Rim2Rim Hike

My buddy John and I are going to hike the Grand Canyon, Rim-to-Rim, in 2024. I plan to document why, the preparations, and that experience here.

Pre-2023

I started my keto/weight loss journey a bit over three years ago. Elizabeth had been going "stealth-keto" for awhile, and had lost a fair amount of weight, in combination with some walking around our neighborhood. In late spring 2020, during the Covid pandemic "lockdowns" (we really only 'stayed home' for a couple of weeks to 'flatten the curve'), while we were sent to work from home by our employers, she started to share more about keto.

She started making me and her parents keto meals, which were always tasty, and with the walking my weight was coming down. I asked if she could help me find keto-friendly foods at a few of my favorite restaurants, so I could keep keto when I did go back to the office (and started having lunch out with my coworkers) again. She did, and we came up with a handful of options and I started tracking my progress in Excel. Over the course of 2020 I went from over 216 lbs (from a previous high of nearly 250) to about 170 lbs.

That fall work sponsored a 30 day 'walking challenge' to help keep folks healthy while working from home, and during that I achieved 1 million steps! I kept keto, only take a week approximately every 3 or 4 months, for a vacation/trip or my birthday or major holiday, and my health greatly improved. My weight was down, as well as A1C and blood pressure, and all of my bloodwork looked great.

2023

Summer/Fall 2023

Sometime in mid 2023 (I think we visited he and his wife at their home in July), I mentioned to my buddy John that I'd been walking a ton, and that I recently started rucking - I'd gotten a backpack and some plate weights, in 10 lbs increments, and had added this extra difficulty to my daily walks. I thought it was really starting to energize my exercise routine, and my weight, which since I'd started in 2020 had bounced from a low of 150, but at times would creep as high as 190, was again on a steady downward trajectory. He mentioned that he and his wife Tammy had hiked the Grand Canyon the previous year, and said it was really really cool... and he showed me his backpack.

That really got me interested in hiking/backpacking. I had never seen a 'real' backpack before, the kind that have a waist-belt to transfer the weight of the pack mostly onto your hips. I'd been using a pretty standard book-bag style pack, and it wasn't particularly comfortable. He shared some websites (like the hiking guy's, and told me all about the Grand Canyon, hiking down, staying at Phantom Ranch, and hiking back up the next day. It sounded awesome.

October 2023

Over the next several weeks we started talking about getting out and doing some hikes together. I ended up getting a Mystery Ranch 20L day pack (the Coulee 20) and started using it for my rucking. John and I started sharing tips on keto means, on how best to fast, and how our walks and other exercises were going. He started asking me if I thought I might want to to a Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim hike sometime. I thought I might, but it sounded pretty challenging. I started to do longer walks with my pack to see if I thought that was even remotely possible.

We started to hike a bit together, mostly at Caesar's Creek State Park, on the Perimeter Trail, and he thought "you're ready for the Grand Canyon now!". I was pretty sure that wasn't true, but we started talking seriously about doing Rim-to-Rim. We decided to bring our wives along, his to hike and mine to support and encourage us, and we picked a date. It would be the week of my birthday, 2024, to avoid the worst of the crowds, to get the best (lower overall) temperatures, and still have water available on trail. We booked rooms on the North Rim to start, and South Rim to finish. Elizabeth would shuttle across while we were hiking. The plan was hatched, and starting Sunday the 22nd of September 2024, I would meet destiny.

November 2023

In November I joined the Cincinnati Nature Center, and started hiking their longish trails, mostly the perimeter one. This is a really nice 'club', though it's fairly busy, the trails are nice, and it's well maintained. I also started hiking some of the Germantown Five Rivers Metro Parks (I really enjoyed their orange trail) near Dayton, particularly the main Germantown perimeter loop (I didn't like the Twin Valley Trail orange trail nearly as much).

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2024

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