The Decent (Summary)

The entire decent took 4 hours 12 minutes. This was well under the recommended time to get to the bottom. At the end, we had just a little bit of water left. Once we were at the Phantom Ranch, there was a free water cooler available. We both had some water. I drank about 6 cups. We realized we probably did not drink enough water on the way down. We were going to try and fix that on the way out.

The biggest thing we learned on the hike down is that you cannot see all of the Grand Canyon from the rim. When we got to what we thought was the bottom, we expected to see the Colorado River. We were wrong. There are actually two canyons, the one you see from the top, and the one you do not. At the top you can see the second drop off. What you can’t see from top is the depth of the second drop off. The second drop off is equal to the depth of the first drop off at the Grand Canyon edge. There is an outer gorge and an inner gorge.