My SPOT link did not work, my buddy's did -
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0H3dGNDzgh3h895xuA7KOygHJpjqRgEf6We parked the car along the road and walked to the South Kaibab TH. We dropped in the canyon at 0630. Several large groups were leaving doing R2Rs. We quickly passed all of them. We played leap frog with some other R2R2Rs and R2Rs for a good chunk of the trip over. They would pull ahead on the flats and downhill and we would catch up on the uphill. The strongest R2R2R team, a couple of lovely ladies from down under, pushed hard and left us, though we never saw them at north rim or coming back down. We joked that my buddy's stories of how we stayed in the hotel last time and how our third partner took the shuttle back corrupted them.
We made it to north rim in exactly 8 hours. After a 30 minute break we left the rim to a cheering crowd who was there to support the large R2R groups. A light rain fell and got heavier for the next hour. We slowed significantly due to slippery conditions. By the time we reached the pump house on the bottom the rain was over and we were able to run again.
I waited over an hour after putting my headlamp on to try any running since it has been so long since I've been out after dark. Once I built up some confidence we took off. At Bright Angel campground we topped off our water supplies, freshed up our feet with baby wipes and clean socks and got ready for the worst part - back up South Kaibab. Ideally we wanted to make it out before midnight and call it a calendar day hike, but the south rim got hit really hard by the earlier rain and the trail was muddy, sloppy and slick. We ended up finishing at 12:30 for exactly 18 hours. Not bad for a couple guys like us...................................DUG
