This is very interesting, Thanks for sharing!

Just a quick update post hike. Was pretty hot (105 at Phantom ranch), but I think we avoided some of the heat by leaving on the South Kaibab by 5:20a.m. The wife got a bit hot between Phantom Ranch and Cottonwood Campground in the exposed area just before and after Rainbow Falls. Had to stop a few times for her to cool down, but we made it to the north rim in just under 13 hours (12:50 or so).

After doing that hike from south to north, I definitely think it was more difficult then when I did it from north to south. I needed to eat my fourth power bar to keep my energy level up instead of only 3 on the north to south hike. The heat didn't really bother me too much and we saw a snake and a goat/ram/sheep on the hike (not sure). It was sitting right in the middle of the trail.

Another crappy thing was they said the pipeline was broken and we didn't find out till 15 minutes before we needed to get on the bus. Luckily we had an extra two gallons of water we hauled down with us, but unforntunately it was for no reason as they still had drinking water somehow even though the signs at the top claimed they didn't. Figured out how much water you need to make it rim to rim though (about 2 gallons).

Good going - Rim-to-rim in the hottest part of summer. Wow! Not sure I could do that. Thanks for your post. Was anybody else doing it?

I saw one guy jogging down the same time we started, but never saw him again (dunno if he did tonto to BA or River trail to BA or maybe R to R, but he only had a liter and a half hand held with him so he had to make good time.

Another pair of girls were doing South Kaibab to Phantom ranch and back up BA, we passed them as they were coming back from Phantom Ranch. We saw a pair of guys from Singapore that were working at the park. They left about 30 minutes prior to us and we caught them at Cottonwood. From there on we kept passing each other till we both hit the north rim at about the same time.

There was a homeless guy we passed around Cottonwood as well that was doing the same Rim to Rim hike. He stayed at Cottonwood to rest longer though, because he overheated a bit.

Other than that just a youger couple that hiked from the north rim down to Roaring springs and back that ended up at the rim with us and the Singapore guys. They said they were swimming in a water hole down there.

Saw the helicopter fly over us about 3 or 4 times (not sure if it was rescues or not). I took a bunch of photos and video taped way more footage then I should have (an hour and a half). I had the hike cam going quite a bit on that one.

got to hike through the Grand Canyon last year, and it was awesome! great view and vast emptiness!