Most teenage girls probably prefer to hang out with their friends during spring break.
But Valley teen Katie Hotchkin preferred to hit the trails of the Southwest and hike the Grand Canyon with her dad.
Katie has taken a yearly adventure trip with her father, John, since she was 9 years old. That year, they hiked Mount St. Helens. Now a sophomore at Mount Si High School, Katie has come to treasure the one-on-one sessions with her dad.
“It’s really our bonding experience,” Katie said. “Being a girl, I connect more with my mom, but this is the time I get to be with my dad.”
John started climbing with a Mountaineers club several years ago. He wanted to introduce Katie to some of the amazing adventures that could be had in the Northwest. Besides Rainier and St. Helens, the pair have done a number of hikes around Washington and Alaska. But now it was time for another big adventure.
Last year, the two conquered the 93-mile Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier. For 2010, they looked at a list of adventures and decided the Grand Canyon was the place to be.
“Grand Canyon was the first thing on my list,” John said. “I hadn’t been there in a really long time, so I wanted to go back and bring Katie with me.
After some research, they decided to climb from the south rim to the north rim and back, a 44-mile round trip of the canyon. Spring break was the perfect time, as Katie was off from school and the weather wouldn’t be blazing hot.
“We spent a month preparing ourselves every weekend by hiking up Granite Mountain, off I-90,” Katie said.
The Hotchkins spent two days in the car as they drove down to the starting point. They began hiking on Saturday morning, April 2, got to the crater rim on April 4 and headed back out to the south rim on Friday afternoon, April 8.
“The views were amazing. I wasn’t expecting it to be at that large of a scale,” Katie said. “You can see pictures of the Grand Canyon. But actually being there, looking over and going deeper, that was really cool.”
The father-daughter team passed mule trains wand watched the different types of people exploring the canyon. They also found the weather fascinating.
“It was 30 degrees one morning, 80 degrees one evening, and there was 10 feet of snow on the north rim,” John said. “There’s a lot of difference in temperature and weather.”
John was proud of how well prepared Katie was for the hike.
“Katie brought her own sleeping bag, clothes, food and some of the group gear,” John said. “She impresses me with her fortitude. I use to think I could beat her on the trail, but I can’t anymore.”
Now looking forward to getting his other daughter, Maddie, age 12, to come along on her first hike with them, John said it only takes the code word for him to take her on a trail.
“For my daughters to go with me they have to tell me they really, really, really want to do it,” he said. “I’m waiting for Maddie to tell me she really, really, really wants to do a trip.”
“She’s on the verge of wanting to go,” John said. “I think she realized theres a lot of fun that can be had out there.”
