Hiking: Merit Badge

You know how I said we needed to get back out on the trail for family hikes? And how it was such a great way to connect with my teen and almost teen boys? Well, it looks like I’m going to get my wish.

The older boy wants to earn his Hiking Merit Badge for Boy Scouts. That is a great goal for him! And also means we’ll be back out on the trail as a family a lot over the coming spring and summer. Especially since the younger boy will want to earn his badge too.

I just looked up the requirements. And I couldn’t help thinking to myself – “Wow! We just did almost all of that training for the Grand Canyon hike. Why, oh why, did we not pay attention and do the preparation and book-work for this as we trained?”

The requirements for this are pretty straight forward. He needs to walk one 5-mile hike, three 10-mile hikes, one 15-mile hike and one 20-mile hike. Stopping for short rest periods and meals as needed are allowed, stopping overnight is not. And he needs to do the preparation and planning for these hikes.

We’ve already done all of that except the 20-mile hike and we were in perfect shape to finish off with that hike right after we got back from the Grand Canyon.

Then I realized – you know what this does? This gets us back out on the trails together as a family. It gets us all working together on hiking goals. It gets the boys planning where we’ll hike and what we’ll eat on the trail. And it makes it all their idea!! That is pretty great.

Wonder where they’ll take us? I’m hoping somewhere in the Southwest.

Hiking: The Grand Canyon Hike

We did it! We hiked down on Bright Angel Trail from the South Rim to Phantom Ranch. Spent the night. And then hiked back out all day from Phantom Ranch to the South Rim. We covered about 23 miles, about 4500 feet down in elevation and then back up those same 4500 feet. It was beautiful and awesome and hard and amazing!!!

Leaving from the South Rim

At the top on the way down.

Still going down.

We trained with family hikes for a good part of the year before to prepare. But I was talking to another hiker in the women’s dorm at Phantom Ranch and she said she’d done it every year for the last 15 years and she didn’t think anything could truly prepare you for hiking the Grand Canyon since it is simply in a category all to itself. The training we did was enough for the husband and older boy to do it more easily. But the younger boy and I needed more endurance. All the hill training did mean that the climbing wasn’t a strain for my lungs and breathing which was especially awesome since I have asthma!!! The older boy and husband are already talking about a Rim to Rim hike next time. I’m thinking once was enough for me. The younger boy hasn’t decided yet.

See that trail that stretches off into the distance? That’s a little less than halfway to the river.

This is part of the next half down.

At the river that helped form the canyon!

We hiked down for 7 hours leaving at 8:00 am from the Bright Angel trail-head and arriving at Phantom Ranch about 3:00 pm. We stayed about 15 hours at Phantom Ranch at the bottom. Then started our hike back up at 7:30 am the next morning and hiked out for 8.5 hours, arriving at the top about 4:00 pm.

One of several water crossings.

On the way back up.

And up.

And up.

It am so grateful that we hiked it as a family and made those memories. Our boys are 14 and 12 years old and they did amazing! What better proof do they need that they can accomplish just about anything they set their minds to and work towards? They’ve just done the almost impossible and that makes them mighty. Somewhere near 600,000 people visit the Grand Canyon each year and only about 1% of them make the trek to the river at the bottom. Fewer still do it on the power of their own feet. What an amazing life lesson to learn!!! I’m super proud we made it to the top (me especially since the last 3ish miles up were basically pure will power for me).

Almost all the way back up!

We made sure we had lots of food and water and ibuprofen for the hike out. We also lightened our loads at Phantom Ranch by filling one Mule Duffel between us. We thought we had lightened our loads of everything we didn’t need before hiking down in. But once we reach the bottom and knew how very far we needed to climb back out, we each found more weight we could lose from our packs. We only put 16 pounds of the allowed 30 in our Mule Duffel since we were already traveling light. But it was definitely worth the $74.83 not to carry it out ourselves. Experience hikers carry almost nothing back up with them but we weren’t sure what we might need since this was our first hike out and kept a good chunk of our gear.

Mule Duffels full of hiker’s stuff on the way back up to the Rim. Our stuff is in one them.

It was beautiful and awesome and hard and amazing. I’m glad we went and did it. And now I’m also glad to be done!!

If we were to do it again, I think camping and stopping at a more leisurely pace would be very enjoyable.  My ideal itinerary would look something like: Day 1 hike down to Indian Gardens (4.7 miles down from the South Rim) and camp. Day 2 hike down to Phantom Ranch (4.6 to the end of the trail and then another 2ish miles along and across the Colorado River to Phantom Ranch). The meals at Phantom Ranch were wonderful and served family style with the other hikers and campers so I would be sure to reserve at least one dinner and breakfast.  Day 3 stay at Phantom Ranch and explore the area. Day 4 hike back up to Indian Garden and camp. Day 5 hike back out the last 4.7 miles and 3500 vertical feet. I think the added weight of camping equipment would be worth it to have more time to explore and rest between hikes. We would train more too.