Hitchhiking at Grand Canyon

I'm not sure about that particular trailhead, but in general, you'll get a ride sooner if:

You're one person.

Female.

Smiling.

No sunglasses.

With a sign clearly stating where you're going.

And it's someplace close.

It's a time other people are finishing their hike (i.e. Driving away)

And you chat up people at the trailhead before they depart.

Multipurpose your tyvek ground cloth and pre-write "Park HQ" on one part and "Lipan Point" on another section.

Could you bring a beater bicycle along? If starting in the am, I doubt many other people would be finishing their hikes then. Unless maybe it's a spot photographers go for the sunrise? Peak season, during daylight hours, there's a shuttle bus to and from the South Kaibab trailhead. I don't know if there is shuttle service to other trailheads.

"I'll be doing the Tanner-Escalante-Grandview route next week with a few friends. We're thinking of dropping people and bags off at Lipan Point, driving to Grandview Point to park the vehicle, and hitching a ride back to Lipan Point."

I've done that hitch a few times with no problems and less than an hour waiting. Make sure they are going past Lipan, and not just to the Tusayan Ruins site. Once it was with a ranger.

I do keep my pack with me for the hitch.
I do hold up a forefinger and thumb to indicate "short" ride (versus Cameron).
I do look "neat and clean".

An expensive alternative is to schedule a "cab" from Zantera.

Definitely not going to have a bicycle. Probably going to need a ride around 8am-ish from Grandview Point on the 7th March. I guess we just have to hope for the best!

Oh, on March 7th? I'll be 25 minutes away in Tusayan. You want some trail magic?

We could just make it a date – 8 am at Grandview Point, Saturday morning. I'll set an alarm for 7 am. Text me after that if the timing has changed.

BPL – just like Uber. But free. And in the sticks. And in a rental Ford Focus, not a Lexus.

Amazing!

Only on BPL.

I mean, like, unless you look like an axe murderer or such.

If Dave has a burst appendix or something- I've never had trouble getting a hitch in the canyon, though technically it's against park rules. Like above, I got one once with a ranger, so clearly they aren't serious about that rule. Heck, a back-country ranger once offered to let me and my buddies stay at her place for a night if we couldn't get a ride out before nightfall. (She wouldn't be there, but said that her door is never locked.)

I agree with Dean. The best way in my opinion is not to stand by the road, but just hang out at Grandview point and ask tourists which way they're headed. Plenty of people pull in at all hours of the day just to check out the view (it's called "Grand View Point" after all…). I went down New Hance and up Grandview with a friend, and I think we got a ride in about 10 minutes.

Or just, you know, post on BPL and wait for trail magic…

I'm not familiar with the area so I'm assuming that it's all within the National Park. If it isn't, we'll here's some free/useless information then.

I do know that hitchhiking is prohibited in National Parks for the most part with the occasional exception.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-1998-title36-vol1/pdf/CFR-1998-title36-vol1-sec4-31.pdf

The reason why I know this is because I was scolded by a cantankerous ranger for hitching a ride off of the Wonderland at Sunrise in Mt. Rainier NP when I left the trail early due to a bum knee. He and a park volunteer ended up giving me a ride back to Longmire and we had a nice conversation on the way back. I never got a ticket.

FWIW I didn't badge him as I never do that. If I've earned a ticket for some reason and the officer feels like issuing one, I take my just deserts like a man and pay my ticket.

I'm not trying to twist this conversation into something that it isn't. Just wanted to throw that out there as an FYI and nothing more.

I just did this last Nov. Solo male, and I picked up rides in 15 minutes or less. Unheard of! Don't thumb it alongside the road; ask tourists as they are leaving the given overlook you are at(as they head to their vehicles) which direction they are heading. You can read body language as to who is open to it and who freaks out. Bummer was that most Americans were not comfortable or were heading other direction, and I got rides from Italians and Germans. Just a coincidence I hope! You'll have no problem at all. Bring a cute female to guarantee the odds.

Dana

Yeah, I wouldn't stand on the side of the road with my thumb out, either. One of my hiking parters is an uber-likeable social butterfly, and we just let him strike up conversations with people at the trailhead. There are always people at Grand View. Folks with campers are usually good candidates.

Kenneth texted me that he hadn't realized about the time difference NV vs AZ and would be a little later. My daughter and I hiked a bit from Grandview trailhead. Came back up, met Kenneth, and ran him back to Lidan Point as his five companions were stuffing food into their packs. And realizing that the trailhead had no water. So I drove them over to Desert View so they could fill their water bottles and bladders.

My daughter and I headed out, never having hiked from Lidan Point. The snow was 8-10" deep in places and it took us about 50 minutes to get down through all the snow. We went down a total of 2000' vertical, had lunch and hiked up.

We were starting to wonder where Kenneth's group had gotten and we finally found them 30 minutes from the top. They'd gone a few miles the wrong way (hard to follow a snow-covered trail if you don't have a feel for GCNP trail construction).

Phoebe and I will head down Bright Angel tomorrow maybe to the River and back. But only as far as is fun.

Only an Alaskan would go to the Grand Canyon, hike in the snow, then when the snow runs out turn around to hike back through the snow.

Anyway, I think Kenneth owes you a nice bottle of wine. I can't imagine where his group went wandering off too. The first part of the Tanner cuts sharply down through a gully to find a way down through the Coconino. You're basically on top of a cliff at the trailhead.

Ralph,

Good overview of our hike today – maximize our time in the snow. There were lots of footprints leading east which fooled me for about 20 feet. But it wasn't going where a downhill trail ought to go. I debating about running back up to tell their group, because, well, yeah, it's hard to see a trail under 10 inches of snow, but assumed they'd figure it out within 50 meters.

There's that thing that happens where the wrong path gets more traffic than the right path. Everyone who takes the wrong path doubles back and in the snow, especially, that starts looking more real than the right path (that people only traversed once each).