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Fitness

My fitness journey, switchback #2

June 10, 2009 by Shelli

Hi there. This is post #2 of my reporting on, and sharing of my personal training program. I will be posting every week or two about my progress and learnings.

Hi. My name is Shelli. I'm 40 years old and I want to be in the best shape of my life.
Hi. My name is Shelli. I'm 40 years old and I want to be in the best shape of my life.

In case you missed it, here is Post 1, “A Mid-Life Training Program.”, which provides backstory.

So, if you’ve been following along, or know me, I’ve recently been on a pursuit. After being athletic and in great shape most of my life, I fell into a rut during the last 3-4 years.

Consider these blog posts to serve as milestones along my journey to better fitness, more energy, and fat loss. Better yet, let’s call them “switchbacks” since this is a big hill I’ve decided to climb.

This journey of mine is an important one. Until 2.5 months ago, every night I would lie in bed with a nagging regret that I had let another day pass without getting control of my fitness. Although I had never been happier in many respects, the fact I had let my fitness slide weighed heavy on me, in more ways than one. I was becoming lazy and soft. Worst of all was the fact I knew I was missing out on lots of things, fun things, as a result of my increasingly sloth-like nature.

It took me three years to take that first step into Elemental Gym and hire Steve Bechtel to be my personal trainer. Three years of hearing and seeing friends and acquaintances around town who were glowing and boasting about great results they were getting as a result of employing personal trainers (Steve Bechtel, Ellen Bechtel, and Jagoe Reid) at Elemental Gym.

Today, just 2.5 months later, I’m happy to report, I’ve lost 14 pounds and 7% bodyfat. Yeehaw! I still have a ways to go. This is a big mountain I’ve decided to climb, and I’m only beginning up the hill. But already the rewards are worth the effort. The aforementioned are measurable results that, ahem, I like. I like ’em a lot.

But so much more important than these stats is the fact that I have significantly more energy, I am happier, I can more easily bounce to the floor to have my endearing ‘dogpile’ with our three boys. These have all been wonderful signs of progress for me. Certainly, by all indications so far, it appears I’m headed in the right direction on my journey.

Beginning with this column, and in subsequent posts that will cover my pursuit of improved fitness, I’m going to put myself out there. In this age of social media and “sharing” and transparency, I’m going to disclose my beginning weight, current weight, body fat percentage, and who knows, possibly other measurements and stats. This is scary for me. But I do it in hopes of inspiring others to take the step I took, which has been such a positive change for me.

I'm putting myself out there. Here are my "stats."
I'm putting myself out there. Here are my "stats."

It’s not an easy step. It takes courage. I knew once I committed, I could not turn back. My health and future are too important. I tend to me my worst critic. I can be hard on myself. I would have to do my part or risk letting myself down.

I would need to get a return on my investment. On my emotional investment, physical investment, time investment and yes, my financial investment. As a result, hiring a personal trainer is a big step to take.

Sharon, one of my friends who is glowing from her own training with Jagoe, asked me the other day what my goal with the training is, and specifically, “When will you know that you’ve arrived?”

Wow – this is a good question. A little unsure myself of the answer to her question, I said something to the effect of: “Gosh, I’m just wanting to get into the best shape of my life.”

So, my goal is to reach a high level of overall fitness. That’s pretty general, though, so I’ve modified it to the following: I want for a realm of possibilities to be within my reach at any time. I want to be able to do a 50K trail run, a 25-mile day hike, an expedition to the top of the Grand Teton, or any other peak in our region, a 100-mile bike ride, at any time. I want to be able to do any of these things, or all of these things, without a bunch of new training required, and all with a good recovery.

post2checklist_picnik

I also want more energy. I want as much energy as our three sons have. I want it, and believe I can have it, gosh darn’t. It’s important to me that I be able to snowboard with our sons, and do the crazy things that as boys, our sons will surely be doing in the coming years.

I want to have confidence when I’m standing in front of a tourism conference making a presentation. I want to feel comfortable walking down the street or having to wear a dress to a wedding, and I want to bounce back from any injuries or illnesses that may present themselves in my future.

Geez, I want a lot of things, don’t I? Re-reading all of those “I wants” makes me feel a wee-bit selfish. But justified, I think, because they’re all for the betterment of my health and well-being. (BTW, I’m happy to share some of my tips for working out and getting in shape during times that least impact my family time; working out at 4:45 am three days a week, when the kiddos are enjoying their R.E.M. sleep, is one of them.)

One of the great benefits of working with a personal trainer, besides the accountability and prescribed workouts provided, is the knowledge I gain during my workout sessions. Steve explains the science behind the exercises and the strategy that’s behind the “madness.” For me, this knowledge gained helps me slug it out when it gets particularly difficult.

Steve has also provided guidance when it comes to nutrition and what I should and should not be eating. Absolutely, without question, adjusting my diet has helped me get the results mentioned earlier in this post. (Read: I’m not eating french fries, chips, cookies or pasta, and I’ve sacrificed some bread as well. But I manage to get some chocolate in.) I’m happy to share with you what I eat on a typical day. I’m hardly deprived. Email me if you’re interested.

In short, I’ve broken up with bad carbs. For comic relief:

For good measure, at the end of each of these posts, I’ll share with you one of the many nuggets of wisdom Steve shares with me.

There are three words that often come up when determining how to achieve weight loss and fitness improvement: Fast, Effective and Cheap. Steve feels strongly that at any one time, we can’t have all three, only two. An example of fast and cheap might be following the Atkins diet. It’s fast and it’s cheap, but in the long-term it likely won’t be effective. An example of effective and cheap might be committing to a walking or running program and some diet changes over the course of a year. This could be very effective, and could be quite cheap, but will take a while to achieve. The results likely will not come fast. Finally, fast and effective would describe what dedicated people get from working with a personal trainer. The work is hard, but when combined with good nutrition, can be delivered quite fast. (My own results in the last 2.5 months are proof of this)

One other I’ll mention, which is one I’m sure Steve’s other trainees hear, is “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got.” So, if you’re where I was almost 3 months ago, going to bed with regret that you haven’t taken steps to improve your health and fitness, then you can either roll over and have more of the same, or you can wake up and do something about it. I’m telling you, firsthand, the hard work is far easier than experiencing the nagging feelings of regret!

I want to mention that, true, I deserve credit for doing the work, and it is crazy hard work. And I get the credit for making positive changes to my diet. I get the credit for committing to make a change and for showing up. But my personal trainer prescribes the regimen, holds me accountable, drives me hard, and provides knowledge, all of which supports the bold action I was needing to take. How much is this worth? Very, very much. The pay off has far outweighed the costs.

So, to answer Sharon’s question, when will I know that I’ve arrived? I think I’ll know I’ve arrived as long as I never arrive. As long as I keep going on this journey. I’m staying the course.

(BTW, I am extremely grateful to my husband, Jerry, for being such a huge support and loving cheerleader for me, my family for their support, and Steve and his team at Elemental Gym. All have been a big reason for my success.)

Please feel free to email me with any questions about my personal experience and for more about my situation, goals, information about the typical training sessions, etc. This isn’t an ad. I feel strongly about the program I’m on, Elemental Gym, and the great results I’m experiencing and happy to share and encourage anyone. Or, check out Elemental Gym yourself, or email Steve, Ellen, or Jagoe, to get started with a personal trainer.

Filed Under: Family, Fitness Tagged With: elemental gym, exercise, fat loss, Fitness, personal training, training, weight loss

A Mid-Life Training Program

May 4, 2009 by Shelli

So, you can see by this blog that I love the outdoors and adventure.

This post is about my current pursuit of energy, fitness and fat loss.

A little background information first…

I was an athlete in high school and I attended the University of Montana on a basketball scholarship. I was raised in the mountains of Lander, WY, where I live today with my family. From 1986-1992, I was in Missoula, Montana. Both were great places to help satisfy my craving for the outdoors and activities like hiking, mountain biking, snowboarding, snowshoeing and running.

Our family at Delicate Arch, Spring Break 2008.
Our family at Delicate Arch, Spring Break 2008.

When I married Jerry in August of 1992, I married a distance runner who has the Ironman as a top item on his life list. (He’s also a Physical Education teacher.) So it’s perhaps no surprise that after I got married, I became a little more interested in running.

Don’t get me wrong, except for in high school when I ran the 400m, I’ve never been more than a jogger. Usually I would jog to maintain some level of fitness over the years. At the time of our wedding, Jerry had ran some road marathons, including Pittsburg, Chicago, Columbus and Couer ‘d Alene. Over time, I became inspired to try trail running and some slower, long-distance events.

In 1999, we ran a 50-k trail run, the Big Horn, in the Big Horn Range of Wyoming. My goal was simply to finish. I did that, and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and experience – and ultimately the feeling of accomplishment. It was a good enough feeling that I knew there’d be more events like it in our future.

In the years following, we had our first and second sons, in 2000 and 2002. I ran a couple other trail marathons, as well as attempted the Tahoe 50-mile in 2003, when our youngest at that time was barely more than a year old. I didn’t train hard enough, with two kids under three years old and operating a business. But the lure of seeing a trail and part of the country I hadn’t seen before made up for any lackluster training. Unfortunately, due to heat-related ailments, I completed only about 41.5 miles. Still, it was the furthest I had ever traveled on foot in 9.5 hours so I didn’t view the DNF as a total loss.

Soonafter, we traveled to Hawaii to do the the Run to the Sun, a 37-mile, from-0′-to-10,000′ event up Haleakala Volcano in Maui. That was in 2004. I opted out at the marathon mark, which was enough of a grunt, while Jerry persevered to the end, (exactly 22 months after his lumbar fusion I might add!)

After the Hawaii event, I decided it was time to take a little time off from training for long events.

Problem is, the “little time off” turned into a “long time off” and the rut of my non-fitness became deeper and deeper. And the deeper it got the more yucky I felt. I had to get out of it. The reality was that for the first time in my life, I was not very active. And this lasted for the last four years.

Sure, we snowboarded hard here and there, and even did some 20-mile day hikes, but they were few and far between. (I’ve discovered that our bodies and muscles have a memory and that if at one time, especially if it was for a long time, you were very active, then you can still do crazy, long day hikes, running events, etc. It’s just that they’re not as pleasant as they could be, and recovery certainly is harder and longer.)

Snowboarding at Grand Targhee, Winter 2009.
Snowboarding at Grand Targhee, Winter 2009.

So during the last four years I got kind of lazy. And oh, we had another son in 2007. I was getting soft, and honestly, kinda fat. Although it was one of the happiest times of my life, I became concerned that I would not be the fit mother I had always envisioned being. I want to be able to keep up with our three young boys. Frankly, I want as much energy as they have.

Dogpile with my boys!
Dogpile with my boys!

When I turned 40 last June, it was a good time for me to confront the way I was feeling – like a heavy sloth. I vowed to myself that my 40th year would be one of change with respect to getting myself in shape.

At the same time, more and more people that I know in our town of Lander, WY, are looking great, glowing and looking like they are getting younger instead of older – like they are truly reversing aging.

These many acquaintances, ranging in age from 35 to 65, have something in common. They have been going to Elemental Gym, and working with Steve Bechtel, his wife, Ellen, or Jagoe Reid on personal training programs.

I was really impressed that this many people were going to Steve’s gym, and most of all that so many of them were looking and feeling so good. Steve has been a friend for 13 years. He’s an exercise physiologist, certified personal trainer, hard worker, well-known climber and author. I was glad to hear of his success.

But I wasn’t sold.

I had done some personal training and I lifted weights for many years in my life, and I just couldn’t grasp that a weight training program, even if intense, would help me trim down and increase my fitness as significantly as I wanted. Also, as an aside, I am a fast-twitched fiber person, which basically means I’m built for speed, and can sprint and jump and build muscle pretty easily. (I bench pressed 185 pounds when I was 20) Being constructed of fast-twitch fibers, I was also skeptical that such a weight-lifting-related program would just beef me up and make me thicker, exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

So… I wasn’t an easy sell. And yet, the proof was in the pudding. All these acquaintances I know and trust couldn’t be lying about the benefits they were experiencing. They looked great and had renewed energy.

So, it was with all of this in mind, that I met with Steve Bechtel at Elemental Gym on March 23.

Steve, at his stomping grounds, Elemental Gym.
Steve, at his stomping grounds, Elemental Gym.

After some pretty cerebral discussions about exercise physiology and his philosophy when it comes to strength and metabolic training and training for fat loss, etc., I was compelled. It seemed like logical and smart and scientific proof that a training regimen designed by him could do the trick for me. I was sold.

I signed up and asked for a program that would kick my butt. I didn’t want a half-ass program. I had committed and was on board. Give me the toughest you got I was thinking. I wasn’t scared. I was far more scared of continuing the way I was than anything Steve could throw at me.

I was ready to change my life. There was – and is – no turning back. It’s that important to me. If you’re looking for a walk in the park, Elemental Gym is the wrong place. But if you’re looking for a new lease on life (sorry to steal Slimfast’s slogan), it could be the right place. It has taken a lot of courage for me to do this. It’s not easy. It’s been humbling. I’m held accountable, I sweat, and he has me working my adiposity (fat) off.

Doing lifts on my Grand Canyon vacation, April 2009.
Doing lifts on my Grand Canyon vacation, April 2009.

But I’ll tell you something: when my heart is pumping like it never has before, and I can’t lift my feet off the ground, or raise my arms in the air, and I’m breathing too hard to get a word out, I feel very alive, and that’s got to be a good thing, right?

I’m on a custom program with Steve. Basically he lines out a 5-week program for me in advance. Four days a week I’m on my own, working out at the gym or outdoors, according to the workouts he’s prescribed on my calendar. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’m working out with him in the gym for approximately 45 minutes.

What’s fascinating to me is the philosophy that is employed. Steve says just 16 minutes of very hard exercise a day goes a long way to building strength and amping up your metabolism, which more easily leads to fat loss. You don’t have to endure 45 minutes on a treadmill several times a week to enjoy significant fat loss.

He explains that if you hit it hard and engage in high intensity exercise with little rest in between on a regular basis, your resting metabolic rate will increase and remain at an elevated level for longer. What this means is greater fat loss. Your furnace, if you will, will always be burning and burning hotter. Steve refers to this process/outcome as EPOC (excess postexercise oxygen consumption). This is basically oxygen debt – your body’s need to consume oxygen at a higher rate as a result of intense exercise, all of which burns more calories in the process, which leads to fat/weight loss.

This seems profound to me. Maybe the mountain air has gone to my head or my head’s been in the scree – but the aforementioned is news to me. I’ve always been into fitness and lifted weights for years. I always believed, if you really want to lose weight you need to run or get on the treadmill, several times a week for several minutes. I asked Steve if the aforementioned shorter duration but higher intensity philosophy is a new one, or why had I never heard of it or known about it. He said actually it’s been known for a long time but perhaps people didn’t know how to put it to practice.

He cited a study that was done back in 1994 (that’s right, 15 years ago) authored by A. Tremblay. Basically it was a small study that evaluated and compared the impact of two different modes of training on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism in young adults. There were two groups; one group of men and women were subjected to a 20-week “endurance-training” (ET) program and the other group of men and women were subjected to a 15-week, “high intensity intermittent training” (HIIT) program. Despite the fact the energy cost of the high intensity program was significantly lower than the ET program, members of the HIIT experienced a rate of fat loss that was nine times greater than the ET group.

There are many more similar studies.

Most of the workout days involve at least some high intensity, but the workouts with Steve on Tuesday and Thursday are the killers. This is when I get my money’s worth, and feel a little humored that I would sign up and pay for such butt-kicking. The joke between me and my husband is I say “I’m going to talk to a guy about a sandbag.” (Disclaimer: I say these sessions are killers, but I keep going back for more, and feel good about the way I’m feeling. It doesn’t hurt that Steve is a personable, knowledgeable and encouraging “coach.”)

Steve likes to say to me, and his other clients I’m sure, “If you do what you’ve always done you’ll get what you always got.” This makes sense. If a person reads the same story over and over again or skis the same blue runs over and over again, they’ll get really good at that particular story or ski run. To improve, Steve says we need to go beyond what we already know and are good at, and beyond what we’re accustomed to doing.

For that reason, Steve is always mixing up my programs, and no Tuesday or Thursday session is ever the same.

He is also fond of saying “Everything works. Nothing Works forever.” In other words, only by changing up the routine will our bodies be tested, and as a result, take us further.

Basically I skip into the gym, and 45 minutes later, I crawl out. The sessions are intense, emphasizing mostly strength and resistance exercises with very little rest in between. Most of the work is done not on machines but with free weights, barbells, body weight, kettleballs, medicine balls, big rubber balls, and let me not forget to mention – sandbags. Every exercise works a great many muscles and my body’s core is at the core of all the workouts.

Nutrition is also a focus. As Steve explains it, protein digestion is 30% inefficient. In layman’s terms, when you eat 1,000 calories of protein, it’s a net consumption of only 700 calories. Protein is harder (read: slower) to digest than carbs, thus requiring more energy/calories to do so, and therefore making us feel full longer.

The general nutrition plan I’m following under Steve’s training is to consume 10% x my bodyweight in calories, and to consume approx. 50% good carbs and 50% protein, with some good fat sprinkled in, such as egg yolks in the eggs I eat, nuts, etc.

An additional important benefit is that because I’m following a high intensity training program, I’m elevating my resting metabolic rate, which means I’m burning more calories while sleeping or sitting back in a recliner.

Let me add, the above doesn’t feel like a diet. I’m eating eggs (with yolks in them!), lean meats, great tasty salads and lots of fruits and vegies. I’m not starving and I’m not deprived.

I want to emphasize, although mine is a particularly intense program, not all training programs at Elemental Gym are as intense. The programs are tailored to the individual’s goals in life. The commonality, though, is one must experience some discomfort and want to become more fit.

Sandbag 1. Shelli 0. (That's not a smile; it's a grimace)
Sandbag 1. Shelli 0. (That's not a smile; it's a grimace)

That first day when I had my consult at the gym, before signing onto my training program, Steve said his (and Elemental Gym’s) goal is to get athletes, and anyone wanting to get fit, to work beyond their comfort zone.

Um, about that…Good job. I think it’s safe to say you’re achieving your goal…

Elemental Gym is located in Lander, WY, but Steve trains athletes all over the country.
 Email Steve or call the gym, at 307-332-0480.

SEE POST #2.

Filed Under: Family, Fitness Tagged With: diet, elemental gym, exercise, fat loss, Fitness, mid-life, personal training, weight loss

Why Camping is My Favorite Family Activity

April 13, 2009 by Shelli

Jerry and I have three sons, Wolf, 9, Hayden, 7 and Fin, 2. My favorite thing to do with the family is camping. I just love it. It’s a way to get close to nature, get dirty, find things to do that are not artificial or expensive, and typically the best campgrounds/campsites don’t have cell signals.

People who know me and know how I love gadgets and all of technology’s wonders don’t believe it when I say it, but I sometimes like it when my cell has no bars. It forces me into isolation, which is what I want, but often have a hard time surrendering to.

Camping at Grand Canyon.
Camping at Grand Canyon.

We recently camped for most of our Spring Break vacation. Except for yurt stays the first two nights, which were fortunate given the blizzard conditions, we camped 4 nights.

The boys love looking for treasures, finding and collecting rocks and other interesting items, climbing trees, helping build a fire, making s’mores, reading aloud to each other, playing ball, looking at the stars and everything else that comes as part of the camping package.

My parents rented an RV from CruiseAmerica in Salt Lake City and toured some of Utah’s national parks on their own before meeting up with us on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for a few days.

Our boys w/Mommom & Poppop at Grand Canyon.
Our boys w/Mommom & Poppop at Grand Canyon.

Boy, did they arrive in comfort. What a great idea and business CruiseAmerica has. My boys fell in love with the RV and truth be told they much preferred that to tent camping. Some of the fond memories from the camping time with their Mommom and Poppop were the walks they took and helping my parents find their way with walkie-talkies after getting lost and disoriented several times. : >

Great times to be sure. We can’t wait for the next camping trip.

Here’s a short video that captures the essence of our camping experiences:

Filed Under: Family, Fitness, Frontier Life, Travel & Tourism Tagged With: backpacking, camping, Family, outdoors, road trip, tents, travel, vacation

Hiking in & out of Grand Canyon in Same Day

April 12, 2009 by Shelli

The first sign is right at the start of the South Kaibab Trail: WARNING: Do not attempt to hike to the bottom of the Canyon and back in a single day. The signs are numerous, and for good reason.

South Kaibab Trailhead
South Kaibab Trailhead

We had seen them all before, though, 10 years earlier when we had embarked down the trail, and despite their warnings, had survived to tell about it.

You see, my parents had agreed to meet up with us for the Grand Canyon part of our Spring Break. They rented an RV for the first time and the plan was they’d watch our boys on Tuesday, April 7, while Jerry and I attempted to hike the South Kaibab Trail to the Colorado River and Phantom Ranch (at the Grand Canyon’s bottom) and back out via the Bright Angel Trail. We were pretty certain that we were not in as good of condition as we were the last time we did this. After all that was before we had kids and during a time when we were training for our first 50k trail run. Still, given the fact my parents would be there to watch the boys, we couldn’t resist the opportunity.

Warning: Do Not Attempt to Hike to Colorado River and Back in One Day.
Warning: Do Not Attempt to Hike to Colorado River and Back in One Day.

My dad was a trooper and awoke with us at dark thirty to drive us to the Bright Angel Lodge where we’d take the first hiker shuttle of the day, set to pick us up at 6 am. We’re early risers so this wasn’t a big deal. In fact it felt like sleeping in for us.

In the dark we swigged coffee while riding the shuttle to the trailhead.

It was beautiful out. The almost-full moon was still visible, and as we started down the trail in front of a few other hikers, I could tell it was going to be an epic day.

The biggest challenge about this hike isn’t the distance, although it’s long for a day hike. Certainly the elevation gain and loss is a huge challenge. We would descend 4,700 feet, and ascend 4,700 feet, all in a single day. Still, the elevation gain and loss is not the hardest part.

Halfway down.
Halfway down.

The problem with this hike is you go down, and then you go up.

I live in western Wyoming. Mountain country. Every hike I take heads up first, then down. I’ve grown accustomed to working first then getting the reward. Hiking up in the morning, down in the afternoon.

Hiking to the depths of the Grand Canyon and out is the exact opposite. I know: Duh, it’s a canyon, not to mention a big, deep one. But it’s important to mention this because if you do this single day endeavor, there’s almost no way to avoid walking up hill during the heat of the day and on tired legs.

Here are a couple of short videos that show some of the trail:

So, while hiking down the South Kaibab Trail at a fast clip we were very much aware that what goes down certainly must go up. The South Kaibab Trail begins near Yaki Point on Desert View Drive. The first mile takes hikers down more than 1,000 feet and 1.5 miles to Cedar Ridge, where great views surround you, and a bathroom is available. The next 1.5 miles drops another 1,000 feet to Skeleton Point.

We took a gazillion photos and video clips on the way down and made some brief stops to let mules pass, as well as to strip layers as it became warmer as the sun rose and we dropped to lower elevations. In a little over three hours we were crossing the Black Bridge across the Colorado River, at 2,400 feet elevation. In all, we dropped about 4,600 feet on the South Kaibab Trail.

At that point all we could think of was the Snickers bar and lemonade that awaited each of us at the Phantom Ranch Canteen. But it was about another half mile or so before we could reap that reward. The Snickers and lemonade met our expectations and before we knew it we were back on the trail by 10:30 am.

We stopped on Silver Bridge to watch the huge volume of water rush by below us and to watch a few groups of rafters navigate their way down the green Colorado River. Boy, that looked refreshing. (Note to self: Figure out how to experience a rafting trip without having to wait a decade)

Bright Angel Trail is the most heavily-used trail on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
The bottom of the Bright Angel Trail starts out as a mellow trail that parallels the river for a mile or two before changing its mood and rising more steeply. Still, for the first half of it’s 9.6-mile distance from Phantom Ranch, it’s a pretty reasonable grade.

Jerry hiking up Bright Angel Trail.
Jerry hiking up Bright Angel Trail.

About halfway up, near Indian Gardens, it gets a personality that’s wicked and unfriendly if not downright mean. After Indian Garden, it becomes a stairmaster for five miles. (If you must know, you still have 3,000 feet of vertical to hike up – in just 4.6 miles)

Probably the cruelest part of the trail is when you reach the “3 mile house.” At this point you can see the teeny, teeny people standing on the Trailview Overlook waaaaayyy up above you and you are reminded in an “in your face” way the vertical distance you still have to travel. (Again, if you must know, there are still 2,000 feet of vertical to hike up.) It’s no accident – or joke – that there is a 911 call box on the side of the trail at this point.

911 call box.
911 call box.

The last three miles up Bright Angel are truly a course in character (and calf muscle!) building. Unless you hiked down in the wee early morning hours of the day and you’re a rapid hiker, you’ll be hiking this vertically-oriented section of Bright Angel in broad daylight and under the heat of the sun. Fortunately there is some reprieve from the sun against the rock walls.

And try as you might, you can see that there is clearly no other way up/out. It’s humbling to say the least. The sun was in full, not a cloud in the sky and we had hours and miles on our feet. We weren’t skipping anymore, and the smiles on our faces in the photos we snapped probably weren’t natural, if you get my drift.

Here’s a sampling:

The trail switches for a long distance, and of course you can see the switchbacks, which are not friendly ones. They are steep and seemingly never-ending. The scale of the Canyon’s rim towering over the trail is enormous. Hikers resemble ants, with their day packs or backpacks upon them, and appearing to be moving at a snail’s pace in a march up the mountain. A death march perhaps?

People hiking up at this point in the trail, regardless of where they’ve come from or how many miles are on their legs for the day, seldom say much. On the other hand, hikers descending the trail are giddy and skipping and seemingly oblivious to how the return trip is going to treat them.

Finally, we made it to the top. It took us a little over 9 hours. That includes several very short stops, mostly to take photos or to capture videos.

We don’t recommend this single day hike for people who are not used to hiking up and down mountains or for those who can’t take the heat. I would never recommend this during the summer, and in fact wonder how anyone could do it, or better yet, why anyone would choose to.

All that said, this hike remains one of our favorites. It’s a huge accomplishment to think at the end of the day that we started at the top and walked on our own two feet all the way down, across the Colorado and back up. Certainly it was a physical accomplishment, but also a mental one.

The Grand Canyon is one of the most studied geological landscapes in the world. It offers a record of three of the four eras of geological time. To walk down into and through this exposed and massive land erosion is quite the unique experience. I felt tiny and insignificant in the spectrum of time as I took in the great abyss that surrounded us.

To be sure, the aforementioned hike provides an interior view of the Grand Canyon that is unmatched.

Here is an 8-minute video that pretty much covers the entire hike:

Filed Under: Fitness, National Parks, Travel & Tourism Tagged With: backpacking, bright angel trail, grand canyon, grand canyon hiking, national park, phantom ranch, south kaibab trail

About this blog

March 27, 2009 by Shelli

Snowboarding at Grand Targhee
Snowboarding at Grand Targhee.

Hi from out on the frontier of Wyoming!

My name is Shelli Johnson, and this blog is a place for me to post notes, and opinions about life and work, which are most often connected.

Sometimes you’ll get an opinion about marketing or tourism promotion, other times I might reference a great post or article or book, and other times (often, probably) I’ll share notes about trips and adventures I have taken, complete with photos, maps, or video clips like this one:

Filed Under: Family, Fitness, Frontier Life, Marketing, Media, National Parks, Technology, Travel & Tourism Tagged With: adventure, blog, Media, opinions, shelli johnson, travel, trip notes

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About Shelli

Hi. My name is Shelli Johnson. I live on the frontier in Lander, Wyoming. I’m a wife, a mother, an entrepreneur, certified life/leadership coach, wellness coach, keynote presenter and inspired speaker, leadership development facilitator, personal development strategist, writer and adventure guide. This blog mostly includes stories about adventures and travel, but other passions are reading/books, technology, fitness, nutrition, and national parks, so you’ll find a wide range of articles here. I am founder of Yellowstone Journal and YellowstonePark.com, and NationalParkTrips.com, which was my first business. My current company, Epic Life Inc., is in its 7th year, and going gangbusters. If you’re interested in learning more about my current work, I hope you’ll jump over there and learn more about that. I have a more personal blog, more directly related to life and living and leadership, at YourEpicLife.com/blog. I’d love it if you’d also check out that collection of my writings. Thank you for stopping by! Finally, if you’d like to connect with me directly, please email me if you’d like to connect.

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