The Grand Canyon: South Kaibab to Bright Angel Trail In One Day
Grand Canyon... South Kaibab to Bright Angel Trail Map
Photos of Grand Canyon... South Kaibab to Bright Angel Trail
From Tucson to the Grand Canyon, we are going to give you a tour of hiking or running the Grand Canyon Kaibab Trail up Bright Angel in a day.
Backcountry Hikers Express Shuttle
And we’re going to take you on a tour of the Grand Canyon. We’re at Backcountry Hikers Express, we’re here for first thing. We’re going to get the first shuttle out. It’s going to take us to South Kaibab Trail, and we’re doing South Kaibab Trail through Phantom Ranch, and then up the Bright Angel Trail. It’s about 16 miles and it’s one of our favorite things to do.
And it’s 1st of November. It’s a little bit warmer than normal. We’ve done this in November where it’s about 17, 18 degrees.
This morning it’s in the high 30s, low 40s. That’s going to be a beautiful day. We are at the top of the South Kaibab trailhead and we are starting our way down the Grand Canyon. We’re going to head down Kaibab and make it down into Phantom Ranch and then up Bright Angel trail. And it’s going to be an epic day. It’s a beautiful day up on the rim and look at that.
If you’re in Arizona or Tucson specifically, it’s where we’re at, getting to the Grand Canyon is worth making the trek. And from Tucson to the Grand Canyon, it’s about a six hour drive. You go up through Flagstaff, Williams, and then down to the Grand Canyon. But one of the mistakes that we made when we first started doing it is we didn’t have any reservations at the top of the canyon. You can stay either in the canyon.
Where To Stay and Fee
Right outside the canyon there’s a little town called Tusayan, and there’s a handful of hotels there.
A big mistake that we made in the past is we didn’t have a reservation. And regardless of the time of the year, the hotels book up, so you want to make sure that you get a reservation if you’re coming to the canyon. And then there’s a couple restaurants.
Our favorite restaurant, there’s a Mexican restaurant, right in the little town before you enter into the Grand Canyon.
To get into the Grand Canyon, there is a fee. We’ve got an annual pass in Tucson that gets us into Sabino Canyons, Saguaro National Park and all the park. If you’re in Tucson and you spend a lot of time in Sabino Canyon or Saguaro National Park, that pass will work to get you in, but it’s a super simple drive and totally worth doing.
Fitness Level, Distance and Expected Time
We have trekked into the Grand Canyon all sorts of times of the year. We’ve done it on the 1st of January when it was negative four when we started out. And a lot of times we just do the day trip where we go down south Kaibab up Bright Angel, but we’ve also started to pack in where we get reservations.
If you’re going to do a pack trip, you’ve got to get reservations to stay at the various camping sites, whether it’s Phantom Ranch, Indian Gardens, Cottonwood. There’s a handful of places you can stay. But if you’ve come to the Grand Canyon, it’s one thing to come to the Grand Canyon and look down into the canyon. It’s a totally different experience, epic experience that words just can’t put into explaining what it’s like to be at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and in the canyon.
It requires some fitness, but that’s another nice thing. It motivates us each and every year to be fit enough, to get down in here and do it, especially on the downhill. You really need your downhill legs. And that’s a mistake a lot of people make is they run or they hike, but they just don’t do enough downhill. And so right out of the gate, when you’re starting down into the canyon, it’s pretty steep and it’ll tear your legs up really fast if you’re not used to the downhill, but again, it’s totally worth it. And once you get down here, we’re at the bottom.
We just came down in Kaibab and we’re at the bottom in the Grand Canyon, just passing over the bridge.
The total trek, it’s about 16 miles. And depending on our fitness level, we’ve run it and done it in under five hours. I think 4:45 has been our fastest time. If we’re hiking and just enjoying ourselves between 5.5 to 6.5 hours for others it may take all day. It varies depending on your fitness level, but again, it’s totally worth it.
It’s just magical. There’s no other place like it!
Taking the Mules Down The Grand Canyon
Something to consider is if you don’t feel as though you’re capable to hike down into the canyon, you can always book a trip down on the mules and stay at Phantom Ranch, and they’ve got cabins down there.
It’s really, really cool and another way to experience the canyon. And they serve you dinner at night and you can pick between a steak dinner or they’ve got some really good vegetarian chili.
And if you’re hiking down and camping out at Phantom Ranch, you can reserve a meal as well.
We’ve done that too, where it breaks up where we don’t have to cook one night and we’ve got a nice hot meal, which breaks it up. Again, if hiking down is not something that you’re capable of doing, I would highly recommend booking a trip down on the mules.
Trekking Poles
At about 10 miles into it… Heading up a Bright Angel Trail through the Box Canyon, working our way up to Indian Gardens, I would highly, highly recommend trekking poles.
They’re very useful for the uphill, but also for the downhill. They can really save your legs going downhill and also if it’s in the colder months when there’s snow up on the rim, whether you’re going down or up, it really helps with your footing and helps you keep balance. Something to consider is trekking poles.
And lastly, it’s a good thing to train with them before you get here. It’s almost like cross country skiing. You got to get used to them and there’s a little bit of timing and it’s also a really good workout because you’re using some upper body.
Things to Consider When Doing Grand Canyon In One Day
We made it to Indian Gardens and Indian Gardens is right at 12 miles.
We’ve got about four miles to go and this is where it gets tough. And I’m always amazed because we’re going up into that little V right there. And I’m always amazed at how we go for from here to there. But it’s four miles. It gets really steep and this is another good place to pull out your trekking poles.
But what I want to talk about in this section is things to consider. And a lot of the things to consider will depend on the time of year, as far as the temperature. We’ve done it all times. We’ve done it in the extreme cold where we started out and it was negative four on top and camped out at the bottom of Phantom Ranch. We’ve done it in the summer when it’s 110 and super hot. A lot of the things to consider are all built around the time of the year and the temperature, but in the winter months, you want to make sure you’ve got layers. When it’s really cold, we’ve got our puffy, we’ve got our bigger packs, so we can take stuff off, but it’s all about layers, taking those layers off.
And then also one of the other things in the wintertime, you want to check the forecast, but a lot of times there’ll be snow up on the rim and you want clamp ons and clamp ons are really helpful, especially going down that you’re not going to slip or even going up because what happens is during the day, the snow melts and then at night, it freezes. You get this black ice that you can’t see. Clamp ons in the wintertime, a definite must. I already talked about trekking poles. There’re places to get water, so you want to have a sufficient pack. Again, depending on the time of the year and how many layers you’re going to be taking off will have a big part of how big your pack is and also how much hydration you’re bringing. But, a pack is important for taking layers on and off.
And then hydration, there is a place to get water. At Phantom Ranch, you can get water. And then also at Indian Gardens, there’s a place to get water. And then also probably halfway up from Indian Gardens to the top of the south rim on Bright Angel, there’s also a water spigot and there’s also places to go to the bathroom along the way as well. A couple of other things to consider, in the summer, it’s all about sun protection, sunscreen. I like to wear the long sleeve sun protective layers on my arms. I’ll wear a hat that protects my face and skin. Sunscreen, definitely.
Lots of hydration and water. The summer months going to be a little bit different. You want to get an early, early start to avoid the heat. I wouldn’t recommend doing it in the dead of the day.
The other cool thing and something to consider, we’ve done this a couple of times, is doing it when there’s a full moon and we’ve left the top of the rim just when it’s getting dark out. We’ll go to the bottom and do it during a full moon. Getting a headlamp and lights and things like that, but it’s another really cool experience to do it during a full moon.
Another thing to consider, and this is something that I discovered actually on this trip, the majority of times when we’ve done this, we’ve always done it during the weekday and we’ve never done it on the weekend and today’s a Sunday and there is a ton more traffic today. In the past when we’ve done it in the colder times of the year, there’s not a whole lot of people.
And then we do it during the weekday and it’s a whole lot quieter, a lot less traffic. If you can do it during a weekday, I would highly recommend that. It’ll just be a whole lot less traffic. Those are things to consider. I’m going to have in the links below some of our favorite things that you can click on, whether it’s trekking poles, lights, packs, things like that, various things that we would recommend when doing Grand Canyon in a day, what we call rim to rim, staying on the south side, going down Kaibab and up Bright Angel. 16 miles rim to rim in a day, these are all things to consider.
Mim, what would be your one recommendation?
Probably to get the right shoes and the shoes that I highly recommend are the Hokas. What are they called?
They’re the Stinson ATRs. They’re an awesome shoe. They’re an off-trail shoe. You can run in them. You can hike in them, but they’re just a great all-around shoe. They have got a lot of cushion and support. We’re both big Hoka fans.
And now Hokas come out with a hiking boot too as well.
Why Grand Canyon Rim To Rim Never Gets Old
Why the Grand Canyon never gets old? As many times as we’ve done it, it just never gets old. And there’s a reason that it’s one of the wonders of the world. God did good when he did the Grand Canyon, but there’s so many different reasons. There’s never a bad view. It’s just majestic.
When you come down into the canyon, none of your electronics are going to work. You’re not going to have cell coverage, so put it on airplane mode, no social media, and just enjoy. If you’re going to do a lot of video and photos, you might want to bring a little back USB charger for your phone.
It’s the best natural high you don’t have to pay for other than getting up, paying to get into the park. And you’re on a high when you’re in here and I’m on a high for a good week coming out, so it never gets old.
The other cool thing is living in Tucson, it’s one of the big benefits for us of living in Tucson and Arizona, that it’s an easy drive to get to the Grand Canyon, six hours for us. That’s why we every year make it an annual trip and sometimes multiple times within a year. But it’s just a great way to unplug, get away, put things back into perspective.
We like doing it towards the end of the year, because it’s a great time to do some goal setting and just think about your upcoming year and putting some new goals into place. Because it allows you to think because you don’t have the distractions of TV and internet and all those kind of things. Anyway, that’s it. There’s a ton more. I could go on and on.
All the switchbacks down there.
It’s beautiful, but there are so many different things just depends on your perspective. But the only way to experience it is to get down in here and do it. It’s worth preparing. The other reason I like it, forgot about this one, is it motivates us during this time of the year air between November to December during the holidays, it’s a great way to stay motivated, keep your exercise routine on, eat properly, all those kind of things that can be a distraction during the holidays. It’s why I like to plan it this time of year. Especially we do it a lot for our anniversary, which is right at New Year’s, which is another great time, even though it’s cold. It’s a great time. That’s my take.
Getting Back To Your Car At The Top of Bright Angel Trail
The nice thing about when you get to the top of Bright Angel Trail you’re parked at back country. You can actually just walk right back to your car.
It’s about a quarter of a mile. Beats taking the tram.
Took us a little bit longer today because we filmed the video. About five and a half hours. A little over 16 miles and it was a great day.
List of Recommend Items for Hiking Grand Canyon In One Day
Click on the links below:
Contact Tyler Ford
Get Social
