The weather warmed up shortly after dropping below the rim. We camped our first night in Cottonwood Camp, about 7 miles down and in. The next day, we trekked a flat 7 miles down to Bright Angel Campground at Phantom Ranch.
After lunch, we came up with the brilliant idea that "since we're here, why don't we hike up to the South Rim, too?" Bag two rims with one trip. We calculated that Phantom Ranch was 7 horizontal miles from the and only one vertical mile from the South Rim. Twenty-one miles in one day is a lot for one day, but we were getting passed by thru-hikers all day so we figured we could do it. Plus, there there is beer and hamburgers on the rim. Of course to pull off a stunt like this, you need to be good at ignoring warning signs.
(Click on the picture to read the fine print)
Also, you have to ignore that the menu at the Phantom Ranch restaurant/store has beer and steak.
Fortunately, all three of us are good at ignoring things. Look how happy we were when we got to the South Rim:
Totally worth it.
Oh, it turns out that Phantom Ranch is 9 miles from the South Rim, so our 21 mile hike was actually 25. The beer and hamburger were awfully good, though.
The next day, we made our way back up to Cottonwood Campground. We did not have any bright ideas on this day -- our feet hurt too much.
On our final night and morning, we went into "locust" mode and ate as much of our food as we could so we would have the energy to make it up the North Rim, which is about 1000 ft higher than the South. We had a great hike and it even ended with a terrific view of the San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff.
Rim to Rim to Rim!
