The Grand Canyon - giant of all valleys!

There was really a bus going to the trailhead 3km away at 4am just for hikers!!, which I really appreciated (actually I could have walked the distance easily) but it must be horrible for the bus drivers to get up that early just to give one or two hikers a 2km-ride. Around 4:30am I was ready for walking down and because it was just 45min till sunrise I could already see enough of the trail for walking it without my headlight.

Hiker Express at 4am

Ready to head down

All I can say about the walk down to Phantom Ranch is: Stunning!
It actually took me almost 4 hours to walk down the 1500m cause I simply had to stop so often for taking pictures and I won't tell much about what I saw and just let all the pictures speak for themselves:

The trail is basically that well maintained that it was no problem at all to walk it with my Walmart-shoes which don't cover my ankles like proper hiking-boots do. I didn't even get any plisters so probs to them! On the way down I even met several mule-caravans which where shipping goods up and down to the ranch cause this is the only way for them to get some supply and shipping out trash. Just goods weighing more than 100pounds are flew in by helicopter which is pretty expensive for them so they try to carry heavy things down in pieces to avoid the fly-in transport. Only bad thing about that is that once a caravan stopps, all the mules start to shit and pee all together what forces you to walk along 20m of very bad smelling mule-waste a couple of times. But besides of that it is a totally casual, non-technical walk and would take without all the extra photo-breaks I did probably 2 1/2h. The guy at the office really exaggerated with starting at 4am cause it never ever takes that long going down! Sure it can get very hot if you start to late but if you carry enough water it's no problem at all going downhill. Uphill is maybe different but for going downhill it's definitely alright to start at sunrise cause then you have the view over the canyon from the very top as well!

Mule caravan on the trail

Mule caravan passed...

As a result of starting super early I have been down already before 9am which actually didn't bother me at all then cause I could chill the whole day around the Bright Angel Campsite which is in a small side-canyon right along the Bright-Angel Creek next to the Phantom Ranch. After washing my clothes and having a super early lunch I spent the rest of the day (like all the other people of the campsite) lying next to but most time in the creek cooling down from the hot temperatures (110℉/43℃ in the shade!), having some nice talks with two swiss girls and enjoying the rest of a rice-pan a woman brought me cause they couldn't finish it themselves:) I actually tried swimming in the Colorado River as well but believe it or not it is simply to cold, even with 110℉ outside! But lying in the creek was way more comfortable anyway using the pools crafted by the children who built dams in the creek everywhere. That's actually quite funny when I think about it: When I was younger I loved to build dams in every little creek and now I'm letting the children do the work and using the pools for cooling down afterwards:) Like this everybody is pleased at the end:D

Taking a break at the Colorado

2months sun exposure against 2 months hidden behind socks:)

Pools in the creek

Chillin...

Temperature in the sun!

My campsite:)

Around 7:30pm one of the ranchers by the ranch invited everybody for a short talk about how the Grand Canyon developed and about all the geological facts etc. It was super interesting to listen his presentation and I could write pages about everything he said but I would stick to just the most important facts like the age of the rock layers at the very bottom of the canyon where we have been sitting in that moment is about 2 billion years! Cause the Colorado River carved through all these different rock layers you're kinda walking back in tone while you're going down and heading back to the present time while you're walking up. From all these different layers you can tell what happened around here the last two billion years, if there have been oceans or tropical forests, deserts or wetlands. Must be super interesting to be a geologist down here and actually there's still so many things to discover like the question how the canyon basically developed. The scientists of the world still haven't agreed on a certain theory yet! Hard to believe considering that this is one of the most popular geological formations in the world! Another thing I really had to ask him of course was the highest temperature ever recorded down here in the canyon. He told us that it was 120℉/49℃ in the shadow and 150℉/65℃ in the sunshine! Because tempertures in the sunshine differ a lot depending on how much the material of the thermometer heats up, you can think of this number what you want but it definitely was really hot!

After the talk we went to see some scorpions right next to the campsite. The ranger said there's like a 100% chance too see some at the certain spot we went to and yes, we saw a couple glowing neon-green under his black-light porch. Good to know that there're that many around as I was sleeping outside! He also told us that no scientist in the world has ever found out why they're glowing under black light. Probably it has something to do with their navigation-skills but that's not for sure. (lots of things undiscovered down here:)
Before I went to sleep I couldn't resist writing a couple of postcards from the ranch cause they had the stamp "Shipped out of the bottom of Grand Canyon by mule" on it so I simply had to send a couple of these:)

Mule postcards:)

The hike up the next morning then was way easier than I expected probably as a result of having a nice relaxing day before and carrying less weight cause I already ate pretty much all my food except of some energy bars:) The temperatures stayed pretty much the same the whole way cause while they're rising you're walking up into the cooler parts the same time what results in having almost the same temperature the whole way. While I was walking up (the Bright Angel Trail this time) I met the two French girls, who have been at the ranger-talk the day before as well, a couple of times as I was walking faster but they taking less brakes than me and had some nice talks while we have been walking up. (actually I have to say that the whole trail was full of French people, at least 80% of all the hikers, so strange!)

Starting at 5am

Hey bro!:)

Seems like a hummingbird but I'm not sure

Looking back into the valley

One of thousands of squirrels along the trail

Different colors on top of each other

Not a Meerkat:)

Tourist riding down the trail on a mules

Almost on the top, stunning view!

At the top we ended up having some (super expensive) ice-cream but after hiking a mile uphill that was well deserved! But you really have to pay attention on your food, cause the squirrels are crazy around here! They're so used to people that they're not afraid of anything and try everything to get to your food. One of them even climbed on me to get to one of my pretzels I was holding in my hand!! Although they're looking really cute they're actually quite nasty beasts who just think about stealing food so don't start to like them, you'll regret it!

Hiking crew:)

Stunning view, with Bretzels and ice cream:)

They're way to used to people!!

After picking up my bike at the Backcountry Center again I had still, due to my early start, more than half of the day left and was able to do another 100km towards Vegas the same day. I ended up camping right next to street close to Williams where I would join Route 66 for a while then.
But before I could go to sleep I had to stand a really scary situation first: While I was eating, a police car stopped just 30m next to me on the side of the road. At the very first moment I was totally shocked cause I thought it would be because of me but then I saw that another car was standing right in front of the police car. Just a random control apparently but right next to me!! Cause I thought that I wouldn't be allowed to camp here at all I had to sit still and couldn't move the whole time!! And the policeman really took his time, even after he let the other car go he remained where he was for another 20min so my situation turned from really scary to really annoying cause I couldn't do anything but sitting still. When he left then after almost an hour I could finally inflate my sleeping pad and fell asleep immediatley

Sunset near Williams

Afraid of some policeman stopping next to the street again I got up pretty early and was on the road even before 7am that day. Just a few kilometers down the road I got into Williams which had a short part of the old Route 66 as the main street so the town was basically filled up with 66-signs all over the place. Just taking a small stop at the local grocery store for some cookies I went on soon again out of town from where I had to take I40 for about 60km/37mi cause for another time there was no other road available. Cause I was heading down from the Colorado Plateau now it was mostly going downhill and I reached another small town on former 66 called "Seligman" around the early afternoon and cause I had reception the first time in two days it was the perfect timing for another radio call with SWR3.

Route 66 - stuff everywhere!:)

All these small towns on the old Route 66 I passed that day I already heard about or at least most of the names like Red Lake, Ash Fork, Seligman or later Peach Springs sounded pretty familiar to me and it came back to mind really quick again. All these towns have been places the main character of the novel "Half Broke Horses" lived into. This book we read in school during our English lessons and it was as well part of our final exams so we had to deal a lot with it and although I didn't like it very much it was kinda interesting to see al this places in real life which I read about in a book earlier:)

From the town of Seligman I even rode on the original historic Route 66 which was quite interesting but actually not really different to other roads. Sometimes it even seemed like they'd keep the pavement historic but I won't complain too much about that, I really had worse streets already. That day everything went so easy as it was going slightly downhill all the time and the winds were slightly in my back as well, that I almost made it to Peach Springs on kilometer 135 that day by 5pm. Well... "almost" because suddenly I was slowing down.....again! My back-tire was almost flat and had definitely a hole somewhere so I had to exchange it! But cause the air didn't seem to get out that fast I pumped it up again and hoped it would last at least the remaining 15km to Peach Springs, where I could have exchanged it with the support of cold drinks, but unfortunately it was flat again just 3km before the town! When I pulled the tube out I saw that it was the same thing like a week before: a metal wire sticking in from one of those f***ing truck-tire pieces!! Bit luckily I thought ahead and bought two extra tubes for the back in Delta but what I saw then made me cry: I bought two shrader-valves instead of the presta ones! The shrader valves are simply to thick for the whole in the wheel and so both of my extra tubes were useless! The only thing I could try except of hitchhiking to the next bike-shop (which would have been probably 100km to Kingman) was to put the extra tube in I had in store for my front wheel which is a 1,5 inch instead of a 2 inch tire like in the back and I could just hope the tube would stand the pressure cause it had rolls expand way more than it actually should! But nothing happened and everything seemed to be fine, at least for the moment...and I was able (with the support of some downhill and backwinds) to do another 40km after that and ended with more than 170km after the sun set somewhere on Route 66.

My spot for the night

The next day started completely differnt! After just 10km in a narrow valley the road lead into a wide flat area and turned south-west towards Kingman and I got the wind right into my face again! It was really strong this time and made the remaining 25km (I could see the town all the time!) feel like hell! The couple on a tandem (also cross-country cycling) didn't make me feel better when day passed me easily with their double power! But like before I also managed this (but really annoyed) and looked for a subway and a bike shop (to let the axle-thing checked) and found both. The guy in the bike shop could fix the axle pretty quick, like in less than 10minutes and charged me 20$ for that. 20$ for less than 10min!! Totally not justifiable and I think I will give this bike shop a bad rating at the end as this is definitely just ridiculous! I mean other bike shops worked longer on my bike and didn't charge me anything for that and I definitely don't expect work-for free at all but that actually means he worked for 2$ a minute and this was definitely not worth it that much! But enough about that, at least I didn't have to fear this axle thing anymore and headed on towards Vegas.

Short stop in Kingman:)

After Kingman the road turned northwest and continued exactly in that direction, totally flat for 100km/62mi until it would cross the Colorado River at the Hoover Dam. Luckily and I mean really luckily the wind blew still from a SSW-direction which gave me slightly tailwinds all the way as it was blowing from about 4o'clock! Cause the road was super flat, the shoulder perfectly paved and it went on super straight I almost made it to the Hoover Dam by sunset. It was going even that fast that I was able to do 160km by the end of the day and found myself a place to camp just  2km before the Hoover Dam so I could make it easily to Vegas the next day, so thought I...

Going straight into eternity:)

It's existing!!

Going down towards the river

Another random pass:D

And my route:)