Hiking the Grand Canyon: Lessons from a Navy SEAL's Adventure

Welcome to The Navy SEAL Mindset podcast. In this episode, I reflect on my recent experience hiking the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim for the second time this year with the organization Man Made. I share the lessons I learned and insights from the challenging yet rewarding trek.

Key Takeaways:

• Experience is invaluable - doing something once allows you to be better prepared and perform better the next time. You can't buy experience, only earn it through perseverance.
• Overprepare whenever possible - it's always going to be harder than you think. Exceed the minimum standards.
• Fuel your body properly for the task at hand - the type and amount of food needed is unique for an ultra endurance event like this hike.
• Help others, even if they resist - we called for help for struggling hikers who refused our aid, likely saving their lives.
• Hardship brings growth - seek out challenges that will expand your limits. The hardest things teach the most.

If you're inspired to push your limits through adventure, join me on the next Man Made expedition. Visit ManMadeTribe.com to learn more about our men's organization dedicated to forging the character of men. Sign up now to be part of our upcoming events and men's retreats focused on brotherhood, purpose and overcoming challenges.

Let's embark on the next adventure together and discover what we're made of.

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Transcript

William Branum: 0:00

Welcome to the Navy SEAL Mindset. I am your host, William Branham This is episode 014 and in this episode I'm going to talk about hiking the Grand Canyon for the second time this year rim to rim to rim With an organization that I am very passionate about called man made if you want more information about manmade and becoming the man that you're meant to be, go to manmade tribe.com and when we're ready to do our next epic adventure or have some sort of men's retreats do some really hard things, we'll let you know. So anyway in manmade, we help men become men again by doing really epically challenging adventures. Last year we went and climbed the Grand Teton. We've done some Misogi type events, you know, basically 27 or so hours of mental and physical work. And I think, the definition of a Misogi is it has to be, there's a 50 percent chance that you won't make it. You can't die. It has to be very hard, and I think there's another rule there's three rules. One, you can't die, one, there's a 50 percent chance that you won't make it, and some other rule I can't remember. But anyway. The Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim is a lot of people's bucket lists. And I only know that because I've spoken to a lot of people since I've done it the first and second time, and people are like, oh, that's on my bucket list. I'm like, well, just go do it. And maybe we'll go do it again. After twice, I feel like I don't need to do it again, but I will if I have enough people and I have the right people to do it. Especially with Man Made, because there's just a tremendous... Amazingly great dudes over there it's a great community and I encourage you if you're a man to go sign up or if you are not a man and you have a man in your life that, that needs a tribe, a group of men that are gonna hold him to a higher standard I'd maybe encourage them to go over there. For those of you who are watching this on video, you will notice that I am not in my normal setting. I am on the road. I've been on the road probably six of the eight last eight weeks. I'm actually looking to do a podcast later today with a friend of mine from the project and maybe tomorrow with Rob O'Neill. The guy who did kill Bin Laden. I like to call Rob the second best shooter in the SEAL teams. I, of course, am the best. So, I cannot let him be number one because he got to kill Bin Laden. Anyway Rim to Rim to Rim. The first time I did it, I'm gonna tell you that was top five hardest things I've ever done in my life to include SEAL training. I have a lot of lessons learned from that and some of those bleed right into doing it the second time. I will tell you the second time was less hard than the first time. I will not say it was easier because it was still very hard and it still kicked my butt but it was less hard the second time and I'll go over kind of some of why that was. Okay the first lesson learned from doing the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim was, experience. You can't buy it. It was less hard the second time because I had already been in the canyon, I'd already done it. The first time we climbed the Grand Canyon or hiked, tried to hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim, we did not make it to the North Rim because there was eight feet of snow on the North Rim and it took us approximately an hour to go almost a quarter mile. And so, we were still about a mile, now that I've done it the second time, about a mile, a mile and a half short. So there's no way we would have ever made it to the top. We also saved a kid's life the first time that we hiked the Grand Canyon. We had two guys that were injured. They rolled some ankles on the way down. And maybe they weren't quite as prepared as they could have been physically. I think there was a lot of mental stuff that was going on with them as well. That's okay. It's, that's part of doing hard things is to face some of your demons. Face doing those really hard things that scare the shit out of you. I think it's important that we do that. I was for sure scared on a few instances for different reasons. On that first trip, one where we were coming back off the North Rim. I had let myself get low on fuel, which I'll talk about a little bit later, and my brain wasn't working quite as well as it should have, my body wasn't working quite as well as it should have, and thank the Lord I was hanging on to kind of the wall over this very small... Path that as I, put almost my full weight on the path, it fell out from under my feet, which would have had me fall a good ways down the mountain or down the into the canyon where I shouldn't be. But fortunately enough, I was able to like, hang on and pull myself across. And then, I helped the, the Three or four guys that were behind me, I was like, hey man, don't step right there, because that ground just fell away. And basically what we did is we, I grabbed a trekking pole, they handed a trekking pole over, and I pulled them as vigorously as I could across, so that they spent as little time on that very little bit of dirt that was left over. But the park rangers Army Corps of Engineers came in, And they fixed all of the paths that had washed away from snow and rain and ice and things like that. So that was very cool to go back the second time and not even be able to tell where that path fell away. So again, experience. The first time... Top 5 hardest things I've ever done in my life. To include SEAL training, to include things I've done on deployment, to include really the hardest things I've ever done. It took us 25 and a half hours the first time. I think the second time we finished in about 22 hours. I think I have that right, maybe less, maybe 20 hours. We could have done it faster, but so the first time we actually found a kid who would have died of hypothermia had we not shown up. His name is David. He has an amazing story. He went to hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim to rim. He's had no men in his life. He doesn't know how to be a man. And just happened that 13 dudes from an organization called Man Made showed up. And found him in his underwear soaking wet. At six o'clock in the morning, one spring morning in March where it was snowing, we had to use crampons to get down into the Grand Canyon. It was about 40 degrees down in the Grand Canyon, much warmer than higher elevation and about 40 mile per hour winds. That was, like, it took me a long time to warm up. Once we got to that spot and we're all huddled underneath this this bathroom, out of the wind as best we can. And just fueling up. And we found this kid who'd been there for probably at least six hours. He had left a message on his phone. There's no service down in the Grand Canyon. He'd left a message on his phone to his family saying goodbye. He for sure thought he was going to die. And had we not shown up, he would have. But we landed, we got there, we wrapped him up in space blankets, we made some hot food for him, some hot chocolate. We called the rangers, they gave us the code to get into the ranger station that was there, that is not occupied during the winter months. And and left our two guys that needed, they weren't going to make it to the North Rim and back down another 12 miles on their legs and then be able to hike back out of the Grand Canyon. So we left those two guys with David so they could warm up, they could heal up, they could rest up. And then when we got back down from the North Rim we could hike our way back out. So the first time we never made it to the North Rim. But, the second time we did, and I will say that it was significantly less hard. Number one, we picked different times, we had better weather conditions. And I say, experience, you can't buy it. But you can rent it. And we rented a guide. We had the same guide the first time as we did the second time. He's probably done the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim 16 times, I think. Twice with us, and twice... A week prior to us doing it. So he would go and do it on his own, just to check out the trails, make sure everything was good to go, make sure water was running, and the proper water stations, make sure the trails are good to go, look how many people are on the trail. So he's a stud, and if you ever want to know who he is, I'm happy to, you know, reach out to me on my Instagram, you can reach out to me at 5sealssecrets.com. Fill that out and reply to those emails. You can reach out to me at NakedWarriorRecovery.com and and I'll be more than happy to, I think it's Bucket List Adventures. Happy to put you in contact with him if you ever want to do the Grand Canyon and want a guide. He's not cheap, but he is very, very good. So you can rent experience. But you can't buy experience. It has to be earned. I used to have a guy in the SEAL teams, a guy that worked for me, his name is Josh. I won't say his last name because I think he's out, but I'm not 100 percent sure. Josh was an awesome operator. Awesome operator. His dad, or his stepdad, was a SEAL. He came in as a legacy SEAL. He was a fantastic operator. Strong, smart, fast. He had good tactical knowledge. He had good strategic knowledge. He was one of the best guys I had. Especially when I was a platoon chief. I would say that Josh knew more about being a SEAL than I did. And I was, two pay grades ahead of him. But he... He just got it, and I think, and I learned a lot from him. And but I had that sort of positional authority, and I learned a lot of stuff about leadership by leading Josh. And some of me leading Josh was having him teach me stuff without him even knowing that he was teaching me stuff that I didn't know. That's another lesson. But it was Josh and many other guys. But so I remember this thing from Josh, Once Upon a Time. We're out, we do PT in the mornings in the SEAL teams. And then, he's running, he catches up to a new guy. I don't know what the conversation was. I just remember Josh saying something about it when we got back from PT, and he said something about, experience to the new guy. He's like, hey man, that's experience right there. You can't buy it. If you could, then everyone would have some. And from that moment on, I have looked at experience in a very different way. You can't buy it. You can rent it. You can learn from it, but it always has to be earned. Experience always has to be earned. And so, we did the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim the first time. I didn't have a GPS on my wrist. I didn't have anything like that. I had never been there. I didn't train as well as I should have to be prepared for that level of effort. Which was also a mistake. I thought I was pretty good, but I wasn't. I wasn't good enough. But the second time, I knew landmarks. I knew where we were. I knew about how far it was going to be to the next the next water stop. I was tracking everything on my watch. This time I had a GPS so I could track everything. But I learned from doing it the first time. In business, in life, in relationships, in anything you do if you don't have experience, you're not going to be as good at it as you would be if you had experience. And that's why I think, on a lot of job descriptions, they say you need to have five years of X kind of experience. You kind of do, but there are... Ways around that. If you have other kinds of experience that can translate into that experience, I think that's fantastic. But nothing replaces the experience of just doing the work and failing a bunch of times And then learning the lesson from that failure. There is no better teacher in your life. I think I just read a Someone posted something from Alex Hormozi saying, do it and don't be afraid to suck suck Again, and then do it again, and suck some more, and do it again, and fail, and suck some more. And then one day, you're going to be doing it, and people are going to say, How are you so good at that? You just do it naturally. You don't do it naturally. You've failed a hundred thousand times. And now, you're really good at it, because you've learned all the ways to not do it. Thomas Edison, he discovered more than ten thousand ways to not create the incandescent light bulb. When people look at that, they're like, oh, of course, it just totally makes sense that that's the way that things work. But don't be afraid to suck. Don't be afraid to fail. Go out and get experience in everything that you possibly can. And so that's the first lesson from the Grand Canyon. Experience. You can't buy it. You can rent it. You can get a guide. You can get someone who's been there before, but you still have to learn your own lessons along the way. Number two, it's better to be over prepared than under prepared. The first time, I thought I was prepared enough, but you're never really prepared enough. Never prepared enough. I didn't do a 50 mile hike prior to doing the Grand Canyon. It didn't matter that it was, you know, hills or anything else. I think the longest kind of run, walk, hike sort of thing I did was about 15 miles the first time. I didn't do that much more the second time, but I had experience on my side, so I knew what to expect, and I trained a little bit differently. I think, again, the second time, my training, I was on the road a lot, so I didn't put in the miles that I should have, but I think I put in the right... Kind of miles to get it done this time. I put in a lot more hills And I put a lot more. Yeah, I put a lot more hills in so there's a near my house Not super near my house, but probably four miles away I ran walked hiked to this mountain called Olamana About four or five miles from my house hike to the top of It's about a two two and a half mile hike to the top very steep Turned around, That was the longest thing I did, but again, there was a lot more elevation change in that hike. And maybe I did the second hill behind my house twice just to get that extra elevation in and the experience of climbing out. Of the canyon when tired. So I think that, again, going back to the experience and you're never quite as prepared as you need to be, it's better to over prepare. And I could tell that that really made a difference in the second time. Again, we didn't have to deal with snow and ice and crampons to get out of the the Grand Canyon the second time. A lot more people. Our timing was different. The conditions were a lot better. I would like for it to have been a little bit cooler in the daytime, but it is what it is. And I'm stoked that we got it done. You know, one of the things that comes up when you aren't prepared enough is complacency. You think that you're prepared enough. And complacency is one of the things that will kill you. And I will share with you, so this is the second time that we hiked the Grand Canyon with Man Made. And this is the second time that we saved someone's life. So the first time was a very extreme life saving, David was in the bathroom. He'd been there for about five to six hours soaking wet 40 Degrees minus plus or minus probably it was probably in the high 30s low 40s at that, you know throughout the night 40 mile per hour wind so he was not There was nothing about him that was warm. The kid is skin and bones too. He has like no meat on his bones at all. So he wasn't gonna last much longer. I'm grateful and thankful that we didn't roll up to a corpse. And there was still life in that young man and he's still kicking today, and he just hiked it, hiked the Grand Canyon with us the second time. And I think I was going to save this to the end, but I, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to put it here because I was going to say just be a good human. We passed some women as we were going up to the North Rim. We had David, we were heading up to the North Rim, and people on the trail talk. And we had heard that there was some people that were struggling along the way, and And so we're, you know, we're always looking to help people that are out on the trail. Maybe they need food. Maybe they need some medicine and things like that. So we're hiking up to the North Rim. It's beautiful. I'm sorry that we did it at night. Like that part of the canyon is the most beautiful part of the canyon. If you can do it in the daytime, I recommend it. But we just, we're working different timelines at this point. So we're hiking up. It's probably close to midnight. 1130, close to midnight, and we passed these women and I don't remember, I was in the back, kind of playing clean up, and and whoever was in front said something to these ladies. And said something about, you know, we heard there were some hikers out here that were having some problems and maybe they were, low on food or something like that. And, I remember one of the women, she was very mouthy and she was like, well, we're not going to give them any of our food because we don't know how much food we're going to need. And I was like, wow, you are Miss Poopy Pants out here and you are definitely not going to be on my team. And so I just thought that was like, how... How egotistical are you? I understand that you're suffering and I understand that you started at 3 a. m. the night before and you're still only going from one side to the other. You don't have to be an a hole like that. That's like very insensitive, you know, not being a good human. And so we hiked to the, you know, we made it up to the North Rim. It was cold up there. It was in the probably 36 degrees. We were up there. For no more than 15 minutes. Long enough to get water. I was wearing gloves and It was a lot harder getting to that North Rim than I anticipated. Altitude, food fuel was a big deal. I live at sea level, so I don't do well at altitude. I didn't realize that until we climbed the Grand Teton last year. And I was like, this altitude is kicking my butt. I just, I can't believe it. And I'm in pretty decent shape. But it definitely kicks my butt. And on the way down it took... Almost two miles for me to get feeling back in my hands. That's how cold it was up at altitude. So we went to the North Rim. We're coming back down. And we passed a guy who, got to the North Rim. Got some water. Turned around and started heading down. He left the North Rim before we did. We caught up to him. He was sitting down. He's like, yeah, my legs hurt. So we, he's like, hey man, do you need some Ibuprofen or Tylenol or anything? He's like, that would be great. So we gave him some Tylenol and Ibuprofen. And, and then we kept going down the mountain, and then we passed those women again. Now, we had just hiked about 10 miles. It's 12 miles from the the ranger station to the North Rim back to the ranger station. So it's 6 miles one way. We had gone approximately 10 miles from the time that we saw those women, and they have not traveled one whole mile yet. And we traveled 10 miles. One of them was clearly in pain. She had a knee issue. She had some gauze or some things like coban wrapped around her knee. And, she was like wailing every step that she took. One girl was sitting down, one girl was like hanging out with her. And we're like, hey, can we help you? Is there anything you need? You still have a long way to go. It's not getting easier from here. Do you need food? Do you need medical supplies? Do you need us to call anyone? They're like, they were like very like dismissive, like, we don't need your help, men. I understand women's power and all that other stuff. We don't need your help, men. Maybe you do. Not to be snotty about it, but that's the attitude that they gave us. So we were like, okay, we respect you. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking there's no way they're gonna make it. There's no way. That woman was wailing every step she took. thEn we get down to the ranger station. David is struggling a little bit. I know he's got some psychological stuff, because he was going to die in that spot, in that bathroom, had we not shown up. He'd already accepted death. He made a video for his family, saying goodbye. He has eight brothers and sisters, and a mom. He has no idea who his dad is. David, he's got some stomach cramps, he's got a bunch of stuff, and I'm waiting to talk to him about some things I want to talk to him about. And then the guy that we passed, that we gave the Tylenol to, shows up. And I was like, hey man, how did you help those women that were, did you pass them? Did you help them? He was like, yeah. I offered them food. I offered them some of the medicine that you gave me. I offered them to call the rangers when I got back to the camping site that I'm staying at. And they were very adamant that they did not want anyone to call the rangers. They were like adamant, do not call the rangers on us. And I don't know what the deal was, maybe they just didn't want help. But then I was talking to Josh and some of the other guys in our guide, and I was like, you know that they're not gonna make it. We're gonna read about those women, uh, in about three days of women died on the Grand Canyon, cause they couldn't make it out. And everyone was like, yep, we're, you're, cause they're, like, it was hypothermia, whatever, they were not going to make it. And our guide went over, he went to the ranger station, he, knocked on the door, there was a ranger in there, we gave him the situation, and when we got to back to Phantom Ranch, Yeah, we were kind of famous down in the canyon because because of David, because we rescued him back in March, the ranger that we turned him into, she had just And there's no way that she would have made it out. I'm telling you, those women would have died. Because of their ego got in the way. Had we not called the rangers, there's, maybe they wouldn't have. They would have been messed up, though. I love that they went and did it. But you gotta be prepared. You gotta do the work. You have to put the effort in and do the fucking work. If you're gonna go do something that hard, it's always gonna be harder than you think it is. My next lesson is food is fuel. And when you're doing something like that, this is coming from someone who likes to do intermittent fasting or three day fasting or five day fast. I don't actually like doing those. I do them because they're hard. I do them because it pushes my body. I do it because they're. health benefits from that. Some of the training that I did, I did fasted. I did, 15, 17 miles fasted. Not only like drinking the calories that were in coffee or the calories that were in like the energy drink that I was drinking. So not very many, like less than 500 calories for the whole, like 17 miles of training. But during this event, during these high exertion, long distance events, what I recognized from the first time I did this, again this goes back to experience food is fuel. And if you get behind on your fuel, it's very hard to catch back up. So I probably ate twice as much food this second time. I ate a lot of Snickers bars. I ate a lot of goo packets. I ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I ate a lot of pastrami sandwiches. I ate a lot of food. And and your body is working in a way that it generally does not work. I knew... I, you know, Skittles, like this was not the time to be keto or a fat burning or paleo. This was a time like sugar, carbohydrates. I need rocket fuel. I don't need diesel. I need rocket fuel to get me out of this thing. And so the kind of fuel I was using was very specific to this event. And so like absolutely eat more than you think you need because you're absolutely going to need it and your body is going to continue burning that for the next week. Your body is going to be in hyper mode, burn fuel, burn fat, burn everything that you put in it for at least the next week. The next week I'm still like, was still waking up sweaty at night. My resting heart rate was probably around sleeping was probably like 85, 90 beats a minute. My, my HRV, my heart rate variability was very low. Because your body is just in recovery mode from doing that really hard event. But I think you should do, I think we should all do something really hard that pushes our bodies to this whole next level as often as we can. At least every year. Twice a year, every quarter, do something that's really hard to build that, Resilience that you need in your life. So that was number three. Fuel is food. You need more than you need when you're doing something hard like that. Number four was it's going to be harder than you think. So this is, lessons learned. Over prepare. It doesn't matter what you're doing. A job interview getting on a call with a client going and doing your daily job. Over prepare for it. People think I'm weird. I lay my clothes out the night before on the floor as if I'm laying on the floor wearing them. Shoes and all. So there's zero decision making fatigue when I wake up in the morning. I never think about what I'm going to wear, how I'm going to do it. My hair, I have no hair, so I make sure that that's good. How I'm going to wear my hair. Over prepare. It's always going to be harder than you think it is, even the most simple things. It's better to start the day early and uncomfortable than to start the day late and comfortable because then you're always going to be behind. There was, I failed the SEAL screening test the first time I took it. I looked at the minimum standards of pushups, pullups, and situps. I was okay. I thought I would be okay on the swim. I thought I'd be okay on the run. The push ups were, let's see, you do a 500 yard swim, 52 push ups, 60 sit ups, 7 pull ups, and a mile and a half run. I did the swim, I changed in my pants and my boondockers, and and then I did the push ups. Well, I was preparing for 52 push ups. That's all I was planning on doing. And because I prepared for the lowest standard, I didn't even make the lowest standard. Pushed out 37 push ups and had to stop because I couldn't push out anymore. It's always gonna be harder than you think it is. So when you see a standard, consider that to be the minimum minimum standard and you should be trying to destroy whatever the real standard is. In everything you do. Grand Canyon? Gonna be harder than you think it is. SEAL training? Harder than you think it is. Getting a degree? Harder than you think it is. Doing a TED Talk? Harder than you think it is. Everything is gonna be harder than you think it is. So over prepare. And I think my last lesson, again, that was, be a good human. I already talked about this a little bit. These women did not want us to help. Even when people suck. And they for sure suck. They were bad attitude, and I understand they were bad attitude. They were tired. They didn't want to be there anymore. They wanted to be done with it, but they were there, and we had to just, they had to just deal with what they were handed. They did not prepare, but we helped them anyway. Even though they said don't help us, we helped them anyway. We called the rangers. I'm sure they were mad when the medevac The system... Flew in and got them out. I'm sure they were pissed off, but I'm sure they were relieved or at least one of them was Relieved when they realized that the one girl had a broken ankle and like her knee was completely out of like ripped out of whatever So anyway the five lessons from doing the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim Experience you can't buy it. You got to earn it. You can rent it, but you still got to earn it It's better to over prepare than under prepare Food is fuel. It's always going to be harder than you think it is. And always be a good human. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Navy SEAL Mindset. Again, I'm your host, William Branum. Go out there, do hard things. Kick ass. Don't forget to get naked. And I'll talk to you soon. Hey, this is William Branum. I'm retired Navy Seal, 26 years of service, and I have a free gift for you. Go to five seal secrets.com, the number five seal as in Navy seal five seal secrets.com. Go download your free copy of these five Seal Secrets and I'll give you a, a secret. The secret is Naked. Naked is an acronym. Uh, go over there and find out what it is, five seals secrets.com. Totally free. All you gotta do is gimme your name and email so I can send that to you and uh, it's all yours. Then you can start learning how to think like a Navy SEAL. Talk to you guys soon.