Hiking R2R2R in a Day — May 4, 2024
The good, the bad, and the ugly of hiking 46ish miles without sleep
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I have wanted to do R2R2R for several years, although I wanted to run it (or at least run most of it) instead of hiking. But life has had other plans. The opportunity presented itself to go with a group of people, so we did. What’s the worst that could happen?
My husband and I had about 2 months to prepare, and we have six kids at home so our preparation was…not as good as we had hoped it would be. Here is our story of preparation, pain, survival, and conquering of the Grand Canyon R2R2R.
The Training Phase
So besides being 46 miles long, which is pretty far to go on foot no matter how you look at it, this trail has about 11,000 feet of elevation gain. If you average it out over the whole 46 miles, that’s around 240 feet of elevation gain per mile. That doesn’t sound awful, right?
But the thing is, there’s no averaging this out. The first few miles are down, down, down into the canyon, followed by a long stretch of relative flatness, then several miles of up, up, up back out of the canyon. Then turning around, and doing it again! The uphills come at all once. You’re hiking up for hours and…
