LINK

I'm kind of surprised by the number of people they say are doing this.  Kind of makes me glad that most of my long hikes have been in designated wilderness areas and not national parks.

 

We have a group of 6 girls running this on Oct 4.  I called the park and it does not effect our group or others like it.  They are trying to prevent the organized groups from jamming up the trails and profiting.  They asked me a few questions:

 

1.  Did you require people to sign up?

2.  Have you advertised to the general public?

3.  Is anyone being compensated for organizing?

Thanks, that is very interesting.  It's not at all what is described in the couple articles I read about it...although it makes a lot more sense.  I can see why they would want to control somone/a group trying to use a public resource for profit/gain.  That seems a more reasonable objective than just going after individual runners.

It sounds like a significant strain is also being placed on resources to help people who end up in trouble doing this.  I wonder what the rate of these situations are for R2R people versus other groups using the park trails (hikers etc).

 

After hiking and running several different trails in the canyon over the past year living in flagstaff, I gotta say that the scariest folks to see heading down are the completely ill prepared "day hiking" tourists.  People who know about Rim to Rim and want to accomplish it usually have some sense of what they are getting themselves into and what it will require of them in terms of fitness and preparation.

 

One day in early February I was coming up the last steep mile of the south Kaibab trail just ~30 minutes before the sun sank over the rim when three foreigners (meant in only a descriptive way) came down the trail towards us.  They were in light designer windbreakers, one was even wearing flip-flops (must have been warm when they left Vegas), and had a half liter of water between the three of them.  I stopped and greeted them, hoping to convince them to turn around immediately and get back to the rim.  One of them asked me if the trail went down to the river.  I said yes but you don't want to go there.  He then asked me why and asked "isn't there a bus or a road at the bottom to get a ride out?"  I calmly and clearly explained that no, there was nothing there to give them a ride and that they should head back up before the sun goes down and it gets really cold.

 

They continued walking down, we continued power hiking up and got to the car just as the sun was setting.

FFS.  Reminds me of the tourists whose kids got mauled because the mom was trying to pose a couple grizzly cubs with them at Yellowstone.

People should be charged if they need to be rescued for not being prepared.  Sort of a dumbass fee!

I can't say i'd argue that.