By Michael Lanza
This is, in a way, a story about addiction. Or a love affair. Or both. Those metaphors best describe how the Grand Canyon constantly lures me back when I’m thinking about spring and fall hiking and backpacking trips.
It is that rare kind of natural environment that exists on a scale of its own, like Alaska or the Himalaya. There’s something soul-stirring and hypnotic about its infinite vistas, the deceptive immensity of the canyon walls and stone towers, and the way the foreground and background continually expand and shrink as you ascend and descend elevation gradients of a vertical mile or more—all of which validates enduring the wilting heat and trails that sometimes seem better suited to rattlesnakes and scorpions than bipedal primates.
For backpackers seeking adventure, challenge, and incomparable natural beauty, the canyon stands alone.
This story will show you, in words and photos, why one or more of these Big Ditch backpacking trips deserves top priority as you’re planning your next trip. I think you will quickly understand why the Grand Canyon has increasingly become one of my favorite places over more than three decades (and counting) of backpacking, including the 10 years I spent as a longtime field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.
Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-guides to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.
And the time to start planning your Grand Canyon adventure is right now.
Whenever I’m looking for a long, remote, incredibly beautiful, wilderness backpacking trip in the Southwest, the Grand Canyon seems to consistently emerge on top. Even though it lies a day’s journey from my home, I’ve been there numerous times for backpacking trips and ultra-dayhikes.
It seems the more I go there, the more I want—or need—to go back, in spite of how hard it is (and maybe that’s one of the reasons I keep going back).
Each of the eight trips described below can be hiked within a week. Each description links to a feature story about that trip at The Big Outside, which include many photos and my expert tips on planning and pulling them off—including how to acquire one of these hard-to-get permits. (Many of those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.)
Any of these hikes will thrill and amaze you—and just may inspire in you an urge to go back again and again.
A Grand Canyon backcountry permit is one of the hardest to get in the National Park System. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” which is freshly updated with detailed information on how to obtain a permit, and “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”
See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these trips or any trip you read about at this blog.
I’d love to hear if you’ve done any of these trips or want to suggest others in the Grand Canyon. Please share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.
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Grand Canyon Rim to Rim
If there’s an archetypal Grand Canyon hike, this baby is it. Crossing the canyon via the North Kaibab Trail combined with either the South Kaibab (one of prettiest of the 25 best national park dayhikes) or the Bright Angel Trail delivers the goods on epic scenery. You get views that span from both rims all the way down to the Colorado River, the huge vistas of the South Kaibab, the Bright Angel’s panoramas and desert oases (I’ve also see bighorn sheep on that trail), a walk through the narrow, sheer-walled gorge of lower Bright Angel Creek, waterfalls, and airy sections where the North Kaibab clings to cliff faces.
Although most GC trails are quite rugged, these three so-called “corridor” trails, while quite strenuous for their vertical relief, have better footing, more reliable water availability at regular intervals, and much less of the loose terrain, quad-pounding ledge drops, and occasionally scary exposure of other canyon footpaths.
A one-way canyon traverse, typically backpacked in three days (in either direction), is 21 miles with 4,780 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the South Kaibab and North Kaibab trails (going south to north), or 23.5 miles with 4,380 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the Bright Angel and North Kaibab (also going south to north). Shuttles are available between the rims, and you can also double the trip by backpacking across and back.
Another excellent—and popular—itinerary, especially among first-timers here, is to forego the long ascent to the North Rim, and instead hike 16.5 miles rim to river to rim: down the South Kaibab and up the Bright Angel. Many backpackers take two or three days, with one night at Bright Angel Campground on the Colorado River and a possible second night at Indian Garden Campground along the Bright Angel Trail to break up the long climb back up from the river.
Demand is enormous for a permit for backpacking the corridor trails in spring or fall, with upwards of three-quarters of applications denied. Read my story “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon.”
Do this trip smartly. Get my expert e-guide to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim
or my expert e-guide to dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.
Plus, growing numbers of uber-bit hikers and runners knock off a rim-to-rim (r2r) or a complete rim-to-rim-to-rim—across and back—(r2r2r) in a day. Consequently, in peak weather of mid-spring and mid-autumn, don’t expect the solitude you can find on some other canyon backpacking trips.
But if you want to take one of the most unique and spectacular treks in the world, without attempting any of the other significantly harder routes, this is the one.
See my stories “Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day” and “A Grand Ambition, or April Fools? Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” and all stories about South Rim hikes and South Rim backpacking trips at The Big Outside.
See also my expert e-guide to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim or my expert e-guide to dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.
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South Kaibab to Lipan Point
When a longtime backcountry ranger in the canyon whom I know, who’s hiked every mile of trail in the park, told me this 74-mile route was “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon,” I’ll admit, I was a little dubious. After all, every hike in the Big Ditch is amazing. Then I backpacked it and found myself concluding: He’s right.
Besides the fact that the South Kaibab is absolutely one of the best hikes in the entire National Park System, this route—which has shorter alternatives—follows one of the of the prettiest and most adventurous “trails” (if it can be called that) in the canyon, the Escalante Route, which involves some tricky route-finding and exposed scrambling. This hike also incorporates the beautiful and surprisingly rigorous Beamer Trail, and another rim-to-river footpath, the Tanner Trail.
While water sources are sporadic, there are three perennial streams—one of them the Colorado River—and you’ll enjoy some of the best backcountry campsites you’ve ever spent a night in, including beaches on the Colorado. And you might get invited to an outstanding dinner by a river party.
See my story “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”
Click here now for my expert e-guide to the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.
Hermits Rest to Bright Angel
Outside the three corridor trails, the 25-mile hike from Hermits Rest to the Bright Angel Trailhead may be the park’s most popular, for many good reasons. Although it does not go all the way to the Colorado River—unless you take any of a few side trails off this route that descend to the river (each adding several miles round-trip)—this linkup of the Hermit, Tonto, and Bright Angel trails nonetheless offers an experience similar to a rim-to-river-to-rim hike that’s in many ways easier.
The rigorous Hermit Trail—the hardest section of this hike—snakes through one of the dramatic tributary canyons of the Colorado River, below colorful, striated cliffs of the canyon’s Supai and Redwall layers. You’ll follow a 13-mile stretch of the Tonto Trail across the gently rolling Tonto Plateau, where prickly-pear cacti and other wildflowers bloom and the views span from the rims to the river.
That stretch of the Tonto crosses five major tributary canyons of the Colorado River, including passing directly below the tall, slender rock spire and soaring burgundy cliffs in the canyon of Monument Creek, and the mind-boggling heights and three-dimensionality of the Inferno.
One more advantage of this hike: There are three reliable water sources along or a short distance off this route.
Read “One Extraordinary Day: A 25-Mile Dayhike in the Grand Canyon” about dayhiking Hermits Rest to Bright Angel Trailhead (a route I’ve also backpacked).
I can help you plan these or any trips you read about at my blog. Find out more here.
South Kaibab to Grandview Point
Like Hermits Rest to Bright Angel, the 29-mile hike from the South Kaibab Trailhead to Grandview Point provides backpackers with a full-immersion experience in the Big Ditch without as much elevation gain and loss as going all the way to the Colorado River. (In fact, this trip offers just one optional side hike to the river—down the South Kaibab Trail.)
Descending the South Kaibab Trail as the light of early morning streams across the Grand Canyon is one of the most sublime hiking experiences in America. And the Grandview Trail offers constantly changing perspectives of the canyon spreading out before you. This hike also traverses a long stretch of the scenic Tonto Plateau, with views reaching to the South and North rims and the river, crossing a handful of tributary canyons like Grapevine Creek, which itself is staggeringly deep and broad. All along this route, some of the canyon’s most distinctive formations, like the towering Zoroaster Temple, seem to grow and shrink as you approach and move away from them.
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You can combine this hike with the Hermits Rest to Bright Angel hike (above), or partly overlap the two—going from Hermits Rest to South Kaibab or Grandview Point to Bright Angel or doing either in the opposite direction. There are four water sources along this route, but only one is perennial (Grapevine Creek), so it’s better done in spring, when the other three creeks usually have water.
See my story “Dropping Into the Grand Canyon: A Four-Day Hike From Grandview Point to the South Kaibab Trail” at The Big Outside.
See the “5 Reasons You Must Backpack in the Grand Canyon.”
See all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.
Hi Mike. Are there any itineraries (4-6 days is ideal) that your recommend in the grand canyon in June — or is that getting to late in the season. Thanks
Hi Tom,
I’d say the first week of June is pushing the season and you will likely encounter pretty hot temps, but with smart planning and strategies like hiking very early and late in the day and likely hunkering down in any shade by water you can find during the hot middle hours of the day, it can work. Definitely don’t go to the canyon then expecting fairly comfortable temps; daytime highs are likely to be in the 90s in the inner canyon. My advice would be to pick another place that’s higher in the Southwest or farther north, but if you’re ready for the canyon’s heat, you’ll probably be fine.
Good luck.
Hi Michael,
I purchased Best Backpacking trip in Grand Canyon and the Best First Backpacking Trip in Grand Canyon to compare and choose the best route for us, but I wanted to ask your advice:
We have 8-9 days in our calendar for this backpacking trip, and while the South Kaibab to Lipan Point appeals to us very much with it’s adventurous track and solitude, I’m worried about some segments of Escalante Route that you found a bit dangerous.
I’ve backpacked Teton, Glacier, Olympic, North Cascade, Wind River, Four Pass Loop. Most of those backpacking trips had 7-8 nights, and covered around 70-90 miles, with heavy backpacks. So I would say we do have experience in backpacking, but we have never been to Grand Canyon, so will it be an overload to aim for such a first trip, even if we stretch it to 8-9 days, and prepare for it with all the precautions. We plan to book this trip in the first two weeks of April.
And I have to mentions that we do love solitude and uncrowded routes, so I’m afraid if we choose the Rim to Rim it might be a bit too crowded for our liking in that time of the year, or are there enough side day hikes to stretch the Rim to Rim to 7-8 days, with trails that are less traveled?
Hi Irena,
Thanks for buying those two Grand Canyon e-guides. As you’ve seen, they both describe very beautiful and very different trips, with the rim to rim a classic following the park’s most accessible and “friendliest” trails and the South Kaibab to Lipan Point hike involving some serious, exposed scrambling in sections.
You have an impressive backpacking resume and have done long multi-day hikes in some tough terrain. Those are all good preparation for the South Kaibab to Lipan trip. What you might not have encountered on any of those hikes, though, is the kind of exposed scrambling you’ll see on the Escalante Route. I don’t think the scrambling is particularly hard, but there’s definitely loose rock in places that demands caution and there’s exposed scrambling where a fall could be very bad. You would want a cord to lower packs or haul them up, depending on which direction hike it. (This is all covered in the e-guide.)
I suggest you look closely at the photos in my blog story about that trip, “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” where photo captions will help you identify the most difficult sections of the Escalante Route. (That story, like many at my blog, is partly free for anyone to read but requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.) The e-guide also has many photos of the route that should be helpful.
I think it really comes down to personal comfort level with exposure and that’s not a question I can answer for all of you, but it is one you can all answer for yourselves. Check out the photos.
Thanks again. Good luck.
Michael, thank you so much for your reply and for your advice!
I researched those hard sections, and watched a few videos and saw the photos in your blog as well, and I can see that they are not as bad as I thought, I’ve encountered similar scrambling segments on some day hikes I did in the past. So I’m pretty sure if I’m careful and take my time, everything will be good.
If everything goes as planned, I’ll leave my feedback to this trail in the end of April.
Thank you !
I’m glad you did some smart research on that route and concluded that you’re comfortable with it, Irena. That’s exactly how to handle those decisions about trip planning. Have fun and I’d love to hear how it goes.
Hi
I am starting to plan a multi nights trek for April/May 2024. Living in Europe makes such a project a little bit difficult. Could you advise me or help me (on a fee basis) ?
Thanks for your answer
Regards
Michel
Hi Michel,
Yes, I’ve backpacked several times in the Grand Canyon and I could certainly help you plan that trip. I’ll email you with more thoughts about that and my Custom Trip Planning.
Thanks for asking.
This September I’m going to hike R3!
Yea, go for it, Jennifer! HUUUUGE day. Just be sure you’re ready for it. Take a look at my expert e-guide to hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.
Good luck!
Hermits Rest without combining another trail. That’s the hike for which to hopefully acquire a permit. This one is not included in the 7 best. Does this mean we will have a better chance of acquisition?
Hi Matthew,
This story describes the hike from Hermits Rest to the Bright Angel Trailhead. If you’re just referring to backpacking down and back up only the Hermit Trail, that’s a more limited and shorter itinerary and obviously involves backtracking your route. A permit with fewer nights and camps is almost always easier to get, of course. Good luck.
Hi Michael,
I’m planning for a Grand Canyon backpacking trip with my daughter for October. Your eGuide and other articles have been very helpful.
In general, what would be a good R-value for a pad in Grand Canyon that time of year? We’re only doing south side — down South Kaibab, up Bright Angel.
Thanks!
Dave
Hi Dave,
Thanks for buying one of my Grand Canyon e-guides and for asking a good question.
In fall or spring in the Grand Canyon, you can use the same air mattress you’d use for summer backpacking trips in the mountains almost anywhere in the U.S., expecting overnight temps anywhere from the 50s to around freezing. An R-value around 3 is conservatively warm enough for those temps but you’ll find that many newer, three-season, lightweight air mats have R-values above 3 and even above 4 without being prohibitively heavy or bulky for most backpacking trips.
This Sea to Summit blog post explains the R-value standard.
See all of my air mattress reviews at The Big Outside.
Have a great hike in the canyon with your daughter!
It is an addiction that I still have. The Hermit loop trail and thunder river trail I’ve hiked each multiple times with different friends over the years. The memories are so bright and clear. I appreciate all of it.
I couldn’t agree more, Martin. I have a permit reservation to explore another area of the Grand Canyon this spring and I’m very excited about it. Thanks for sharing those thoughts.
Hi Michael,
Enjoy and learn so much from your articles. Thanks!
Have you ever hiked the Lava Falls Trail near Toroweap Overlook? I was there on a day trip and wanted to hike it, but I didn’t have time. It’s a remote but beautiful area.
Thanks again for your inspiration and education!
Lynne Krulich
Hi Lynne,
Thanks for the nice words about my blog. I have not hiked the Lava Falls Trail near Toroweap Overlook in the Grand Canyon. I’ve read about it and it’s extremely steep and rugged, descending more than 2,500 vertical feet in under two miles, which is well over 1,000 feet per mile. That’s extremely difficult and I’d only attempt it with very fit, expert hikers. I hope that’s helpful.
Terrific reporting on a terrific place. I’ve been to the Phantom Ranch on seven trips with scouts, friends, and family members over a 30-year period. My final rim-to-rim hike was in 2018 when I was 74. And you’re correct that it is an addictive place to hike. The Bright Angel campground is “home” and the Phantom Ranch is my “Mecca.”
Sad to know that only 1% take advantage of the beauty and exhilarating experience that the inner canyon holds. An R2R window decal is a badge of honor. Thanks for enlightening your readers.
Thanks, Dennis. The canyon is truly a place of wonders.
Cheyava Falls via the Clear Creek trail should be an adventure not to be missed. Cheyava Falls flows out of a cave close to the top of the Redwall Cliffs. Cheyava means intermittent, these Falls flow only if the North Rim has had a good amount of snow and may only flow for a month or two. When Cheyava flows it can be seen from the South Rim. South Kaibab or Bright Angel and then the Clear Creek trail.
Thanks, Jerry, great suggestion. Backpacking the Clear Creek Trail to Cheyava Falls has been on my radar for a while.
Michael,
Happy New Year and thank you for the great hiking and backpacking gems.
My wife and four friends enjoyed six days in the GC in November. We hiked down South Kaibab, into Clear Creek, day hiked up Clear Creek, returned to Phantom Ranch and then a leisurely two days up Bright Angel plus some other exploratory hikes. For five of us it was our first time into the Canyon. Our group leader has been 20+ times and when I asked her why Sue response was “it feels like home.”.
I understand approximately 1% of GC visitors hike into the Canyon in a meaningful way. This is one 1% club I am proud to be a member.
My first experience in the Canyon was mystical and mesmerizing. Seeing it from the rim is one thing. Being in the Canyon is a whole other experience. It rivals some of my experiences in the high mountains of the World.
I am planning to return possibly the Thunder River and Deer Creek route. Hopefully in conjunction with another Michael recommendation Paria Canyon. Now to get the permits!
Hi John,
It’s always a pleasure to read your observations about any trip. I’m glad you’ve added the Grand Canyon to your lengthy list of great world destinations. Like me, I expect you will want to return again and again. And I agree that, to paraphrase Powell, the best way to see the GC is by descending into it and spending a lot of time. I’m sure you will enjoy the Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop, and I do highly recommend Paria Canyon as one of the Southwest’s very best.
Happy new year. Be well.