Trail selection advice for Grand Canyon Backpacking Trip?

[sscates]

My wife, son and I are planning on doing a 3-4 day hike in the Grand Canyon, starting from the South Rim the beginning of April. Although I've been to the Grand Canyon a couple times, I've never ventured from the North or South Rim. We are looking to make a great trip together, as our son is heading off to college soon after graduation in June (nominated to the AF Academy, not accepted as of yet).

We are all experienced hikers/backpackers, having done overnight trips in the Sierras and local overnights in Idylwil. We have excellent equipment, so we just need some advice from people who have done something similar for trail selection.

I've got a book of all the trails, I'm thinking something of a loop, not an out and back and don't want to stay in any campgrounds. We will get a backcountry permit to camp by ourselves. I know that we will see people on the trail, but really want to have peace and quiet for as much time in the evening as possible. I really can't even imagine going to one of the bungalow camping sites with a hundred people in it.

I appreciate any and all advice. We will be flying into Grand Canyon Airport via a small plane. Steve

[89911]

Sounds like a great time. Having been there a few times, I would look to a source associated with parks department for advice. It sounds like you are physically able to due the hiking and camping end of it. Most of the advice there is trying to avoid most from trying something out of there ability level. A high percentage of problems come from visitors getting the "hiking fever" and just setting off with little planning. Sounds like that won't be a problem for you. If I was doing this, I would obtain all the needed permits, alot how much time you actually plan on spending there, and then come up with the most interesting trails to try. IT shouldn't take too much time to find which ones those are. Good luck.

[sscates]

I have the form to submit for the backcountry permit, but noticed that you have to specify the trail that you will enter and exit on. Bottom line, they need to know your itinerary ahead of time. I can apply 4 months in advance (one more week), so I need to make a decision on the trail and then move into the planning phase.

I've got a couple books on travels in the Grand Canyon that I will be digging into in the next couple weeks, just hoping you guys all have some real time experience.

[Evans, Marv]

3 or 4 days isn't a long time, so you probably shouldn't be overly optimistic about covering a lot of territory. I haven't been there for a long time, but some friends & I did a two day trip down Bright Angle Trail and back up to Yaqui Point years ago. I thought at the time it would have been fun to spend a day or two down in the bottom doing some day hikes and exploration. I'd check about the restrictions on where you can camp, because I bet they regulate that pretty strictly.

[Talewinds]

You can't go wrong with the Bright Angel.

[Hard-Deck]

Have you considdered taking a shuttle to N. Side and doing the N-S rim hike? It's roughly six miles/day, about all you want to do a day at Grand Cyn

[sscates]

Definitely don't want to do a shuttle. I would like to go hangout in the canyon and do a couple day hikes then back out on a different trail. Maybe a semi loop, but not an out and back.

I thought the same thing about camping, that it wouldn't be allowed, but it is. You can pick your spot in certain areas. Of the 45 million people who visit the canyon each year, less than 1% backpack and camp, so I think we should be able to find a good camping spot somewhere. By my calculations, that would be 3000 people backpack camping on any give day, counting half the days in the year. That's still a lot! Most of those must be in the big campgrounds though.

I think 4 days is going to be enough time, as 3 wouldn't allow enough to really soak it in.

I've got a really good book on the canyon by Colin Fletcher that I'm just getting into. He hike the entire canyon and wrote a book on it, so it's giving great details and such.