Alright.......guys, excuse my language, but real quickly out of Manzanita, the Sh!#@$ got real. Holey moley. The North Rim is no joke!
I told a friend of mine that it was the North Rim that tested my resilience and strength the most. The Grand Canyon does not care that you are fit, or that you are a marathoner, or that you are an IRONMAN, it demands respect and takes no prisoners. The North Rim will forever be one of the hardest things I have ever done (and I will probably do it again sometime).
Rugged, rocky, exposed, it was so big.......and so incredible.
Before I left, my Momma called me as all mothers would reminding me to please, pretty please be careful and not fall off any cliffs. I promise Mom, but I had no idea what it was going to feel like to literally be walking on a trail cut out of a rock face, 4 feet wide with a cliff right there. One wrong, tired step.......well lets just say I remembered my promise real quick!
The climb was big but the views and the trail were so distracting it wasn't hard yet. In fact, it was a dream, a moment in time that I will forever remember.....I mean is this even real?
We soon crossed the red bridge and the trail took a hard turn into real hard. The word that most often sprang into my mind as I was working through all the feelings was relentless. I kept saying, this trail is relentless, the up is relentless, the rocks are relentless, the sun is relentless......
But so am I.
Bob and I put our heads down and kept moving forward. When you are climbing miles take forever. Where once a 3 mile stretch would seem like only a 5k, out in the sun on the North Kaibab trail it easily took the time of a 10 mile run. The top seemed so very close and yet it was so very far away.
We slowly started to get into the pine trees and I kept thinking, Its gotta be right there. But alas it was yet another nearly 2 miles to the top. Oh it was hard. Next time I plan on going up the North Rim I am going to train not by running trails, but by doing 500 squats a day, and add weight as I go. Then top off the training with a week of stair climbing, just hundreds of flights of stairs. It just kept going up. I will be honest, I smiled for the picture, but this took a lot of grit and determination not only to get up it, but to not remind myself that I still had to go all the way back and climb up the other side. When things get that hard at the halfway point, it truly tests those mental callouses. As an endurance athlete the key thing to do is refocus your mind on the moment. Control the moment, not the future, and don't dwell on the past. All that matters is the next step. Step, and step again, and just keep stepping.
Someday I am going to get another tattoo that says "Relentless forward motion."
Finally, finally the top came into view and we pulled ourselves up over the crest to cheers from the first of our group. The North Rim was closed to traffic so there were only the group of us R2R2R crazies that were up there. It was really cool to be amongst them. Halfway, we had made it half way. Now every step we took was going to lead us closer to home.
And its not every day you see 80 degree temperatures, and snow all in the span of a few hours on your feet!
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