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Comment by jackconsidine | Hacker News Reader

> Can you hike in the Grand Canyon? Yes, technically. You can walk along the rim, but the view won’t change; same damn canyon on one side, same damn parking lot on the other. There are trails that go down into the canyon, but they’re a trap. They are featureless steep inclines formed into endless switchbacks, and when they finally end, there’s nothing to do except go back up, which will be just as boring but three times as hard and might kill you.

I’ve seen enough. From the Midwest so was looking forward to a takedown of the dunes (or something witty craptowns esq). but dunking on the GC for being a canyon?

The “non superlative” is largest canyon by volume

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We went a lot to the US in my teenage years. I have been to the Grand Canyon two or three times (you start losing counts at some point).

One time we were there with our family and my aunt/uncle + kids. We hiked down the canyon because my dad was sort of the group leader and he goes on such adventures without necessarily thinking it through.

So we went down with a small amount of water and food. I heard sometime years after that you have to pay to go down the Grand Canyon, but this was in the nineties and it was a quiet part of the Grand Canyon, not much to do. We hiked down, stayed inside the canyon for a bit to eat and drink and then we went up again.

And that's where the differences started. My dad was still undeterred and went up in high speed like it was nothing. We were young, fit teenagers and for us the climb was more than usual, but pretty doable. The rest of the adults... not so much. At least one family member was crying, others were swearing (without swearing, polite people) about the predicament my dad put us in.

I am not sure why I am telling this, I guess... go in prepared?

The Grand Canyon was nice, but I never loved it. I think my expectations were pretty big because it's so well-known, so it was a bit anti-climatic. I really liked Monument Valley, there was virtually no other tourist when we were there and it was stunning, even better than in the Lucky Luke comics [1] that we read as a kid. As I teenager I also loved White Sands. In contrast to the author I did really like Petrified Forest.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luke

The NPS has large signs posted at the Bright Angel and Kaibab trailheads on the south rim warning visitors about the dangers of the trail, the heat, the steepness, the lack of shade. It is made abundantly clear that even a modest hike requires conditioning, water, appropriate shoes, and protection from the sun. They even have rangers patrolling the trails assessing hikers they pass and questioning those they believe are going to have trouble. Unfortunately, they can only recommend, not enforce. With all that, people run into difficultly and have to be hauled out. Sometimes, they die. As Ron White has said, you can't fix stupid.

The only time I saw the Grand Canyon was when we briefly stopped while I was helping a friend get her car across the country. It was January, no one was around, and patches of snow dotted the rim. Quite a beautiful sight. But we noticed a poster on a bulletin board detailing how a medical student who had run the Boston marathon had somehow gotten lost on a hike and died after running out of water. It was particularly shocking because my friend had known the woman who died since high school in New England, but had not heard the story until we were reading it on that poster.

I also did one of the hikes to the CO river in the 90s with 3 friends when we were in college. We got off to a late start so jogged down a good deal of the way (dumb). We carried a 1 gallon water jug each (not even close to enough). We had no extra clothing (dumb). Two of us (me being one) made it out that day. The other two didn't. A group of smart hikers with water filters and iodine tablets found them belly up on the path in the direct sunlight. I'm certain they would have died if the hikers didn't give them tablets, water and emergency blankets. Man we were dumb.

If you are fit, you can absolutely do this. In fact, you can go all the way to the other rim and back (rim-to-rim-to-rim). The current record is sub 6 hrs by Ultrarunner Jim Walmsley. [0]

https://fastestknowntime.com/route/grand-canyon-crossings-az

Sounds like an ideal spot for earning Darwin Awards.

Canyons can be a challenge. To maybe paraphrase some signage along the way. Down is optional. Up is not.

Going down to the river makes for a very long day. I've boated (part raft, part other) down the canyon but I've only hiked down to a spot part of the way and then back.

There's a great book compiling all the Grand Canyon deaths: https://a.co/d/09qGmU0C

I read all the chapters on the hiking and falling deaths before I hiked rim-to-rim. So many of them are "Family hikes down to the canyon, young child complains of heat. Sits down and dies." Or "Someone takes a shortcut, walks down an un-climbable hill. Dies of exposure."

There were a lot of completely unprepared tourists on the way up to the South Rim. They had walked down a little bit and couldn't walk back up. We weren't in great condition ourselves but we had been hiking for the past 12 hours.

Agreed. I've been to many canyons, and the Grand Canyon is truly a marvel - it's stunning, it took my breath away and still does. Just go and look at it for 15 minutes? That's all you can muster? "Featureless" steep inclines? No mention of the biodiversity? What?!

The Grand Canyon is in the rare club of places I've been that surpassed my high expectations.

I say to anyone who asks me about the GC "it will completely surpass any expectations you have of it, even if you take this into account". Nothing can prepare you for the scale of it, even if you've been there before and/or been in the Utah canyon parks. No photo, no video can capture the experience of being on the edge of it nor being down in it.

Back when I was younger and challenges were mostly mental, I did participate in a group hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (via the Hermit trail). Yes, the hike back up was tough, but we had two nights' camp out at the bottom, right by the river, in what for us Canadians was pleasant August type climate, while we had started in a bit of snow at the top (late October) and the rest day was beautiful.

During the hike and stay at the bottom we encountered about half a dozen other people. It really was grand.

In Yosemite, all you have to do is outhike the "Reebok hikers" as we called them back then. An hour's serious walk gives you relative solitude.

And in Zion, last time we were there, a couple of us did not do Angels Landing. Instead we went to another spot equally high up where it was peaceful and quiet, and took telephoto pictures of the others on Angels Landing (note: I've been up there and it's awesome, but in that terrain a crowd sounds scary).

> In Yosemite, all you have to do is outhike the "Reebok hikers" as we called them back then. An hour's serious walk gives you relative solitude.

You actually don't even need to do this if you park somewhere other than Yosemite Valley. For example, Tenaya Lake is nice and not that far in on Tioga Road.

There's a statistic that floats around which may be apocryphal - something like 90% of visitors to national parks don't get more than a 5-15 minute walk from the parking lot (and some literally never leave the car).

National parks are huge and you can quickly literally get lost forever in them (which is an actual danger, stay on the trails!) if you're willing to walk.

Some of them have very obvious "goals" to see (the geyser, the half-dome) which of course are high traffic, but others are beautiful "all over" and taking the treks is worth it.

You may be referring to the Observation Point hike at Zion. It starts off with a 2k ft high switchback route. But at the end it will put you smack dab in the middle of the canyon higher than Angeles Landing (and a bit safer, less crowded hike). And you still have a stunning view of the canyon and far beyond.

I did Angel's Landing at one point and I'm glad I did but wouldn't do again. Observation point is my favorite but I don't think my old route is open any longer though you can still apparently get up there by another trail.

His experiences mirrors most people's I know. They all told me - go to it if you have the extra time, otherwise The southern Utah parks are much better.

* zero documentation

* dev team is a ghost town

* literal tons of boilerplate just to bootstrap single, empty container

* hasn't had a proper release[1] in ages.

Unless I'm completely misinterpreting you, I'd say this isn't a good look for the "largest repository by volume"

1: of water

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