DEDICATION

The Grand Canyon, November 2 – 8, 2006

There are so many great places to see in the world, so what makes a person keep coming back to the same one? This makes my seventh trip to the Grand Canyon, and as the car pulled away at the end of this trip, I was pretty sure it wouldn't be the last. I often wonder what attraction the Grand Canyon has for me. Is it the improbableness of it? The harshness? Its uniqueness? Whatever it is, I'm hooked. When I'm there, I spend hours staring at the rock walls, creeks, and especially the Colorado River dancing down its boulder strewn path. I bust a gut climbing up and down long rocky trails, eating less food than I'm used to, and sleeping on a harder bed. I'm always ready to hike out, but when the time comes to plan another trip, I often go through the motions without a second thought.

This trip had a somewhat unusual genesis in that it was a joint celebration. My friend Rolf Peterson and I both retired from Michigan Tech after long careers, and decided a backpacking trip to the canyon would be a nice cap. We started talking about it more than a year before it happened. I remember Rolf saying that November, 2006 would work for him. "Any time in November," I asked him? "Pretty much," he said. So I put the ball in motion, and worked backwards as usual. The hike would begin on November 2, making November 1 the day to fly to Las Vegas, get the rental car, make the drive to the South Rim, check in at the hotel, distribute gear, and snatch some sleep.

As has so often happened in the past, the date for the hike was one of those improbably distant events, like the next ice age; so far in the future that is not worth worrying about. At my age, though, even things a year in the future seem to gallop up and nip you in the rear when you aren't looking. The summer before the hike, I had several active outdoor things planned, including lots of trail maintenance, a hike along the length of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and a Boundary Waters Canoe Area trip. So conditioning for the hike was ongoing throughout the summer, and I just had to maintain training through the fall in order to be ready for the November hike. This is harder to do than it is to write about, though, since I seem prone to want to "slug" a bit after I do a strenuous event. I kept the 50# sack of sand in the backpack, though, and kept doing the miles every week such that my conditioning was good for the Grand Canyon when the date rolled around.

In order to fit everything in on November 1, we had to leave on the 7:00 AM flight from the Hancock airport. This would make for a long first day since we were flying west and crossing 3 time zones. We hoped the connections would go smoothly because there was little slack in this day's itinerary. And luckily, things did go like clockwork. In Las Vegas, our luggage was not the first onto the carrousel, but then it seems like no one's ever is. Having something like that happen is akin to winning the lottery, or the big jackpot on the slot machines. Sure it can happen in theory, but the odds are pretty astronomical. Anyway, after the usual half hour of watching luckier people retrieve their bags, and watching the same weird package go around the carrousel a thousand times, our stuff finally came out and we walked outside to wait for the ground transport to our rental car facility.

We struggled outside with our gear, and stood in the sun trying to get oriented on the busy sidewalk. Each company had a set place they were supposed to park, which was clearly marked with signs in about an 8-point font, which was obscured by people scurrying to and fro, cabs, busses, and all manner of other vehicles racing in and out of this busy intersection. Suddenly, the metaphorical clouds parted, and an empty bus clearly labeled PAYLESS in a LARGE font pulled to the curb just across the street from where we were standing, and the driver got out! This was it. All we had to do was cross the street without losing our lives and get on that bus, and we would in theory be a step closer to getting in our rental car. Cross we did, climb inside we did, and sit down we did. Rolf looked at me as if to say, "Is it always this easy?" I was afraid to say anything, because you don't want to tempt fate when she smiles on you this way.

As the driver took us toward the Payless facility, I mentally prepared myself for the next step. I've rented cars in Las Vegas before where I've waited in long lines. I'm talking 45 minutes to an hour lines. Then when you get to the front, they try all the tricks to get you to buy extra insurance, to return the gas tank empty, etc., etc. All I want to do is get on the road, and all they want to do is make some money on me. I can't say I blame them. When I go through Travelocity, I get a pretty good rate, so they do their best to milk some more out of me at the window, but I know their game after a few years at it, and all I want to do is get going. So anyway, I'm doing the math in my head, and figuring that since we got lucky and got a quick ride from the airport, the rental car gods would certainly punish us by giving us a long line and a crabby clerk. Ha!

We got off the bus, walked inside and put down our gear, and a nice woman behind the counter said, "Can I help who's next please?" I walked up and went through the procedure. Sure she tried to sell me all the usual stuff, and I said no thanks. She got our driver's license numbers, got all the paperwork together, got the keys for Rolf and had him get the car and examine it for damage while I was finishing up with the signatures. I stuffed the paperwork in my pocket, hauled my gear out into the parking lot, popped the trunk, and just looked at Rolf. It *never* goes like this. Ka-ching.

Back home before leaving for this trip, I had decided to make a somewhat expensive upgrade to my GPS, and bought the City Navigator software. This upgrade converted my GPS into a powerful road navigation tool. I'd installed the software on my home computer before I left, and had planned the trip by including the necessary maps and waypoints. In theory, we have should been able to pick one of the waypoints, and choose goto, and it would take us there by the best road it knew about. We also had the foresight to mark a waypoint at the parking lot of the rental car place. In my haste to leave these places in the past, I've been a little careless about checking how to find my way back, and driven in circles a few times. I hoped marking the waypoint would give the GPS what it needed to bring us safely and easily back at the end of the trip. (It did.)

So with me at the wheel, and Rolf manning the controls of the GPS, we headed the Ford Taurus sedan out onto the busy streets of Las Vegas. With no mistakes, we made it onto the highway heading south. I've made this trip many times, and since 9/11 have only gone by way of Hoover Dam once. It was so security intense there that I've avoided it ever since, and have always driven through Laughlin instead. I think the distance is about the same, and the roads are very good. I had set a waypoint for the bridge over the Colorado in Laughlin, so when Rolf found it and selected goto, we were under the control of the GPS.

The unit gave a little warning beep a mile before an intersection and the screen indicated what sort of turn was called for. Then just before the actual turn, another beep would sound. I really think this system made things about as easy to navigate as it was possible to be. The only downside is I didn't bring the dash holder along, and abrupt turns made the thing slide around on the dashboard. Rolf learned that if it was placed in the cup holder between the front seats it got enough satellites to function, so we left it there.

We stopped for gas in Ash Fork, and I filled up my fuel bottles for the camp stove at the same time. We also bought our cheese for the hike... and did we pay a premium. This was a small out of the way gas station that had exactly 4 8-ounce packages of cheese in stock; just what we needed, at the bargain price of $4.50 per 8 ounce package. Although we did pay a good price for this cheese, we both later were forced to admit that it was pretty good cheese.

We arrived at Grand Canyon Village just as the last sparks of dusk were leaving the sky. I stopped at the Mather overlook and we got out of the car and walked out to the scenic spot. It was much too dark to see exactly what was going on, but I wanted Rolf to see it if possible. It was even a little spooky that night. You knew you were standing in front of a big hole, but it was just dark enough that you couldn't quite tell how big it was. Even in full daylight your brain doesn't believe what your eyes are telling it, so the mixed signals at dusk have their own special weirdness.

We got back in the car and drove to the Bright Angel Lodge, where we had reservations for the night. I had made these reservations a long time ago. They have only a couple of rooms with two double beds, and knowing this I had planned well ahead. There was an Asian couple ahead of us in line that was inquiring about a room for the night. The clerk told them there were no rooms available in the park except for the El Tovar at $279/night! When our turn came up to check in, it went without a hitch. We walked out to the car and got our gear, got it stowed in the room, and then I tried to find a place to park. Ha! I drove around for a while, and finally decided to park at the back country office parking lot, a bit of a walk away from the Bright Angel, but not too bad if you know the shortcut. I walked back to the hotel along the railroad tracks in the pitch dark. I heard something stomping and chewing near the pasture on my right and assumed it was the mules.

When I got to the hotel room, Rolf was well into having his gear strewn about his bed and packing things into his backpack. I quickly followed suit. As I recall, we made one or two trips to the car that night to put our topside gear in the trunk, hopefully keeping only the gear to be put away in our backpacks in the hotel room. I made 2 crucial errors, one of which I caught as I lay awake that night, and one which I missed until the next night.

On my last trip back from the car that night, I figured out what I had heard stomping and chewing in the pasture beside the railroad tracks. It wasn't exactly a mule, but a mule deer. A big buck, and it wasn't inside the fenced pasture, but just about 20 feet away from me. The moon had come out by then, and this big fellow was looking at me without a hint of fear. The rack of horns on his head was gleaming in the moonlight... somewhat menacingly in my opinion. I stopped and stared at him, and he stopped chewing and looked at me. We looked at each other for several minutes I think, before I decided to move on. Having read about deer in rut, and the damage they can do with their antlers, I was not anxious to mix it up with this fellow, and it turned out there was no evil in him. He just had no fear of humans, which is a good thing, I guess. I think I had enough fear that dark moonlit night for the both of us.

When the alarm went off the next morning I announced to Rolf that I had left the map of the canyon in the trunk of the car (the one crucial error I remembered.) I asked him if he thought I should make the trip to the car for it. He thought it would be worthwhile, and I agreed, so I hoofed it to the car one more time and got the map. I'm sure glad I did too, because we used it every day thereafter. It was just a few minutes turnaround, and when I got back, we quickly packed up, I turned in our room keys, and we headed out the door.

The beauty of the Bright Angel Lodge is it is literally a few steps from the Bright Angel Trail, which was the beginning of our hike. Dawn was just entering the sky as we got outside, and we easily found our way to the trailhead, where we took this picture of us. On our way down to Indian Garden, we took several pictures of the magnificent scenery. As I'm sure I've said before, it is one thing to see these rock walls from the rim, and quite another to descend them step by step; to see each transition, feel the texture, feel them before the sun heats them, and watch them light up with the morning sun. Both the rest stops had well worn signs posted that said No Water, but we were prepared for that.

Shortly before we arrived at Indian Garden, a young woman approached us at a pretty good clip from behind and asked me if she was on the correct path for the bathrooms. I told her she was. I joked that she was moving pretty fast for someone this far along in the hike and she said something about necessity as she rounded the corner ahead of me. A few minutes later a man came up on me and asked if I had seen a blonde hiker come by a few minutes ago? I said he'd probably find her at the bathrooms up ahead. He smiled knowingly and walked on. I would have to say that the bathroom facilities in the Canyon are not the finest I have experienced in the world, but I can say they are often among the most appreciated.

We also met an interesting looking fellow close to Indian Garden that was hiking out. The first thing I noticed about him was his face... he had a white beard and round face that reminded me of Santa Claus. He and his partner had hiked down the Hance, which was a feat in itself. He pointed out his torn pants to prove it. The Hance has no real established path for much of its course, so you wind up encountering various desert plants that have evolved mechanisms that make you wish you hadn't encountered them, such as cacti. This poor guy looked like his calves had embraced almost every cactus he had seen. We learned some interesting things from him, though. One of which was for a mere 2 year wait, you can have Christmas dinner at Phantom Ranch. He had been doing this for many years, and said it was really a great experience. He hiked down Christmas day, had dinner at the cantina, camped at the campground, and hiked up the next day.

Rolf and I took a bathroom, powerbar, water break at Indian Garden, and then continued on. We had a long way to go that day. Most of it was either down hill or flat, but it was quite a few miles. Indian Garden pretty much completed the down hill portion, and from here we would hike along the Tonto West to Cedar Creek where we would camp for the night.

I need to digress a bit here and talk about the permit process, and the disconnect one experiences between applying for a permit, vs. executing the hike. I had done a similar hike once before, and stayed at the first two campsites along this stretch of the Tonto, called Horn Creek and Salt Creek. Using this reasoning and none other, I decided our campsite at the end of day one would be the third, called Cedar Spring, since I had never camped there. You'd think an experienced hiker might have at least checked the mileage chart and noticed that Cedar Spring was 14 miles from the rim, and that daylight only lasted about 12 hours this time of year, but guess what, he didn't. Sitting in my swivel office chair at my computer in climate controlled comfort, it was easy to dismiss any potential difficulties and with a keyboard stroke just go for it.

One of the beauties of leaving the rim early in the morning is you feel you "own" the Grand Canyon. You see so few people that when someone shows up, you almost resent it. Indian Garden surely does its part to dispel that notion. That place is always busy. There are actual houses down there, busy sounding machines, and almost always people standing, sitting, chatting, eating, etc. The commotion starts to get to you after a while, or at least it does to me. We probably spent less than an hour there, but I was glad when we hoisted our packs and headed out the joint Plateau Point/Tonto West trail. We had one fellow in front of us with a daypack on, and as I silently predicted, he took the Plateau Point fork while we headed west on the Tonto.

The Grand Canyon really changes its character when you hit the Tonto. You get snatches of vertical, but it becomes a mostly horizontal land here. We headed in toward the rock wall whenever a creek bed was encountered, otherwise we would have had to climb a long way down the creek bed, and then back up the other side. The builders of the trail wisely figured this out, and we figured it was prudent to follow their lead on this issue. Horn Creek, our first major impediment is also the site of an old Uranium mine, portions of which are still visible. The creek is often flowing, but we were warned not to use the water because of potential pollution from the mining operations. We did get confused when the trail crossed the creek, and we wound up following a very nice trail that took us to the Horn Creek toilet, an open air plastic affair that would have been great if either of us had needed it.

We finally got back on track when we determined that the trail crossed the creek precisely at the campground. In my mind, I figured, another half hour to Salt Creek, another half hour to Cedar Spring, and we can spend the rest of the day resting. In reality we had many many miles to go. I had not even thought to get lunch ready, thinking we'd eat when we got to camp, perhaps shortly after noon. Before I sound too hard on myself, I should explain that I use this seat-of-the-pants planning a lot on these trips, and it generally works pretty well for me, but when it fouls up, as it did this time, it really fouls up.

On the hike between Horn and Salt we were intrigued by the Century plants. Alongside the trail, we encountered a specimen that Rolf wanted a picture of. On one of my previous hikes I had attended a ranger talk that touched on these plants. She explained that they got their name from the mistaken belief that they sent up their flower spike and died after a hundred years of growth. Researchers determined that the spike really grew after about 25 years. We also got our first view of the Colorado River, which had been quite shy about showing herself so far. We'd round a corner, and think surely this time we'll see a stretch of water, but would only hear a distant roar. Then finally there she was, shining in all her glory. I can not help but get a lump in my throat every time I see the Colorado in her untamed condition. I get a different lump in my throat when I see lakes Powell or Mead. On these stretches, though, I feel something of the power that stretched out over all these millions of years that wound down and transported all these tons of material, and left behind this magnificent monument for us all to enjoy.

Salt Creek is not a raging river, but that small creek has dug a mighty cut in the canyon wall in the 5 million years it has been at work. So approaching the creek bed is one part of getting around it, albeit a small part. Besides being long, it has a lot of arms, all of which all have to be traversed. You make a left turn, walk a while and think, ok, next right turn and we'll start heading west again, but no, ahead of you is still more canyon wall and back south you go again. When we finally found the main part of the stream, we stopped and filtered water, which we knew we'd need for supper, and weren't sure we'd find at Cedar. We made this into a pretty major break, and I even took my boots off, which may well have set off some toxic chemical alarms up on the rim. I always made sure that the inlet for the water filter was upstream from where my feet were resting; or was it downstream?

Pretty sure now that I had seriously miscalculated things, we packed up and started what we knew would be a long hike to Cedar Spring. Rolf decided to see if he could find the bathroom at Salt Creek, and we decided that I would hike ahead to Cedar alone. This would allow me to find the campground which should save us some time. The sun was sinking lower and lower, and I was quickly running out of gas. We'd had one power bar and a half cup of granola each, and I'd slept poorly the night before. I had reached Cedar Creek, dropped my pack, and located the campsite by the time Rolf crested the hill, so I was able to direct him to the site. With a little effort, we were able to get our campsite in shape, and get lunch, after which I retreated into my tent for a short nap. Rolf found a handy boulder for his watercolor supplies, which became his studio.

I was not too peppy when I crawled out of my tent, and would have cheerfully forgotten about supper, but Rolf wisely insisted we go through with it, so I hauled out the stove and got supper started. It was during this process that I realized the second crucial error I had made in packing my gear, and it was a whopper. I realized I had forgotten, or lost, my Swiss Army Knife! I needed it to open the fasteners on the lids on our bear-proof food containers in order to get our food. The knife was not where it belonged. I looked everywhere else it could have been. It was nowhere. I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach reserved for people who jump out of airplanes and forget their parachutes. In my life in the normal world, I rarely do anything without my Swiss Army Knife. What would I do without it down here? It turned out that Rolf had a coin with him that allowed us to get our food barrels open, and at least get the burritos made. They were not the best I've ever eaten, but I'm glad I got them down, because whether my body knew it or not, it needed fuel. I was busy trying to figure out what could have happened to my knife. I decided that either I had used it for something at Indian Garden and left it there, or had used it in the hotel room, stuck it absent mindedly in my jeans pocket just before I changed into my hiking pants, and then stuck the jeans in the trunk of the car. I sincerely hoped for the later, because I would very much miss that knife if it was lost.

Cleanup from supper was done in the dark, so by the time we got the gear squared away, the stars were out. Just as we were heading for the tents, we noticed a lightening in the east, and realized we were in for one more show that night. The moonrise was spectacular; a great cap to a great (if pretty long) day. I was very happy to head for the tent once more and slept pretty well that night. We had a relatively short hike the next day, so there was no need to set the alarm on my watch. During the night I heard some rodent activity among our gear, and then I heard Rolf get up, and the activity stopped. Later, I heard some activity just outside my tent. I always leave my boots just outside the screen part of my tent, but under the waterproof fly. I rolled over and grabbed my flashlight, and shined my light out into the night. It took my eyes a while to adjust, but when they did, I saw what was probably a ground squirrel with his head poking out of my boot a few inches from my face looking directly at me as if to say, "Will you turn that light out! I've got work to do in here!" In the morning, I surely did turn my boots upside down before I put them on, but I never did figure out what that critter was up to in there.

Next morning we were both up before daybreak. This was not too hard because we had been in our tents for about 10 hours already. I had never hiked in the Southwest this time of year, and I guess I had figured that being this far south would mitigate the long-night-short-day-ness we get in the North Country where I live. It must mitigate it somewhat, but not as much as I expected. I did appreciate the extra sleep, and seemed to always be ready for the sky to be clearing in the morning as I looked out of my tent.

We packed up our gear as the day brightened up. As I was walking back and forth, I noticed an uncharacteristically round shape on a rock near my tent, and stooped down to look at it. It was a penny! Now I had my own coin with which to open the food barrels. I was to use that penny over and over throughout the course of the trip.

There seems to be a great deal of difference between the first time you break camp and the last time, at least in my experience. A very bad thing would be to leave something behind, or to misplace something (Like a Swiss Army Knife, Ha!). So when packing up, you mentally make sure you have everything, and that it is put in its proper place so you'll be able to find it when you need it. With experience, this process happens automatically. The first few times on a hike, however, you wind up doing it pretty inefficiently.

Our goal this morning was to hike to Monument Creek campground, and then down the creek bed to the river, where we were to camp for 2 nights. I had never camped there before, so I was looking forward to seeing this place. Monument Creek is similar in size and activity to Salt Creek, so you have to do some maneuvering to get down to it. For this descent, the trail planners decided to use several switchbacks. Near the top, you see the rock formation that likely gave the creek its name, a lovely rock monolith that dominates the whole area.

Rolf and I decided to take a short water/food break near the campground, and it was there that we met Brad, who was staying in one of the nearby campsites. Brad is an outfitter with Wildland Trekking, and he had a client with him on a trip in the canyon. We had an excellent talk with him. He graciously answered our numerous questions about geology and many other topics. He told us to look up his web page, which I did when I got back on top: http://www.wildlandtrekking.com After this nice break we hoisted our packs and headed down the Monument Creek stream bed to the Granite Rapids of the Colorado River.

The sweet little bubbling stream that greeted us at Monument campground soon disappeared and was not to reappear until just before we reached the river. We hiked along a creek bed that looked as though it hadn't seen water for a good long while. There was evidence of a lot of water erosion which is frankly everywhere in the Grand Canyon, but the creek was dry as a bone. I was beginning to wonder if we'd have to get our water out of the silty old Colorado for the next few days.

I rounded a bend in the creek and felt a pair of eyes staring back at me. A big horn sheep! I stopped and hissed at Rolf and all three of us looked at each other for a long time before the sheep appeared to decide that the path he had wanted to take was good and blocked by these 2 legged creatures. He took a standing jump that with no apparent effort put him up onto a boulder and from there he leaped onto a rock ledge where he sauntered away; a picture of unconcerned grace. Rolf got a picture as he moved out of our sight.

A short while later we rounded another corner, and got our first sounds and then sights of Granite Rapids; home for the next 2 nights. We saw a tent there and a fellow sitting on a rock outcropping working on some sort of rope gizmo, so I dropped my pack and asked him if he was staying the night. He said yes. I asked him if he knew of any other good places to camp, and he filled me in on the next best places. We left our gear and scouted the places he suggested, and chose the place we liked best. We both agreed that sugar sand was the most comfortable to sleep on, but that the sand tended to get into everything eventually, so we settled on some hard sand quite close to the river. We lived with the roar of the rapids for the next two nights.

Our campsite was also quite close to the shade of some nice Tamarisk trees, which I understand are somewhat of an exotic pest along the Colorado, but provide some nice shade too. We set up our kitchen facilities in that area because there was a pretty good log for sitting and some flat ground for setting pots and other things that should not spill. One thing we rim dwellers take very much for granted is level horizontal places to set things.

Once we had things set up, we each set about exploring this stretch of the river. Upstream of the creek there was a long sandy beach that had another grove of Tamarisk trees. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to construct numerous campsites among these trees. Our fellow camper here at Granite told us that rafters frequent this beach and they are often quite generous with beers. For the two days we stayed at Granite Rapids, we did not see a single raft go down the Colorado.

This beach ended with a rock cliff that I did a little climbing on. I was able to make it out along a ledge that took me almost over the Colorado. I found a reasonably comfortable place to sit there, and I contemplated the quiet river for some time. I should explain what I mean about quiet river. In general, wherever a creek enters the Colorado, a bunch of boulders will form a dam and cause a rapids. Upstream of these rapids will be a placid stretch of water. Again, in general, the bigger the dam, the more violent the rapids, and the longer and more placid the upstream portion will be. Granite is a pretty violent rapids, so I had a pretty placid stretch of river to enjoy. I think this sums up how I spent my time on this stretch of the river; hours contemplating a zen garden, then time on a boulder in the midst of a violent mayhem of tortured water.

Our most perishable food was the tortillas we brought for our burritos, so we had them for the second supper too. My appetite had come roaring back by then. I forgot to mention that before the trip I had dehydrated most of a bottle of medium hot salsa which we rehydrated half of each night. Salsa does a lot to perk up bland camp food. Rolf and I talked about how this was done, and that it would be a good thing to do again on future hikes. We also were beginning to fall easily into our routine of together time and alone time. On some trips it is a bit of a struggle for companions to find the space they need, but Rolf and I settled into a workable routine without any hitches, at least from my point of view. That night we again stayed up until the moon rose and got a few pictures. That was about as late as I wanted to be awake, but Rolf got interested in trying some photography of the rapids by moonlight. Some time later while I was drifting in and out of sleep in my tent, I heard him returning to his tent and he said something about the photography working really well.

Next morning we were up early and about our own errands. Each of us managed to climb the hill downstream of the creek, and I was lucky enough to find a quarter someone had left up in one of the clefts on top. So we now had 3 coins with which to open the food barrels (we were rich!) I had also brought along 2 $20 dollar bills, but what good were they? Anyway, from the top of the downstream hill, a good view was to be had of the rapids and the placid stretch of the river. Our paths crossed several times over the course of that day, and I remember it being very pleasant not to have to pack up and move but just to experience the place.

I also made it back down to the rafter end of our beach upstream of the creek, where I discovered a Great Blue Heron. Rolf and I were both puzzled to see this bird down here. I couldn't imagine there being enough water in the creek to support enough life to support a heron, and the Colorado seemed pretty murky for a sight-oriented feeder, but there he was. We saw him several times over the course of the two days we were there.

Our habit was to package the next day's granola into half-cup nalgene jars and stick them in our packs for the morning. These jars are varmint proof and that way we could get to our breakfast without having to dig to the bottom of our backpacks where the food was stored. We also planned for a powerbar each per day, but that had to stay in the top of the food barrel, so we had to remember to grab them and stick them in our pockets as we broke camp in the morning so we'd have them for the hike.

Next morning we had a hike of not too many miles as the crow flies, or as the rafter floats, but quite a few trail miles to do. We needed to move from Granite Rapids to Hermit Rapids; literally just around the corner, but to get there we had a pretty steep hill to climb. So we got up early, got our gear packed up, like pros by now, and headed up the creek bed. We managed to get goofed up a couple of times on our way up the creek bed, but we caught our mistakes before we went too far in the wrong direction. The trails in the canyon are mostly blazed by cairns, which are piles of rocks with big ones on the bottom and small on top. This system works well in principle, but one problem is that anyone can make a pile of rocks, and well intentioned people can send you a long way in the wrong direction before you realize their cairn is in error.

Compared to our first day's hike, this one was a cakewalk, so we took our time and made it easily to the junction where left takes you to the Hermit campground, and right takes you to the river. I wanted to do a little exploring, because I suspected that the hike to the campground the next day would be easier if we just followed the creek bed, rather than the trail that took the long way around. So we followed the path down to the creek bed, and then took a quick left through some thick brush toward what I call the "grotto." It's one of the prettiest places I know of in the canyon, and that is saying something. We did indeed find a path through there, so we decided to take that path on our way to the campground, rather than the path laid out by the park service. Then we turned around and headed back down the creek bed toward the river.

The hike down the Hermit Creek bed is pretty neat. There are places where minerals ooze from the sandstone in a most remarkable way. There is another section where massive house-sized chunks of the rock wall have fallen off, and lay on their side on the creek bed. Later when we were back on the rim, we asked the ranger about these chunks, and she told us they were actually visible from the rim, and that she believes they had fallen within the last 50 years. What a thump they must have made! The water in this happy little creek just chortles and chuckles its way all along its path as you hike beside it. We saw our first flock of Pinion Jays on this stretch too. There were about 40 birds that would suddenly come up on you and flutter past, twittering cheerfully as they went.

We made it to the river in a short time and found the one good multi-tent site occupied. I dropped my pack and walked over to the people and asked if they were staying that night. This group of two young males and a female did not seem too friendly, but they said they were packing up to leave. I asked them if they minded if we waited here to take the site when they left, and they said no. I asked if it was a good site, and they said it was a very nice site.

After they left we moved in and dropped our packs. I think we may have moved in a little too quickly, though, because a rather large spider had crawled in to look things over. It being still morning and cool, it was moving slowly, so Rolf was able to get some pictures. We sort of encouraged it to meander elsewhere, which it did, and that was the last we saw of it. We were not sad to see it go :-)

We quickly got our tents up and gear arranged, and then took a look around. The first order of business for me was washing my hair. Rolf had not seen my technique of making a circle of largish rocks, getting a pack cover full of water from the creek, draping that over the rocks, and using it for the initial dunking and the first rinse. I demonstrated for him, and he was impressed enough that he immediately followed suit. Of course, we dumped our used wash water well away from the creek and river.

Hermit Rapids is a smaller place than Granite. There is also less beach and much more rock. It was clear to me how low the Colorado was compared to the last time I was here. I had never camped at Granite before, but I had spent 2 nights at Hermit Rapids on a previous solo hike, so I had some familiarity with the place. While I was poking around some boulders looking for a place to sit near the rapids, I realized that I was looking into a place that was probably filled with churning water the last time I was here. It was an odd feeling. The smells were of musty wet sand. The sight was just what you would have expected of several boulders jammed together with some smaller rocks in-between, with tons of water doing its darndest to dislodge the whole thing downstream. I felt like I had peeked into one of those doors that say, "Authorized Personnel Only."

We had only the rest of that day to explore this stretch of the Colorado, and we made the most of it. Along the way, I met a young couple who said the water in the Colorado wasn't so cold, because they lived near Lake Superior, where the water was *really* cold. I said wow, that was a coincidence because I lived near Lake Superior too; where do you live? They said Ann Arbor. Well, I told them, I guess that is close to Lake Superior relative to Arizona, and we had a good laugh about it. It turned out that this guy had actually spent some of his early childhood in Pelkie, and that his Dad had worked for the White Pine mine near Ontonagon. They were staying at Hermit that night and were hiking the Boucher Trail the next day. Both of them were very fit. We chatted for about a half hour beside the Colorado. While we were talking, I was reminded of something Brad and I had mentioned back at Monument Creek, and that is that you rarely meet a jerk in the Grand Canyon. The rim is a great jerk filter.

I went to sleep that night thinking that the days were flying by too quickly. We had only two more nights at Hermit Creek, and then the next morning we'd be hiking out. I was really looking forward to the two days/nights at the Hermit Creek Campground, though. Next morning I thoroughly checked my boots before I put them on. Call me paranoid, but seeing that spider the day before really made me think about how it would feel to have my toes encounter something hairy, poisonous, and pissed in the morning. There was nothing inside. We were packed and ready long before there was any sunlight on the tops of the highest peaks. We had a glorious hike up the creek. This morning's hike was another short one, so we took our time. When we came to the cut-off, we took the shortcut we had scouted and found ourselves in the grotto. We took a short break there to do some photography and just loaf for a while. I told Rolf that if I were to design a cathedral, I would start taking pictures right here. This place just takes my breath away every time I visit it.

As we packed up to leave, I was not exactly sure what was next. I knew that on my previous trip I had hiked to the grotto without my pack from the Hermit Creek campground, but I was a little vague on the details. We made it around a couple of corners without any trouble, and then came upon two huge boulders that jammed up the stream to produce a nice little waterfall. There was no easy way around this, so we decided to climb up the rock wall and see what we could see. Rolf went first. When I saw his head pop up over the edge, I asked him, "What do you see," and he answered without hesitating, "a staircase." So I knew we were at Hermit Creek Campground.

There were no campers around, so we had our pick of the sites. We chose one right by the canyon edge with a path down to the creek that provided easy access for filtering water. There were two nice tent sites there too, and the toilet wasn't too far away, but far enough for it to be not too stinky. This one made no pretense to be a composting toilet, like those at 1 ½ mile, 3 mile, and Indian Garden. This one had a solar collector and a fan, and had a plaque that explained it was drying the waste and that the resulting dry waste was spread in a landfill every 3 or 4 years. Well, I think they were a few years past their due date, because this puppy was overflowing and stinking to high heaven. The little fan in there was blowing away cheerfully, but I think it was under-engineered. When we hiked out the only two things I told the ranger in the back office were 1) we had a great time in the canyon, and 2) the toilet in Hermit Creek needed serious attention.

So anyway, like the well oiled machines we were, we set up camp with hardly a word spoken and went about our business. I hiked upstream a ways, and down to the grotto for a short spell while Rolf got out his water colors, I think. We had our lunch, later made supper, and enjoyed the moonrise. We made friends with our neighbors, 3 women. Two were sisters who had hired the third, an outfitter from Prescott, Arizona. We learned that the outfitter was a faculty member from Prescott College who taught Mountaineering. She told us they were paying $200/person/day for the trip. The outfitter was carrying all the crew gear and food, and did all the cooking. All the sisters had to do was carry their personal gear and themselves. We learned that the outfitter's pack weighed 70#. Rolf and I estimated that each of our packs weighed in the 40# range when we left the rim, although we went 14 miles the first day, and they went just under 8. Still, there is a big difference between 70# and 40#.

The next day our neighbors were up not too early but quite cheerfully and off for Monument Creek. We wished them well. We also made friends with another couple that were our age or possibly somewhat older. The man had made several trips down the Colorado in his kayak as a tagalong on raft trips. Apparently private raft parties like to have these guys along as a safety precaution. Experienced kayakers are more capable of reacting to "man overboard" emergencies than rafts are. In exchange the rafters carry all their gear and handle all the permits, so they don't have to wait the 10+ years the rafters do. The fellow was also quite proud of his little cook stove which he called his cat-can stove. It was basically a large cat food can with a hole punched in the bottom, and another smaller cat food can placed inside it with some fiberglass insulation as wick material. For fuel he used denatured alcohol, which he carried in a plastic bottle. He also had a 1 quart titanium pot which everything stowed in including a wire grate which the pot sat on. He even lit it for us, and I had to admit it was the picture of lightweight low tech elegance. Here is the URL he told me about:

http://royrobinson.homestead.com/Cat_Stove.html

That day Rolf and I had two great hikes, one a long distance up the Hermit Creek, which is surely one of the most picturesque little creeks anywhere. It was great to have enough time to just wander and stop and do a 360 degree owl head swivel over and over. The water and the waterfalls, and the trees and reeds are so improbably interspersed with such an arid land that is essentially a few feet away from the creek. Sometimes you have to just sit down and let it all soak in a little. As I recall, we both involuntarily sat down and soaked in a bit of the creek once or twice. Making our way up the creek bed was often easiest in the water, and footing was dicey a couple of times. Our gear was made to dry quickly, though, and the air humidity must have been in the single digits.

My second hike that day was a solo to the grotto while Rolf worked on his watercolors. I probably spent an hour there. I was really into the solitude when to my surprise, two hikers with backpacks arrived! And they said they had watched me from above. I learned from them that the Tonto West goes right above the grotto along the edge and looks over, and as they were hiking they saw me. They then hiked through Hermit Creek Camp, talked to Rolf and he told them that I was probably still down there. They were on their way to Hermit Rapids, and knew about the shortcut that Rolf and I had "discovered" the day before. This couple was an older gentleman and a younger woman. The older guy looked like he had done this hike a time or two, and the woman looked to be struggling. They had come down the Boucher that day, which was quite an accomplishment. After a short chat, they moved down the grotto and sat down for a break. I returned to camp and we began preparations for supper.

Next morning we were up early, and on the trail shortly before 6:00. The moon was up and, although not full, was providing plenty of light. I had my flashlight ready and I think Rolf had his headlamp out, but neither of us needed them. We got confused at the intersection of the Tonto West/Hermit. There are two trails there, and I chose the more trail-like of the two. It led up to a boulder that looked like it may have been used as a campsite or something. We walked around it for a while unwilling to believe we'd been had, until we finally went back to the trailhead and started over. For one of the country's premier parks, the signage at the Grand Canyon sometimes leaves a great deal to be desired.

Once we were on the right trail, it was a matter of one foot in front of the other. We stopped at one nice spot for a granola break and I noticed the sunrise was peeking, so I asked Rolf to take a picture. This was a gamble, because his last battery pack was so low that we might not get the important last picture of ourselves at the trailhead at the end of the hike (assuming we made it.) But we chanced it, and I think we got my favorite picture of the whole hike. Sunrises in the Grand Canyon are one of my favorite events.

One of the challenges for trail builders in the canyon is to get hikers past the hard rock barriers. One of these is the huge redwall you see in the Grand Canyon. On the Hermit Trail, they used a tactic called the Cathedral Stairs, a fancy name for some pretty serious switchbacks that took us up and over. I guess you might as well get the thing over with, and that is what they did. When I saw the Cathedral Stairs on the map, I imagined some sort of natural overlook. I was grateful we chose the right time of day for our ascent. I can imagine that the full sun in August can be brutal on those switchbacks.

Once past the stairs, we encountered a long series of swoops across long curved canyons. We'd sometimes see a lone raven or other bird perched or soaring in these remote areas looking for lunch. They'd call out and I'd do my best to answer. The park service no longer makes any attempt to maintain the Hermit, so there are numerous rock slides to negotiate. They also wisely ask hikers not to assist them in rolling rocks off the trails. It is hard to predict where these rocks will land, and what kind of slides they will precipitate, so they suggest leaving the rocks where they are and climbing over them. Occasionally the trail would make a turn at a rock slide, but a cairn would usually save the day at these places.

Our friend Brad suggested that we be on the lookout fossil for fossil tracks in the stone just off the trail on our way up the Hermit just past the junction with the Waldron Trail. So we dropped our packs and took a look around at the most likely spot. We saw a slab of rock that look somewhat likely, had some water and a powerbar, and continued along. A bit further along, Rolf spied some rock slabs just off the trail that very obviously had tracks in it, and then we saw several others. Without the heads up from Brad, I'm sure we would have missed them completely.

I had warned Rolf about the switchbacks in the white stone near the top on the Hermit. They were both good and bad news. Good in that they were near the end of our journey; bad in that they seemed to go on for ever. The work that went into these trails was amazing. Someone had quarried this limestone and laid it on edge piece-by-piece to make a kind of parquet floor out of it. It was not only very durable but quite beautiful too. You had to hand it to these trail bulders... they put some serious resources into this trail.

Close to the top we met a guy that asked if we had seen a girl with green shorts. We said no. Without another word, he turned around and headed back up the trail toward the top. About 5 minutes later, we crested the top ourselves. We found the kiosk where I have had my picture taken in the past and started looking around for someone to take our final Grand Canyon picture. Who should come strolling up but a woman with green shorts. I greeted her and said someone is looking for a "girl in green shorts." "Which way did he go?" she asked with some concern. We told her he must be somewhere on top, because he was ahead of us on the trail and there had been no turn offs. Then we heard this guy calling her name from far off down the hill! She answered him in a loud shrill voice. We asked her if she could possibly take our picture before she took off, and she did. Then she sprinted off toward his voice. They may still be there to this day for all I know. If she had asked for my advice, I'd have suggested she wait for him on the top, but somehow I don't think something as basic as that would have occurred to either of them.

Be that as it may, we had made it out, and now there was real food in unlimited quantities awaiting us. All we had to do was find the bus and ride it down to the village. There was some construction in progress, so we couldn't go the normal way to the parking lot, but we eventually found our way, boarded the bus, and got ourselves situated. A lady seated next to us introduced herself and said she lived in a gated golf community 20 miles east of San Francisco. She was in awe of what we had just accomplished. She asked us a lot of questions which we were happy to answer. We kept teasing her about having the potential to hike the canyon next summer, but I don't think she ever will. At the end of the line, we got off the bus, hoisted our packs for one last time, and hiked to the back country office parking lot where our rental car was patiently waiting for us. We arranged our gear back into top of the rim mode, and headed for the showers, where we removed 6 days of canyon grime. Then it was on to the General Store and some real food.

After lunch, I put my plan into action to ship my camp stove back home in a cost effective manner. Last time I tried this, I used the business office at Circus Circus Hotel in Las Vegas, and they shipped it FedEx, which cost me over $40. This time I had picked up a priority flat rate box at home, purchased the correct postage ($8.10), preaddressed the box, and had even brought along packing tape. I emptied the leftover gas from my fuel bottle into the gas tank of the rental car, washed both bottles and the camp stove out with soap, and put everything into ziplock bags like my postmastmer Marj had coached me. I presented the box at the desk at the Grand Canyon Village post office. The clerk accepted it with a smile, and it arrived home the Monday after I did with no problems. Ta Da.

Next, Rolf and I checked in at the campground, and did a few tourist things, including visiting the bookstore where we spent the rest of our day on the rim. For supper we visited the cafeteria at the Maswik Lodge, where I had my traditional vegetarian chili in a bread bowl. After that and a glass of iced tea, I stretched out my belly and my legs and said, "ahh." It was pitch dark already, so we drove back to the campsite, and headed for our tents. Lots of campers had fires, which we had not seen in the canyon. Lots apparently had beer too, which we had also not seen, so I put my earplugs in and slept very well. We were up early again and well on our way south toward Las Vegas by the time the sun came up. We had just one night there, and early the next morning our flight would take us home to our normal lives, much richer for the experiences of the past week.

P.S. My Swiss Army Knife was in my jeans pocket, rolled up in the trunk of the car, waiting for us when we hiked out.