Silver Bridge

Check out all the areas that are completely closed.

The North Kaibab Trail is closed, Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground, Phantom Ranch Canteen and Cabins, Black Bridge, Silver Bridge, and the Colorado River through the affected areas closed to river traffic because of debris and metal structures in the river.

And there's no estimated time for those closures.

They're closed until they can get everything taken care of.

Bright Angel Campground is closed.

Phantom Ranch Canteen and Cabins are closed, and both the Black Bridge and Silver Bridge, the two major pedestrian bridges across the Colorado River in this area, are closed until further notice.

The Park Service says there is currently no estimated reopening date.

The Colorado River itself has also been affected.

Erica Viola, visiting the Grand Canyon from California, said the situation changed dramatically from heavy rain to terrifying walls of water.

As we're walking out of the canteen, the rangers come running up and just start telling us to run to the Silver Bridge.

We're evacuating.

Everybody get to the Silver Bridge.

And by then, the trails were just rivers.

So we're in at least calf-deep water.

And I have seen some photos of the area around the Delta.

Now, when we're talking about the Delta, for those of you who aren't familiar and those of you who are, the Delta is essentially, at least the Delta as it, as it pertains to, to us hikers, is where the North Kaibab Trail and the South Kaibab Trail come together, and you cross the bridge right there, or the bridge that was, to go over to the, uh, other side on the way to Silver Bridge, and the restrooms are over on the other side, and the, um, uh, where you can refill your water, and then you just continue on past the corral and down to, uh, down to Silver Bridge.

Um, so that bridge we know is gone.

I've seen the, I've seen the photos.

And I can tell you that looking at that picture, there is not a single sign of any of that infrastructure.

It is gone.

And I've been told that some of those trailers are floating right under the Silver Bridge.

So it took all of that infrastructure straight down that new channel and out into the Colorado.

So gonna go take some pictures in the Phantom area, and then we will head on out of here.

All right, after a s- quick stop at Phantom Ranch, we're about to cross the Silver Bridge.

65 one-hundredths of a mile to get to Silver Bridge from the Phantom Ranch Canteen, and we are 8.37 miles into this hike overall with about nine, nine and a half still to go.

So Silver Bridge is a really cool, cool experience to walk across this thing.

Uh, the Trans-Canyon Waterline runs directly underneath it, and because the floor, I guess you'd say, of, uh, of the Silver Bridge is a grate the entire way across, you can see all the way down to the river.

You can see the pipeline, and you can see down to the rapids.

They've run more, uh, I don't know if it's conduit or, or, or, uh, wires or whatever it is.

They've run a lot more underneath this bridge since the Trans-Canyon Waterline project, uh, started a couple of years ago, so it's not as good of a view straight down as it used to be, but it's still pretty cool being able to see, uh, down t- all the way to the river.