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What is the most difficult trail in the grand canyon?

I did the south kaibab trail on the 3-24 and came back up bright angel in 1 day - 17 miles. This was a lot easier than I had anticipated, as I exchanged many emails back and forth with experienced hikers who advised me not to attempt this. It took 12 hours as I went with a group and one lady had asthma and had difficulty finshing it. I stayed back with the leader, and this lady. The leader was 68 yrs old and kept a excellent pace until are fellow hiker started having trouble. The rest of our group finished it in 10.5 hours, but we spent about 45 minutes at Phantom ranch. This was the 1st time I ever used trekking pools which i think helped significantly. I was just wondering if there was a 1 day trail more difficult than this. I am also aware of the rim to rim to rim 24 mile course and i will be doing this in september in 1 day. I'm not in great shape, but I have strong endurance and I am interested in something more difficult than down KS and up Bright Angel. (down KS - up KS??)

South Kaibab and Bright Angel are the easist trails in the canyon because they are the best maintained, have people around for help, and there is water along the Bright Angel.

In my experience, going down South Kaibab and then back up South Kaibab is easier from a pure hiking perspective than the route you took on SK and BA. The frequently-heard conventional wisdom is that BA is easier to go up because the longer distance must mean a more gradual climb - but most of the extra distance on BA is the 2.5 miles along the river which is not buying you anything elevation-wise. Having gone up and down both several times, I would say SK is the easier in both directions. The BIG thing to consider and which makes BA MUCH better in summer is that BA has water along the way and is in the shade more often - that makes a big difference in summer.

As for more difficult trails, well take your pick...
My pick for toughest South Rim hike to the river is the New Hance trail (TH west of Moran Point) which is about 18 miles round trip. It is a very rough, unmaintained old pioneer trail that involves cliffs, rock scrambling and some route finding. No water along the way.

A bit more realistic is the Tanner Trail (TH near Lipan Point) which is 15 mile round trip to the river and back. It is also an unmaintained trail with no water along the way, but in better shape and somewhat easier terrain than New Hance. It is a popular overnight backpack. A few people day hike it, but it is not recommended particulary in warm weather.

On both of the above trails, people will often carry extra water bottles part way down and than cache them along the trail for the way back up.

Closer to the lodges, there is Hermit trail which can be taken to Hermit Creek (15 miles round trip) or all the way to the river (18 miles round trip). There is often water in Hermit Creek and usually at Santa Maria spring near the top of the trail (both of these are natural occurances of water and would require filtering or treatment before drinking). Hermit is a steep trail, but for the most part better maintained than the above two (except for a couple of rockslide areas below Santa Maria spring).

Beyond those, there are plenty of multi-day backpacking trails in the canyon - many going along the Tonto Trail - that could easily be 30-40 or more miles.

Frankly, I would not recommend doing any of the above in a day regardless of how you did on SK and BA (yes, I have been down and back in a day on those). There is no guarantee that you will react to the canyon the same way each time or in different seasons. Once, when I was much younger and in better shape than when I did SK-BA in a day, I 'hit the wall' coming out of Grandview (a steep 3.5 mile climb) when I tried it in summer. A combination of having an off day and the extra heat and humidity sucked the energy out of me and made it one of the most slow and unpleasant climbs out I've had - if I were on a deeper and more remote trail, I could have been in trouble.

If you are doing rim-to-rim-to-rim in early Sept when it is still pretty warm, than you will find it a very different experience than the relative cool of March.

Obviously, there are people that do extended one day hikes all over the canyon (the late Harvey Butchart comes to mind), but it is best to ease into such things in small steps to learn how your body reacts in different situtions before going off on rougher and less maintained trails. One of the great things about the canyon is that allows you to push and test yourself - but don't get cocky. Statistically, it is the people who are in good shape that typically die in the canyon, not the out of shape ones.

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