The Trailhead to Supai Tunnel.
We left Jacobs Lake sometime after 4:30 in the morning. The drive was beautiful and I ate my muffin on the way there as well as cup of pear slices I picked up. There were a million buffalo out on the meadows, and tons of little baby ones! I tried to get a good picture, but it was hard when shooting from a moving bus.
We arrived at the North Kaibab Trailhead at 5:40 am. This is us getting off the buses (there were about 90 of us total), a shot of me looking excited and exhausted, a picture of the water shut off notice, and one of the trail.
When I picked up my bag again, I noticed I had set it down on top of a fossil brachiopod! I was sooooo happy! I took this to be a good omen, a sign that the hike would be magical, and that only good things would befall me.
Antoline and I decided to hike together. She hadn't done as much prep work as I had, and was slightly concerned that she was in over her head. I promised to make sure she made it out the other side and we hiked down together, hitting the trailhead at 5:50 am.
The North Kaibab Trail starts out at 8,240 ft. elevation, and it's a 14 mile descent to Phantom Ranch. The sun was still rising, and it was in the high 30's, but I really didn't need my sweatshirt. We made our way down to the first checkpoint, Coconino Overlook. At this point we'd come 0.7 miles, and were now at an elevation of 7,450 ft. We got here around 6:10 am.
By the time we reached the overlook, I could already feel my knee just barely starting to nag me. I wrapped it in an ace bandage as a preventative measure, and added my band over the top of it. I also took my allergy pill, B vitamin, and an advil in an attempt to stay in front of any pain. This seemed to work pretty well and my knee felt much more stable from here on out. I also ate half a cliff bar, and we agreed to stop and make sure we both ate something every half an hour or so so that we didn't get behind on calories early in the game. We continued down the trail without issue.
There were fat little rock squirrels everywhere. They were super cute, but they carry fleas that carry the bubonic plague, so we kept our distance. (This is a fact that always makes me giggle, and I'm sad that I failed to take a picture of one of the many 'Squirrels carry the plague' signs that were scattered throughout the park.)
The North Kaibab Trail is beautiful. This is true really, of the whole dang canyon, and my pictures don't even begin to capture it. We meandered down the trail, being passed pretty regularly by many of the other members of our group. We went slower than we needed to, both because there were so many things I needed to take pictures of, and because I was acutely aware of what the ramifications of a hasty descent would be for my knees. We set a slow and steady pace and maintained it for the rest of the day.
We reached Supai Tunnel right around 6:30. 1.7 miles down and at an elevations of 6,800 ft. This would be the last working water stop for us before we reached Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon, a long 12.3 miles ahead of us. We topped off our bladders, ate some more food, used the restrooms, and were on our way.
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