By Michael Lanza
This is, in a way, a story about obsession. Or a love affair. Or both. Those metaphors best describe how the Grand Canyon constantly lures me back when I’m thinking about spring and fall hiking and backpacking trips.
It is that rare kind of natural environment that exists on a scale of its own, like Alaska or the Himalaya. There’s something soul-stirring and hypnotic about its infinite vistas, the deceptive immensity of the canyon walls and stone towers, and the way the foreground and background continually expand and shrink as you ascend and descend elevation gradients of a vertical mile or more—all of which validates enduring the wilting heat and trails that sometimes seem better suited to rattlesnakes and scorpions than bipedal primates.
For backpackers seeking adventure, challenge, and incomparable natural beauty, the canyon stands alone.
Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.
Todd Arndt at Ooh-Ah Point on the South Kaibab Trail. Click on the photo to see my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
This story will show you, in words and photos, why one or more of these Big Ditch backpacking trips deserves top priority as you’re planning your next trip. I think you will quickly understand why the Grand Canyon has increasingly become one of my favorite places over more than three decades (and counting) of backpacking, including the 10 years I spent as a longtime field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.
And the time to start planning your Grand Canyon adventure is right now.
Each of the nine trips described below can be hiked within a week and some in a few days. Each description links to a feature story about that trip at The Big Outside, which include many photos and my expert tips on planning and pulling them off—including how to acquire one of these hard-to-get permits. (Those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.)
Backpackers and wildflowers along the Grand Canyon’s Escalante Route. Click photo to learn how I can help you plan any trip you read about at The Big Outside.
Any of these hikes will thrill and amaze you—and just may inspire in you an urge to go back again and again. Whenever I’m looking for a long, remote, incredibly beautiful, wilderness backpacking trip in the Southwest, the Grand Canyon seems to consistently emerge on top. Even though it lies a day’s journey from my home, I’ve been there numerous times for backpacking trips and ultra-dayhikes.
It seems the more I go there, the more I want to go back—in spite of how hard it is (and maybe that’s one of the reasons I keep going back).
Mark Fenton backpacking the Tonto Trail toward Topaz Canyon, along the Gems Route in the Grand Canyon.
A Grand Canyon backcountry permit is one of the hardest to get in the National Park System. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon” and “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” both of which are updated regularly with detailed information on how to obtain a permit.
See my expert e-books “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” and “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these trips or any trip you read about at this blog.
I’d love to hear if you’ve done any of these trips or want to suggest others in the Grand Canyon. Please share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.
David Ports hiking the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon. Click on the photo to see my e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
If there’s an archetypal Grand Canyon hike, this baby is it. Crossing the canyon via the North Kaibab Trail combined with either the South Kaibab (one of prettiest of the 25 best national park dayhikes) or the Bright Angel Trail delivers the goods on epic scenery. You get views that span from both rims all the way down to the Colorado River, the huge vistas of the South Kaibab, the Bright Angel’s panoramas and desert oases (I’ve also see bighorn sheep on that trail), a walk through the narrow, sheer-walled gorge of lower Bright Angel Creek, waterfalls, and airy sections where the North Kaibab clings to cliff faces.
Bright Angel Creek along the Grand Canyon’s North Kaibab Trail.
Although most GC trails are quite rugged, these three so-called “corridor” trails, while strenuous for their vertical relief, have better footing, more reliable water availability at regular intervals, and much less of the loose terrain, quad-pounding ledge drops, and occasionally scary exposure of other canyon footpaths.
A one-way canyon traverse, typically backpacked in three days (in either direction), is 21 miles with 4,780 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the South Kaibab and North Kaibab trails (going south to north), or 23.5 miles with 4,380 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the Bright Angel and North Kaibab (also going south to north). Shuttles are available between the rims, and you can also double the trip by backpacking across and back.
Another excellent—and popular—itinerary, especially among first-timers here, is to forego the long ascent to the North Rim, and instead hike 16.5 miles rim to river to rim: down the South Kaibab and up the Bright Angel. Many backpackers take two or three days, with one night at Bright Angel Campground on the Colorado River and a possible second night at Havasupai Gardens Campground along the Bright Angel Trail to break up the long climb back up from the river.
Demand is enormous for a permit for backpacking the corridor trails in spring or fall, with upwards of three-quarters of applications denied. Read my story “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon.”
Do this trip smartly. Get my expert e-book to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim
My wife, Penny, hiking the upper South Kaibab Trail. Click photo for my e-book “The Complete Guide to Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim.”
Plus, growing numbers of uber-bit hikers and runners knock off a rim-to-rim (r2r) or a complete rim-to-rim-to-rim—across and back—(r2r2r) in a day. Consequently, in peak weather of mid-spring and mid-autumn, don’t expect the solitude you can find on some other canyon backpacking trips.
But if you want to take one of the most unique and spectacular treks in the world, without attempting any of the other significantly harder routes, this is the one.
See my stories “Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day” and “A Grand Ambition, or April Fools? Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” and all stories about South Rim hikes and South Rim backpacking trips at The Big Outside.
See also my expert e-book to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim or my expert e-book to dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.
Mark Fenton on the Tonto Trail in the Grand Canyon. Click photo to see all of my expert e-books, including “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
When a longtime backcountry ranger in the canyon whom I know, who’s hiked every mile of trail in the park, told me this 74-mile route was “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon,” I’ll admit, I was a little dubious. After all, every hike in the Big Ditch is amazing. Then I backpacked it and found myself concluding: He’s right.
Besides the fact that the South Kaibab is absolutely one of the best hikes in the entire National Park System, this route—which has shorter alternatives—follows one of the of the prettiest and most adventurous “trails” (if it can be called that) in the canyon, the Escalante Route, which involves some tricky route-finding and exposed scrambling. This hike also incorporates the beautiful and surprisingly rigorous Beamer Trail, and another rim-to-river footpath, the Tanner Trail.
Mark Fenton and Todd Arndt backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Escalante Route. Click photo to learn how I can help you plan any of these trips.
While water sources are sporadic, there are three perennial streams—one of them the Colorado River—and you’ll enjoy some of the best backcountry campsites you’ve ever spent a night in, including beaches on the Colorado. And you might get invited to an outstanding dinner by a river party.
See my story “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
Todd Arndt backpacking the Tonto Trail in Monument Canyon in the Grand Canyon.
The Tonto Trail at Horn Creek in the Grand Canyon.
Outside the three corridor trails, the 25-mile hike from Hermits Rest to the Bright Angel Trailhead may be the park’s most popular, for many good reasons. Although it does not go all the way to the Colorado River—unless you take any of a few side trails off this route that descend to the river (each adding several miles round-trip)—this linkup of the Hermit, Tonto, and Bright Angel trails nonetheless offers an experience similar to a rim-to-river-to-rim hike that’s in many ways easier.
The rigorous Hermit Trail—the hardest section of this hike—snakes through one of the dramatic tributary canyons of the Colorado River, below colorful, striated cliffs of the canyon’s Supai and Redwall layers. You’ll follow a 13-mile stretch of the Tonto Trail across the gently rolling Tonto Plateau, where prickly-pear cacti and other wildflowers bloom and the views span from the rims to the river.
That stretch of the Tonto crosses five major tributary canyons of the Colorado River, including passing directly below the tall, slender rock spire and soaring burgundy cliffs in the canyon of Monument Creek, and the mind-boggling heights and three-dimensionality of the Inferno.
One more advantage of this hike: There are three reliable water sources along or a short distance off this route.
Read “One Extraordinary Day: A 25-Mile Dayhike in the Grand Canyon” about dayhiking Hermits Rest to Bright Angel Trailhead (a route I’ve also backpacked).
Todd Arndt backpacking the Tonto Trail, Grand Canyon.
Like Hermits Rest to Bright Angel, the 29-mile hike from the South Kaibab Trailhead to Grandview Point provides backpackers with a full-immersion experience in the Big Ditch without as much elevation gain and loss as going all the way to the Colorado River. (In fact, this trip offers just one optional side hike to the river—down the South Kaibab Trail.)
Descending the South Kaibab Trail as the light of early morning streams across the Grand Canyon is one of the most sublime hiking experiences in America. And the Grandview Trail offers constantly changing perspectives of the canyon spreading out before you. This hike also traverses a long stretch of the scenic Tonto Plateau, with views reaching to the South and North rims and the river, crossing a handful of tributary canyons like Grapevine Creek, which itself is staggeringly deep and broad. All along this route, some of the canyon’s most distinctive formations, like the towering Zoroaster Temple, seem to grow and shrink as you approach and move away from them.
Mark Fenton backpacking the Tonto Trail between the South Kaibab and Grandview trails in the Grand Canyon.
You can combine this hike with the Hermits Rest to Bright Angel hike (above), or partly overlap the two—going from Hermits Rest to South Kaibab or Grandview Point to Bright Angel or doing either in the opposite direction. There are four water sources along this route, but only one is perennial (Grapevine Creek), so it’s better done in spring, when the other three creeks usually have water.
See my story “Dropping Into the Grand Canyon: A Four-Day Hike From Grandview Point to the South Kaibab Trail” at The Big Outside.
Jeff Wilhelm at a waterfall on the Deer Creek Trail in the Grand Canyon.
Accessible for shorter spring and fall seasons than most backpacking trips off the South Rim, the remote, 25-mile Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop off the Grand Canyon’s North Rim has become a prized destination for in-the-know backpackers and river-rafting parties taking side hikes, primarily for an unusual abundance of a rare element in the canyon: water.
Deer Creek Falls in the Grand Canyon.
The two fast-moving, perennial creeks and one river (in addition to the Colorado River) that backpackers hike along on this trip pour over some of the Grand Canyon’s prettiest waterfalls, course through spectacular narrows, and nurture oases of trees and vegetation. Your first sighting from above of the Thunder River can seem like a mirage, seeing it burst in a—yes—thunderous waterfall from the face of a cliff.
Although the upper parts of this loop are dry and nearly devoid of shade—they can be brutally hot—the vistas reach to the South Rim and for miles up and down the canyon, revealing its majestic breadth and depth.
This isn’t a trip for beginner backpackers or Grand Canyon first-timers: You’ll descend a vertical mile to the Colorado and climb back up again, on often-rugged trails, possibly in heat that pushes the edges of human tolerance.
But backpackers ready to rise to the challenge will explore one of the most unique corners of the Grand Canyon.
See my story “Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop.”
See all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.
This is, in a way, a story about obsession. Or a love affair. Or both. Those metaphors best describe how the Grand Canyon constantly lures me back when I’m thinking about spring and fall hiking and backpacking trips.
It is that rare kind of natural environment that exists on a scale of its own, like Alaska or the Himalaya. There’s something soul-stirring and hypnotic about its infinite vistas, the deceptive immensity of the canyon walls and stone towers, and the way the foreground and background continually expand and shrink as you ascend and descend elevation gradients of a vertical mile or more—all of which validates enduring the wilting heat and trails that sometimes seem better suited to rattlesnakes and scorpions than bipedal primates.
For backpackers seeking adventure, challenge, and incomparable natural beauty, the canyon stands alone.
Todd Arndt at Ooh-Ah Point on the South Kaibab Trail. Click on the photo to see my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
This story will show you, in words and photos, why one or more of these Big Ditch backpacking trips deserves top priority as you’re planning your next trip. I think you will quickly understand why the Grand Canyon has increasingly become one of my favorite places over more than three decades (and counting) of backpacking, including the 10 years I spent as a longtime field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.
And the time to start planning your Grand Canyon adventure is right now.
Each of the nine trips described below can be hiked within a week and some in a few days. Each description links to a feature story about that trip at The Big Outside, which include many photos and my expert tips on planning and pulling them off—including how to acquire one of these hard-to-get permits. (Those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.)
Backpackers and wildflowers along the Grand Canyon’s Escalante Route. Click photo to learn how I can help you plan any trip you read about at The Big Outside.
Any of these hikes will thrill and amaze you—and just may inspire in you an urge to go back again and again. Whenever I’m looking for a long, remote, incredibly beautiful, wilderness backpacking trip in the Southwest, the Grand Canyon seems to consistently emerge on top. Even though it lies a day’s journey from my home, I’ve been there numerous times for backpacking trips and ultra-dayhikes.
It seems the more I go there, the more I want to go back—in spite of how hard it is (and maybe that’s one of the reasons I keep going back).
Mark Fenton backpacking the Tonto Trail toward Topaz Canyon, along the Gems Route in the Grand Canyon.
A Grand Canyon backcountry permit is one of the hardest to get in the National Park System. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon” and “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” both of which are updated regularly with detailed information on how to obtain a permit.
See my expert e-books “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” and “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these trips or any trip you read about at this blog.
I’d love to hear if you’ve done any of these trips or want to suggest others in the Grand Canyon. Please share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.
Find your next adventure in your Inbox. Sign up for my FREE email newsletter now.
David Ports hiking the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon. Click on the photo to see my e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
Grand Canyon Rim to Rim
If there’s an archetypal Grand Canyon hike, this baby is it. Crossing the canyon via the North Kaibab Trail combined with either the South Kaibab (one of prettiest of the 25 best national park dayhikes) or the Bright Angel Trail delivers the goods on epic scenery. You get views that span from both rims all the way down to the Colorado River, the huge vistas of the South Kaibab, the Bright Angel’s panoramas and desert oases (I’ve also see bighorn sheep on that trail), a walk through the narrow, sheer-walled gorge of lower Bright Angel Creek, waterfalls, and airy sections where the North Kaibab clings to cliff faces.
Bright Angel Creek along the Grand Canyon’s North Kaibab Trail.
Although most GC trails are quite rugged, these three so-called “corridor” trails, while strenuous for their vertical relief, have better footing, more reliable water availability at regular intervals, and much less of the loose terrain, quad-pounding ledge drops, and occasionally scary exposure of other canyon footpaths.
A one-way canyon traverse, typically backpacked in three days (in either direction), is 21 miles with 4,780 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the South Kaibab and North Kaibab trails (going south to north), or 23.5 miles with 4,380 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the Bright Angel and North Kaibab (also going south to north). Shuttles are available between the rims, and you can also double the trip by backpacking across and back.
Another excellent—and popular—itinerary, especially among first-timers here, is to forego the long ascent to the North Rim, and instead hike 16.5 miles rim to river to rim: down the South Kaibab and up the Bright Angel. Many backpackers take two or three days, with one night at Bright Angel Campground on the Colorado River and a possible second night at Havasupai Gardens Campground along the Bright Angel Trail to break up the long climb back up from the river.
Demand is enormous for a permit for backpacking the corridor trails in spring or fall, with upwards of three-quarters of applications denied. Read my story “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon.”
Do this trip smartly. Get my expert e-book to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim
or my expert e-book to dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.
My wife, Penny, hiking the upper South Kaibab Trail. Click photo for my e-book “The Complete Guide to Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim.”
Plus, growing numbers of uber-bit hikers and runners knock off a rim-to-rim (r2r) or a complete rim-to-rim-to-rim—across and back—(r2r2r) in a day. Consequently, in peak weather of mid-spring and mid-autumn, don’t expect the solitude you can find on some other canyon backpacking trips.
But if you want to take one of the most unique and spectacular treks in the world, without attempting any of the other significantly harder routes, this is the one.
See my stories “Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day” and “A Grand Ambition, or April Fools? Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” and all stories about South Rim hikes and South Rim backpacking trips at The Big Outside.
See also my expert e-book to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim or my expert e-book to dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.
Want to read any story linked here?
Join now to read ALL stories and get a free e-book!
Join now to read ALL stories and get a free e-book!
Mark Fenton on the Tonto Trail in the Grand Canyon. Click photo to see all of my expert e-books, including “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
South Kaibab to Lipan Point
When a longtime backcountry ranger in the canyon whom I know, who’s hiked every mile of trail in the park, told me this 74-mile route was “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon,” I’ll admit, I was a little dubious. After all, every hike in the Big Ditch is amazing. Then I backpacked it and found myself concluding: He’s right.
Besides the fact that the South Kaibab is absolutely one of the best hikes in the entire National Park System, this route—which has shorter alternatives—follows one of the of the prettiest and most adventurous “trails” (if it can be called that) in the canyon, the Escalante Route, which involves some tricky route-finding and exposed scrambling. This hike also incorporates the beautiful and surprisingly rigorous Beamer Trail, and another rim-to-river footpath, the Tanner Trail.
Mark Fenton and Todd Arndt backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Escalante Route. Click photo to learn how I can help you plan any of these trips.
While water sources are sporadic, there are three perennial streams—one of them the Colorado River—and you’ll enjoy some of the best backcountry campsites you’ve ever spent a night in, including beaches on the Colorado. And you might get invited to an outstanding dinner by a river party.
See my story “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
Click here now for my expert e-book to the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.
Todd Arndt backpacking the Tonto Trail in Monument Canyon in the Grand Canyon.
Hermits Rest to Bright Angel
The Tonto Trail at Horn Creek in the Grand Canyon.
Outside the three corridor trails, the 25-mile hike from Hermits Rest to the Bright Angel Trailhead may be the park’s most popular, for many good reasons. Although it does not go all the way to the Colorado River—unless you take any of a few side trails off this route that descend to the river (each adding several miles round-trip)—this linkup of the Hermit, Tonto, and Bright Angel trails nonetheless offers an experience similar to a rim-to-river-to-rim hike that’s in many ways easier.
The rigorous Hermit Trail—the hardest section of this hike—snakes through one of the dramatic tributary canyons of the Colorado River, below colorful, striated cliffs of the canyon’s Supai and Redwall layers. You’ll follow a 13-mile stretch of the Tonto Trail across the gently rolling Tonto Plateau, where prickly-pear cacti and other wildflowers bloom and the views span from the rims to the river.
That stretch of the Tonto crosses five major tributary canyons of the Colorado River, including passing directly below the tall, slender rock spire and soaring burgundy cliffs in the canyon of Monument Creek, and the mind-boggling heights and three-dimensionality of the Inferno.
One more advantage of this hike: There are three reliable water sources along or a short distance off this route.
Read “One Extraordinary Day: A 25-Mile Dayhike in the Grand Canyon” about dayhiking Hermits Rest to Bright Angel Trailhead (a route I’ve also backpacked).
I can help you figure out the best Grand Canyon backpacking trip for your group.
Click here to learn about my Custom Trip Planning.
Click here to learn about my Custom Trip Planning.
Todd Arndt backpacking the Tonto Trail, Grand Canyon.
South Kaibab to Grandview Point
Like Hermits Rest to Bright Angel, the 29-mile hike from the South Kaibab Trailhead to Grandview Point provides backpackers with a full-immersion experience in the Big Ditch without as much elevation gain and loss as going all the way to the Colorado River. (In fact, this trip offers just one optional side hike to the river—down the South Kaibab Trail.)
Descending the South Kaibab Trail as the light of early morning streams across the Grand Canyon is one of the most sublime hiking experiences in America. And the Grandview Trail offers constantly changing perspectives of the canyon spreading out before you. This hike also traverses a long stretch of the scenic Tonto Plateau, with views reaching to the South and North rims and the river, crossing a handful of tributary canyons like Grapevine Creek, which itself is staggeringly deep and broad. All along this route, some of the canyon’s most distinctive formations, like the towering Zoroaster Temple, seem to grow and shrink as you approach and move away from them.
Read all of this story and ALL stories at The Big Outside,
plus get a FREE e-book! Join now!
plus get a FREE e-book! Join now!
Mark Fenton backpacking the Tonto Trail between the South Kaibab and Grandview trails in the Grand Canyon.
You can combine this hike with the Hermits Rest to Bright Angel hike (above), or partly overlap the two—going from Hermits Rest to South Kaibab or Grandview Point to Bright Angel or doing either in the opposite direction. There are four water sources along this route, but only one is perennial (Grapevine Creek), so it’s better done in spring, when the other three creeks usually have water.
See my story “Dropping Into the Grand Canyon: A Four-Day Hike From Grandview Point to the South Kaibab Trail” at The Big Outside.
See the “5 Reasons You Must Backpack in the Grand Canyon.”
Jeff Wilhelm at a waterfall on the Deer Creek Trail in the Grand Canyon.
Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop
Accessible for shorter spring and fall seasons than most backpacking trips off the South Rim, the remote, 25-mile Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop off the Grand Canyon’s North Rim has become a prized destination for in-the-know backpackers and river-rafting parties taking side hikes, primarily for an unusual abundance of a rare element in the canyon: water.
Deer Creek Falls in the Grand Canyon.
The two fast-moving, perennial creeks and one river (in addition to the Colorado River) that backpackers hike along on this trip pour over some of the Grand Canyon’s prettiest waterfalls, course through spectacular narrows, and nurture oases of trees and vegetation. Your first sighting from above of the Thunder River can seem like a mirage, seeing it burst in a—yes—thunderous waterfall from the face of a cliff.
Although the upper parts of this loop are dry and nearly devoid of shade—they can be brutally hot—the vistas reach to the South Rim and for miles up and down the canyon, revealing its majestic breadth and depth.
This isn’t a trip for beginner backpackers or Grand Canyon first-timers: You’ll descend a vertical mile to the Colorado and climb back up again, on often-rugged trails, possibly in heat that pushes the edges of human tolerance.
But backpackers ready to rise to the challenge will explore one of the most unique corners of the Grand Canyon.
See my story “Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop.”
Hike all of the “12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”
See all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.
Let The Big Outside help you find the best adventures.
Join now to read ALL stories and get a free e-book!
Join now to read ALL stories and get a free e-book!