Bright Angel Trail, Grand Canyon

We did a rim-to-rim-to-rim hike in the Grand Canyon, the first part of which is the trail that goes from the South Rim (aka Disneyland) to the bottom of the canyon, at Bright Angel Campground. Our crew is shown below, a bunch of old guys, with me being the oldest. I wish I was the wisest also, but that was not to be. 

We started at a place next to the Bright Angel Lodge, and headed down the very nice trail as shown below. 

There is water partway down the trail, at Indian Gardens. There is also a campground there, and making reservations there would make a lot of sense. The patch of green in the picture below is Indian Gardens. It was truly a wonderful and cool oasis in a harsh land, about 6 miles from the top of the trail. 

There was a nice stream at Indian Gardens, which was with us the rest of the way down to the river. We still had a lot of down to do, on switchbacks such as those below. 

We finally got down to the river in about 9 miles, hiked on the south side of the river to the silver bridge, crossed it and found Bright Angel Campground in the left side of Bright Angel Creek. 

top of south rim to 1.5 mile Resthouse (bathroom, no water) 1 mile

to 3 mile Resthouse: 3 miles, no water

to Indian Gardens: 4.6 miles, 3100' elev loss, camping by reservation, bathroom, and water

to Bright Angel Trailhead: 9.3 miles, total of 4314' of elevation loss. 

At BA Campground there are tent sites, a bathroom, potable water, picnic tables, big ammo cans for food storage, poles to put packs on.