Grand Canyon Winter Rim to River back to Rim Hike

Started at Mather Point towards South Kaibab Trail.
South Kaibab Trail to Phantom Ranch.
Came up on the Bright Angel Trail and ended at the Bright Angel Lodge.
Hiked on Dec 31, 2013. Started at 7am finished at 8pm with a 1hr lunch at Phantom ranch. Temps hit low as 17F (-8C). So the trail was icy at times.

Enjoy the photos. Photos taken with EOS M, iPhone 5s and D600. More on flickr.

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Very nice shots, incredible hike.

That last shot is amazing.

thanks all!

wow that last shot is great! what a great new years for you with that hike. just wonderful.

I did that same day hike December 15, a couple of weeks before your hike. Here's my shot of that frozen waterfall on the BA trail... Mine's a little tighter frame, but see how much ice has melted from my day to your day. We also started at the South Kaibab trailhead, also at 7AM, I think the temp was 12F when we started hiking. We only saw 8 other hikers on the South Kaibab trail on our way down, the smallest number I can ever recall on my many many hikes down that trail. It was in the mid-30's at Phantom when we spent half an hour at the cafe around 10AM. BA campground had 3 spots occupied as we headed out. We ate lunch at Indian Gardens around 1PM , the number of hikers we saw was increasing, but even that campground was pretty deserted. BA trail from 3 Mile resthouse to the top had a lot more people, but that's expected any time. I think the temp at the BA trailhead was in the 30's when we got out at 4:30. We wore Kahtoola Microspikes on the upper parts of both the SK and BA trails, ice on SK and packed snow on BA. We were originally planning to hike that loop the weekend before, but the temps were maybe 15-20 degrees lower that weekend. We're glad we waited........ Glad you enjoyed that hike, it's a long hike with a lot of elevation change over that distance!

Heya,

Looks like a nice hike.

Very best,

LBinAZ nice.

we went kinda slow going down, took stops at every scenic stop, but once we past skeleton point, we sped up. the hardest part was the last 3 miles of BA trail going up since it was around 7pm, freezing, icy and dark. but still a good hike. we saw about 100 people new years eve day.