{"id":426,"date":"2011-07-13T16:09:32","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T23:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/?p=426"},"modified":"2013-09-08T13:56:32","modified_gmt":"2013-09-08T20:56:32","slug":"descending-into-middle-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/?p=426","title":{"rendered":"Descending Into Middle Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"feet\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chinnymedia.com\/images\/2011\/xtgrandcanyon\/xtgrandcanyon001.jpg?resize=625%2C391\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"391\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I have been to the bottom of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nps.gov\/grca\/index.htm\">Grand Canyon<\/a> and I have lived to speak of it. I am being a bit facetious with my melodrama, although many have and will die venturing into the canyon. It is not a trip to enter into unprepared, but its rewards are spectacular.<\/p>\n<p>I have been a member of Karl&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.extremethings.com\/\">Extreme Things<\/a> Adventure Club for a few years now. We&#8217;ve been many places and tried many things, yet this was our first collective trip into the Grand Canyon. I had only been once over a decade ago and had only spent a couple of hours at the rim. This time we would backpack down to the river, spend the night, and hike back up the following day. \u00c2\u00a0The canyon is roughly a mile deep. The hike to Bright Angel Campsite at the bottom is roughly 7-8 miles. The hike back out via a different trail would be 9 miles&#8230;all uphill.\u00c2\u00a0The air temperature topped 100 degrees during the middle of the day. Heat exhaustion is a serious concern, especially with 40+ lbs. on your back. This was the first Extreme Things event I&#8217;ve been on where Karl felt it necessary to turn down participants he didn&#8217;t think were physically capable. Backpacking the Grand Canyon is a great\u00e2\u20ac\u201dalbeit arduous\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtrip, but it is beyond the capabilities of many. \u00c2\u00a0Do not attempt it if you are inexperienced. We saw several people hiking down with little or no water. My hope is they turned around before they exceeded their personal thresholds.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"tree and sunset\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chinnymedia.com\/images\/2011\/xtgrandcanyon\/xtgrandcanyon002.jpg?resize=625%2C469\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"469\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I could write more about the trip and eventually I may. I will also post a <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/album\/1485180\">GoPro<\/a> video eventually. For the time being, enjoy some of the photos. If you want to see even more, check out my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/media\/set\/?set=a.1943959810216.112089.1579130861&amp;l=bf2d892d6b\">Facebook album<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"rocks\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chinnymedia.com\/images\/2011\/xtgrandcanyon\/xtgrandcanyon003.jpg?resize=625%2C833\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"833\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"plant and sunset\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chinnymedia.com\/images\/2011\/xtgrandcanyon\/xtgrandcanyon004.jpg?resize=625%2C469\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"469\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"skystreak\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chinnymedia.com\/images\/2011\/xtgrandcanyon\/xtgrandcanyon005.jpg?resize=625%2C833\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"833\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"river silhouette\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chinnymedia.com\/images\/2011\/xtgrandcanyon\/xtgrandcanyon006.jpg?resize=625%2C833\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"833\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"bridge crossing\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chinnymedia.com\/images\/2011\/xtgrandcanyon\/xtgrandcanyon007.jpg?resize=625%2C833\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"833\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"low rocks\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chinnymedia.com\/images\/2011\/xtgrandcanyon\/xtgrandcanyon008.jpg?resize=625%2C833\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"833\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"vibrant sunset\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chinnymedia.com\/images\/2011\/xtgrandcanyon\/xtgrandcanyon009.jpg?resize=625%2C469\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"469\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and I have lived to speak of it. I am being a bit facetious with my melodrama, although many have and will die venturing into the canyon. It is not a trip to enter into unprepared, but its rewards are spectacular. I have been a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[244],"tags":[68,91,90,71,197,52,29,28],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fourchinnigan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}