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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:Well, there's a lull in the air, which I kinda like because I think it means most in our group are playing it smart and staying off the trails here in the most dangerous time of the year. And since we're still in summer, I wanted to revisit a story from our first season that you might have missed. It's an important one and an extremely powerful one that I think about myself often, about how the canyon doesn't care who you are or what you've accomplished or what kind of shape you think you might be in. If you overestimate your abilities, even if you just ran the Boston Marathon, and underestimate or underprepare for the canyon, it can kill you. And it's why we spend so much time discouraging folks from hiking in the heat and, well, knowing some, we'll do it anyway, helping them with strategies that we hope can be life saving.
Brian:This is the Grand Canyon Hiker Dude show powered by hiking. Hiking plus kinship, that's hiking. Together, we roam. April 2004. The US is at war in Afghanistan.
Brian:Saddam Hussein is about to go on trial in Iraq. But for Margaret Bradley, those are just events in faraway places. At 24, Margaret is on top of the world. A first year medical student in Chicago, already with degrees in biology and earth science, a violinist, and passionate above all else about running. She was an All American at the University of Chicago and has just run the prestigious Boston Marathon in just over three hours on a sweltering 85 degree day that saw more than 1,100 runners treated for heat related issues.
Brian:When asked afterwards how she'd performed so well in such tough conditions, Margaret told a local magazine that she'd focused on keeping herself hydrated and not letting the adrenaline from the crowd make her do something stupid. Fast forward two and a half months. It's 07/08/2004, summer at Grand Canyon, the most inhospitable time of year, a time when most experienced canyon hikers or runners will either stay off the trails or at least have a proper plan and supplies to make heat mitigation their number one priority. This is the time of year when unprepared hikers and runners die below the rim. In spite of the warnings, it happens every year.
Brian:Yet here are Margaret Bradley and her new running buddy, Ryan, who she shared a Chicago connection with and who had recently moved to nearby Flagstaff. Ryan, with at least some canyon experience, had planned their route. Margaret, heading below the rim for the first time, was following his lead. The two were likely feeling the excitement and adrenaline that most do as they lay eyes on the canyon before taking it on. At around nine that morning, the temperature is rising as the two drop in at the Grand View Trailhead.
Brian:Their plan is to descend more than 3,000 vertical feet on Grand View the canyon's Tonto Platform, a desolate, desert like landscape where they'd connect with the relatively level Tonto Trail, which they'd then follow west to the tip-off on the heavily trafficked South Kaibab Trail. At that point, they'd turn uphill and make the final four and a half mile climb with 3,200 feet of elevation gain to their finish at the South Rim. But there were many problems with this plan, all which could have been prevented with proper research or even a basic understanding of the extreme conditions Margaret and Ryan would no doubt face. The first issue was that Ryan had somehow estimated the length of the run at about 15 miles, when in reality, it was almost twice that, 28.7 longer than a full marathon on a scorching July day in an environment far more brutal and unforgiving and unrelenting than any marathon course on the planet. Doctor Tom Myers has practiced at the Grand Canyon Clinic for more than thirty years and is the coauthor of the popular book Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon.
Tom Myers:Margaret put her faith in her hiking companion, and, unfortunately, he was not that experienced and gave her poor advice.
Brian:Making an already dangerous plan far worse was the duo's start time. 9AM, at least five hours too late for such an itinerary. They also didn't pack any of the just in case essentials, like headlamps or a sat phone or even a map. But worst of all, their paltry supply of water. Ryan carried four liters.
Brian:Margaret, less than two.
Tom Myers:Neither of them brought enough water for what they were attempting to do. Even if it was the miles that he had initially said, they still should have had a lot more water in that just to have a little bit of a safety net.
Brian:But down they went, unknowingly unprepared for what lie ahead. Margaret Bradley and her friend Ryan, youthfully exuberant, confident, ready to conquer anything the canyon could throw at them. But with the sun getting higher and higher in the sky and ruthlessly beating down on them, they wouldn't even be to their halfway point before all of their water was gone. How quickly do you think they knew that they were in trouble?
Tom Myers:You know, I'm gonna guess probably within three, four hours.
Brian:Should they have turned around at that point?
Tom Myers:Yeah. I think so.
Brian:But remember, Margaret and Ryan were planning for a 15 mile day. At the very least, they had to figure they would be coming up on South Kaibab at any moment. Even there, they would find no water. But they could at least call for help and probably access an emergency supply at the tip-off. But Ryan was already in bad shape.
Brian:At the 15 mile point, he felt on the verge of heat stroke, so Ryan curled up in a patch of shade. He and Margaret would rest here for two and a half hours. Margaret, perhaps even more dehydrated than Ryan, faced a decision.
Tom Myers:The hours ticked away and the miles ticked away, and then she realized they're not any closer. It was dawning on her that, oh, crap. You know? Now I'm in a fight for my life. I can't even imagine what went through her mind.
Tom Myers:Absolute sheer terror. Like, I got to get out of here. You know, I'm gonna die. Know, like, this is legit. This is it.
Tom Myers:My life's in the balance.
Brian:That tunnel platform is no place to be in the summertime. People aren't aware, it's very, very, very exposed. They were in the worst place just about that they could be in the canyon, weren't they?
Tom Myers:They were. Yeah. It was it was just unrelenting, you know, the solar load, you know, no shade. But it had her companion done his homework, you know, they they definitely wouldn't have been that predicament to begin with.
Brian:So they know they're in trouble. They hunker down. They try to get a little piece of shade. Ryan's the one who's really struggling the most. So what do you think is going through both of their minds at at this point?
Tom Myers:I I think Ryan at that point was betting on Margaret and her level of fitness, her, you know, stoicism, her ability to push through pain and and fatigue as a runner to to rescue them both. And and then Margaret, I think, was I'm gonna bet she was angry and and very concerned and, you know, obviously super stressed. You know, pegging the stress meter, like, gotta get out of here and not knowing exactly how to do it and where to where the next water would be found.
Brian:At this point, it's not just dehydration that's setting in. So too is desperation. Margaret decides to leave Ryan. Her plan is to reach South Kaibab, which she's expecting at any moment. And instead of turn uphill toward the rim, turn downhill and make a two and a half mile run to the river and Phantom Ranch for help.
Brian:Was it a huge mistake for them to to split up? Should they have stayed together?
Tom Myers:That's a good question, Brian. I I think the question would be the level of dehydration that Margaret had. So I think Margaret probably felt a sense of urgency and thirst that, you know, may have exceeded his in in a sense of panic. I think the the level what happens with thirst I I liken it to having your head held underwater and that that panic to get air. It's the same sort of panic, but it's it slowly builds up.
Tom Myers:It's like, you know, that desperation, you know, to get water, and it gets to where it's pure torture. You know, I gotta get to water. I get to water. And, you know, so it's it's it ramps up, and Margaret may have been at a point where she said, no. I I can't even stay here.
Tom Myers:I I need water now. My body's telling me I need water now. And then, unfortunately, being as physically fit as she was and used to pushing herself, she may have just said, I'm gonna chose to just get out of here, and I and and and just take my chances. And and if Ryan was correct, I should be finding the South Trail soon, you know, get to help.
Brian:So off she went. Imagine the frustration of thinking your destination, the South Kaibab Trail, is just around the next bend over and over. Fear, panic, desperation, on top of dehydration, that can be a lethal cocktail. And Margaret, perhaps wondering at this point if South Kaibab even exists, makes the decision to veer off trail. You see this time and again, it seems like, with with situations like this where, and and this is pointed out in your book numerous times, where someone is presenting heat related, heat stroke related symptoms, and next thing you know, they're dropping their pack, they're going off trail, and they're trying to make a beeline for water.
Brian:In this case, on the Tono platform, you might think if you're not experienced in the canyon, well, must be a shorter way to get to the river, because that's I think what everyone wants to do. I wanna get to the river. I need to get to water. And so they make what ultimately becomes a fatal mistake by going off trail and trying to take a shortcut to the river.
Tom Myers:Yeah. I a lot of those decisions like that, when they're in the throes of of sheer panic, like, have to get to water now, that people will do things that, you know, risk serious injury, you know, fatal injury because they're so desperate, like these impossible down climbs or trying to tear a cactus open with their bare hands or maybe drinking their own urine. Just things that to just alleviate the thirst. It's you know, there's stories where, you know, historically, people drink blood. You name it.
Tom Myers:Antifreeze, anything to try to seawater, you know, things to try to quench thirst. It's just it's that powerful of a symptom or stimulus for people. And then the further they get into the heat stroke, then, you know, especially if they're getting becoming altered, then they the judgment just tanks.
Brian:There's no doubt that's what she was doing. Right?
Tom Myers:No doubt. You know? Yeah. She was in the thick of it and, you know, desperate and in panic, and she knows her life is is is now extremely high risk, you know, her life is in the balance.
Brian:So in Grand Canyon, when that when that happens and when you do go off trail and you think there's a shorter way to the water, what what can happen to you?
Tom Myers:They'll go down these, steep slot, you know, that most of the Grand Canyon eventually have narrows and big cliffs and pour overs. It's it's hard rock, and so the what happens is they'll down and climb a cliff or even jump, you know, down a a section that they know they they probably couldn't get back up. And then they keep going, and unfortunately, they counter a cliff that may be even worse that they can't down climb. And so they're trapped between a cliff that they can't down climb and the one they went down and they can't get back up. And at that point, you're done.
Tom Myers:I mean, unless somebody finds you.
Brian:While all this is happening, Ryan is feeling well enough to continue his trudge towards South Kaibab. But after three miles of hiking and now in total darkness, he stops and sleeps on the trail. As dawn breaks, he continues, and within an hour, he finally connects with South Kaibab. Not long after, a USGS worker on her way up from Phantom Ranch meets up with Ryan. She accesses an emergency supply of water, Ryan drinks two liters, rests for a while, and then, with the same worker who hadn't left his side, begins the long climb up South Kaibab.
Brian:It's likely that Margaret is still alive and in grave danger. But Ryan, for reasons that might never be known, never mentions her to the USGS worker. A ranger at Phantom who had been discussing the situation with that worker by satellite phone would later say, quote, nowhere in that conversation did we get the information that he was a runner, that he crossed the tanto, or that there were two of them. Ryan had apparently believed that Margaret had made it to Phantom. On his way up, he'd even given a message to a guide headed down.
Brian:Quote, ask the ranger to try to get a message to a woman I was hiking with. Tell the ranger to tell her I'm moving her car from Grand View to the South Kaibab Trailhead area. Her name is Margaret Bradley. After surfacing at South Kaibab twelve hours after being found, Ryan changed plans and instead of moving Margaret's car, he asked the USGS worker to drive him home to Flagstaff, about an hour and a half's drive, which she did. At around eleven that night, sixteen hours after Ryan had been found, Margaret Bradley's family called police to report her missing.
Brian:Early the next morning, twenty four hours now after he'd been found and forty since he and Margaret had separated on Tonto, Ryan finally told police and park rangers what had happened to he and Margaret. As a ranger would later say, suddenly, all the dots connected. A search was immediately launched, and by noon, several 100 yards south of the Tonto Trail, trapped in a drainage, a rescue helicopter spotted Margaret Bradley. She was curled up in the fetal position with her head resting on her fanny pack. But there was no movement.
Brian:Margaret was gone. The medical examiner would determine that Margaret had died of dehydration roughly twelve to twenty four hours prior. Ryan had met up with the USGS worker at the tip-off thirty hours before Margaret was found. She had likely been alive for between seven and nineteen hours after Ryan had found help. When I'm reading this part of the book, I can almost read between the lines of what you and Michael are writing and you can almost feel the, like, seething anger at what you're writing.
Tom Myers:You know, it was one of those situations where you think it was so easily preventable. And here, Margaret was trusted her friend and put her faith in that he was advising her correctly and that this was gonna be a great hike and fun and all that stuff. And then she risks her life. She goes off to try to save him. And then the irony is that she's probably still alive, and it doesn't dawn on him that the first thing he should have done was say, hey.
Tom Myers:Where's Margaret? You know, I I got my friend. I don't wanna find out if she's you know, how she's doing. Is she is she safe? Is she in in distress herself?
Tom Myers:And so that irony, you know, we were struck by the incredible irony there that Margaret went lost her life pushing herself, pushing pushing pushing. A woman who is a phenomenal athlete, you know, to push herself to her death, basically, to try to save them both, and and he didn't have the same regard, I guess. I mean, it's it the fact that he didn't have the same regard for her life that she seemed to have for his is just incredibly sad and incredibly ironic and and anger provoking. It's like, you know, you just if you were Margaret's parents, you're like, oh my god. You know?
Tom Myers:I I how could you not? You know, how could you not? The first thing that popped in your mind is my friend who you know, her well-being. You know? I think I mostly How
Brian:does that happen? How does that happen?
Tom Myers:I don't know. I I know. And I maybe, you know, he was not completely in his, you know, in his defense. I mean, he'd come through this horrible thing. Maybe he's still kinda out of it because of his own experience, dehydration, and who knows?
Tom Myers:But it just seems like there's something wrong with the thought process there for sure that he didn't consider her well-being right out right at the very beginning when he got to the Kaibab.
Brian:Then for hours after.
Tom Myers:And hours afterward. Hours afterward. It's like, it just goes on and on, you know, and so as as it as that yeah. As Michael and I worked on that story and and learned more about it and learned what how the rangers felt and what was going on, it's like all of us, everybody, you know, that was even remotely familiar with it were like, you gotta be kidding me. This is so horribly tragic and and could end it differently.
Tom Myers:Just and the torture she went through those last few hours must have just been absolutely brutal.
Brian:It's been twenty years now since Margaret's passing. She'd be 44 this year in the prime of life. Instead, her story is a tragic but important reminder of the many entirely preventable dangers one can face in the Grand Canyon. What ultimately can be learned from the the Margaret Bradley story?
Tom Myers:Well, you know, Margaret, again, you know, a great runner, you know, probably run you and I into the dirt. I mean, she was a a serious kick butt athlete, and I think part of the thing with that, it can be a blessing and a curse that you can overestimate your ability, and there may have been some of that. It's like, oh, you know, it's only that far. That's a training run for me. You know?
Tom Myers:And then so may and I I don't know what Margaret Margaret's mindset was, but maybe she, like most of us, you know, especially an athlete, they can overestimate their ability and underestimate the Grand Canyon, and they underestimate that heat. And then she also put her faith in somebody who, you know, rather than maybe doing her own homework and researching it, she put her faith in a guy who let her down in that the ultimate way, you know, cost her her life. And so lessons learned would be, you know, do your own homework. Don't put the burden on all this to yourself. Get Howe Dots and Not to Die maybe, read it, and understand the risks.
Tom Myers:And and and then maybe if you do have a companion who has this itinerary that might be a little bit over the top, you can, you know, challenge him and say, I don't know. Maybe this is not such a good idea this time of year. It's like a and and if we run out of water, where are we gonna find more? Or what are our options, you know, depending on if we have some unforeseen thing happen? So do your your it's front end loaded in so many ways.
Tom Myers:Do your homework. Be prepared, and and definitely don't underestimate the Grand Canyon.
Brian:The tragic tale of Margaret Bradley. It was actually emotional to write that one. It'll really make you think about a lot of things, but especially how preventable it was from beginning to end. For a time after Margaret's death, the park service actually used photos of her on signs around the rim, touting her Boston Marathon experience and warning hikers that if it can happen to someone like Margaret, it can surely happen to them. Thanks as always to Doctor.
Brian:Tom Myers, the Canyon doc, for his help in telling Margaret's story. Okay. Training tip time from coach Arnie. This time, we revisit something coach talked about in a previous episode that I know a lot of you are doing, walking backwards.
Coach Arnie:Hey, everybody. This is coach Arnie with the Grand Canyon training tip of the week, and thank you again, Brian, for allowing me to share some wisdom and knowledge of the canyon with your wonderful audience. Today's tip, I wanna share something that I had already talked about on an episode of Grand Canyon Hiker Dude walking backwards. Why? Because walking backwards is a secret weapon.
Coach Arnie:Another one, it is the cornerstone of what my Canyon training program is all about. I first came across it many years ago because as an exercise physiologist, I'm in the rehab business, and we would use walking backwards as a rehab exercise for improving ACL or hamstring injuries, and it just worked. And I thought, well, wait a minute. I who was just getting into ultra running, wanted to get better at running downhill. And I thought to myself, well, wait a minute.
Coach Arnie:Walking backwards works the hamstrings, works the hips, which would protect my knees. I thought, well, here we go. Because I was dealing with my my own knee issues, my own hamstring issues. And could I shorten up the learning curve to get better at downhills besides just running a bunch of downhills as I was being told by walking backwards? And you know what?
Coach Arnie:I thought about it. I broke it down. The exercise the muscles were the same. I thought, well, why not? So by just starting off by walking flat, literally flat on the ground for ten minutes, you could get going.
Coach Arnie:And then if you had a treadmill, you could literally turn the power off on the treadmill, what I call a dead mill, and walk on it with no power pushing along. You could change the angle if you wanted to. If you had access to a weighted sled, you could add weight and resistance. You could add time. You can add distance.
Coach Arnie:Whatever you wanted to do, you had all these variables that allowed you to work the same muscles that you would be doing on a downhill, and you could do it at your convenience at your facility where you're at. It worked, and it will work for you. I promise you. Just give it a try. Just start with ten minutes.
Coach Arnie:You'll be surprised. I love you guys. And remember, if you have any questions, you can always message me from Pain Free Arnie on Instagram, or you can call or text me at (602) 390-9144. Love you. Talk to you later.
Brian:Coach Arnie, Arnie Foncica Junior, our group's exercise physiologist and Canyon coach. If you missed it, his contact information is in the show notes. Be safe out there folks. The summer heat is not to be messed with. If you're hiking in it, make sure heat mitigation is your top priority.
Brian:This is not the time of year to be chasing personal bests. It is the time of year that you need to have a plan, have a strategy, and have the discipline to stick to it. Alright. That's it for now. My name is Brian Special, encouraging you as always to go hike the canyon.
Brian:Take 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. Hiken. Together, we roll.