Grand Canyon National Park » Buck and I pushed off the south rim before dawn on Wednesday. After months of preparation and dire predictions, the time had come to tempt our fate in the bowels of the Earth.

We parked at the Bright Angel trailhead, shouldered our packs and switched on headlamps. The night was cool, the canyon dark and ominous. The high desert air reeked of bus exhaust, fire and mule urine.

We paused. At momentous times like this, something profound is usually uttered for the sake of posterity. Buck and I looked at each other and shouted, "Ouch!"

The headlamps were really bright.

"Ouch" became our motto over the next two days. Although considered one of the easier Grand Canyon trails, Bright Angel descends more than 4,000 feet over nearly 10 miles to Phantom Ranch on the Colorado River. It's a major haul for a couple of middle-aged guys.

But we weren't the biggest fools ever to have made the trip. I'd done some reading, and it was comforting to know we were tramping in the footsteps of some world-class idiots.

According to Scott Thybony's The Incredible Grand Canyon, NPS rangers have seen, stopped and/or cited people making the trip in flip-flops, wingtips or bare feet, pushing baby strollers, dragging wheeled luggage and even hauling a hand-truck loaded with beer. One guy was leading a goat.

But we came prepared. In fact, we were still preparing. When we arrived and got our first look into the canyon, I immediately dumped my sleeping bag, half my food and all the clothing I wasn't actually wearing. I also dug the lint out of my navel and cut off the ends of my bootlaces. Every ounce was going to count on this trip.

What I did haul was plenty of water, energy supplements and electrolyte powder. I also packed Band-aids, sunblock, sleeping pad, hiking staffs and my Army dog tags. If the worst happened, I didn't want anyone mixing up my remains with Buck's.

The trail down wasn't hard to follow. Daily traffic of incontinent mules and tourists keeps the dirt churned up. The ground was rocky and crosshatched with logs and rocks to keep it from becoming a ski run when it rains.

Going downhill in Grand Canyon is tough -- first, because it's so steep that if you fall you'll have another birthday before you land. Leg muscles don't like steep.

Second, it gets hotter. The air temperature increases 5 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit for every 1,000 feet of descent. It was 79 degrees when we left the rim. The previous day, it had been 105 at Phantom Ranch.

Three hours later, the sun caught us and we pulled over to rest in a shady grove of trees called Indian Garden.

A word about wildlife in the Grand Canyon -- there's a lot, and all of it is mean. Hell, you have to be to live here. We saw bats, lizards, snakes, scorpions, bighorn sheep, deer, vultures, condors and mules. We even spotted a cougar -- and not the kind addicted to Botox. A real one.

Tourists feed the animals even though they're not supposed to. Such close interaction with humans has endangered some animals and emboldened others.

The squirrels at Indian Garden were the worst. Two of them pulled a gun on us. When we offered them our food, they laughed and took our wallets and Buck's watch. Buck says this really didn't happen, but ask him what time it is.

This brings up another good point. You have to stay hydrated while hiking the canyon. If not, you could suffer from what Buck kept calling "heat frustration," the effects of which include hallucinating, getting lost and, in extreme cases, decomposition. The condors really like that part.

Once we were properly rehydrated, the trail continued on to Devil's Corkscrew, a charming set of knee-splintering switchbacks down an airless, microwave canyon to the Colorado River.

We stopped at the Pipe Creek rest house and pulled off our boots. There's no way to describe the sensation of cool water on hot sore feet other than to say that it violates any vow of celibacy.

Tired, sweaty, hungry, we crossed the Colorado on Silver Bridge and slogged into Phantom Ranch around noon. By then, our skulls were making Jiffy Pop noises.

Buck's eye for selecting a campsite is based entirely on which one has the smallest number of ants, so we ended up camped below a slab of scorched rock. To avoid radiation boils, we went down to Bright Angel Creek and fell in.

We stayed in the creek until dinner, which was a steak cooked at Phantom Ranch. At dusk, we lay on our sleeping pads and watched the stars and bats come out.

I'd like to say we fell asleep. But when it was time to do that, we got late neighbors who made such a production of setting up camp that we were still wide awake at 1 a.m. We were also thinking about the morning's climb back to the rim.

"If it was that bad coming down," I said to Buck, "what's it going to be like going up?"

We were on the trail again two minutes later.

I don't remember much about the first part of the hike out, mostly because it was dark. I just followed Buck's boot heels back to Indian Garden, which is where we were when the sun rose.

I know heat and exhaustion make estimating distance difficult. But if you lean back far enough to touch your butt with the back of your head, you can actually see the top of the Grand Canyon from Indian Garden.

It took six hours, 3 gallons of water, assorted energy bars and an etiquette argument with a mule to go the last four miles. Buck said it was because I kept stepping on his tongue. That's a lie, because by then I was crawling.

Hiking Bright Angel Trail in June registers 6.5 on the Loon-O-Meter, with extra points for spectacular scenery.