Weekend Shenanigans - We Survived

We made it! We are sore and tired, but we made it!

In case you missed it, this weekend Honey and I hiked 18 miles down and back up the Grand Canyon. It was amazingly difficult and satisfying. We were SO happy to be done.

We started off our weekend camping out Friday night with 34 degree temps and snow. and ice. Yes - camping in snow and ice! We bundled up under quilts and sleeping bags, fully clothed and I slept in a hat! lol

We made homemade pizza over the fire (in my dutch oven) then moved on to a couple of hot dogs!

 Are site in the morning with a nice layer of snow and ice!

 Love notes just because!

We made it through the night and woke up Saturday and headed over to the South Kaibab trail. We needed crampons for our shoes! Thank goodness for Amazon overnight delivery, I bought them on Thursday!

The trek down was beautiful - but HARD! Who knew going downhill could be so difficult? Very steep and never-ending!

We the snow melted away we were left with muddy muck. 

 Crossing the Colorado River - FINALLY! About a mile to go to Phantom!

We made it! We were so happy to finally be here! We enjoyed a couple of beers, our steak dinners, meeting people from all over the country and lastly a bottle of wine (carried down in my backpack!!).
We went to bed in our dorms at 7:15! We were beat. We also knew we  had a 10-mile uphill hike the next morning! I should say it was my original (crazy) plan to hike down and back in 1 day! Luckily Honey is more reasonable and he was able to call over the last few weeks (every day) and get us both into the dorms at Phantom. Phantom is booked up 13 months in advance! So yay us!!

Fun at Phantom:

This is how mail gets delivered from Phantom to the rest of the world! Mules carry it up to the post office at the top of the Rim! We sent each of the kiddos a post card! 

Sunday morning we woke up at 4:50 and were headed out by 5:15 am! Thank goodness for our headlamps! We hiked the first 5 miles to Indian Garden then took a short break for breakfast and Powerade!

After a short break, we were on our final hike out of the Canyon. About 5 more miles to the top! We took short snack breaks at the 3 and 1.5 mile rest stops but pushed on! It took us 7 hours (including all of our breaks and stops) to go the 10 miles from Phantom to the South Rim. We were beat once we were done!!

Scenes along the way:

Lastly, our reward meal!! YUM!!

So what did you do this weekend?!