In reality, it's not scary. It's not even disturbing.
Gary:But it was dark.
Brian:So by this time it's dark. You guys have been out there for a long time.
Gary:We waited for four hours.
Brian:Okay, so you were in the shelter for four hours. You decide to keep on going. When you take those first few steps, and then the rest of the way down, just tell us how you were feeling. I mean, there a question that you weren't gonna make it? That had to hurt.
Brian:It had to. Especially knowing now, Gary, that you had two broken bones that you didn't know about at the time.
Gary:Well, you know what? You I told you that. I wanna make sure that if there's an investigation later, it's a chip off of one of them. One of them is is in three pieces. The other one, yeah, still counts.
Gary:So Amy was not sure that I wasn't just trying to be brave because, you know, I I the the times that we've gone hiking, she can go four miles and then she has to sleep for a couple hours. So I was not at all sure she could make it by herself. And I knew that we had plenty of water, but we didn't have plenty of water for the whole next day. I mean, water consumption, as you know, is a function of time, hours. It's not miles.
Gary:So if you're a slow hiker, you have to have enough water to get through the hours. We still had water and we probably could've gotten water from from the lockers, but Amy said, I don't think you can do this. Let me see you go over to the latrine and back. And she watched me go on my poles over to the latrine and back and it wasn't fun, but I knew and she knew at that point that we could start making our way down. There is a thing that takes over.
Gary:When when you need to do something in wartime or a matter of life and death or whatever, at some point I was thinking, this hurts. And then I was thinking, so what? It it hurts, but I really need to get to a bed. I really don't wanna spend the night on the trail. I don't want my wife to spend the night on the trail.
Gary:I don't wanna send her out by herself. I'll tell you the limit to to how gallant I was should be really obvious when it comes to knowledge, becomes well known that I cheerfully traded packs with her. So I had the little pack now, and she had a pack that she had never used before that was much larger and much heavier than anything she had ever carried before.
Amy:To be fair, it was not a straight switch. I did put some of some of the heavier, more compact things like his, you know My batteries. And and and and water in in the smaller pack. But the smaller pack was just closer to his torso, so it kept him a little bit more balanced.
Gary:I'm glad that that the weather wasn't as bad going down as it was while we were waiting.
Amy:Well, and this is something that I did check with with the ranger before we left the tip-off. And the last conversation with the ranger, she, she had verified that our cabin would be available. She had talked to Zanterra. She told us which cabin, where the key would be.
Gary:That's powerful.
Amy:And and I asked her. I I asked her. I said, I know that, you know, we're dealing with the canyon, but is there any indication that this rain is going to dissipate? And she's like, yeah, it's the canyon, so there's no guarantees. But it did look like to her that this was passing.
Amy:So that was that was helpful in planning. She said, man, there's more rolling through. We may very well have stayed at the tip-off. You know, but The water was blowing under the roof. I mean, it
Gary:was was it was wild at the tip-off.
Brian:Okay. So you guys, after the longest two miles or so to the bridge that that that you could possibly ever imagine, Tell us what that was like to finally get in there and lay down in a bed.
Gary:Well, was fifteen hours roughly, fifteen or sixteen hours, and and of course, we had gotten up two or three hours earlier than that just to make the hiker shuttle and all that. Yeah. We we went and and the the the door was open and the air conditioner was on, and we we we made it to breakfast the next morning because you know how everything changes. You think, oh, we'll sleep till noon. No.
Gary:We're not gonna sleep till noon. There's unlimited scrambled eggs, unlimited bacon, and pancakes, everything.
Amy:Orange juice.
Brian:Were plans starting to shift in your mind at that point because you you guys were talking about nine days, you were talking about camping at different campgrounds, you still had to get out of there, you hadn't talked to the rangers yet, and been officially assessed, I guess. So that next morning, was it really a matter of of starting to figure out the logistics and what the options were and what you were ultimately gonna do?
Amy:I think our first reassessment was we're not gonna try to hit Cottonwood.
Gary:Yeah. I
Amy:We mean we were pretty confident that that that we could we could just set up across the creek at Bright Angel if we needed to, because it's summer, the campground is not full, and that we could just hang out at the Phantom Ranch area as long as we needed to.
Brian:So you knew at this point that the injury was bad enough that we you weren't gonna be able to get through it and plans were going to have to change?
Gary:Yes. It was swelling more. It was not getting better. It was not getting better at all.
Amy:After breakfast, we were sitting at the canteen, and one of the rangers just popped in and said, hey, know, getting ready to go or she was looking for a staff, I think. And she goes, how are y'all doing? And y'all need anything? And I was like, kind of, yes.
Brian:This was the first time that you spoke to a ranger since you guys had arrived that
Amy:I've And so we spoke with her. She's a paramedic, and she was getting ready to go out and about, but she says, yes, we will take a look at your ankle, you know, when I get back. Another ranger's coming down, and she'll be here to Two
Gary:paramedics at at at Framingo And
Amy:so so we waited for for till later on that afternoon, and then the ranger, that replaced her came down and, came over to the canteen, did an Ottawa assessment of his ankle, and as and tentatively assessed it as a grade two sprain. And she, you know, she did not see anything in in her training that led her to believe that it was, like, seriously broken.
Gary:Well, you can't see. She doesn't have X-ray
Amy:vision. Yeah. She's like, don't have X-ray vision, but, you know, keep it elevated and, use it minimally. But at the time, with a sprain, the best practice is to use it and walk on it a little bit. And even the orthopedic surgeon that we just saw the other day Dallas.
Amy:Reiterated that you want to do some weight bearing on it to avoid, you know, the deep blood clots and stuff like that. So, so it wasn't necessarily bad info. We just didn't have complete info about the extent of the injury. So Friday morning, we're still thinking it's a sprain. We'll rest.
Amy:We'll elevate. Give it a few days, and then, you know, because we we've got two we had we had planned two days at Cottonwood and two days at Bright Angel, so we knew we had several days to rest and see how it progressed.
Brian:Yeah. I knew by Friday night when I saw Gary when we were trying to meet up at Silver Bridge, we were talking about it, I think you said that you were gonna just spend the next few days at Phantom, and then hopefully, your goal at that time was still to hike out Bright Angel, who was not to get a ride out. That's right.
Gary:That's right. I didn't wanna ride. The the the the the rubric is rest, ice Compression. Right. Compression and elevation.
Gary:And they said, you know, they're they're the more recent thinking is all of that's good for you, but you ought to you ought to test it. You ought to keep it flexible, keep it moving. That's I'm not doing that right now because I I I have a plan to have surgery. You certainly don't want it to start knitting together in a way that's twisted or something like that. So that was important to me, obviously, because the worst thing that I could have heard was you are an idiot.
Gary:You've made yourself, you know, disabled for the rest of your life because you had this idea that you wanted to walk on on a on a busted ankle.
Brian:Well, ultimately, what were the rangers telling you to do?
Amy:Elevate ice and and use it moderately.
Gary:Well, there was one exchange where I said to the ranger, maybe I should try to get up Clear Creek Trail and take a picture of Phantom Ranch.
Brian:Oh, come on,
Gary:wanted to do that. And I wanted I wanted that, Brian. I've wanted that for four years. And she looked so appalled, and she said, you're making my job hard for me. How how can I tell the helicopter guys that you need to go?
Gary:And and as it turned out, my proposal was to attempt it, and I would have learned 20 feet into it.
Amy:That was the testosterone talking.
Gary:I couldn't have done it. I I I mean, if if if Amy called down from the cliff and said, the view's great. Come on up here. I would have said, no. I'm not going to.
Brian:So when did the conversation shift with the rangers from, I'm gonna stay here a few more days, and then I'm gonna try to hike out Bright Angel, to them actually assessing you and saying, you know what? It's probably gonna be best if we get you out of here by helicopter. When did that change?
Gary:That that that changed.
Amy:Saturday morning after. Yeah.
Gary:Pretty pretty swiftly, but it wasn't a case I at that point, we weren't saying, hey. We've still got $300 left in the bank. Please let us stay another night at at at Phantom. At that point, they there was a day, for instance, when the ranger said, they gave me a twenty minute window yesterday, and I knew you couldn't make it down to the river in twenty minutes, so I waved them off. So the the business of the helicopter, it it should be emphasized that it's not a taxi service, that it's a it's a it's a big deal.
Gary:They've got all their clipboards and they're measuring the wind, and they are serious as a heart attack. They don't joke around. It's a difficult operation to get a chopper down on those rocks and then get up and out. So I I left really, I think, at the first opportunity that I could have left.
Amy:Well, we we didn't even make the decision to seek out a helicopter until Saturday morning, probably after breakfast. Because each morning, you know, we're waking up, we're assessing his foot, And by Saturday, back and forth to breakfast, it was more swollen, more bruise more bruising, and more pain.
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Amy:And so as this is steadily increasing, that's where that's when Gary said, okay. I need to really consider this.
Brian:And they were offering it at that point? The rangers had said, you you know, you're a candidate. You are one that needs to be flown out?
Amy:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, they had literally looked at his foot. They we and we were showing them the pictures that we were taking and and the progression.
Amy:And and at that point, it really was more about talking Gary into taking the helicopter than the Rangers, you know, not letting him take the helicopter?
Gary:This is this is a a very key question, and it's a fascinating subject because I don't think that I was saying no. I don't wanna take the helicopter. I don't want it. I don't want it. Maybe I was.
Gary:Maybe they heard that. I mean, I I didn't. I didn't wanna I didn't wanna give up, but but there certainly was a time that and which
Amy:still wanted to see Plateau Point.
Gary:I wanted to see Plateau Point again, Brian. We you know, it's been closed for three years. That's the reason that we haven't been there. There is a finite number of of Grand Canyon trips out there in my future. And if I keep falling every time, they'll probably meet me at at Desert View and say, wouldn't you enjoy seeing the Navajo dwellings?
Gary:Or why why don't we why don't we take you Let's
Amy:take this other trip over here
Gary:on the flat ground. Yeah. On the flat ground the flat ground trail.
Amy:I do think the the the biggest thing we had going for us on this trip was just the ability to sit around and wait and wait and assess. And, and when when the when the time came to to make a decision on the helicopter, we were still able to wait for the helicopter. You know, Sunday, had, like I said, a short window. They had another person they had to take up. And so we were still not in a life threatening emergency.
Amy:We knew that with the with the pain progressing, if we attempted to hike up at this point, it would be just one of those cumulative stressors that really could go downhill very quickly. And so that's that's where our risk tolerance stopped.
Brian:Yeah. That was gonna be ultimately a bad idea. I mean, ultimately, I you might wanna see Plateau Point, but my come on. That was gonna be a bad idea. So ultimately, you listened to what the experts were advising you to do.
Brian:So take us through that, because, I mean, talk about a once in a lifetime opportunity. Hopefully, Gary, with you, I'm not sure. An opportunity to be flown out of the canyon and get to see that and experience that even if it wasn't under the best possible circumstances. Take us through what happened that morning when, I don't know, did they come get you, and escort you down to where the ranger station is, where they land the chopper? Just take us through that whole process.
Brian:What happens? It's fascinating.
Gary:There's one part of it that I really wanna emphasize, but going step by step, the the night before, the ranger had said, I'll come and get you at nine, and we'll walk down to the helipad. And I said, well, we could you know, she lives in a ranger building halfway there. And I said, oh, we'll come down and we'll meet you there. And she said, no, you stay here at the cabin. And and I said, well, a very wise ranger once told me, if the rangers tell you to do something, just do it the way they want you to do it.
Gary:So we waited for her, we slowly walked down. There was never at any point any employee of the Grand Canyon ever said, we got other stuff to do, Gary. We've got other stuff to do. She she spoke to us and talked to us and answered all our questions, really enjoyed every single person we worked with. One of the guys who had done a ranger presentation on on watercolor and on he was the interpretive name.
Gary:Yeah. The interpretive ranger who who was not a paramedic was also down there. It was like a big party. And and there there's the pilot of the helicopter. There is a paramedic whose job it is to be in the helicopter with you, and then there's this other person with the helicopter.
Amy:Flight crew.
Gary:Yeah, flight crew. So there were five of us in the helicopter. When we got down there, he he took my blood pressure. He he asked me lots of questions. We put on flight suits.
Gary:We put on gloves, and we put on helmets. And I sort of expected that from the earlier podcast that you had done, but it really does emphasize that this is not I've I've been on helicopter rides before, you don't usually have to do all that stuff. You you get on the helicopter and you go somewhere, and it was a a pretty detailed briefing. It's like when you're getting in the helicopter, don't grab the piece of glass that makes the outside of the helicopter, grab the the pilot's chair, which has a handle built in. Don't touch this.
Gary:Don't touch this. If you need us, tap us on the helmet. It was all a very very businesslike briefing. Really really great guys, smiles on their faces, but also not any not any iota of this is gonna be fun. The the thing that I wanna mention, I I I like looking at topographical maps.
Gary:I I knew what was on the other side of a bunch of these things that we were seeing. The big shock, Brian, was Plateau Point because you know the pipe goes out there to the end and you know that you can turn the spigot and water comes out, but I guess it just doesn't occur to you that on that cliff as you go down to the river, there's a five inch pipe and it's I don't know, somebody could look this up. It's probably 2,500 feet long and it's just sort of like I I was just thinking, you know, who who is it that that shimmies up the cliff and does these wells, and and I made the the jug that they have to cut knock off every day at 10AM and go back at four.
Brian:So you were able, Gary, you were able to see Plateau Point from a perspective that no one else has been able to see it from. So you got to Plateau Point, man.
Gary:I saw Plateau Point that it's one of my favorite things to do is is when you're going down South Kaibab, as you know, you can see Tonto. You can see Phantom Ranch. You can see the river from time to time. And that's absolutely right, Brian. You're right.
Gary:I got I got my my wish from from the Grand Canyon Ferries. I got to see Plateau Point from a different angle, and it it it just really it it meant a lot to me.
Brian:Amy, from your perspective, what was that like when you I mean, you just, I mean, we've all seen it take off from the the bottom and go down the river. I mean, what would that had to be thrilling. I mean, it just what what did you think?
Amy:It it is pretty cool. It is neat to see some of those trails, especially the off corridor trails, up you know, scratched up against the the the the side of the canyon. But I gotta tell you, Brian. I mean, my first husband was a pilot. I get that there's a rush with the air, and and helicopter pilots are a whole different breed of person.
Amy:But I still prefer being in the canyon on the trails and being up close to it. It it is a cool experience, but it's you know, I just
Gary:Wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Amy:And, you know, and and and it and it's it for me, it's almost cooler hiking down South Kaibab and watching the ravens and the other birds fly below you, flying below you in the in the in the little interior canyon sections. And it's just, you know, being up close is something that I mean, if I had the option, if someone says, hey. We'll give you a free helicopter ride down or up, I'm like, you know what? If I can hike, I I would really prefer to hike it and see it and spend that time. So so, yeah, it was it was cool.
Amy:It was cool. But I still like the hiking part better.
Gary:And, you know, I really wanna make clear this is all gonna be fixed. I'm gonna be walking around again in August, and there are people who have broken an upper arm or an upper leg. There are people who have lost their lives, of course, but there are people who've had had heart trouble, hit your head. I I would not wanna be dizzy and walking around in the canyon. So my my story, I I'm I don't think anybody should think that I had some great dramatic story.
Gary:It it shouldn't be a a cautionary tale. It shouldn't be for anyone an example of why you don't go to the Grand Canyon. It's an example of why you do go because the way I would I would like to very definitely make sure that we end this on a on a nice note, this stopped being as big an adventure as it was planned to be, but it became more of a vacation. I couldn't even walk to the north side of the dining hall. I did walk all the way down to the Silver Bridge to meet somebody I wanted to meet, but basically, I was laid up for four days.
Gary:And as some of your commenters on your post said, oh, wow. That's really tough. You you got you were stuck at at And one of the nicest places on and that's right. I was I was sitting around with my foot up on on a park bench or or a picnic table and I I had a great time. I would go back next year even if somebody said, it's gonna be similar.
Gary:Even if somebody said you'll you'll be in pain and and you'll have to get a helicopter out. It it was a great trip, Brian, and I I hope everyone listening to this will believe me. And and I obviously, I'm not being paid by the canyon to paint a rosier picture than it really was. It was just a pleasant trip. I really, really enjoyed it.
Brian:Gary and Amy Teal on a Grand Canyon misadventure. Gary did have breaks in his tibia and fibula and had successful surgery this week. Now he also wanted me to mention his gratitude for all of you. So I'll just read you the message he sent me verbatim. I have read and appreciate not only the warm wishes in the comments on your post, but the very real aid offered and accepted.
Brian:I asked Tom Haredy, who I've never met, who I should see in Dallas, and I went to the place he recommended. This is an extraordinary community you've created. Well, much appreciated, Gary. Community is truly what we're all about. Never about me, always about us.
Brian:Well, speaking of gratitude, something that always shines through in stories like this, and that always deserves to be acknowledged, is the empathy and compassion and sheer professionalism shown by the Rangers and the whole NPS staff, and also by the Xanterra crew at Phantom.
Amy:They went above and beyond. Even when they with when they set up the seating, they made sure that the that Gary had a chair right there by the door, and they helped they held the door. They helped him up and down the steps. And like I said, the shifting of meals and accommodations, and ice ice ice ice ice, baby, you know, here's some more ice for you. And, you know, the rangers were were right here, you you know, if you need us, you can call us, we'll be by to check on you.
Amy:They came by the cabin several times. It was it was fantastic.
Brian:Yeah. They really do all deserve our gratitude. And I think it's important that when we see rangers or PeaceHour volunteers out on the trails, that we go up to them and say, thanks. I think it goes a long way with them. Well, I don't know about you, but foot pain is the most bothersome issue I deal with personally below the rim, at least physically.
Brian:And perhaps it's an issue of foot mobility. Here's Canyon coach and exercise physiologist, Coach Arnie.
Coach Arnie:Hey, guys. This is Coach Arnie with another Grand Canyon tip of the week, and this one is about foot mobility, which is always a favorite topic of mine. Why? Because your feet are so important. It's your first point of contact with the trail.
Coach Arnie:What do I mean by foot mobility? It really involves ankle and foot. Let me quickly explain. If you spend too much time on your toes, you'll you'll develop those strong big calves, but potentially weak feet leading to foot problems like plantar fasciitis. So how do we develop better foot mobility?
Coach Arnie:Well, you know, first, by doing special exercises that help us develop that stiffness, which is strength in our ankles and feet while also working on our foot and ankle mobility. It is possible, but we have to be intentional about it because that strength and mobility in our foot and ankle allows you or us to keep more of our foot on the trail. And with more of your foot on the trail when we're hiking, pushing through the big toe, it it allows us to rely more on our glutes. Okay? Your glutes for pushing ourselves up the trail along with what's called the soleus, and that's the muscle between your upper part of your calf known as the gastrocnemius and the Achilles tendon, that soleus muscle, which I call the powerhouse, powerhouse of the lower leg, if you're using that muscle better, you're gonna put less strain on your calves, less strain on your feet, and you're gonna have more what I would call a happy feet which allows you to have stronger and longer hikes on the trail pain free.
Coach Arnie:Isn't that what we all want? Pain free hiking, especially with our feet. Think about that. You can have that by just being intentional about having better mobility of your feet and ankles. I love you guys, and I'll talk to you later.
Brian:Coach Arnie, Arnie Foncica Junior. His contact information is in the show notes. And I should mention that Coach is starting to do free online seminars and q and a sessions more often now. He's got another one coming up soon. If And you wanna check it out, it'll be presented live in our Hike Club Grand Canyon Facebook group, so get in there.
Brian:Just go on Facebook and search for Hike Club Grand Canyon, and we will get you in, and you will be able to get in yourself on all the Coach Arnie wisdom. By the way, Coach Arnie's Canyon Hikes are done exclusively with our rim to rim pack on his back. So if you want to support this show and all the resources we offer the Grand Canyon Hiking Community and also use the same Canyon Design Pack Coach chooses, you can find it at hikin.club. That's hikin.club. And if you could go right now and leave us a rating and or review on whatever podcast platform you are listening on, man, that goes a long way as well.
Brian:We see every single one of them and are so grateful every time someone takes the time to leave us a rating or review. It helps so much. Alright. That is 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're all here to help. We'll see you next time on the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude Show powered by hiking. Visit us now at hiking.club. That's hikin.club.