Hiking Q&A

Well, I'm not quite from Arizona or Nevada, but when I lived in California while I lived on the coast I spent more of my free time in the desert or mountains.
For shoes the all-terrain water resistant shoes you mentioned sound very good. But also make sure that you get something comfortable too. I've gone on some 20 mile round-trip hikes before, and my feet hurt like hell at the end, especially the first ones.
Also, I personally think you'd be insane to wear long sleeves at the Grand Canyon in the summer. I never hiked to the bottom of the canyon, but I think the reason they would recommend long sleeves is there are probably some sharp or otherwise nasty plants (by otherwise nasty I mean along the lines of poison oak or ivy or stinging nettles or whatever else type of plants are like that) or branches, either that or because the risk of sunburn is pretty high, which it most certainly is. But if you're careful and wear plenty of sunscreen I should think short sleeves would be a good deal more comfortable, especially in the afternoon when temperatures can easily soar well above 100.
As for pants, it's a tough call there. I like to wear shorts myself because they're cooler, but a lot of people like to wear long pants because they protect your legs.
Although I should mention I always dressed with temperature being the top priority as I don't take extreme heat (assuming "extreme heat" is anything above 100 degrees) too well and consider myself to be pretty tough otherwise. Longer clothes have their benifits, although even since I moved to Ohio my wardrobe of long pants or long-sleeved shirts hasn't grown too much so I'm not too familiar with what materials are cool. All I can think of off the top of my head for longer clothes is by all means avoid black and choose light colors.
Also, a hat and sunglasses are recommended to, so is plenty of water. And as a rule, if it's not covered with clothing cover it with sunscreen.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Nope, I haven't heard of that wicking stuff. Sounds pretty cool though.

As for a walking stick, it's different on a person-to-person basis. Some people need 'em, some people prefer 'em, others do fine without them. If you do a lot of hiking I don't imagine you'll need one, but it also makes a difference whether you're used to hiking on flat ground, with some hills, or up and down mountains.

EDIT: Although the link in the post above me that for whatever reason I didn't see before making my post seems to be better on information for those than I am xp

How ya doing, buddy?