I will be the first to admit that the boys’ adventure up Mt. Lemmon made me SUPER jealous. DOUBLE SUPER jealous even, because about a month ago we supported our buddy John in the Imogene Pass Run in Colorado, moral support, not physical. I wanted to run something too! I was suffering from a bad bad case of ROMO. Reality Of Missing Out (yep, made that one up. Much more severe than FOMO).
Well, I think I barely finished my sentence to Grit in throwing out there a little running adventure idea of our own before she was jumping up and down and we were hugging. Oh my goodness yes! Let’s run Tuolumne to the Valley! 17 miles! Up and over Clouds Rest! We’re doing it! And bonus idea by Grit herself: let’s have the boys run back up to fetch the car. Brilliant! Dang I love this gal.
15 years ago and exactly one year before Silas was born, we celebrated Manu’s birthday with a hike up to Piute Pass fueled by Schat’s Bakery’s pullaway bread. This birthday celebration shared similar themes. Silas and Manu started the day opening presents in a lovely campground outside Bishop near the Buttermilk Boulders. We tore down camp, headed into town for gas, water and a mechanic to help figure out why the tire on our behemoth kept losing air. Next was a stop at Schat’s for pullaway bread, which Manu very heroically waited to tear into while we drove north and then west into Yosemite National Park via Tuolumne Meadows. The pullaway was devoured at Tenaya Lake. We then meandered our way down to The Valley, set up camp in Upper Pines, and then hiked over to Curry for pizza and beer. Too stuffed and tired, we decided to save the cake for breakfast the next morning.
Yes, the “hike” for pizza wasn’t quite on par with Piute Pass, but just you wait. More hiking (and then some!) to come on this trip… 😉
Van is in the shop for waaaaay longer than expected. The trip must go on!!!
SO embarrassing
But on the bright side… will fit 4 people, 4 crashpads, a week’s worth of food and clothes, and all our totally not-optimized-for-car-camping camping gear (dumped directly from the van into this behemoth less than 12 hours before departure)
The big event that Paul and Manu have been training for all summer has come: Trail running from the desert base of Mt. Lemmon (Tucson) to it’s mountain forest summit, a 20 mile endeavor with around 7,000 over 8,000 feet of elevation gain.
Well folks, mission accomplished. The boys crushed it.
It’s been a heck of a summer. Somehow four months has whipped right past my eyes, a blur of house projects, play dates, teenage social life obligations, gymnastics, gymnastics and more gymnastics and way too much work. Plans to head up to the cool pines of Flagstaff for a day of bouldering kept getting canceled, or postponed. Tired and grumpy seemed to be tainting our usually psyched and happy household. We needed to get out, just the four of us. Needed to wake up in the van, hike out to some good boulders and pull hard, head back to camp and make some simple food, climb into our sleeping bags all sweaty and dirty, wake up and do it again. And if we really wanted to pamper ourselves, throw a big ‘ol epic hike on top of all that. Yes, this is exactly what this family needed.
That’s it. We’re going. And we’re leaving Friday. Or one of us will most definitely spontaneously combust.
Ivan sends! Unnamed v2 on Floorpie Roof at Priest Draw
Silas working out the beta on Bat Roof, v3
Planning out the pampering portion of the trip
Kids and I headed off for Plateau Point via Bright Angel Trail from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon
While Paul, in training mode for running up Mt. Lemmon FROM TUCSON with crazy German buddy Manu in about a month, runs down to the river from the South Rim via the South Kaibab trail and then up the Bright Angel trail to meet us
As noted a lot here on apAdventures, many of our best adventures evolve from an idea that gets planted during a prior adventure. This is another one of those instances. This is also one of those instances where when the opportunity presents itself, we jump on it.
While cruising down the South Kaibab trail last October, we took note of this inviting little thread of a trail headed into a massive plateau of sage bush about two thirds of the way down to the river, off to our left. The little thread was a tiny segment of the massive Tonto Trail, a 95 mile path that traverses the canyon lengthwise between the Little Colorado River in the east and somewhere waaaay downstream in the west, Garnet Canyon according to my map. While the link up possibilities of the 95 mile long Tonto are enough to plant a lifetime of future adventure ideas, the one we had that day in October was both simple and achievable, as long as we stayed fit: start/finish on the South Rim, South Kaibab trail to Tonto West to the Bright Angel Trail, around 14 miles in total and maybe 3500 feet elevation descent/gain. Tonto being notorious for no shade and no water meant we would have to get creative on when to fit this in before summertime temps started to climb, otherwise wait until next fall (because the winter bouldering season is of course off the table as an option). Well, fresh off a 14 miler last weekend that went surprisingly well, and two nights in Mather Campground on the south rim that opened up on recreation.gov meant “time to jump boys!” Bonus: it’s Mother’s Day!
Tanque Verde Ridge to Juniper Basin, about 14 miles and 3000 feet elevation gain. Very pleased to report that the high mileage base we built last summer and fall with the kiddos is still intact.
Not more than 1/2 a mile down into The Canyon during our last visit to the North Rim, someone announced an epic adventure idea. I can’t remember who exactly started the idea, but by the time we were 1 mile down on our hike that day, the idea was finalized into a plan. At the rate we were pushing, ticking off one huge hike a weekend in preparation for Mt. Kendall, we knew we would all would be quite fit for something big come October…something really big. And it just so happened that this October was the one that Silas would turn 13. And furthermore, his birthday landed on a weekend, smack dab in the middle of the kids fall break from school, which also happened to be the last weekend that amenities were open on the North Rim. The universe was clearly indicating that this was a primo opportunity. So like I said, it took us only a 1/2 mile of hiking to hatch the idea, and come up with the highly logistical plan to make it happen:
Hike the Grand Canyon, South Rim to North Rim, in a day, for Silas’ 13th birthday.
