Fit and Balanced Mom: Grand Canyon

Well here it is, a week long hike - carried my entire food, housing and clothing in a 45lb sack and had zero access to the outside world! It was phenomenal.

This blog post is specifically dedicated to my trip, which was a very cleansing and much needed adventure. We traveled with 11 people, most of whom I'd never met.

Here I am on the last day of the trek!

This is what my hair looks like after I take out my "hiking braids" (a little trick I came up with as a work around with the no showering).

This is the top of the South Rim, our final destination.

One of my favorite people from the trip was a woman (below) named Thea from Orange County. She has an amazing life story, but the fun part about her is she hiked the whole thing barefoot!

So what do you eat in the Grand Canyon? A lot of freeze dried food!! Some meals were better than others, top on my list were the curry and masala dishes.

A lot of the weight in our packs had to do with our water - I drink a ton so I carried a ton.

One of of the many photos from our trip!

In the group of 11, was my dad, me and my two cousins (17 and 14 years old). It was a great way to spend time with them over the week.

I did this same hike back in 2010, and for 7 years dreamed of many parts of the hike, specifically the waterfalls and the dry heat. Here is one of my favorites!

Pretty early on in the hike I realized that my shoes were giving me blisters so I traded out my boots for Keen sandals, they did the trick and let me walk in the water easily!

Here's a better shot of the four of us.

As many know, my absolute favorite food is bananas, but since bananas don't travel well, I dehydrated my own in anticipation, it was a perfect snack during our 5 hour days of hiking!

Here is another favorite, I added Chia seeds to an oats/blueberry mix we had - it made it thick and yummy and more satisfying!

One of my other favorite parts of this hike is the ability to swim in the Colorado River at the middle of it, it was actually warmer than I remembered!

Here's a close up of my hiking 'shoes' - they did the trick!

Going back to the beginning of the hike, here I am just a few days in.

Another favorite part of the trip - Ribbon Falls! Check out that greenery.

We have this same photo going back to 2010, at the bottom of the falls is a really cook cave you can get into.

It's hard to see, but check out the scenery in the background. By far the most beautiful hike I've ever done.

Having not backpacked since our oldest son was born (over 5 years ago since I got pregnant!), it was fun to try to remember what to pack. One of my most useful indulgences was having a lantern to hang in my tent.