Day - 1

On Sep 1st we boarded the flight to Las Vegas from San Jose. Gaurav gave us a drop to the airport. Our first fear factor kicked in right before the flight landed in Vegas, with Sandhya getting into a bad shape. However she insisted that she wanted to continue, even though we had agreed to skip the hike in such an event. We changed the two sedans for a minivan, and were off to the North Rim. We picked up coffee and some advil from a store. Swamy offered to ride and most of thankfully slept off while Sudhakar(Mouski) gave him company. We got to the North Rim Lodge at 5AM, and waited for Anshu and the UIUC folks. Around 6AM all of us changed into our hiking gear, and were ready for the TransCanyon shuttle which would take us from North to South Rim. The driver suggested we leave the car at the trailhead, which in retro seems the best choice since it would save us a 3 mile hike from the trailhead to the lodge at the end of the hike. We got to the South Rim around noon after a couple of stops for breakfast and gas. Had a nice sit-down lunch and were ready to hit the trail around 2PM, after filling up our water supply.

The first leg of the hike from the South Rim trailhead to Indian Gardens campground was around 4.6 miles and we dropped from an elevation of 6890' to 3800', a drop of around 3000'. The walk was easy and offered a few good views, especially the doorways that were there. After a few Patel snaps here and there, and a lot of rest-stops we got the Indian Garden around 6PM. In between Sandhya was mad at me for having packed the recent unbranded camera. Once at the campsite we decided to set up our tents. Here we ran into our next surprise, my broken tent. Since my tent had worked well for me the previous instance, I did not bother to check its state, and here it was with broken poles in front of me. This was reason for Sandhya to get angry at me, since it was a long day and now there was no decent place to sleep. After some recovery talk, I got back to fixing the tent in some form for us to sleep - a sight to behold! The guys were back from their walk to Plateau point, and we then cooked some Maggi. Got to test my new Pocket Rocket stove and the Gualite bowls. Once done with dinner, we crashed into our tents.
Mistake - Check your stuff before you pack.