Hawaii trip Fotos - Maui & Haleakala National Park

Hawaii trip Fotos - Big Island & Volcanoes National Park

Hawaii trip Fotos - Oahu

Grand Canyon West

One of the highlights of the recent road that I and Anu did to Vegas and Canyon was Grand Canyon West. This place is popular for the Grand Canyon Skywalk. This place is around 230 miles from GC South Rim & around 150 miles from Vegas. In order to reach this place you need to pass thru a stretch of around 18 miles of unpaved road. The moment we left Route 93(Vegas to Kingsman highway) it was as if we had stepped outside the civilization. There were not much vehicles on the road. After around close to 15-20 miles or so you get this right turn for GC West. I was initially a little scared to go bcos i didnt expect unpaved road and we were in the middle of nowhere with no cell connection. What the heck after having driving so much distance I was not prepared to head back without seeing the Skywalk. It took us another hour long minute ride on the unpaved road to reach GC west.

The best place about this place is that it was not much crowded unlike GC south rim. The landscape and the canyon view was very good. You dont get the wide vistas like you get in south rim however it was still very good. We had under estimated the time we will need there. You can spend a good day here. There are quite a few sight seeing points. The Skywalk was very good. Its a little scary to get onto the glass floor looking down at the ground however once you get a hang of it this is that scary.

We went to the Skywalk/Eagle ridge and Guano point. We also met some native indians - Hualapai tribe and we saw a dance performance by them. It was impressive and a good cultural experience. Not too often do you get to see native indians in their traditional costumes and performing their traditional dances. There is a Hualapai ranch there which is also supposed to be good. However we didnt have time and i had to turn back. I had to drive the unpaved road while it was dark. We spent around 4 hrs there at the RIM it was dark by the time we turned back.There were a bunch of cars that was leaving with me so it was not that bad. Once we came back to the paved road the darkness was very impressive. The night was absolutely pitch dark. It was the 3rd or 4th day after new moon so there was not much light coming from the Moon. This place would make an amazing stargazing location. Overall I was very impressed with this place and would definitely go back there given a chance.

Pls see below some of the snaps we had taken during this trip.

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Grand Canyon Trip

The below snaps were taken during my trip to Grand Canyon South Rim during the thangsgiving weekend in 2008.As part of this trip we did a short 1/2 day hike into the canyon. We did a close to 7 mile hike in the Bright Angel trail. We went a little past the 3 mile point (just before Indian Gardens), roughly around 2500ft altitude change and returned back. The weather was perfect with a great sunshine, hardly any wind and a temperature of around mid-50's. This was Anu's first hike into the canyon. We really enjoyed the hike. The had amazing views of the canyon during the hike. This is my fifth trip to GC in as many years and this place never ceases to amaze me with its wonderful sights.

With this i have hiked all the key trails in GC. Last year i did the rim to rim day hike along south kaibab & north kaibab trail, This trip i did the bright angel trial, I have done parts of the Rim trail, Hermit trail and Grand view trail during some of my earlier trips. The view from inside the canyon is very different from the view from the top. The rim-rim day hike that i did last year was my toughest hike to date.

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Alaska - The last frontier - Final Part: Kenai Fjords National Park

Kenai Fjords is the smallest national park in Alaska. It represents the quintessential coastal Alaska with rugged & scenic landscape, majestic glaciers, unforgiving stormy seas, rocky headlands, magnificient fjords, diverse wildlife(birds, animals & marine life) and last but not the least, minimal human footprints. It is in the south central part of the state bordering Gulf of Alaska. The access town to Kenai Fjords is Seward, AK which is around 130 miles south of Anchorage.  The drive between Anchorage and Kenai is spectacular and is one of the top scenic drives in Alaska/US. The crown jewel of Kenai fjords NP is the Harding Ice field, which is around 700 Sq miles of glacial ice around a mile thick that was formed during the last ice age. This is the largest icefield in US and it covers more than half of the national park. There are around 33 glaciers flowing off this ice field, six of them are Tide water glaciers that flow into the sea. This park is best viewed from the sea(Kayaking/cruise boats). There is only one road into this park going upto Exit glacier. This park is well known for its marine life and is a popular whale watching spot.

On day 4 of our Alaska trip we drove from Denali to Seward, this is an almost 400 mile drive passing thru Anchorage. We left Denali around 9:30am and reached Anchorage around 2:00pm. We returned our camping gear at REI, grabbed a quick lunch and headed out to Seward around 3:30pm. The road to Seward hugs the shore of a Fjord for around 35-40miles. This section of the drive is very scenic, we made around half a dozen stops along different points during the drive. The weather was brilliant, we had great sunshine and blue skies which accentuated the beauty of this place. Initially when we started this drive it was low tide and the sand bars/ground was visible in most places in the Fjord. Shortly there after the high tide set-in. We were very lucky to witness what is called as "Boar Tide". This is basically a wall of water that comes like an inland wave(similar to what we see in beaches). The tide was around 1-2 ft tall. This is not the best boar tide in the world never the less it is a rare sight. 

One of the key stops we made in this stretch was at Beluga Point. There is a small rocky outcrop stretching out to the sea. I and Anu wanted to have a little adventure and climbed up this rock. It was not very big (roughly 75-100ft) however it was fairly tough and needed some advanced scrambling skills. Both of us ended up with a few scratches and Anu had a sprained ankle on completion of this climb. The view from the top of this rock was worth the climb. As the high tide set in we saw numerous Beluga whales which came along with the tide from this point. Beluga's are white colored whales roughly 10-15ft in length. They are found in the arctic waters only and are a very rare sight. Unfortunately we couldn't film these whales as they surface for 1-2 seconds take a quick breath and go down quickly unlike most other whales that stay at the surface for longer time and spout water while breathing. We made few more stops along the route, hung around for sometime enjoying the scenery and taking pictures and finally reached Seward around 8pm or so that night. We were staying in a Bed and Breakfast - Mobydick hostel for the next 2 nights.

The next day the weather started turning bad, it was very foggy and there was a storm expected later that day/next day. So we debated and finally decided to go ahead with our initial plan of the day long cruise through Resurrection bay and Aialik Bay. The cruise would take around7-8hrs long going upto Aialik glacier which is a large & popular tide water glacier and would drop us back at Seward. The first stretch of the cruise was scenic and we enjoyed the scenery. We saw Harbour seals, Bald eagle, Puffins, mountain goats etc. Ressurection Bay and Aialik bay are parallel to each other and we need to pass thru a short stretch of open sea(30-45 minutes) to reach Aialik bay. After a couple of hours when we reached this stretch of open sea it became very rough and the boat was bobbing up and down almost 10-15ft. Four of us(Me, Anu, Anitha & Anand) were caught in the front of the boat where this turbulence was more accentuated and we were getting sprayed with ice cold water. It was a pretty scary experience as we were caught in this suddenly and we couldn't leave our hand-holds to move back inside the boat. After about 5 mins the captain decided to turn back due to rough seas. Once the boat turned back into the bay the sea started to calm down. On the way back we saw Bear glacier, which is another Tide water glacier and some more scenery before returning to Seward. That afternoon we did some souvenir shopping and we went to Alaska Sealife center and watched some marine life there - Seals, Walruses, Penguins, Belugas etc.

The next day as well the weather was bad, however we were determined not to let the weather hamper our plans. We decided to go ahead and visit Exit Glacier. This is the only part of the park that can be accessed thru the road. This is around 10 miles from Seward. It was raining that day. We got ourselves some rain suits and went ahead with the Harding ice field hike. It is a strenous 8 mile round trip hike along the edge of the Exit glacier. It is a very scenic hike that takes us up roughly 3000ft high providing panoramic views of both Exit glacier and the Harding ice field. You also get great views of the sorrounding mountain ranges and the river flowing off Exit glacier. We saw a lot of wild flowers during this hike. Since it was raining we couldn't take too many pictures during this  hike. 

The trail was very slippery at places due to the rain. As you climb up and go higher you can see the vegetation changing from dense forest to Tundra landscape. Once you go beyond the tree line we were pretty exposed to the elements and it was very cold(probably mid 30's F). We went almost 3/4th of the trail upto the 3 mile mark. Around this point is where the Exit Glacier starts flowing from the Harding ice field. It offers excellent views of both Exit Glacier and  the initial stretch of Harding ice field. After resting here for a few minutes we decided to turn back due to bad weather. Over all we took around 4-5 hrs for the complete hike. Though the weather was bad and it was pretty cold, the hike is really worth the effort. We saw the glacier/ice field up close and we enjoyed the magnificient scenery of this area. We completed the hike around 4:30pm and it was time to head back to Anchorage. Like all good things our trip was coming to an end. The return trip to Anchorage was uneventful as the weather was bad and also bcos were tired/partly wet from the hike. We finally came back to Anchorage at around 8:30pm and grabbed a quick dinner and boarded our flights back home.

Looking back, the last 6 days has been wonderful and some of the best I've had. We had a chance to experience some of the greatest & the most magnificient scenery on earth, we also saw a lot of diverse wildlife which is rare these days. For me it was a dream come true after 5 long years. My resolve to visit Alaska only deepened after this visit. I definitely do hope to come back again to Alaska sometime down the line and enjoy its treasures!! Next time around I want to come here in winter to view Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) and if possible try my hand at Mushing :-)

Alaska - The last Frontier - Part II: Denali National Park

Finally i found time to write the second part of this article. I will cover about the Denali national park visit in this blog.

Denali national park gets its name from the native Athabaskan name for Mt. McKinley. It means "The high one". It is one of the largest national parks in America at 6 million acres. The centerpiece of the national park is Mt. McKinley which is the highest peak in North America at 20,320ft. The Alaska range of mountains runs through the center of the park and offers breathtaking landscape with its perpetually snow covered peaks and glacially carved valleys. The range is also the source of several glacially fed streams & braided rivers. 

Most of the Denali national park is a designated wilderness area. There is a 90-mile road from the entrance of the park to Kantishna(Old Mining community) that offers the only connection to external world. Visitors are allowed to drive in their vehicles for the first 15 miles of this road. There are regular shuttle buses that ferry visitors beyond Mile 15. The round trip from Visitor center to Kantishna and back takes around 10-12 hrs. There are also no designated trails in the park unlike most of the national parks in US. So you can pretty much get off the road and hike wherever you want !!

The vegetation in the park varies from Taiga to Tundra. At lower elevations and near the entrance of the park the vegetation consists of boreal forests consisting of coniferous trees like pine, spruce & willows etc. As you travel deeper and higher into the park the coniferous trees start becoming shorter and stunted and gradually pave way to Tundra landscape consisting of Moss, Fern, Lichens & grasses. As you go even higher you start encountering barren landscape which has been stripped bare by the natural elements. The transformation of the vegetation/landscape from Taiga to Tundra is pretty dramatic.

We took the shuttle bus from visitor center and went up to Eielsen Visitor center(Mike 66) on both the days. Few miles out from the visitor center the road starts climbing and roughly between miles 10-14 you can get a view of Mt. McKinley on a clear day. The scenery on this stretch is very beautiful. You can see the changing vegetation and stunted pines here. Late August/early September is fall in Denali and the whole landscape consisted of plants in different hues of red's, yellow's and brown's. This stretch is also a popular Moose watching area. We saw around 3-4 moose in this stretch. The nearest one we saw was at 50ft and it was a bull Moose sporting huge antlers!!

The Savage river camp ground where we camped was at Mile 14. A mile from this campground the road descends and goes across the savage river and you get to a check post. Only Park shuttles are allowed beyond this point. We got off at this point and did a short 3 mile hike by the savage river. The hike follows the river for little over a mile. Here there is a small wooden bridge allowing you to cross the river. We Crossed over and followed the river on the other side back to the road. We saw marmot & arctic squirrel in our hiking path(<10 ft) on the way back. There were some good, challenging rocks where we tried our hand at climbing/bouldering during this hike:-).

After the savage river the road climbs back again to Primrose ridge and descends to Sanctuary river/campground. This is a primitive campground with minimal facilities. Few more miles along the road you get to Teklanika river(Mile 30). The shuttle makes the first stop at this point. There is a nice viewpoint for viewing the Teklanika river which is very wide and braided. There is also a campground at this place. It looks like couple of Grizzlies had visited the campground the night before :-). From here on the next 20-30 miles the possibility of seeing Grizzlies is good. Infact we saw around half a dozen plus grizzlies in the stretch between here and Eeilson visitor center. Beyond this point the park road is unpaved and is a gravel road.

As we continue along the road we pass thickly wooded stretch for a few miles. We cross the Igloo campground and we start climbing up. This area is a good hiking area and there are multiple mountain tops that you could hike to like Igloo mountain, Cathedral mountain, Sable mountain, Double mountain etc. You get a great view of the Alaska range from these mountain tops. These mountain tops are also very popular with Dall Sheep which graze along the steep and precipitous slopes. We saw quite a few Dall sheep on these slopes. They normally graze in small groups. If you notice any white specs on these mountains its the Dall sheep. 

The road then goes past the sable pass, descends and we cross the East fork river. This and the Tolkat river beds are a popular spot for Grizzlies. We go off the bus here for a hike. We tried to climb down off a steep & slippery slope(roughly 200ft) without much success. We followed the road for a little bit and got off on a small side road which leads to a winter cabin by the river side. As we hiked down the path and came around a bend we ran into a red fox. It had just hunted a small animal(possibly Squirrel)and was eating it in the path. We stopped a good 25-30 ft from this Fox. To our surprise, the fox started walking towards us and it crossed us and disappeared into the brush!!!! We saw the fox at <10ft distance. One of the things that really surprised me was that most of the animals in this park are not afraid of humans. We continued our hike along the river bank, spent some time there and hiked back out.

From here, the road climbs back very steeply for a few hundred mtrs and you pass thru stretches with steep drops. The top of the climb takes you to Polychrome overlook(Mile 47). You get a nice panaromic view of the Alaska range and the Tolkat river from here. The landscape here is amazing. You can see all the different colors in the palette as part of the scenery. There is also a short hike from here to the Polychrome mountain. This would give you a even better view of this landscape and on a clear day you could see Mt McKinley. 

Further along, the road descends to the Tolkat river. There is a visitor station here on the river bed displaying some artifacts & books regarding Alaska. This river bed is also a popular hiking spot and you have a good possibility of seeing some wildlife(Caribou & Grizzly). The river is huge and the river bed stretches a good 1+ mile across. The road continues to climb through highway pass and then you go thru a sharp descent, series of hairpin bends and few miles further down you get to Eielson visitor center(Mile 66). We saw a large caribou with huge antlers during this drive. From Eielson visitor center you can some of the best views of Mt McKinley. The best months for viewing McKinley is in Winter when the sky is clear. We were at Denali for 3 days and were not successful in viewing the mountain. The visitor center has a good clay model of the Alaska range and the surrounding mountains. It clearly highlights the various glaciers, climbing paths, features etc. It looks like from this point on it becomes very foggy even in the best weather conditions. We stopped at this point and didn't continue due to bad visibility. 

Beyond this point the road goes through a flat stretch and reaches Wonder Lake at Mile 85. You pass the Muldrow Glacier on the way. This is one of the largest glaciers originating in Mt McKinley and is around 30 miles long. This used to be one of the major climbing paths to the top of McKinley during early days. On Clear days the view of Mt McKinley from Wonder Lake is supposed to be one of the most beautiful views of the mountain. You get a clear reflection of the mountain on the lake. We same some fotos of this at the visitor center and it was breathtaking. Few more miles from here the road ends at Kantishna which used to a mining village during the early 1900's.

In terms of wild life Denali is the Serengeti of North America. Some of the wild like we saw during this trip include Grizzlies, Caribou, Moose, Dall Sheep, Red fox, Marmot, Arctic Squirrel, Cayote and Snow shoe hare. Some of the major birds we saw include Golden Eagle, Ptarmigan, Arctic Warblers and Gyrfalcons.

Overall we had a great trip to Denali and we really enjoyed the scenery and wild life. Though we were there for around 2.5 to 3 days it was over in a flash and i wish we had some more time to spend here.

To be continued. The final part of this series will cover our trip to Kenai Fjords National park.

Alaska snaps - Kenai Fjords National Park

You could also check out these snaps at the below link
Kenai Fjords National Park

My visit to Alaska - "The last frontier" : Part 1

I am currently in the middle on my Alaska trip and writing this blog from there.

Alaska is truly one of the last frontiers in the new world where nature is at its best. It is vast, remote, undeveloped with miles upon miles of wilderness teeming with wildlife. It is a very scenic place with magnificient vistas & sights. For those who don't know where Alaska is, it is on the North West end of North America continent bordering Canada on the east, Bering Sea in the west/South and Arctic ocean in the north. The eastern most end of Russia(Kamkatcha) is around 60 miles from Alaska. Alaska is the largest state in the US with around 656k sq miles total area, which is 1/5th the size of continental US.

Alaska has been one of my dream destinations and has been in my "Must Visit" list for close to 5+yrs now. I finally managed to take off to Alaska during this labor weekend. We planned to spend 5 full days in Alaska visiting Denali National park and Kenai Fjords National park. I took couple of days off from work, combined it with the 3 day weekend and headed to Alaska on 27th Aug. We planned to return back to Dallas on 2nd September. My cousin Anand and his wife Anitha are joining Anu and me for this trip.

We flew into Anchorage and are planning to spend 2 days in Denali, 2 days in Kenai Fjords and do the scenic drive from Anchorage to Seward between the two trips. The four of us reached Anchorage on 27th evening around the same time. We rented a car and drove to REI to rent camping gear and headed out to Denali. We had to stopover on the way for dinner & for buying food/grocery supplies for camping. Finally we reached Anchorage around 1pm in the night. We pitched our tents and by the time we hit the bed it was around 2pm. The drive was very scenic, Sun was up till around 10pm.

I will continue the with more details on our trip in my next post. Its getting fairly late here and we have an early start tomorrow. I have posted couple of snaps from our trip here.

Chugach National Forest - It is on the way between Anchorage & Seward

Anitha, Anand, Nandu & Anu at Polychrome overlook at Denali NP

Exploring Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico

The last few weeks was very hectic and i was really looking forward to the Christmas long weekend. After much deliberation i decided to drive down to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. This place has been in my 'To Visit' list for a while. It's a fairly long drive, around 550 miles one-way from Dallas. Due to my hectic schedule I didn't have much time to plan for this trip. The day before the trip i booked us into a hotel in Carlsbad city. We started driving on Friday aftn and reached Carlsbad, NM around mid-night after a 9hr drive. Carlsbad city is about 28 miles from the caverns and is the nearest city. We had this as our base for this visit. I was accompanied by my wife Anu and my in-laws for this trip.

We started a little late on day 2 and reached caverns around Noon. There are 2 major tours in the caverns, First one is a self guided tour of the big room which is one of the largest cavern rooms in the world the second one is a ranger guided tour to a set of rooms called Kings Palace. We decided to do start off with the big room tour. The big room can be accessed by a mile long hike down the natural entrance of the cavern or alternatively thru an elevator ride. The choice was easy, we chose to hike down. The climb down was fairly steep and the first part of the cave had few formations. Towards the end of the hike is when you start seeing a lot of formations. We passed through devils spring, witch's finger and iceberg rock(200k ton rock that broke loose from the cave ceiling thousands of yrs back!!), Bone yard on the way down. The end of the hike puts you in the big room. One thing that struck me about this cavern was its enormity. Right from the entrance, to whole way down & of course the big room was unbelievably huge. NPS has done amazing work with the lighting and had kept it close to natural. It really accentuated some of the formations in the caverns.

The big room is a very large room with a square footage of around 8.2 acres, You could fit around 14 football fields into this room!! This room had tons of gigantic formations. We saw various different types of formations like stalagtites, stalagmites, columns, Soda straws, drapes, mushrooms, dams etc.. Some of the key structures we saw are The giants, Temple of Sun, Grand chandalier, Lion Tail, Bottomless pit, Mirror lake etc. We took around 2.5-3hrs to tour this place. There is a huge lunch room/visitor cente in one corner of the big room. Here you could eat in the restaurant at 750ft below ground level !!!

On Day 3 we accidentally bumped into one of my old friends Deepak & his wife Priya. It was a big surprise as this place is very remote and is one of the last places i would've expected to meet a friend. Anu and I hiked down the natural entrance again with Deepak & Priya. All of us went for the Kings Palace tour. This is one of the most ornate rooms in the whole caverns. This was a ranger guided tour. It was a very different experience, All the lights were turned off and each of us carried a lantern to give us a flavor of how the initial explorers experienced the caverns. There was one point in the tour we were asked to turn off all the lanterns to give us a feel of the darkness. It was so pitch dark and we couldn't see our hands placed 1 inch from the face!! On completion of the tour we did some more sight-seeing of the big room to finish the day.

On the final day of our tour we decided to go for a short scenic desert loop near Carlsbad caverns. The drive was on unpaved road and you could see lot of desert vegetation & wild life along the way. We sighted couple of musk deer & few birds during the drive. On completion of the drive we headed to Guadalupe mountains national park. This is about 35 miles south of the caverns. The drive was across a vast stretch of desolate land with no civilization. Guadalupe mountains national park is one of the least developed of the national parks. The best way to see the park is by hiking. There are very few roads in the park. We did a short hike(2.5 miles) at smith springs trial in the Frijole ranch. The hike was very scenic and provided a great view. We were able to see almost up to 50+ miles. The park also hosts the highest point in Texas - Guadalupe peak at some 87xx ft. I had done this hike couple of yrs back.

All good things come to an end :-( . We started the long drive back to Dallas around 5pm and reached home around 2am in the morning. Overall this has been a wonderful trip. We really enjoyed the sights & scenery of both Carlsbad caverns and Guadalupe national park. If you like solitude and you want to get away from the maddening crowds, nothing to beat western Texas & new Mexico in the continental US !!!

Hiking the Grand Canyon !!

Pls find below a short write up on my dream hike to Grand Canyon few days back..

After 4 yrs of waiting finally i got a chance to hike the grand canyon this year.. One of my friends was planning a rim-rim hike between oct 13th and Oct 16th.. As soon as i knew this i jumped at it and confirmed my participation. For those who haven't heard about Grand canyon, this is the biggest canyon in the world. The canyon was carved by Colorado river and at the widest point the it is 16 miles wide. It looks really massive and impressive. You need to see it to realize its enormity and beauty.

GC rim-rim is one of the top day hikes in the world and is a very tough one.It is a 21 mile(34km) hike. You need to descend around 5000 ft from south rim to the Colorado river and climb up 6400ft to the north rim.. The unique nature of the hike that differentiates it from other hikes is you ascend first before descending in a regular hike, here you descend first and then ascend. That makes this hike even more tougher bcos the descend is pretty steep and by the time you descend your legs/knees get tired.. We took a trail called Kaibab trail for the hike. We descended thru the south kaibab trail (7miles from south rim to the river) and ascended through north kaibab trail (14 miles from river to north rim).

My team for the hike included 9 members - 4 Indians and 5 Americans. Rina was our leader and she organized this hike. She, her husband Radha(Short for Radhakrishnan), myself, my friend Kaushal, Rina's neighbors Bob & Peggy, Rina's colleague Austin, his girl friend Courtney and Rick(from New Zealand) completed our group. Most of my group was doing a round trip hike (south to north and back). Only myself and Kaushal were doing a one way hike from South to North rim and we were planning to drive back from North rim. In order for us to do this we had to drop our car in north rim before the hike.

On the weekend eve of the hike all of us flew into Phoenix airport and assembled at Flagstaff(2.5hrs from Phoenix). On Saturday 13rd we drove to GC south rim and from there myself and Rina drove in 2 cars to North rim. We dropped Rina's car in North Rim and drove back to south rim on my car. The drive from south to North rim is around 230 miles and around 4 - 4.5hrs.. On the way back i smoked the roads and made it back in little over 3hrs!!! We assembled back in the south rim for dinner around 7pm and hit the bed early (by 10pm). We were staying in the Yavapai lodge in south rim for the night.

The day of hike we were up by around 3:30am and we drove to the trial head and assembled there. The South kaibab trail head was around 74xx ft in height. Once all of us were in we started the hike at 4:30am. It was still very dark when we started the hike.. The night sky was cloudless and starry. It looked beautiful. The sunrise in the canyon was amazing. The early morning sun accentuated the reddish color of the canyon. Bob was leading the group and i was pulling up the rear. It is around 7 miles from the south rim to Colorado river. We made pretty good pace on the way down. We stopped at couple of places for around 15-20 minutes for rest and reached the river around 8am. We had to hike by the side of the river for around 3/4th of a mile to reach phantom ranch. This was a small lodge with multiple cottages established in 1920's. We stopped at phantom ranch for around 45 minutes and had breakfast. The view of the canyon from river level was very different and it was beautiful. The river is the lowest point of the hike at around 2400ft.

We left the lodge and hiked the next stretch to cottonwood campground -7 miles from Phantom ranch and it is the 14 mile mark from south rim. This portion of the hike was flat to slightly up. We gain about 1600 foot of elevation in this stretch. For most part we hike alongside a small creek with towering rock walls on either side. The stretch was very scenic like most parts of the canyon. We made pretty good pace in this stretch as well and covered this in little under 3 hrs. We made couple of 15-20 minute stops enroute. We reached the cottonwood campground around 12 noon. We rested there for around 45 minutes and had some energy bars, filled up water and started for the last stretch..

The last stretch between cottonwood campground and North rim is around 7 miles. This is the toughest part of the hike where we ascend around 4800ft. As soon as the trail leaves the campground it starts climbing and it remains that way for most part. There are very few flat/down runs in this stretch. Rest of the group hiked pretty fast in this stretch and they went ahead. Myself and Kaushal were pretty slow on this stretch. I started having cramps in both my legs as soon as we started to ascend. I had some electrolyte replacements and continued in a slow pace. Since most portions of this hike was exposed the sun was beating down on us making us sweat more and tiring us quicker. We made innumerable stops in this stretch and just managed to keep going. We had almost two dozen hikers pass by. We made decent pace in the first half of this stretch. We reached the halfway mark a little after 3pm.. However we really slowed down after that the next 3 miles took us around 3+ hrs. The last mile was the longest. We were so tired that we found it very tough to carry on. By this time the sun had set and it was dark. we covered the last 30 minutes with flash lights.. Finally little after 6:30pm we reached the top and our mission was accomplished. It took us 14hrs to complete this marathon hike.

I was totally drained after the hike and had a really bad body ache. As soon as i came back i took a shower grabbed some quick dinner and hit the bed. The rest of my team had done pretty good pace. The fastest was Bob(10.5 hrs) and the rest followed at regular intervals.. The next day we got up late had breakfast with the rest of the team and i left north rim around 10:15am drove back to south rim dropped off some of the stuff and headed back to phoenix.. Overall i was very happy to have completed the hike. This hike was a eye opener for me in terms of fitness. I seemed to be in bad shape.. This was the worst shape i have been in years.. One of the key take away's for me was to get back into shape..

The rest of my team continued the hike back to south rim on 16th and they completed it successfully. Bob did trail running for most part and completed in an incredible 6.5hrs!!! The rest of the team took around 10.5hrs on the way back... It felt really good to complete this hike as i was dreaming of doing this ever since i first visited Grand Canyon in 2003. It was a dream come true !!!!

Pls check out the hike pics in http://picasaweb.google.com/shogun1947