6/26/11 Posting

As I’m off to a party this afternoon to share pictures from my Grand Canyon trip, I thought I’d post a couple of pictures in this blog. Our trip was off of the North Rim and during that time we visited two different drainages with some fantastic water features.

The first was Thunder Creek where you can watch the water blast right out of the side of a cliff wall.

From the North rim, the water percolates down through the rock, finding weaker spots in the rock. All the seeped water gradually gets channeled into the same little tunnels, gathering water pressure as it goes. Then it roars out of openings in the rock. There are several locations in the Grand Canyon where you can view this sort of phenomenon.

The other drainage we visited is the Deer Creek area. This area is famous for its pools and waterfalls that we certainly enjoyed on the 90 degree day we were there. Lovely!

One thing that backpacking and hiking has taught me is the value of food planning and making sure that I don’t neglect to bring a decent amount of food and eat it along the way. But even I still mess up occasionally and come up short in the calorie planning area. Let’s make sure you don’t!

As the hikes get longer, you should be bringing and eating more food. You should also be bringing more food than you think you might need. Sometimes you’re out longer than you think you might be, or the trail is harder or longer than you originally thought, or someone gets hurt and it takes longer to hike out. There are lots of reasons, but the solution is the same—bring lots of snacks and a good lunch and be sure to eat constantly. You must condition yourself to eat before you are even hungry to avoid spiking your blood-sugar levels. This becomes even more important as you pile the miles and gain on your hikes.

I can tell you from first-hand experience it’s no fun to bonk (American slang for experiencing a really low blood-sugar level). You become light-headed, low-energy, nauseous, and really dumb. If you don’t maintain a constant caloric intake, it can happen to you fairly quickly and once you get there, it’s hard to recover. So keep salty, calorific snacks handy to munch on while you walk or if you stop for a moment. Keep your body supplied with a constant amount of energy and you’ll feel much stronger as you put the miles behind you.