Grand Canyon - Half of South Kaibab Trail

As you may recall my big frustration with this trip to the Grand Canyon is that we couldn't get a room at the Phantom Ranch, down at the bottom of the Canyon. This means we cannot hike the Canyon all the way down, unfortunately.
But I hadn't given hope on hiking in the Canyon, to some extent. Luckily for us one can take the South Kaibab Trail down until Cedar Ridge. With a ranger, one can have the possibility to go down the trail and descend 350m below the rim. That's not all the way down (1500m or so) but that's better than nothing. The round trip is only 5km so feasible in half a day. The only tiny little detail is that you have to be at the starting point at 7am...

So, once again I dragged Wolfram out of bed at an impossible early hour (5am) but with a very good reason: we were about to go hiking in the Grand Canyon.

As recommended we took the shuttle at 6:05am to reach the starting point. Now at such an early time of the day, the shuttle is pretty empty so we arrive on the rim at 6:25am.
We took a couple of pictures... No we didn't have yet the Grand Canyon under the rising sun of 6:30am.

The hike with the ranger was to start at 7am only. With half an hour to kill we had 2 options: wait or get started. I pushed for the latter. The trail is clearly defined and there is no chance to get lost. On one hand you have the rocks and on the other hand the void. The trail is the only possible place for you to walk.

The trail is pretty steep (obviously). It was a good idea to come so early and walk in the shadow. This same trail under direct sun must be really hard. The further down we were going the more wild the path was. No more steps, just the earth. Are we hiking or what?
We walked down, at our pace, taking pictures every now and then. Sometimes the slope was so steep that gravity was pulling you down and it was hard to control your walking speed. Clearly the view from within the Canyon with on top the sun rising was a no miss.

After 1:15 hour walk we stopped a nice spot in the Canyon for a breakfast with view. We had walked a bit further down than the Cedar Ridge point, and enjoyed the luxury of sitting all alone in the Canyon. Not a single person around, not a single sound: pure silence.

Well we were not completely alone as a couple of squirrels quickly joined us, very interested by our biscuits.
We spent roughly half an hour down there enjoying the view and realizing once again how lucky we are to be able to sit there, in the middle (or so) of the Grand Canyon.

 As time was passing by, sun was rising and we could see the shadows disappearing revealing always more of the Canyon.

Then started the way back up. That was hard. The rule of thumb is to plan 2 times longer to go up than down. Took us 1:30 hour without pictures of steady walk with regular breaks for me.
On the way up we met several hikers who were going all the way down. It's funny the unspoken understanding there is between all those hikers who got up super early to hike the Grand Canyon. Without words we understand each other.
We met one father and son pair who were going down (German of course... seems half of Germany is at the Grand Canyon). He told us that he booked the room at the Phantom Ranch 13 months ago. He gave up on the online system and called directly. He spent 40min on the phone to find out when was the first available room, which he booked and planned his vacation around it.
I guess that's what I need to do. Call and book now for maybe next summer or the following and ensure I'll get the hike of a lifetime.