Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

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the South Rim’s Bright Angel Trail.
The next two days would be spent relentlessly slogging back uphill from 2608ft
(795m) to 7400ft (2255m). (Exiting the canyon in a single day is generally out of
the question, except for the supernaturally fit or the borderline insane.) Our plan
was to make an intermediate overnight stop at the 4900ft (1493m) Horseshoe
Mesa, a hulking semicircular rock outcropping where prospector Pete Berry struck a
rich vein of copper in 1890 and founded his legendary Last Chance Mine.
Signs of the region’s mining history appeared everywhere as we passed through
the imposing cliffs of Redwall limestone at the base of the mesa. Openings in the
hillside hinted at the 19th-century mine shafts just below, while rocks flecked with
dazzling blue and green crystals of azurite and malachite littered the trail’s edges,
reminders of the eternal appeal of glitter to the human eye. Our last night in the
canyon was spent in moonlit exploration, wandering past the foundations of
abandoned mine buildings to the mesa’s far northern reaches, where the nowdistant
Colorado River could be seen dimly sparkling in hallucinogenic half-light,
2300ft (701m) below.
Another day, another climb. Our final exit route to the canyon rim retraced the