Finally!
After applying for three straight years, we received the coveted Grand Canyon Backcountry Permit in the mail last week. We'll be hiking and camping in the Canyon June 7-10. I figure that gives me a little over a hundred days to get ready.
I started out yesterday at the library, where I checked out some motivational reading....Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods and another book, called Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon offering "accounts of the 550 people who have met untimely deaths in the canyon...". Oh boy.
On the lighter side, Bryson's book is a hilarious account of his adventures on the Appalachian Trail. ( Those of you who have read it will probably already be thinking that I am more representative of his companion Katz...that thought, unfortunately has crossed my mind as well.)
As for planning, I have divided the preparation effort into four main areas--Equipment, Supplies, Logistics, and, hmmm, the nastiest one, Physical Conditioning. Clearly my dietary and exercise patterns are going to have to change profoundly.... I figured that out when I was huffing my bags around the Jacksonville and BWI airports Monday. I have become quite accustomed to carrying an extra 20 pounds or so everywhere I go, but I need to transfer that amount away from my waistline and onto my back.
How much weight will I have to carry anyway? Let's see, laptop--9 pounds, have to figure out some kind of satellite internet access, cameras, so maybe we can eat bugs and berries and sleep out in the open to cut down on the weight. Fortunately I will have Tom and his friend Josh to do all the heavy lifting. Hopefully they won't have to lift ME....I'm sure at least one of you has thought about starting a pool on how many days before they have to helicopter me out of there.
As the preparation goes forward we'll continue to update the blog. I can't promise to do the day-by-day thing....nice job by Jessica so far on that one...but, check back here every couple days and see how it's going
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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2 comments:
I hiked into the Grand Canyon about fifteen years ago. As I recall, the guidance was that it would take you twice as long to hike OUT as it did to hike IN. For day hikers (notgoing all the way to the bottom), the advice was to hike down two to three hours and turn around, NO MATTER HOW GOOD YOU FELT! They were right on target.
The only other advice is to spend as much as you can for the best fitting pair of boots you can buy and start wearing them everywhere you go NOW.
You can set up the blog so it will post via email...save yourself 9 lbs or so and would just need to have cell/web service ;-)
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