The Long March...

North Kaibab trail map (The Mystery Hiker on the right).

...otherwise known as the North Kaibab Trail. This was where the plan went awry. Here MG and Gregg had to make what we assumed at the time was possibly a life-or-death decision. OK, maybe that's reaching a bit, being a bit melodramatic. The plan for the day was to make the entire 14 mile hike from Phantom Ranch to the North Rim. This hike is comprised of a 7 mile trek with a modest gain in elevation from Phantom Ranch to Cottonwood campground and a second 7 mile stretch with a tremendous elevation gain from Cottonwood to the North Rim.

Our little adventure started at about 6:30am (which we later learned was far too late a start should we ever again be crazy enough to try this whole hike in one day.) We found out later that our uphill pace (Mary Gere's and mine) is about 1 mile per hour. That means we would climb out of the Canyon at about 8:30pm at the earliest. Can you see where this is going? We couldn't at 6:30am...

So, we hustled up the trail in order to beat the sun and get up to Cottonwood campground as quickly as we could. Don't get me wrong - for all the terrible warnings given us about "The Box", I found this stretch of the trail - the first 4 miles or so of the North Kaibab - to be absolutely awesome. We didn't stop for many pictures, but here are a few:

Bright Angel Creek

Random "Majestic Peak"

I think this is called Clement-Powell Butte. Heh,heh - there's a lot of "Buttes" in the Canyon.

One hour's march - break time for both teams

Now, throughout the trip we tried to find a way to take a photograph that would provide some visual cue about how high/far away/deep the Grand Canyon really is. Unfortunately, I think we failed. I took a vertical panorama series from the rest spot shown above that, when stitched together, was bigger than the Blogger uploader allows. The canyon is so steep, narrow, and tall here that there was no way with our regular little camera lens to show it all. I think that John may have some pictures that show the ridiculous scale we're talking about.

To get back to the suspenseful, life-and-death story though: While we were proud members of Team Thunder on the first day, it became obvious by the time we stumbled in to Cottonwood Campground,well behind the others, Mary Gere literally panting for breath, that we were going to have to choose another name. We could go with Team Last Thing You'll Ever Do, or at the suggestion of our faithful leader, Team Turn Back. Turn back! Turn back! It may be cliche, but the final decision was made by Mary Gere after John told her that "discretion is the better part of valor". Mary Gere is so well known for being discreet, of course, but she still realized the wisdom of his words and taking in to the consideration the look of panic on Gregg's (and everyone else's) face every time she said she really wanted to do it, she agreed to co-captain Team Turn Back. Turn back! Turn back!

Before the decision was even finalized, the newly christened Team Chapbuns (Austin & Andrew) headed to the North Rim, with the news that Mary Gere was suffering and that Zach had a sprained ankle. Once Mary Gere recognized the wisdom of a tactical retreat, Team Thunder (John and, new team member, Zach) lit out as well. And finally, after a lengthy R&R at Cottonwood Campground (and a lovely chat with some athletic German girls who had done more in 3 hours then Mary Gere could conceive of getting done in a day) Team Turn Back (Turn back! Turn back!) turned back.