We wish we could be truly ultralight hikers. But we’ve never managed to whittle our pack weight down sufficiently.

For the same reasons we pay to insure our car and home, we carry—even when dayhiking—enough gear to ensure we won’t succumb to hypothermia should we get lost, injured, or pinned-down by a surprise storm in the backcountry.

When we see hikers blithely skipping along with only slender hydration packs slung over their shoulders, we’re envious. But we know they’re carrying little more than water, a sandwich, and maybe a rain shell, which isn’t nearly enough to ensure their safety should something go seriously awry.

Imagine you’re hiking in the alpine zone. You’re 8 mi (12.9 km) from the nearest road. A rock shifts beneath your boot. You stumble, fall, and break your ankle. You’re shocked. You can’t believe it. You’re in pain and cannot walk.

Compounding your predicament, a thunderstorm is brewing. The sky blackens. The clouds drop. It begins raining. The rain turns to hail. The hail turns to sleet. The temperature plummets. You put on your rain shell and huddle against a boulder. But you have no rain pants, no extra insulating layers, and no emergency shelter.* You’re wet, cold, shivering. Uh oh.

Many deaths outdoors involve only minor injuries, and often no injury at all. “Exposure” is usually cited as the killer, but that’s a misleading term. It vaguely refers to conditions that contributed to the death. The actual cause is hypothermia: excessive loss of body heat. It can happen with startling speed, in surprisingly mild weather—often between 0 and 10° C (30 and 50°F). Guard against it vigilantly.

Cool temperatures, wetness (perspiration or rain), wind, or fatigue, usually a combination, sap the body of vital warmth. Hypothermia results when heat loss continues to exceed heat gain. Initial symptoms include chills and shivering. Poor coordination, slurred speech, sluggish thinking, and memory loss are next. Intense shivering then decreases while muscular rigidity increases, accompanied by irrationality, incoherence, even hallucinations. Stupor, blue skin, slowed pulse and respiration, and unconsciousness follow. The heartbeat finally becomes erratic until the victim dies.

Avoid becoming hypothermic by wearing synthetic clothing that wicks moisture away from your skin and insulates when wet. Food fuels your internal fire, so bring more than you think you’ll need, including several energy bars for emergencies only.

If you can’t stay warm and dry, you must escape the wind and rain. Turn back. Keep moving. Eat snacks. Seek shelter. Do it while you’re still mentally and physically capable. Watch others in your party for signs of hypothermia. Victims might resist help at first. Trust the symptoms, not the person. Be insistent. Act immediately.

Create the best possible shelter for the victim. Take off his wet clothes and replace them with dry ones. Insulate him from the ground. Provide warmth. A pre-warmed sleeping bag inside a tent is ideal. If necessary, add more warmth by taking off your clothes and crawling into the bag with the victim. Build a fire. Keep the victim conscious. Feed him sweets. Carbohydrates quickly convert to heat and energy. In advanced cases, victims should not drink hot liquids.

*When dayhiking, we always pack a 5-ounce, sil-nylon tarp that we can use to quickly erect a shelter big enough to cover us both. Each of us also carries a small, bum pad made of closed-cell foam, and a waterproof, breathable, SOL Escape bivvy sack that weighs only 8 ounces. These, plus a waterfproof shell and pants, insulating hat and gloves, midweight fleece tights, and an expedition-weight fleece top, comprise an effective yet reasonably light, compact, insurance policy against hypothermia. Total weight: approximately 3.5 lbs per person.

Like sandpaper, the gritty details of daily life grind down our memories’ sharpest edges. How else to explain the surprise and wonder we feel when repeating a momentous event that we thought we recalled vividly?

Kath and I have backpacked in the Grand Canyon more than a half dozen times. We’ve rafted the Colorado River through the Grand.* Its been just two years since we last hiked in the Grand (North Rim to Thunder River). And still we were startled to once again peer into this great gash in the Earth.

Hiking there last week was as grand and deep an experience for us as it was the first time decades ago. Perhaps more so. Our ability to notice and appreciate detail seems to be growing. (A sign of maturity?) But it’s also the canyon itself. The more scenic wonderlands we witness, the more we marvel at this one.

Kath believes ingesting the beauty of this mile-deep canyon by hiking it, she contracted the emotional equivalent of giardiasis. The bug lives on inside her, she says. The symptoms disappear, but not forever. Eventually they recur, nagging her until she comes back for treatment: another Grand Canyon sojourn.

What neither of us can comprehend are North American hikers—particularly those living in the West, within a couple days’ drive of northern Arizona—who assume the more distant a hiking destination is, the more compelling it must be. We know such people. They’ve trekked in Ladakh, summitted Kilimanjaro, but express no interest in the Grand Canyon. Overawed by the exotic, they ignore the nearby.

Despite the noise (see our previous post regarding scenic overflights), the backpack trip we completed last week in the Grand topped any we’ve ever done—anywhere. It was a mere three days, two nights, but every step was captivating. From Hermit’s Rest, we descended the Hermit trail to the Tonto trail. The first night we pitched our tent at Monument Creek. Next day, we followed the Tonto back across Hermit Creek and continued west to our second night’s camp at Boucher Creek (pronounced Boo-SHAY). Finally we ascended the Boucher trail up and out of the canyon, back to Hermit’s Rest. (See distance and elevation details below.)

Camping at Hermit Creek is vastly more popular than camping at Monument Creek. But we find Monument a more impressive setting: a broader drainage where the canyon’s soaring walls are visible.

Most people who carry backpacks down the Hermit trail also ascend the same way. But looping back via Boucher, as we did, makes the journey a little more adventurous and a lot more scenic.

The Tonto trail, which runs much of the canyon’s length, contours along the Tonto Plateau, just above where the Colorado River—architect of the Grand Canyon—surges through the sheer-walled, inner gorge. The most exciting section of the Tonto is between Hermit and Boucher creeks, where the trail hugs the edge of the precipice, grants frequent views of the river directly below, and affords constant vistas up and down the canyon.

It’s actually surprising the National Park Service (whose concern about visitor safety is, to put it mildly, extreme) keeps this airy section of the Tonto trail open to the public. We found it thrilling, but there’s little room for a misstep. As for the Boucher trail, the NPS describes it using the words “climb” and “exposure.” They exaggerate to dissuade the inept. Much of the trail is a steep, rough route requiring strength, endurance, and confidence born of experience. But there’s no climbing required and no exposure. A few sections qualify as scrambling, but they’re easy and short. We enjoyed the Boucher trail immensely. In comparison, the broad, dusty, Bright Angel trail, which accommodates tourist-laden mules, is dull.

Ascending the Boucher trail (much easier and more fun than descending it), the way forward is not always obvious, which makes it intriguing. The terrain changes rapidly and abruptly, from constricted gullies, to broad benches, to narrow ledges on nearly-vertical walls. Ultimately the trail provides a startling, aerial perspective of the Hermit Creek drainage and much of the trail we hiked on days one and two.

An adrenaline rush at a walker’s pace? Yes. Certainly in the Grand Canyon. Definitely on the Boucher trail. The misconception that “hiking is boring” is perpetuated by the lazy and incurious who’ve waddled into a soporific forest, seen nothing of note, and haven’t ventured beyond pavement since. Granted, some trails are boring. And some hikers are bored even amid stimulating scenery, so they either zone out or chat nonstop with companions. But the Boucher trail has the power to grab most hikers by their sternum straps, bringing their distracted minds to heel in the here and now.

Hikers who reside in Canada and the northern U.S. will appreciate that the optimal time to backpack in the Grand Canyon is late fall / early winter (November) and spring (March through mid-April), when the weather at home is no longer, or not yet, conducive to hiking. Last week, the nights were chilly (near freezing) on the 6900-ft (2104-m) canyon rim. But the daytime highs ranged between 70° and 80° F in the canyon at 3000 ft (915 m). It was even warmer, of course, on the canyon’s 2300-ft (701-m) floor, near the river. Perfect for hikers. By late spring (May), it’s too hot for most of us to comfortably backpack in the Grand Canyon.

A cautionary tale…  Two years ago, while we were backpacking off the Grand Canyon’s North Rim en route to Thunder River, I (Craig) stupidly ignored my own symptoms and succumbed to heat exhaustion. By doing so, I ruined our trip and risked my life. It was mid-May. The temperature was 100° F at 6 p.m. on the slickrock Esplanade within the canyon.

By 7 p.m. we’d completed about three-quarters of the 4800-ft (1463-m) descent. Suddenly, nausea and dizziness forced me to slow, stop, sit. Minutes before, I’d been hiking briskly. Now I was prostrate on the trail, vomiting. What motivated me to continue, and what saved my life, was that we were within 30 minutes of where the Thunder River originates, blasting out of the canyon wall.

I staggered and stumbled the final distance. Kath pitched our tent on a ledge beside the torrent. She doused me with frigid water late into the night. The vomiting continued till morning. I spent the next day alternately dozing in the shade and shivering beneath a small cascade, letting the icy water lower my core temperature. I ate nothing, because I couldn’t, but I sipped electrolyte-rich Emergen-C.

Though I was terribly weak, we knew I’d soon be too weak to hike out, so we packed and began slowly ascending at 7 p.m. We continued into the dark. We made it to the Esplanade at 10:30 p.m. By then I could nibble on a PowerBar.

That night, our second in the canyon, was gorgeous—clear and still—but difficult to appreciate. I seemed to be recovering but now Kath was feeling weak. She vomited. We were both unnerved knowing this was a medical emergency and our self rescue required another day’s effort we were unsure either of us could muster.

We packed and were hiking before our enemy, the sun, pounced on us again. The water we’d cached on the way down was now more vital than we’d imagined possible. What we didn’t drink we poured over our heads and down our backs. We ascended at a plodding pace unfamiliar to us. For me, it was “the march of repentance.”

Upon arriving at our car on the North Rim, we were exhausted, grateful, wiser. We’d written about heat exhaustion, warning others to avoid it, but now we fully understood how stealthy and overwhelming it can be. Kath—who never sleeps while I drive because she’s constantly studying maps and guidebooks—slept for most of the six-hour drive to my parents’ home in Scottsdale, Arizona. I continued feeling strangely, deeply fatigued for several days, which suggests I’d been dangerously close to heat stroke.

So this year, we hiked into the Grand Canyon much earlier: the end of March. It was ideal timing. True, the upper reaches of the South-Rim trails can still be snow-covered in March (requiring hikers to use traction devices on their boots for the initial descent), but the Hermit and Boucher trails gave us a snow-free welcome.

Spring hiking in the Grand Canyon is not only more comfortable and safer, it’s the optimal time to appreciate the desert’s botanical diversity, which far outstrips that of mountain environs. From a distance, a green hue washes across the Tonto Plateau. Leafy, blossoming trees give the drainages an oasis appearance. Flowers—purple, lavender, white, yellow, red—add bursts of vivid colour to the infinite canyon-rock palette of reds, browns, oranges, mauves, tans, mustards, maroons…

Many trails plunge below the Grand Canyon’s soaring-beyond-comprehension cliffs. We’ve hiked most of them: Bright Angel (from the North and South rims), South Kaibab, Hermit, Tonto West, Tonto East, Boucher, Grandview, and Tanner. We’ve also hiked into Havasupai Canyon—a tributary of the Grand, far to the west. All are marvelous, inducing a constant “how can this be?” state of mind. Yet some are even more engaging than others. Here are our recommendations:

Backpack Trips

(1) From Hermit’s Rest, at 6650 ft (2027 m) on the South Rim, descend the Hermit trail. Intersect the Tonto trail and follow it around to Monument Creek. Next day, retrace your steps on the Tonto, then continue past Hermit Creek and along the Tonto Plateau to Boucher Creek. On day three, hike the Boucher trail back up to Hermit’s Rest. Circuit: 26.7 mi (43 km). Descent and ascent: 4500 ft (1372 m).

(2) From Monument Point, at 7200 ft (2196 m) on the North Rim (west of Jacob’s Lake), descend to the Esplanade. Cross it, then continue down to Thunder River. Camp in Upper Tapeats Gorge, at 2400 ft (732 m). Return the same way. Round trip: 18.4-mi (29.6-km). Descent and ascent: 4800 ft (1464 m). From camp, it’s 2.2 mi (3.5 km) farther to the Colorado River at 1950 ft (595 m).

Dayhikes

(1) From Grandview Point, at 7399 ft (2256 m) on the South Rim, descend the Grandview trail to Horseshoe Mesa. Continue to the end of the mesa’s left (west) arm, at 4923 ft (1501 m). Return the same way. Round trip: 8.4 mi (13.5 km). Descent and ascent: 2476 ft (755 m).

(2) From the South Rim, at 7240 ft (2207 m), descend the South Kaibab trail to the Tonto trail. Go west, contouring to intersect the Bright Angel trail near Indian Gardens. Ascend the Bright Angel to the rim at 6860 ft (2091 m). Ride the Park shuttle bus between trailheads. One-way trip: 13.6 mi (22 km). Descent: 3440 ft (1049 m). Ascent: 3060 ft (933 m).

(3) From Hermit’s Rest, at 6650 ft (2027 m) on the South Rim, descend the Hermit trail. Turn west onto the Dripping Springs trail, then hike the Boucher trail generally north to 5429 ft (1655 m) on Yuma Point. Round trip: 8.2 mi (13.2 km). Descent and ascent: 1579 ft (481 m).

(4) From Hopi Point, at 6095 ft (1858 m) on the South Rim, hike the Rim trail generally west, past Mohave Point and The Abyss, to Monument Creek Vista. Ride the Park shuttle bus between trailheads. One-way trip: 2.8 mi (4.5 km). Elevation change: negligible.

Details
Visit the national park website (www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/overnight-hiking.htm) to read more about the trails, view a map showing backcountry campsites and trail distances, and download a backcountry-permit request.

If you intend to camp on the canyon rim before or after your backpack trip, stay in Mather Point Campground. Generators are prohibited on the Pine Loop, so campsites there are quieter. Reserving a site is necessary in summer but not during spring or fall.

*Rafting the Colorado River is a thrilling adventure. Kath has done it three times, Craig once. We urge you to do it, too. Sure, it’s expensive. It’s also priceless. If you’re a hiker, choose a company offering a trip catering to hikers. It will afford numerous opportunities for two- to four-hour dayhikes into fascinating, tributary canyons that you’d never otherwise see.

Does this describe you?

(1) You hike frequently, so you spend a lot of time driving to trailheads, many of which are remote, some of which are accessible only via unpaved roads. You ask more of your vehicle than do most people. You either own a vehicle with high clearance and perhaps 4WD, or you often wish you did.

(2) You backpack as well as dayhike, so you’re not just a hiker, you’re a camper. You enjoy frontcountry camping (between home and trailhead) as well as backcountry camping. If you don’t own an RV, you often wish you did.

If our assumptions about you are correct, you’re much like us, so perhaps the research we’ve recently done on tow vehicles (TVs) and travel trailers (TTs) will interest you. First, however, we’ll explain our background so you’ll understand our subjective commentary.

For most of our lives, Kath and I have owned smallish, gas-sipping vehicles. And we’ve done the vast majority of our camping in tents—not just while backpacking, but while travelling for months throughout western North America and Europe.

We briefly owned a Volkswagen Eurovan Westfalia camper but found it desperately underpowered and woefully under-equipped for long camping journeys. Then, for a few years, we owned a 4WD Dodge Ram V10 truck saddled with a Bigfoot camper. We loved having our mobile basecamp waiting for us at the trailhead after a long hike. Ahhh, we could relax. We were out of the cold, the wind, the bugs. We could cook a proper meal. We could take a hot shower while still far from civilization. And we could sleep in a real bed, off the ground, in a secure shelter heated by a furnace. That was bliss, especially at the end of a backpack trip, and particularly during long stints of guidebook fieldwork. Having a basecamp at every trailhead actually enabled us to hike more often, explore farther, and do so with greater energy and enthusiasm.

But the Ram was a thirsty beast. A nearly constant 11 mpg became financially stressful and ethically uncomfortable. Plus a truck/camper combination is not sufficiently nimble to travel the roughest roads accessing the most distant trailheads. So we temporarily scaled back to a Toyota Rav4 and resumed tent camping.

Our V6 Rav has better-than average ground clearance, 4WD capability up to 40 kph, and gets acceptable gas mileage. It also has an astonishing towing capacity for its modest size: 3,500 lbs. So our intention was to eventually buy an ultralight TT—perhaps a T@b teardrop trailer, or something similar—to pull behind the Rav.

An ultralight TT, we figured, would be the ideal, mobile basecamp: economical, arguably eco-conscious, yet vastly more comfortable than our tent. When necessary, we could leave the TT at a campground, then—unencumbered—drive challenging roads to remote trailheads.

After four years of driving the Rav and camping in our tent, we need a change. Because the Rav isn’t a serious off-pavement machine, we knew we’d have to hoof it the final (and sometimes considerable) distance up some 4WD roads to far-flung trailheads. But we’ve done that too often. Our work demands that we spend our precious daylight hours hiking the trails, not the access roads. Plus, after seriously studying TTs, we’ve begun to reconsider the Rav as a TV. Yes, there are many, small, ultralight TTs the Rav can pull, but finding one that not only has the features we deem essential but also appeals to us personally has proven difficult.

Most ultralight TTs have a cheap appearance because they’re almost universally made of white fiberglass, which undeniably looks like plastic and ages equally fast. And many ultralight TTs feel cheap because they in fact are cheap. Little or no insulation, water tanks that are neither heated nor insulated, thin mattresses, no front windows, press-board cabinetry, etc.

RV manufacturers have the same modus operandi as home developers: Use flimsy materials, poor-quality furnishings, and zero imagination to extrude a soul-deadening supply of white, seemingly plastic boxes that—yawn—all look alike. No wonder most RVs rapidly lose substantial value.

We don’t believe cheap materials are necessary to achieve light weight. Nor can we comprehend why the interiors of these ultralight TTs are almost universally bad imitations of 1970s home decor. Why can’t an RV simply be an RV? Why must it try to look like a dated, tasteless, ranch-style home, and fail to achieve even that absurdly misguided goal?

For that matter, why do most RV manufacturers persist with all those childish, gaudy, exterior graphics? And what’s with all the ridiculous names? Cutesy misspellings (Komfort, Fuzion, Kountry Aire, N’Tense, Phenix, Starflyte), pompous monikers (Presidential, Rolling Thunder, Destiny, Tsunami), and outright threats (Avenger, Prowler, Conquest, Outlaw) seem to be the industry norm.

A company calling itself Entegra Coach managed to misspell an RV name that attempts to be both pompous and threatening: the Entimidator. Riiight. I really want to tug around a giant RV, essentially a mobile billboard, announcing in bold, colourful letters that I have an inferiority complex and am laughably illiterate.

T@b

T@b (www.tab-rv.com) is a gulp of fresh air, and not just because of its original, intriguingly inscrutable name. Their ultralight TTs have a refreshing, retro appearance, and their interiors are decidedly contemporary, seemingly Scandanavian. (If Ikea designed a TT, it would look like and feel this). They’re also very light. Though construction quality seems adequate, they clearly aren’t designed to go off-pavement. (Check out the minimal clearance between the tires and wheel wells). They also have only a tiny fridge and no shower, so the T@b is not a trailer that will serve us for extended backroads sojourns. We applaud the T@b for dispensing with an onboard toilet. (You don’t need a toilet when you’re in the woods, and frontcountry campgrounds have toilets.) But the T@b is expensive for what you get. A larger, more fully-outfitted version called the T@da was briefly available, but the manufacturer (Thor Industries) has discontinued the T@b and the T@da.

Rpod

The Rpod (www.forestriverinc.com) seems to be the T@b’s successor. Its growing popularity is impressive. It’s certainly a more complete home than the T@b. The Rpod has a big fridge, huge holding tanks, a powerful furnace, a wet bath (combination shower and toilet)—everything one expects in an RV except insulated, heated tanks. Yet the Rpod is still light, with a GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating) just barely within our Rav’s towing capability. You can buy a new Rpod 171 (our favourite model) in Calgary for about $17,000. But we won’t. The Rpod just looks and feels too cheap. Yes, it has a shower, but the stall is hunch-your-shoulders narrow. Lacking a front window, the Rpod feels like a panic room. And the damn thing looks like a child’s birthday-party favour. Stepping out of it, I felt I should have red hair and a bulbous nose that honks when I squeeze it. We’ve nicknamed the Rpod the  “the beachball.”

Camplite

Another ultralight TT we’ve considered is the Camplite (www.livinlite.com), which we’ve nicknamed “the tin can” because it’s the opposite of the Rpod. The Camplite is contructed almost entirely of aluminum. It’s strong yet light. And there’s nothing cheap about it, though it remains reasonably priced for what you get. Outwardly it has a distinctive, boxy, utilitarian appearance. But the interior has an extremely cold, industrial atmosphere. It looks and feels like the rear section of a passenger jet, where the stewards load their beverage carts, and the pre-cooked meals are stored in hatches: not a place you really want to hang out. Sadly, the shower in the Camplite is as small as the one in the Rpod. And the Camplite has a fridge and heater that run only on electricity, not on propane, which severely limits how long you can “boondock,” “drycamp” or, as we call it, “free camp” in the backcountry. (With your lights, fridge and furnace all draining a single, deep-cycle battery, that battery will be flat dead too soon.) Insulated / heated tanks? Nope. The Camplite is clearly intended for use in temperate climes at commercial, frontcountry campgrounds bristling with electrical sockets. That’s just not us.

Northern Lite

Yet another TT we briefly considered is the ultralight 16-footer made by Northern Lite (www.northern-lite.com). Northern Lite makes superb truck campers. But in our opinion, they blew it when they designed their trailer without a wet bath. They offer an outside shower as an option. But taking a shower outside is not an option for most of us most of the time. You could perhaps understand an RV manufacturer in Florida making that mistake. But Northern Lite is a Canadian company. They should know that an outside shower on a crisp, fall evening in the Canadian Rockies would not be a pleasure; it would be torture. Other manufacturers fit showers into tiny TTs. Attention Northern Lite: a shower please?

Escape

Escape Trailer Industries (www.escapetrailer.com) is another Canadian company that builds ultralight 15-, 17-, and 19-ft TTs. Even the 15-footer has an optional shower. They’re a small company with a strong reputation for personal service. When you order your Escape, you can choose from a list of options, so you essentially purchase a custom TT. But the Escape isn’t the answer for us. Escape TTs have no insulation to speak of, and the holding tanks are neither insulated nor heated. Delivery can take months from the time you order. And we think the Escape is way too expensive for what you get. A neighbour who’s happy with his Escape summed up our objection to it when he described it as “a summer trailer only.” In the Canadian Rockies, summer is pitifully brief.

Casita

The Casita (www.casitatraveltrailers.com) is a molded, fiberglass TT similar to the Escape. We’ve spoken with many Casita owners who are very content. But we rejected the Casita for largely the same reasons we did the Escape: little or no insulation, holding tanks that are neither insulated nor heated, and a price that seems to exceed the value. The Casita also has a slightly less homey atmosphere than the Escape. There’s so much exposed fiberglass (rather than wood) in the Casita interior that it feels like a small, spartan sailboat. And, while not a deciding factor, we find the Casita company’s relentless, flag-waving nationalism obnoxious.

After seriously considering and eventually rejecting the T@b, Rpod, Camplite, Northern Lite, Escape, and Casita, we’ve turned our attention to the TT we’ve always found most appealing: the Airstream.

TO BE CONTINUED