Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

While Meredith languished in the motel room (writhing in agony from what I’m told), I headed over to the corral behind the Bright Angel Lodge to meet up for my mule ride. There are two types of mule rides into the Grand Canyon that one can sign up for. One is an overnighter where you ride mules all the way to the bottom of the canyon, stay overnight at Phantom Ranch, then ride the mules back up. That’s very expensive – more than we thought it was worth – so instead we signed up for the other type of mule ride which is a one-day roundtrip to a place named Plateau Point.

I showed up at the corral at 8am. A few minutes later, the mule wranglers brought the mules into the corral. The group heading to Plateau Point and the group going to Phantom Ranch all met up at the same time so there were about 50 mules for us:

While the wranglers did some final prep, we were given the usual pre-trip briefing by one of the head guys who takes care of the mules:

Here’s a close-up from that picture (nice and blurry). Notice the awesome mustache with handlebars:

Whenever I’ve spoken to people who have done a mule ride at the Grand Canyon, they always mention how narrow the trail is and how the mules walk right on the edge. They consistently make it sound like it’s really risky and how they thought they would go over the edge at any moment. I was ready for a real adrenaline rush but I was disappointed actually. The trail is not narrow, I didn’t feel like we were hugging the wall at all, and while the mules do walk on the outer edge of the trail, it turns out that they’re trained to do so (I can’t remember why – it may have been something to do with how they interact with hikers that they pass). These things are also really strong. They’re bigger than most horses and the ride was very smooth. I’ve picked one of my pictures that shows the trail at its narrowest. Not so bad:

About a mile down the trail, we passed desert bighorn sheep about 5 feet off the trail. Apparently they’re used to humans now so they just sat and watched us ride by. This one lay on the rock above the trail and peered over:

About noon, we reached Plateau Point and took 20 minutes for lunch. It was a nice overlook down on the Colorado River. Here’s yours truly after we saddled up to ride back to the top:

My mule’s name was Junky. I asked our guide Kevin why he was named that but he didn’t know because it was named before he started guiding. Junky was a little stubborn in that he didn’t want to go as fast as the lead mule but otherwise he was great. I guess Junky was just a joke name.  Anyway, supposedly a mule is a cross between a male donkey and a female horse but I think a rabbit is involved in there somewhere. This should be apparent when you look at Junky’s ears:

Here’s a shot of Kevin tending to one of the mules after we got to the top and in the corral:

Kevin then handed all of us our certificates. Apparently, I am “now a member of the Order of the Master Mule Skinners of the Grand Canyon Trails with rights and privileges to boast of this accomplished feat forevermore.” Get ready folks. You’re about to get an earful of boasting for a looooooong time:

In the end, I’m glad I did the mule ride but I don’t think I’d do it again. I think for most people, half of the thrill is the ride on a big animal but I’m pretty comfortable riding a horse/mule/whatever. The other half is the scenery which was definitely great but the trail is not a loop: the return trip is going up the same trail you came down. By the time I was halfway back, I was bored and just wanted it to be over.

When I got back to the motel room, Meredith was a bit stir-crazy and ready for company. I ran out and got a pizza to bring back to the room. We sat on the bed eating it and watching the Pats game but I passed out somewhere in the middle of the third quarter. Apparently mule riding is more tiring than you might think.

– Dave