By Michael Lanza
This is, in a way, a story about addiction. Or a love affair. Or both. Those metaphors best describe how the Grand Canyon constantly lures me back when I’m thinking about spring and fall hiking and backpacking trips.
It is that rare kind of natural environment that exists on a scale of its own, like Alaska or the Himalaya. There’s something soul-stirring and hypnotic about its infinite vistas, the deceptive immensity of the canyon walls and stone towers, and the way the foreground and background continually expand and shrink as you ascend and descend elevation gradients of a vertical mile or more—all of which validates enduring the wilting heat and trails that sometimes seem better suited to rattlesnakes and scorpions than bipedal primates.
For backpackers seeking adventure, challenge, and incomparable natural beauty, the canyon stands alone.
This story will show you, in words and photos, why one or more of these Big Ditch backpacking trips deserves top priority as you’re planning your next trip. I think you will quickly understand why the Grand Canyon has increasingly become one of my favorite places over more than three decades (and counting) of backpacking, including the 10 years I spent as a longtime field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.
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And the time to start planning your Grand Canyon adventure is right now.
Whenever I’m looking for a long, remote, incredibly beautiful, wilderness backpacking trip in the Southwest, the Grand Canyon seems to consistently emerge on top. Even though it lies a day’s journey from my home, I’ve been there numerous times for backpacking trips and ultra-dayhikes.
It seems the more I go there, the more I want—or need—to go back, in spite of how hard it is (and maybe that’s one of the reasons I keep going back).
Each of the eight trips described below can be hiked within a week. Each description links to a feature story about that trip at The Big Outside, which include many photos and my expert tips on planning and pulling them off—including how to acquire one of these hard-to-get permits. (Many of those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.)
Any of these hikes will thrill and amaze you—and just may inspire in you an urge to go back again and again.
A Grand Canyon backcountry permit is one of the hardest to get in the National Park System. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” which is freshly updated with detailed information on how to obtain a permit, and “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”
See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these trips or any trip you read about at this blog.
I’d love to hear if you’ve done any of these trips or want to suggest others in the Grand Canyon. Please share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.
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Grand Canyon Rim to Rim
If there’s an archetypal Grand Canyon hike, this baby is it. Crossing the canyon via the North Kaibab Trail combined with either the South Kaibab (one of prettiest of the 25 best national park dayhikes) or the Bright Angel Trail delivers the goods on epic scenery. You get views that span from both rims all the way down to the Colorado River, the huge vistas of the South Kaibab, the Bright Angel’s panoramas and desert oases (I’ve also see bighorn sheep on that trail), a walk through the narrow, sheer-walled gorge of lower Bright Angel Creek, waterfalls, and airy sections where the North Kaibab clings to cliff faces.
Although most GC trails are quite rugged, these three so-called “corridor” trails, while quite strenuous for their vertical relief, have better footing, more reliable water availability at regular intervals, and much less of the loose terrain, quad-pounding ledge drops, and occasionally scary exposure of other canyon footpaths.
A one-way canyon traverse, typically backpacked in three days (in either direction), is 21 miles with 4,780 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the South Kaibab and North Kaibab trails (going south to north), or 23.5 miles with 4,380 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the Bright Angel and North Kaibab (also going south to north). Shuttles are available between the rims, and you can also double the trip by backpacking across and back.
Another excellent—and popular—itinerary, especially among first-timers here, is to forego the long ascent to the North Rim, and instead hike 16.5 miles rim to river to rim: down the South Kaibab and up the Bright Angel. Many backpackers take two or three days, with one night at Bright Angel Campground on the Colorado River and a possible second night at Indian Garden Campground along the Bright Angel Trail to break up the long climb back up from the river.
Demand is enormous for a permit for backpacking the corridor trails in spring or fall, with upwards of three-quarters of applications denied. Read my story “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon.”
Do this trip smartly. Get my expert e-guide to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim
or my expert e-guide to dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.
Plus, growing numbers of uber-bit hikers and runners knock off a rim-to-rim (r2r) or a complete rim-to-rim-to-rim—across and back—(r2r2r) in a day. Consequently, in peak weather of mid-spring and mid-autumn, don’t expect the solitude you can find on some other canyon backpacking trips.
But if you want to take one of the most unique and spectacular treks in the world, without attempting any of the other significantly harder routes, this is the one.
See my stories “Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day” and “A Grand Ambition, or April Fools? Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” and all stories about South Rim hikes and South Rim backpacking trips at The Big Outside.
See also my expert e-guide to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim or my expert e-guide to dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.
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South Kaibab to Lipan Point
When a longtime backcountry ranger in the canyon whom I know, who’s hiked every mile of trail in the park, told me this 74-mile route was “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon,” I’ll admit, I was a little dubious. After all, every hike in the Big Ditch is amazing. Then I backpacked it and found myself concluding: He’s right.
Besides the fact that the South Kaibab is absolutely one of the best hikes in the entire National Park System, this route—which has shorter alternatives—follows one of the of the prettiest and most adventurous “trails” (if it can be called that) in the canyon, the Escalante Route, which involves some tricky route-finding and exposed scrambling. This hike also incorporates the beautiful and surprisingly rigorous Beamer Trail, and another rim-to-river footpath, the Tanner Trail.
While
water sources are sporadic, there are three perennial streams—one of them the
Colorado River—and you’ll enjoy some of the best backcountry campsites you’ve
ever spent a night in, including beaches on the Colorado. And you might get
invited to an outstanding dinner by a river party.
See
my story “The
Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
Click here now for my expert e-guide to the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.
Hermits Rest to Bright Angel
Outside the three corridor trails, the 25-mile hike from Hermits Rest to the Bright Angel Trailhead may be the park’s most popular, for many good reasons. Although it does not go all the way to the Colorado River—unless you take any of a few side trails off this route that descend to the river (each adding several miles round-trip)—this linkup of the Hermit, Tonto, and Bright Angel trails nonetheless offers an experience similar to a rim-to-river-to-rim hike that’s in many ways easier.
The rigorous Hermit Trail—the hardest section of this hike—snakes through one of the dramatic tributary canyons of the Colorado River, below colorful, striated cliffs of the canyon’s Supai and Redwall layers. You’ll follow a 13-mile stretch of the Tonto Trail across the gently rolling Tonto Plateau, where prickly-pear cacti and other wildflowers bloom and the views span from the rims to the river.
That stretch of the Tonto crosses five major tributary canyons of the Colorado River, including passing directly below the tall, slender rock spire and soaring burgundy cliffs in the canyon of Monument Creek, and the mind-boggling heights and three-dimensionality of the Inferno.
One more advantage of this hike: There are three reliable water sources along or a short distance off this route.
Read “One Extraordinary Day: A 25-Mile Dayhike in the Grand Canyon” about dayhiking Hermits Rest to Bright Angel Trailhead (a route I’ve also backpacked).
I can help you plan these or any trips you read about at my blog. Find out more here.
South Kaibab to Grandview Point
Like Hermits Rest to Bright Angel, the 29-mile hike from the South Kaibab Trailhead to Grandview Point provides backpackers with a full-immersion experience in the Big Ditch without as much elevation gain and loss as going all the way to the Colorado River. (In fact, this trip offers just one optional side hike to the river—down the South Kaibab Trail.)
Descending the South Kaibab Trail as the light of early morning streams across the Grand Canyon is one of the most sublime hiking experiences in America. And the Grandview Trail offers constantly changing perspectives of the canyon spreading out before you. This hike also traverses a long stretch of the scenic Tonto Plateau, with views reaching to the South and North rims and the river, crossing a handful of tributary canyons like Grapevine Creek, which itself is staggeringly deep and broad. All along this route, some of the canyon’s most distinctive formations, like the towering Zoroaster Temple, seem to grow and shrink as you approach and move away from them.
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You can combine this hike with the Hermits Rest to Bright Angel hike (above), or partly overlap the two—going from Hermits Rest to South Kaibab or Grandview Point to Bright Angel or doing either in the opposite direction. There are four water sources along this route, but only one is perennial (Grapevine Creek), so it’s better done in spring, when the other three creeks usually have water.
See my story “Dropping Into the Grand Canyon: A Four-Day Hike From Grandview Point to the South Kaibab Trail” at The Big Outside.
See the “5 Reasons You Must Backpack in the Grand Canyon.”
See all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.
