Probably the pick of the canyon days. Hermit sits west of the village and away from the corridor trails, and the difference is immediate – a far less touristed path, and an amazing landscape as you get down into the canyon. The shuttle bus takes about 20 minutes (a little quicker on the way back). The Hermit trail landscape is very different to SK and BA – even though you’re in a smaller side canyon – it feels like your much deeper down.
Santa Maria Springs is the turnaround, with its little stone rest house. If you’ve done South Kaibab and Bright Angel and want something quieter, this is the one.
Bright Angel is the other half of the corridor and a completely different day to South Kaibab. It works its way down through a side canyon, so you get shade at the right times and water at the rest houses – which after the day before felt like an outrageous luxury. There were warning that the water would be completely shut off at 11am but that was delayed until after we’d finished. Lucky for me – I sweat a lot and need to drink a lot – without the opportunity to refill I would’ve been in trouble. I think 5L of water is probably the minimum you need for a hike like this in the heat.
Havasupai Gardens is a little oasis – cottonwoods, running water, and a genuine change in temperature when you walk into it. This is also the day that gives you a good sense of doing the rim to rim, which was as close as we were going to get this time.
Ten of us were supposed to walk the Grand Canyon rim to rim in the first week of September – down the North Kaibab from the North Rim, two nights at Phantom Ranch, then out to the South Rim. The cabin was booked, the Trans-Canyon shuttle was booked, and we’d spent the the last few months training with regular walks at Umstead and single day ascent / descent of Mount Mitchell.
Then, on the afternoon of Saturday 30th August – five days before we flew – nearly an inch of rain fell in thirty minutes onto the Dragon Bravo burn scar above Bright Angel Canyon. The Dragon Bravo fire stripped the Kaibab Plateau back in July 2025 and a Forest Service assessment had already flagged that watershed as high risk for post-fire flooding and debris flows. It did precisely what the assessment said it would. Around 50 people were airlifted out of Phantom Ranch, 2 people killed, and one still missing. Nearly all the footbridges over Bright Angel Creek were destroyed.
Closed until further notice : Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground, all fourteen miles of the North Kaibab, and the Colorado to boating.
Then the second punch. The flood took out the trans-canyon waterline – which is what supplies the South Rim – so every in-park lodge closed to overnight guests from the 31st with no reopening date. We lost the hike and our accomodation in the same week.
So : Plan B. Cancel everything, keep the flights, and rebuild the week out of the trails that were still open. What we ended up with was five days of day hikes off the South Rim and out of Sedona – not the trip we planned, but an epic trip in its own right.
Day 1 – getting there
RDU to Vegas, then the four hour drive to the South Rim. Just enough daylight left for a walk along the rim at sunset – which is still the best possible introduction to the place, however many photographs of it you’ve seen.
Days 2 to 6
Three days in the canyon, then two in Sedona. One post each :
The canyon doesn’t owe you the itinerary you booked. We had eight days’ notice and the closures were absolute. Everyone rolled with it without a single moan, which is the real reason the week worked.
Day hiking off the South Rim is underrated. Same geology, same light, and you sleep in a bed at night. A different trip to the rim to rim, but not a lesser one.
South Kaibab down, Bright Angel down, Hermit down – three trails, three completely different experiences of the same hole in the ground. Doing them on consecutive days makes the contrast obvious in a way one big traverse never would.
We probably hiked double what we expected to hike doing the R2R.
Book refundable where you can. Cancelling a cabin, two shuttles and a lodge in one afternoon is not how you want to spend a Sunday.
The rim to rim is still on the list. Phantom Ranch, the North Kaibab and those footbridges are going to take a while – maybe next year.
Finally – a huge thanks to Bryan and Iain for organizing, then re-organizing the trip.
First real day of hiking with Kip, Iain and David. Even if we couldn’t get down to the river, we wanted to hit the major corridor trails on the South Rim – starting with South Kaibab. South Kaibab shows you the canyon all at once. There’s no easing in – no switchbacks up a side canyon, no gradual reveal – you drop straight onto a ridge line and the whole thing is just there, on both sides of you, the entire way down.
Skeleton Point is the turnaround and it’s the first place you properly see the Colorado – we walked a little further down to find some shade for lunch and were treated to views down to the river below, and condors or hawks flying above.
Rich Sharples' Weblog 