New Patterns

December went by in a flash! In between hiking the Grand Canyon and the holidays, I published two new patterns. I’m proud to introduce my Grand Canyon Scarf and the Aurora Hat.

Grand Canyon Scarf

The Grand Canyon Scarf finished test knitting the day we were driving home from our Grand Canyon hike. That means that some of my very dedicated testers either needed to finish their project early or keep working while I was unable to access the thread. My testers are amazing people and I really, really appreciate all the time and work they put into each of my projects!

The Grand Canyon Scarf uses simple knits, purls, decreases and increases to evoke the beautiful geology of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River that runs through it. No cables or cable needles! The Grand Canyon Scarf is part of my Arizona Collection along with the Sedona Cowl and Rock Art Shawl.

Aurora Hat in size Child-Adult S

The Aurora Hat finished test knitting in mid-December and is available now through Ravelry! The Aurora Hat uses simple knits, purls and basic cables to evoke the lovely glimmers and twists of dawn’s first light in the dark. The three sizes use the same number of cast on stitches and follow the same directions – the only difference is the gauge of the yarn used and the number of beginning ribbing rows completed!

Again I want to gush a little about my test knitters – as always I love how Ravelry brings together people from all over the world to share a common passion. For this test knit I had testers from Argentina, Canada, California, Australia, Illinois, Texas and Arizona all working and chatting together in the thread. It is always amazing to watch!

 

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.

Hiking: Packing for the trail.

Our Grand Canyon is coming up in just over two weeks. We’ve finished most of our hill training and long distance hikes and now we are packing for the trail.

We have reservations to stay in the dorms at Phantom Ranch on the canyon bottom. That means we don’t need to worry about hauling tents or sleeping bags. We also don’t need to pack food or supplies for meals. We opted instead to pay the high prices for prepared supper and breakfast in the canyon plus a sack lunch to eat on our hike back up out of the canyon. The ease of having someone else haul and prepare our food for us seems more than worth the cost.

We’ll be back country hiking for several hours each day, so we’ve researched cold weather and long distance hiking quite a bit. Since it will be winter at the top of the canyon and warmer on the canyon floor, we’ve paid extra attention to layering so we can adapt quickly and easily to changing weather. We decided on a base layer (polyester tops and bottoms to wick away moisture and add a little warmth), a mid layer (fleece on top and hiking/wind pants on bottom) and outer layer (good cold weather jackets) for each of us. Plus we’ll each carry a rain poncho and pants in case of inclement weather.

So really we only need to pack basic supplies like extra base layer clothes, toiletries, camera, snack foods, first aid kits, sunscreen, trekking poles and emergency Mylar thermal blankets.

Plus water. We definitely do not want to run out of water so we might end up carrying more than we’ll need. At this point we think we’ll each be carrying the equivalent of three or possibly four 32 oz bottles. Water adds quite a bit of weight to our packs with each filled 32 oz bottle weighing just under 3 pounds. That means we are trying to balance between the extra weight of the water and the fear of running out.

Because the older boy takes being prepared seriously he is also bringing all of this too…..unless one of us can talk him out of it. The pile adds about 2 pounds to his pack and includes two first aid kits, extra aspirin, pocket knife, compass, mesh bag, flashlight, poncho, extra poncho, survival bracelet, coins, some rocks and other random bits.