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Grand Canyon Hiking Recommendations (GeoShort) · PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, Chris, we have a Geo short on hiking recommendations for the Grand Canyon.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get into it, though, this is a follow-on from our Grand Canyon episode.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the Geosigns of the Grand Canyon came out a couple weeks ago.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: So go back and listen to that if you're interested.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get started, I guess.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: But up front, you have been to the Grand Canyon a lot more than I have, or at least you spent a lot more time there than I have.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: But you and I have a different approach to this, I think, where we come at this from a couple different points where we're able to offer recommendations based on anybody, right?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be a serious hiker and backpacker to do some of the things that we're talking about.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you do these really cool, like three-week backpacking trips with your family every year, every summer you've done it for a long time, and you've spent a couple of them in the Grand Canyon.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and these are kind of serious endeavors.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I've never experienced the Grand Canyon that way.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to, but I haven't been able to.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're gonna keep this kind of in line with being able to see cool geoscience features at a hike, right?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So hit me with one, Chris.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so I'm gonna take us down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So this would be a backpacking trip, okay?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Down to the bottom.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: We did the Kaibab Trail down and took the Bright Angel Trail up, but we spent four days down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the best things and coolest things that we did was we hiked to a place called Ribbon Falls.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a 13-mile hike from our campground, which was the Bright Angel campground, a primitive campground, just tent, no water or anything.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let me back up and say, How did you get?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, did you spend one day going down from the rim to the yes, yes, yes.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: We we did we spent one day hiking down.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: We got down to the bottom because we started at like 4 a.m.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: or 5 a.m.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: We got down to the bottom at nine or 10 o'clock, and then it's like it's blistering hot down there because you're a mile down in this canyon.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably easy to say 30 to 40 degrees hotter down in the bottom of the Grand Canyon than it is up on the rim.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it's smoking hot down there.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: You do your hiking and you do your exertion in the early morning hours or evening hours.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to hike in the middle of the day.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, we got down there, chilled out, uh, played in the river.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was awesome, and uh just kind of like got our bearings down at the bottom of Grand Canyon.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Then the next day we got up and we hiked to Ribbon Falls.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's a 13-mile hike.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really easy hike, though.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's flat and it's so cool.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, one of the things that we all think of when we think about that hike is these lizards that uh they they do push-ups, they pose for you, and they literally do push-ups.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's so cool.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: One of them did a push-up with another lizard in his mouth.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: He had killed a lizard and posed pictures for us doing push-ups with another lizard in his mouth.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So he was badass.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, Ribbon Falls, incredible.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: We get there, okay.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's maybe 9 a.m.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: when we get there, and we'd hike now seven miles or yeah, seven-ish miles.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Unbelievable.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like the surprise was almost unrivaled.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: You don't expect this in the Grand Canyon, you don't expect lush.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh um I don't know.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to say.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was there were trees, there was foliage, there was moss, there was water, there was it was beautiful, and it's this it's this towering waterfall, and it's over limestone, and you see you climb in, you you you know, you go into the plunge pool, you know, of the waterfall, and and uh behind the waterfall is a cave.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we went we went behind the cave, and there are birds in the cave, you know, and it's just like this incredible experience.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we stayed there, we got there at nine or ten, I can't remember exactly, and it was so breathtaking and so like unexpected that we decided we're staying here all day, we're gonna wait here until the sun starts to go down and it starts to cool off a little bit, then we'll hike back to camp.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so we played in the river, we swam, um, and you know, it was just an incredible experience.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Here's my public safe service announcement okay to all you people that are hikers, casual serious backpackers, casual serious, I don't care.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: My announcement is like a growing problem that we have is rodents and the feeding of them because they're so cute, chipmunks and squirrels and things like this.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: It is becoming a huge problem.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, is that right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it is it is like when I'm in bear country, my number one concern is not bears.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: My number one concern are the squirrels, the chipmunks, and the marmots.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: It is I'm being 100% serious.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know how to over-emphasize this.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is a problem that's created by us.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're feeding them, they've become reliant upon the salt now, regardless of the food.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, whatever about that.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: But like the salt is the bigger issue, I think, that they crave this now.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so you know, please don't feed them.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, don't give them your nuts.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I know they're super cute, but that's just not good for them, and it certainly isn't good for us.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's not good for us, it's gonna be horrible for them down the road.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's my I'm sorry, I took a long time, but that's my public service announcement.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a long public service announcement, buddy.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody else, all right, wake up now.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Public service announcement's done with.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: We can wake back up.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, don't you think people will like realize like, you know, how many times are you sitting there somewhere and you're you're at a destination, right?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And some person comes up and sits down and they're like, oh, look at the little chipmunk, and they take their nuts out and they start feeding them.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like that riles me.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can see the steam coming out of yours right now, so I can't even imagine it happening happening in real life.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's a problem though.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so so what what is the trip down there?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're talking about a couple days worth backpacking trip, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Three days.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: At least, right?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's at least a day down and a day up.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, unless you're insane, right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I would not recommend it because I like to enjoy my pain, you know.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: You like to spread the pain out over time, right?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Make it tolerable at least, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, cool.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good one.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good one.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Kaibab Trail, and it is Ribbon Falls.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: All right, what's what's another one?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: What's another go-to to see some cool geoscience features there?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's a uh like a three-mile hike to a place called Skeleton Point.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you go past this one point, like a mile down the trail.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's really steep, okay.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you get to this famous point that's called Ua.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, ooh, because it's ooh, it's beautiful.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then you go past that mile point, and that's when the trail really starts to thin out, which is you know, I've uh this is something that I've found.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like a mile is the threshold.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people will walk from the rim down the trail a mile, and then they'll go back up.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so if you want to get away from people, you have to be willing to go more than that threshold.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so then it's another like a mile and a half to two miles out to Skeleton Point.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's an amazing overlook.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Another one is to take the Bright Angel Trail down to Indian Garden.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: We stayed at Indian Garden coming up from the bottom of the Grand Canyon for a night, and it is a gorgeous, beautiful, unexpected oasis in the Grand Canyon.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna do this one, this is like a 12-mile hike.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: So this would be a full day exertion for you.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: But you go down to Indian Garden, which is only three and a half miles down, and what's nice about it is they have water and bathrooms every about a mile and a half on this trail.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So a mile and a half down, water bathroom, another you're at three miles, you know, water bathroom, and then you're at Indian Garden, and then you have like a two and a half mile hike out to Plateau Point from there, and it's flat and it's an easy thing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And Plateau Point uh is just one of the most incredible places on the planet.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: We went out there when we stayed at Indian Garden.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: We walked out for sunset.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: We watched the whole sun go down, and then we hiked back by headlamp at night to get back to our campsite, which is a couple miles.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Just incredible.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Plateau point would be another recommendation for the more serious.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: What about you, Jesse?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, I've given my take.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Did you go to Plateau Point?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: We did go to Plateau Point.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was in the on this college field trip.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few of us that were feeling our oats on the day, and we did day.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you've seen Indian Garden, then isn't haven't you?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: We did we stopped for like two minutes there.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um but isn't it so unexpected?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's very cool.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's very cool.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: That one was the one I did in college, and then the other one I did more recently was the skeleton point with the day trip.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that one's it's super fun.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: The thing about the Grand Canyon is it's so deceiving because you're going down and it's so fast.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: You start going down and then you're you you can go four miles pretty quickly, and you think, oh, that's pretty easy.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, oh shit, I gotta turn around and go back up.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is difficult.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you gotta do it early, start early.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I agree completely.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get past kind of the mile or mile and a half marker, then everybody thins out and it gets more maybe enjoyable if you enjoy privacy.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And here's my other PSA is that going down yields to going up.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's right.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so all our listeners, please be polite hikers.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you're going down, you stop and get off the trail and move for the people coming up.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is harder for them to get going.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: They get to choose when they take a break.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Trail etiquette 101.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Trail etiquette, yeah, that's right.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that you see this all the time in the Grand Canyon because you get a lot of people that have no idea what they're doing, and oof.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that was, you know, that was one thing I was kind of encouraged about when we went back to there was a lot of people, you know, dragging their kids down this trail.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people who who didn't really know what they were doing, but they were going for it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they were checking it out, they were going for it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's very cool.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one thing that I think I've appreciated about Grand Canyon National Park is I think the National Park Service has done an exceptional job of having educational tools that are available readily to people who you don't need to really do a big hike to kind of get the full view of the canyon and also get a full like geoscience understanding of the canyon.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So there's one thing called the trail of time that they've kind of laid out where basically you do a hike down, I think it's one meter equals a million years on this hike.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So a large human being's one step would be about a million years.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just really cool at the visitor centers and stuff.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: They have a lot of the rock units that they've taken and they've constructed little pedestals or something where the actual they represent the geology.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: You see the Vishnu Shist, you see the geologic sequence of the Grand Canyon just right there in this column or in this post.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it you can really gain a lot of knowledge just from these little tools.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the Grand Canyon National Park Service has done a really good job with those educational tools.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: I would agree.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I think that they have done the best job that I've seen of any national park of doing that kind of thing of this like educational outreach.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: They have done an amazing job.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I want to add to this whole discussion is that if you are somebody that wants to get into backpacking, that has no experience in it, the guiding opportunities down there.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can hire a guide, they will take you down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, they will take you to wherever you want to go down there.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: They'll take you to Ribbon Falls and so on.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: They cook you amazing food.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: You have to pay for it, of course, but the guiding opportunities there are truly amazing, also.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, with that, we'll wrap it up for the hiking recommendations for the Grand Canyon National Park.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're planning a trip or you're thinking, hey, when COVID's over, I'm gonna go out there and get me some Grand Canyon, check these places out.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right on.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: All right, see you next week.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: All right, take care of it.