Author: Adam S

I participated in the Wild Canyon Games – Lost Canyon earlier this year. It took me a while to get around to uploading the photos. I’d like to claim a technical difficulty or something like that, but truthfully, I just got lazy. I was part of a corporate team selected by my company because we had foolishly emailed a willingness to do it. Never volunteer, kids.

This is what it looked like when we arrived:

Nice, right? I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. We arrived at around noon the day before to get acclimated to the elevation. I did a three mile run up and down some hills. It was a simpler time. A happy time.

This is what we woke up to:

That is snow. It snowed. It was snowing. And it kept on snowing. This is Arizona. We don’t do snow. I don’t do snow, anyway.

My 9 mile trail run was essentially being done in a blizzard. A blizzard I was woefully, hilariously unprepared for.

My glasses fogged over until I couldn’t see. I actually took them off and luckily another runner was willing to play my seeing eye dog. Thanks, Tyler! I stumbled and bumbled my way through over six miles when a race director appeared.

She told us the race was cancelled. For safety reasons. It was 28 degrees outside. 15 with the wind chill. It had been that way since before the race started. For over an hour. Now suddenly it was deemed dangerous. It had dumped over four inches of snow since the race began. I had frostbite. I had been taking turns alternately sweating with my jacket on, or freezing with it off. My hair was icicle dreadlocks. I couldn’t feel the left side of my face where the wind was blowing from. It was finally over.

She told us to take the shortcut back. We were three miles from the finish. I was eager for the shortcut. Excited, even.

I naively asked how long the shortcut was.

2.5 miles she replied. Oh, and for safety reasons we could no longer run.

Thus began a 2.5 mile freezing walk through the woods. Every part of me that had been sweating froze. Every part that was already frozen froze worse. By the time I got back to camp, I was mobbed by the race volunteers. I’d like to tell you it was because they wanted my autograph, but far more likely it was because I looked like death. I assume if I had looked like one of the white walkers from A Song of Ice and Fire (A Game of Thrones for TV fans) they would have run the other way. They wrapped me in towels. They gave me hot chocolate. They performed my last rights when they thought I wasn’t paying attention.

I heard everything.

Mercifully, it was over. Or so I thought.

They decided to continue on with the games. So we did all the challenges. We got wet. We got cold. We went to bed.

The next day was the relay race. I would like to claim we put on a good showing, but… Nike brought in two pro teams. Adidas brought in two pro teams. The Christian organization that owed the camp brought in their college track and field team. We were a group of weekend warriors and desk jockeys against people who did this for a living.

We got destroyed. Not even destroyed. We were annihilated. They scribed our names in the firmament so future generations would know how badly we had been beaten. It was not a loss. It was a SHAMING.

That said, I would do it again. Just, you know, hope for better weather. Or bring appropriate gear.

Recently I had the (mis?)fortune of getting to do a double crossing of the Grand Canyon. For those who are not completely insane, let me explain. It involves starting on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, looking across and going “Hey, I’d like to be over there!” So you go down through the bottom of the canyon, come out the North Rim, look around, and go “I’d like to be back in the other place where I started from.”  You can rest, if you can call it rest, then repeat everything in the opposite direction. You can optionally go North to South and back, but the North rim is sort of… look, there is nothing of real notable interest there. I mean, there is a lodge, but it is only open part of the year and I can’t tell you the food is great, so South to North it is. I mean, the views at the North rim lodge are great, but after spending hours crossing the damn thing, the last thing I wanted to do was look at the canyon some more. At that point the canyon can go back to hell, from whence it came.

It is 21-24 miles each way depending on the trails you take, and 4000+ feet down and then back up twice. It is, quite simply, a completely asinine thing to do to yourself. I did this for fun, because at some point I lost my goddamn mind and this is just what I do now. It is too late for me. Save yourself.

It also tends to be hot. Bright Angel, which I take on the way back because it has more water stops than Kaibab, has nothing for shade. There is some at Indian Garden, but everything before and after that takes places in a blighted hellscape of rocks and switchbacks and sun. So much sun. Sun until you wish for an endless, interminable night to fall. Bring on the vampires. You know who was a Bright Angel? Lucifer, the Morningstar. I can’t say the the trail is misnamed.

I managed to cross South to North in 7 hours 37 minutes. North to South took 8 hours 28 minutes. North to South is easier, as far more of it is downhill and you lose 1000 ft of climbing, but it is also 3 miles longer and I cached my legs on the first crossing, so running the middle was done at a lower speed than desired.

All told, it was interesting adventure. I got stopped by mule trains, lectured by rangers, and yelled at by angry hikers because they were angry. I got nausea from my electrolyte drink at the bottom of the canyon that never really went away. I could barely walk the next day. I currently have an eczema flare up on my inner joints. I have cuts and bruises I can’t explain. It was dirty. It was grueling. I had a hard time breathing on the North rim climb. I ruined my trail shoes and will have to shell out another $120 for a new pair. My brand new hydration pack is crusted with salt and dried nutrition gels.  My running gear smells like it was worn by one of the Orcs in Lord of the Rings.

I am currently considering doing it again next year. Because, as I said, I have apparently lost my damn mind. However, I am still not an ultra runner. I refuse that designation. Those guys are crazy.