Inspiration

When I was first talking about getting my motorcycle, a friend of mine who rode recommended a TV series for me, "Long Way Round". It was at "Really Long Wait" in my Netflix for quite some time. But early this year it became available and I immediately put them to the top of my queue.

It is hard to describe the series. Mostly, because when you get started it sounds like an urban legend or a bigfoot story. The movie actor Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge, Big Fish, and perhaps the only good thing in all of Star Wars: Episodes 1-3) and Charley Boorman (an actor friend of his) decide to ride motorcycles all the way around the world. From England to Siberia, then a short flight to Alaska, and continue riding to NY city. You might think the hard thing about that is the distance. Don't get me wrong, it is truly amazing. But it is trumped by driving in Mongolia and Siberia on surfaces that cannot legitimately be called roads (or even what we would consider off-roading). I saw the series and I still don't know how they did it.

So it's impressive. So what? What does that have to do with me. Well, it is more a matter of timing. Those DVDs were sitting there waiting for soooo long, and yet when do they arrive? In the months before my trip to AZ, when our plans were to hike rim-to-rim across the Grand Canyon. Hmmm. Makes you wonder. Maybe it was a message. Maybe I was just looking for some sort of motivation. Well, coincidence or not, it was interesting to watch this huge adventure unfold while packing my hiking gear. And then watching the canyon forecast jump in the last few days to over 100 degrees. "I'm in awe of it, and I'm completely terrified at the the same time." I agree Charley, I agree.

North

After Zion, we headed down to the Grand Canyon. All my previous trips had been to the South Rim, which is very family-friendly and touristy. All fine and good, but this time we were spending some time at the North Rim, which is a whole different creature.

It is much more remote and so you feel much closer to nature there. The North Rim is also much higher elevation than the South, so it is cooler there. Forecast was 70s for the North Rim, 80s for the South Rim, and 100s for the bottom of the canyon. That first night, we got there in the late afternoon. Just enough time to catch a quick view of the canyon and setup camp.

The next day was a big hike day. We went down the main trail into the canyon, the North Kaibab Trail. We were taking it 4.7 miles down a side canyon to where it meets the main Grand Canyon.

In my mind, this would be our big test for the big hike we had planned later in the trip. The idea was to get up really early and go down and back before it got too hot. Unfortunately, on the way down we were falling behind schedule, mostly from stopping to take tons of pictures. But at the end, we were rewarded with a wonderful view of our destination, Ribbon Falls.

At the falls, we stopped for lunch and cooled off in the water. It was getting pretty hot as we were pretty close to the bottom of the canyon. So we decided to wait for about an hour, but the heat wasn't going to let up for a while. On the way up, the first mile was rough, as there was really no shade and it was close to 100. But we were smart and paced ourselves, drank lots of water and kept our electrolytes up. We were prepared. After that 1st mile, we re-entered the side canyon. Since it was much more narrow, the canyon walls gave us a lot more cover from the sun and the rest of the hike was a lot more bearable. It was definitely a tough hike, but I was feeling a lot better about our ability to hike in the high temperatures of the canyon.