TED SOLDAN'S 2002 GRAND CANYON HIKE

Author's note -- The following comes mostly from a journal I kept during a 5 day hike in the Grand Canyon in early May, 2002. The occasion was my 50th birthday, and the hike was a long held dream for me. I began preparations for this hike in early January, hiking 2 or more miles per day with 50# of cat litter in my pack, in addition to my regular workout routine. I was in very good condition when I did the hike, and I'm glad I was. The Grand Canyon is a land of vertical trails. If you plan a similar hike, my best advice is to be in the best physical shape you can be in, and have well broken in boots. The rest can take care of itself in a pinch, but if you body is constantly sore or your feet hurt, you will not enjoy this majestic place.

I decided to add links to the few pictures I took, rather than throw them in with the text. That way you don't have to look at them (or wait for them to load) if you don't want to. I tried to add the links in the proper context within the story. My journal was sometimes written just after I was doing things, and sometimes as I was doing them, so the tenses may seem a bit confused. I decided to leave it mostly the way I wrote it, because this is supposed to be a journal, not a short story. So without further ado, on with the story. Ted

So anyway, here I am on my first leg of the trip.  My flight from Hancock left on time and got here on time.  I am near the gate I'll be leaving from in a couple of hours.  The sun is trying to go down, and I wonder if we will chase it all the way.  Maybe it will be dusk all across the country. 

The clouds on the first leg of the trip were fantastic.  I gawked out the window the whole time.  They were all white with fantastically shaped pillars rising all around us.  I sure do love being in the air.  Above the clouds, I feel like our species can never impact anything so awesomely large.  When we dipped below the clouds in Wisconsin, it became pretty clear to me that we are impacting the planet in a big way.  The whole place is carved up in 1/4 x 1/4 mile chunks, and they are all manicured beyond anything natural.  It is beautiful farmland, but it seems to me that some chunks of it should be left alone.  The folks on the ground seem not to agree with me. 

This trip is my 50th birthday trip.  Today is Monday, and my birthday was last Friday.  I had wanted to be in the canyon on my birthday, but the demands of the job did not allow that.  Since I am traveling on frequent flier miles, this was the first flight I could get after Saturday. I planned this whole thing back in January, and have been working out ever since to get ready for the hike.  

What do I hope to accomplish?   For one, I just want to spend some time in that beautiful place.  I have visited several times, but never spent any extended time below the rim.  The hike I was given by the Park Service will allow me to go rim to rim to rim if I so choose.  I spend the first night on the river, and hike to Cottonwood the next day.  Cottonwood is a big chunk of the way up the north Kaibab Trail.  I am there for two nights, so if I feel like it, I could take the daypack and hike up to the North Rim my second day there.  We'll see.

5/7/02 3:08 PM Arizona time

I’m sitting on the front porch of the Bright Angel Lodge.  I have about an hour to wait for my room to be ready.  I keep thinking that Candy Peterson is smiling approvingly that I am writing this on paper.  I decided that after the trouble I had with the palmtop computer at the airport, that I would buy a small notebook and leave the computer in the car.  Later I hope to type this stuff up and maybe make a web page of it!

The flight from MSP to LAS was mostly uneventful.  We left pretty much on time and arrived on time too.  I think I dozed for about an hour.  I had a bulkhead seat between two other guys – one who read his newspaper the whole way, and one I talked to a bit.  He has 2 kids, boy and girl, aged 10 and 12.  His son is active in sports and he really encourages him.  The guy works for a firm that sells security systems.  He told lots of stories about the troubles he has with his upper management.  He didn’t say so, but I predict he lives in a $200,000 house and owns at least one SUV. 

My backpack came out onto the luggage carrousel early, so I got out of the airport fairly quickly.  I only had to wait about 5 minutes for the shuttle to the car rental place.  Once there, it took them a while to get me through the system.  I got a little white Daewoo.  It sure has no frills, but is an ok car.  It took me down the highway as fast as I wanted to go.

I got screwed up trying to leave the rental place.  The guy that waited on me tried hard to tell me as little as he possibly could about how to get to the hotel, but I finally managed.  By the time I made it to the hotel, it was 3:00 am our time.  I slept for 5 ½ hours or so, and couldn’t sleep anymore, so got up, took a shower, and hit the road.  I think I took the long way around to get onto highway 15, but it looked the most straightforward on the map, so I took it.  I stopped at a casino pretty much on the border of Nevada and Arizona for breakfast.  I stopped again at a small place past Seligman for gas.  I made it to the park about noon.  I found my way to the Bright Angel Lodge with little trouble, only to learn my room wouldn’t be ready until 4:00.  So I hiked down to the Yavapai complex, had some lunch (veggie chili in a sourdough bowl) and bought some supplies.  I walked back the way I came along the rim to the lodge, and checked to see if the room was ready yet – no.  So I hiked to the backcountry parking lot where I had left the car, grabbed my pack, and here I am.

I am really enjoying the smells.  The sights are awesome, of course.

7:09 PM

I just spent 1½ hours observing 5 California Condors and chatting with a fellow that was doing radio telemetry on them.  It was awesome.  They mostly perched the whole time, but at the end, they obliged us by flying far out over the canyon!

Next day around 1:00 PM

My feet and pant legs are dripping with cold Colorado River water.  I left the south rim at about 5:30 am, and arrived at the river around 9:00.  I had picked a campsite by about 9:30, and was pretty settled by 10:00.  I dropped my pack off at the campsite, and headed to the bathrooms.  I was probably gone about 5 minutes.  When I got back one of those fat gray squirrels had broken into my pack and was eating through the plastic on my trail mix.  He was very reluctant to leave, but I encouraged him with words and rocks.

The Bright Angel campground is a lot like a trailer park.  Every site is about the same, and sits on a leveled gravel pad that looks like concrete.  I tried to lie down for a while this morning, but my neighbors made a lot of noise when they arrived and I was laying in a puddle of sweat anyway. 

So I had some lunch and was struck by how good hardtack tastes.  I ate a powerbar on the way down and it also tasted real good.  Why do you suppose?

After lunch, I put my boots back on, and hiked to the end of Phantom Ranch.  It is quite neat.  The cabins seem real nice looking on the outside.  I saw the air conditioners humming away, and felt a little envious.  Maybe a mule trip wouldn’t be so bad someday.

After Phantom, I kept going along the North Kaibab Trail for a while, so I would be sure I’d know where I was going in the morning.  Then I turned around and headed for the river.  One of my goals with this trip was to “touch toes” with the Colorado.  I am doing so as I write this.  I hiked down to the place where the boats tie up, and along the beach until I found a nice stretch of the river with some rapids.  I took a picture.

I am still amazed I had the good fortune to see the Condors yesterday.  I have always thought that life is the most precious substance in the universe.  If that is true, then it is a true sacrilege to cause any species to become extinct because of our greed.  According to what I heard, the California Condor, that majestic bird, was down to about 4 breeding pairs at one time.  The expert I spoke with said there are now about 60 individuals in the wild.  To think I saw 5 of them, and even saw them fly!  I’ll take many memories with me from this trip, and I know that one will stay with me.  I met a very nice older woman while watching the Condors, and she also took a great deal of pleasure in the birds. 

5/8/02

On the bus this morning from the back country station to the South Kaibab Trailhead, I met several people.  One was a German man maybe a little older than me, who planned to hike down the Kaibab and up the Bright Angel today.  Everyone on the bus except me was doing some sort of day hike.  I also met a guy who I hiked with for a while.   He is a divorced father of 3 and a podiatrist.  We diverged a ways above the Tonto platform and met up again at the river.  I think he regarded this trip as more of a challenge than an experience.  Who is to say which way is right?

I thought when I caught the squirrel in my pack, that he had already gotten two of my power bars, so I went to the Phantom Ranch Cantina and bought 4 or 5 Cliff Bars.  When I got back to the campsite, I discovered the original powerbars in the food bucket.  I felt bad that I had so cruelly slandered the squirrel, although I am sure he would have taken the bars if he could have managed.  Seeing him reminded me of the squirrel that swiped one of Dad’s granola bars on our hike a few years ago. 

I just took a drink of water.  Out here even warm water stored in plastic tastes pretty darn good.

I stop writing after every paragraph and look around me.  This place is astoundingly beautiful.  This must be some pretty tough rock along this stretch of the river, because it is shorn straight through.  There are little cottonwoods and wispy fern-like things growing down on this beach.

When I first put my feet into the river, I noticed the heel of my left food was sore.  I took a look and saw a dark spot that looked like a sliver.  I poked  around with my Swiss Army knife, and finally removed a sliver of steel about ¼” long out of my heel.  It had gone straight in too.  It feels a lot better now.

I noticed this afternoon that I brought all the Lexan silverware we have.  So I have two knives, two spoons, and one fork.  I won’t have to do dishes for two days J  I mention this because when you carry your household on your back, you hate to carry anything extra.  So not making sure I had just the eating utensils I needed was a bonehead thing to do. 

There is occasionally enough wind down here that the river water on the rapids gets blown on me.  It feels refreshing.

I am so grateful for the solitude I have found here.

Later… back at the campsite.

I decided I need to sit down for a while.  I want to see and do everything, but should take it easy so I’ll have some steam ready for the rest of the trip.  I took my watch off a while ago, and that was a good thing.  Just take it easy and suck as much of this in as possible

5/9/02

The alarm woke me at 4:00 am, and I was under way at 5:00.  The timing was just about perfect, because I had just enough light to see the trail by the time I started.  One nice thing about the way the campsites are laid out at Bright Angel is that it is fairly easy to do a sweep of the area even in the dark.  They only give you a small space and there is almost no place for anything to hide there.  I am pretty sure I was the first one out of the campsite, although there was some activity among the other campers.

I’ve been fighting a headache for the past few days.  I thought I had it licked when I woke up this morning, but it is still there trying to decide if it will blossom or fade.  I have some medicine, but haven’t taken it yet.

I had the beautiful Bright Angel Canyon all to myself this morning.  I hiked pretty steadily for 2 hours, then stopped for breakfast.  The Bright Angel Canyon is beautiful.  Every corner you turn provides another breath taking view.  The roar of the Bright Angel creek is with you all the time.

I found the signs at Ribbon Falls very confusing.  I guess I need better maps than those the park service provided.  It wasn’t clear to me if Ribbon Falls was part of the trail, or a side trip.  I was pretty sure it was close to the trail, since the trail only follows the creek.  I got mixed up several times, but finally found the falls, and it was very pretty.  At first glance, one thinks the falls empty onto a conical rock, but when you look closely, you see the truth.  There is a trail that takes you behind the falls, where I sat for a spell to think things over.

I was pretty tired when I pulled into Cottonwood.  I did take my time choosing a campsite, though.  The advantage of coming so early is that you pretty much have your pick of the sites.  I have come to believe that shade is important, and chose a site that had some.

I quickly set up the tent, (and did a much better job this time) and arranged myself a little resting place in the shade.  I sat down and must have dozed for an hour or so.  When I woke up, a helicopter was delivering supplies to the ranger station.  They returned about 15 minutes later with another load, and that was the last I saw of them.

I had a little lunch, got some water, and settled back into my couch.  I have a pretty neat mesa just out my back door.

2:13 PM

I’ve been lying pretty low all afternoon.  About an hour ago, I convinced myself that this was an actual migraine, and took one of the two tablets I brought.  After that, I grabbed the MP3 player, and listened to all the music I had.  I had a couple of good crys.  During the time I was listening to the music, the headache started to subside, and I am mostly ok now.  I can now understand the expression “miracle drug” better.  From previous experience, I believe this puppy would have laid me out for the rest of the day.  I am feeling good enough that ideas are starting to flow again.  Thank-you, Merck J

While I was listening to the music, a ranger stopped by and asked if I needed anything.  I told him I wished he could improve the view.  Ha ha.

This campsite is in a very pretty place.  Sitting here leaning against my pack, I have a gorgeous view.  You do have to admit that this little stream I’ve been following is a hard worker!  Sure he has been at it for a while, but still, that is a chunk of material to have moved.

4:06 PM

Took a little hike down to the creek and dangled my feet for a while.  I also filled my hat with water and put it on.  Most refreshing.  Met a nice young man from Georgia that is here with his parents to do a service project for Cottonwood.  I guess they plan to build a deck for the bathrooms, and a few other things.  I also talked to the ranger about the water situation up the North Kaibab Trail.  He said they were repairing the pipe today, and if all goes well, it should be working tomorrow.  If I keep feeling this good, I think I’ll start up the North Kaibab and see how it goes.  That headache medicine is amazing.  I feel so much better.  I guess I was kind of lethargic earlier, but now I am full of ideas.

Pesky squirrels!  When I got back to the campsite, one had broken into my pack, found the garbage, and chewed the plastic bag up.  I think he stole a bunch of my trash too.  He also chewed up my first aid kit, and punctured the Mycitracin.  I have to decide if I can still use it or not.

I’m sitting in the “yard” of the ranger station.  There is a big cottonwood here and a nice bench under it.  I am taking advantage of the shade.  The rock face in front of me is just amazing.  It is fun to try to figure out what forces shaped it.  

It is strange that I am already thinking about the hike out.  What food I would like to eat and drink.  After I hike out, I camp for 1 night on the rim.  Besides eating, I think I’ll try to ride the busses some.  It is hard to say how much energy I’ll have, though, since that will be the day I hike out the Bright Angel Trail.  If I leave early, I should be out before noon, but I’ll have some messing around to do to get set up and stuff.

5:30 pm

The sun went down behind my mesa about 5:00.  The thermometer on the kiosk in camp said 85 degrees, and no clouds.  I wasn’t unhappy in the sun because there was enough breeze to keep cool, but I sure didn’t seek it out either. 

I wonder if I’ll be able to sleep tonight?  I haven’t really had a decent night’s sleep yet this trip.  It usually takes a couple of nights sleeping on the ground before you sleep right, so I am due tonight.  Plus the headache seems to be in remission.  Heck, I may even have to put on a jacket here pretty soon.

5/10/02   1:40 PM

What a day…where to begin?  The alarm went off at 4:00 as usual.  I had packed the fanny pack the night before, and didn’t really have much to do except get water and go.  It is dusky at 4:22 am when I hit the trail, but not impossible to see the trail.  I brought my flashlight for good measure.  I needed it for the first ½ hour or so.  The barriers that divert the water from the trail appeared as shadows.  One or two times I had to shine my light on a suspicious object that, my imagination told me, might just be a predator stalking me.  The North Kaibab north of Cottonwood traverses a plane of pretty rotten rock, and the builders of the trail decided to run that section of the trail quite high above the creek   There were several places where runoff running down the side of the canyon had chewed away a chunk of the trail.  To boot, this section was fairly dark rock, so in the early morning light, great care was called for.  By the time daylight came along, there were no problems with the trail. 

It was very quiet and beautiful this early in the day.  A few birds occasionally called, but other than that, almost no sound.

It seemed that the residence for the water guy came very quickly.  My watch said it was only a little after 5:00 and Roaring Springs is supposed to be 2 miles from Cottonwood.  It turns out that the residence is some distance from the actual springs and waterworks that he maintains.  I passed the residence by on the way up.  The ranger at Cottonwood said he was sure there was water there, but I didn’t want to carry any more.  I had drunk almost nothing since I left.  I brought about 3 ½ liters along, plus drank 1 liter before I left.  The ranger wasn’t sure there was water at the cave or even on top.  I figured I had enough.

Once past the residence, the trail starts to climb away from the creek.  Some distance from the residence is a fork and sign pointing down to Roaring Springs.  It looked like a long way down there, and Alice and I already visited it a year ago anyway, so I kept going toward the rim.

I was a little worried about my left little toe, which I had injured (probably broken) about a week ago.  Also, my knees are not the greatest anymore.  Neither gave me the slightest difficulty this trip.  In fact, both up and down the trail I felt great.

Once past the Roaring Springs turnoff, the trail got quite steep in places, and was almost always uphill.  This makes sense, because there is a 4,000’ elevation difference between Cottonwood and the rim.  It was on these steep portions that I began to tire.  I started breathing heavily and my legs started to feel the strain.  I stopped twice on the way up for energy bar and water breaks.  I am developing quite a fondness for these energy bars.  They are easy to throw in your pack for day hikes, and really do the trick to get sugar moving in the blood stream.  I remember eating one and thinking, “Man, are these good!”

The canyon on the way up the North Kaibab is astonishingly beautiful.  There are lots of layers of red here, and there are cliff faces that I am sure are over 1,000’ high, possibly much higher.  It is fun to stop and look at them and look for evidence of erosion.  There are places where water has moved down the face making sections concave.  I remember thinking how the builders of the great cathedrals attempted to make their insides look lofty, and guess what, they did not begin to approximate what I had right in front of me. 

This next bit may be hard to believe, and indeed I find it hard to believe myself, but I had this whole canyon totally to myself almost until the top!  I have long believed that the best hiking in these high desert climates is early in the morning, so I try to be out as early as possible.  My experience is that few share my enthusiasm for this time of the day.  The first folks I saw were the trail crew going in to work.  I remember mentally scolding them for wasting the 3 best hours of the workday, but they are young and probably don’t mind some heat and sweat.  There were probably 8 of them coming down.  I made sure and thanked one of them for the work he was doing.  Parts of the trail had been “fluffed up” by them, and I told him it was like walking on velvet.  He seemed pleased.

The big trees started showing up at around 8:00, and I knew I was close.  The trail got much better also.  At 8:10 am, I crested the top and beheld the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  By my calculation that is 3:48 to travel the 7 miles from Cottonwood to the Rim.  I had been saving my breakfast for this occasion, so spread it out on the kiosk and started to eat – food fit for a king – ½ cup of granola and 10 year old raisins.  I forgot that I washed it all down with Cottonwood water.  I started to think how good a cold Coke would be, but quickly changed the subject.

As I was eating, there was quite a lot of hubbub on top.  A mule train was forming, and lots of hikers were arriving.  “Starting your hike after 8:00?,” I sanctimoniously thought to myself.  A jeep with two rangers pulled in, drove around the parking lot, and drove out.  They stopped just opposite the kiosk, I had taken over for my breakfast, so I got up and walked to their vehicle.  When the driver rolled down the window, I asked him if he would take my picture.  He obliged me, and I now have it for posterity that I visited the North Rim.  By 8:23, I was on my way back down.

Why didn’t I stay up there longer?  Frankly I didn’t like all the commotion.  The garishly painted vehicles and people, and especially the smell of cars repulsed me.  I guess I had become tuned into the natural world in the past few days, and this is good!  This is one of the purposes for this trip.

The solitude in “My” canyon ended.  I kept hearing the mule train ahead of me.  Of course, they are going to laugh and talk on their trip.  They are seeing some beautiful country, and they are doing so in a way quite unfamiliar to them.  This group stopped at the cave, so I picked up my pace so I would be sure to be able to pass them while they were tied up.  I sort of burst in among them and had to ask one guy to move because he was standing right in the trail socializing.  For whatever reason, I kept a pretty good pace going for quite some time.  I don’t think I had a conscious reason, but I’ll bet I was trying to get way from all the hubbub.  HA!

Trail crews now use gas-powered jackhammers!  I encountered 3 of them on the way down.  Man are they loud!  These guys had attached small shovels to the business end, and were using them to dig a trench on the cliff side of the trail.  They then angle the trail toward the ditch.  Every so often, they have a diversion of either wood (near the top) or stone that would send the water off the trail.  The diversions are perpendicular to the trail.  It’s a smart system which I hope to be able to put to good use in my trail building future. 

At the Roaring Springs turnoff, I encountered a fellow who was hiking up from Phantom.  The habit seems to be to greet your fellow hikers.  What it is about hiking that makes people more friendly is a mystery to me, but I wish it were more catching.  Anyway, right behind him was another hiker, somewhat older, that said he was also coming up from Phantom.  He told me he was on day 37 of a 41-day hike from Mexico to Utah!  The guy was retired.  Here I thought I was quite something for doing my 5 day hike in the canyon, and this guy is 15 years older and hiking the Arizona Trail!  As we parted, he said, “Enjoy the 50s and the 60s!”  I’ll do my best.

I made up my mind I would have lunch at the residence, so I did.  Today’s menu was hardtack and peanut butter.  I also ate an energy bar and drank some more Cottonwood water.  It was still quite cool, surprisingly.  From the residence, the trail pretty much follows the creek, so the roar of that mighty little stream doing its work followed me home.

I made my camp at 11:43 making the down trip 3:30.  Not too shabby.  I didn’t really need water, but sure did want to lay down, so I pulled in and crawled into the tent.  It was still overcast, and quite windy, so the tent wasn’t quite an oven.  I think I slept for about an hour. 

When I woke up, I felt another headache brewing, so decided to go down to the creek and do some writing.  I soaked my feet for a while, but it was so windy I couldn’t write there, so I found some shelter behind a boulder near the creek and went to work on today’s events.  The wind here is amazing.  It really roars up this canyon.  It was blowing upstream, and I would frequently get sprayed by water from the rapids.  Above me, I could see sand from the cliffs blowing around too.  After some time by the creek, I walked up to the ranger station and sat on my favorite bench under a big old cottonwood.  There is nice shade, and of course a great view.

I have made friends with a young man from Georgia who is here with his parents on a service project.  He and I were talking on the bench when a very fit man walked up.  After my young friend left, the other guy and I struck up a conversation.  He turned 50 the day before I did and was currently doing his 15^th consecutive annual rim-to-rim-to-rim hike.  He leaves the south rim as early as possible, runs down the trail to the river, and walks and runs the rest of the way.  It was just after 3:30 when we were talking, and he hoped to be out on the South Rim by midnight.  So not only is he fit enough to do this 50-mile-in-one-day hike, but it is his 15^th year in a row.  He lives in Phoenix, so can just pop up when he feels like it.  I guess there are some advantages to living in Phoenix.  (I don’t plan to move anytime soon :-) 

The shade in my campsite was a bit of a two edged sword.  The tree that provided it seemed to me to be some relation to the cottonwoods that were all around, but this guy had leaves that had spikes on them.  They were sharp enough when they were green, but there were lots of its dead leaves laying around the campsite that had dried, and those puppies were sharp.  I like to walk barefoot as much as possible, and had to stop often to pick some leaves out of my feet.  These weren’t like thorns, thank goodness, which are hard to get out, but they did stick painfully in my feet and caused me to hobble around like an old guy when I wandered into a pile of them.

5/11/02  Saturday 9:30 am has been another great day so far.  How many great days does one person get in a row?  I am writing this sitting at a picnic table at Phantom Ranch.  The one in front of the Cantina was full of people, so I walked around the building and found this one off by itself with no one at it.  It is about half in the shade, and I can hear sounds of people banging around in the kitchen behind me, but it is ok. 

I was hungry last night, so decided to eat my big supper – the Uncle Ben’s Broccoli and Cheese Soup.  It said on the box that it serves 2, but I knew better.  I added all the extra rice I had and cooked it up.  This was the first time I ran the stove for more than a few minutes.  My other suppers just required me to add boiling water and let it sit, but this one made me bring it to a boil and cook uncovered for 10 minutes.  Do you know how long 10 minutes is?  I had to stir it the whole time since it is impossible to turn my stove down enough to simmer anything.  It smelled so good!  Once it was cooked, I put it aside with the lid on to try to figure out somewhere to eat it.  My campsite has good shade until early afternoon and then it is in full sunlight until about 5:30.  I noticed there was a little shade cast by my tent, so I adjusted my walking stick for a prop for my backpack.  Then I dug my sleeping pad out of the tent and put it on the ground in front of my pack.  With my hat on and the shade from the tent, I had a pretty darn cozy little dining room.  One mistake I made was to take my first bite too soon, and I burned my mouth.  Believe it or not, Uncle Ben, one person can eat your soup easily by himself.  Man was it good!  4 Fig Newtons later and supper was over.

After cleanup I met my new neighbors down by the water spigot.  This couple did not have much backpacking experience.  He had done some with his dad some years ago, and his wife had never been camping.  This guy really liked to talk!  I think he said he was doing a postdoc, and was looking around for a permanent faculty position.  His field of study, as I understand it, is the link between emotion and memory.  He told some pretty interesting stories about their hike so far.  He said they left Phantom with 3 gallons of water and still ran out, and had to get water from the creek.  (I warned them about Giardia.)   Their food consisted of Army MREs, which he said were quite good, but very heavy.  The story goes on and on.  I winced a lot while he was telling his camping stories.  I decided this is another example of how great the canyon is.  There are many ways to enjoy it.  Some like to run rim-to-rim-to-rim, and some like to learn the ropes of hiking.

I decided to go to bed around 7:30, so did as much prep work with my gear as possible first.  You have to leave your food in these military ammo cases when you aren’t using it, so I couldn’t pre-pack my pack since the food container goes on the bottom.  I woke up with the alarm at 4:00 again, and packed up in the dark.  I am getting to know my gear well enough that I don’t really need to see to know what is going on.  I was ready to go around 4:45, and after a quick stop for water (I drank a liter) I was off.

I had a couple of false starts this morning for some reason.  My pack had a strap come loose that I had to stop and fix, and one other goofy thing happened that made me stop.  I really dislike stopping when I have just started out.  Once I got into my stride I made good time, though.

This time I was wiser about Ribbon Falls, and got past it with no mishaps.  There is a big hill to climb at Ribbon Falls, but that was the only serious uphill I had on this leg.

Shortly I was in the Bright Angel Canyon.  I tried to take some pictures, but I know they will not do that place justice.  It is one of the most beautiful places I have seen.  The canyon walls are not as high as the North Kaibab Trail canyon, but they are much more intimate.  The creek has worn them down pretty straight.  The creek twists and turns through this canyon, and each corner brings a new and beautiful vista.  It is just a short hike from Phantom Ranch, and I strongly recommend it to anyone with a few hours on their hands.

I started seeing people in the canyon, and saw quite a few this time.  It was getting to be 7:30 or so, and the early birds from Phantom/BA were starting their day hikes.  Good for them.

During a patch in the BA where I was pretty sure I wouldn’t see anyone, I decided to sing “Bend in the River” out loud.  I know Oren would have loved this place, and wanted to try to touch his spirit again.  I made up my mind that I would sing it without my voice breaking.  Well, I got partway through the first verse.  That song is so good at bringing back my memories of Oren.  I have heard it dozens of times, and still get new images from it each time I hear it.  Partway through the second verse, the water really started running down my face, and it struck me that my tear tracks are a lot like the tracks left behind by this little creek.  There were a lot of good times with Oren, which makes his loss to me so keen.  At the same time, good work is being done because of or in spite of the pain.  I hope a chunk of Oren’s spirit detached from me in that canyon, and will cling to that beautiful place he would have loved to see had he lived long enough.

I arrived back at the ranch at about 8:35, making this a 3:45 hike.  I checked out the map of campsites better this time, and decided I’d rather be at the far end of the sites.  My place last time was on the path to the bathrooms and lots of loud people walked through there way past “quiet time.”  Campsites 30 and 31 are at the end of the line, so I decided I’d like one of them.  30 had the most shade, so I parked my gear and headed for the bathroom.  I made up my mind I was going to do one thing first when I got to BA, and that was to wash my hair.  The water wasn’t hot, but it wasn’t cold like our water at home either.  All in all it was a great job.  Man did it need it.  The last time I had a real shower was at the Motel 6 in Las Vegas Monday night.  I came away from there feeling (and probably smelling) a lot better.  Then I walked back to my site and checked it out.  There is a water spigot right next to the site – a real plus.  There was also a trail from the spigot leading toward the canyon wall.  I followed it somewhat tentatively, because it was not at all obvious where it went since there was so much foliage around.  I discovered campsite #29, a beautiful, shady, secluded, and uninhabited spot.  I promptly moved my gear to #29.  I took off my boots so my poor feet could breathe, and hiked down to the Ranch to call home and do some writing.

3:15 pm

After I returned to the campsite, my beloved cottonwood tree was shading the tent so nicely that I stuck my nose inside.  It wasn’t bad, so I laid down for an hour or so.  For the first few minutes after I got up, my legs were stiff!  I walked to the Ranch and was glad to reach Alice by phone.  Hearing her voice reminds me that this trip is winding down.  I would sure like to spend more time here, but that is a good way to end a trip – hungry for more.

I have been trying to find a way to cross Bright Angel Creek close to my campsite to avoid having to walk all the way through the campground and across the bridge.  This shortcut would save me some serious time in the morning on my hike out.  I can cross easily with no boots on just about anywhere, but I’ll have my loaded pack and boots on in the morning.  Also, it will probably be quite dark.  Looking at all the possibilities, I decided to just go the long way around.  Heck, it will allow me to stay here a little longer in the morning.

Instead of walking back to the campsite, I wandered down to the Colorado.  I read about some Anasazi ruins near the Boat Beach, so headed that direction.  It was an old foundation consisting of about 5 rooms and a larger Kiva.  A trail took you around the ruins and down to the beach, so I followed it.  There were some guys hanging around the boat beach, so I walked along the shore upstream.  I found this astonishingly beautiful, comfortable, and private stretch of the beach where I am sitting right now.  It is almost under the Kaibab bridge.  I have a good view of the South Kaibab Trail in front of me, and have enjoyed watching the ants crawling up it.  The river is swift and deep right here, but there are no rapids.  The water is clear and very pretty green.  All in all, I would say I could stay here for a while.  My boots are off and I took a wade up to my knees a while ago.  The water is astonishingly cold.  How can anything be cold here?

I just heard a plop in the water and got up to investigate.  Just a few feet from me, a chunk of beach broke away and fell into the river.  This is a very significant event!  It is events like this happening over millions of years that have created this beautiful place.  Will the mud created by my little plop find its way all the way to Lake Mead?  It will surely not go upstream, and so it goes.  How long, I wonder, will it take Lake Powell and Lake Mead to fill up with mud?  Then what?

The wind just came up a few minutes ago, and it really howls down here.  These walls don’t move, so the wind moves around them.  I noticed that the Kaibab bridge really moves from side to side in the wind.  There happened to be two hikers on the bridge then, but they didn’t seem too worried.

Some huge powered inflatable rafts just hove into view.  I got a picture.  I would say they are 40-50 feet long, and about 15 feet wide.  I thought they were going to stop, but they are continuing on.  “My” little rapids (where I sat and wrote a few days ago) appeared not to concern them at all.  I didn’t even see them buck.

Back to the plop I heard… I wonder if the fact that the Colorado is so much cleaner now (because of the Glen Canyon Dam) is hastening the erosion process.  In the old days of the muddy Colorado, there was so much sediment that some was probably accumulating on shore as soon as some left.  Now that the river is “hungry” for sediment, is the canyon deepening more quickly?  Then again, with less sediment striking the barriers in the river, perhaps the rocks are not being eroded as quickly as they once were.  You have to wonder what will happen to that plug of mud behind the two dams when they fail.  I’ll bet the Colorado will be muddy for a while then!

Evening

I was on my way to the bathroom barefooted, and a guy was walking toward me from the other direction.  “I wish I had tough feet like that,” he said.  “This is how you get them tough,” I told him.  “Sheeit,” he said.  “The last guy that told me a story like that got me in the army for 8 years… trust me he said.”  All this in a Nashville drawl.  Turns out he was on his way into the bathroom too, and in the 3 minutes we were together, he told me this story.  He came out here, he said, to spend some money and see the canyon.  He thought he could drive up and get in on a mule trip.  They told him there was at least a 4-month wait.  He said he even looked into a boat trip, but no dice.  So this guy got on the waiting list for a campsite at Bright Angel, and when they told him he could go, he bought all new camping gear, packed it up, and took off down the Bright Angel Trail!  He guessed he had about 65# of stuff, because he wanted to be comfortable.  He said that when he got down here, he realized he had left his new propane camp stove in his truck!  So he visited the ranger, who loaned him one for tonight.  The guy told him he would be leaving him some other barely used camping gear on his porch with the stove in the morning.  Rather than carry the stuff out, he plans to donate it to the ranger.

I think sometimes it would be a good job to be a ranger, but when confronted with such awesome stupidity, I think I would either start laughing uncontrollably, or start throwing things J.

I also did a little compare and contrast between us.  This time here for me has been one of the most awesome outdoor experiences of my life.  For this other fellow, the thing has been pure hell from start to finish.  One has to wonder when a tough stretch presents itself, if you can’t just tear off a thin coating around the problem to discover an awesome experience just waiting to be understood.

I also believe this fellow from Nashville will take some good stories with him out of the canyon.

5/12/02 7:41 pm

It has been a full day.  I am sitting at a table in the Yavapai café, with my supper meal in front of me.  After the huge lunch I ate (more about that later) I am surprised I am hungry, but as soon as I started in, I learned that I am indeed hungry.  I am struck by how much more food I eat in civilization than on the trail.  I worked so much harder, but was satisfied with the food I fixed myself.  True it was a lot of dried food, like fruit and hardtack, so it probably bulked up in my stomach. 

This morning the alarm went off as usual at 4:00 am.  I was awake right away, with my mind working.  I did no lying around this morning, but got going with the gear.  My strategy is to try to be as organized as possible the night before.  Since I have to keep my food in the ammo boxes provided by the park service, and since the food goes in the bottom of my pack, I can’t really pack the pack at night, so I just hang it up with everything except food and my night things, and tear it all apart in the morning.  The first thing I do is get dressed, and since I washed clothes in camp the night before, I changed clothes (ahh).  Dirty clothes go in the bag I left in the tent.  Then I stuff the sleeping bag, fold the z-rest, open the zipper, and toss everything outside.  Then I get the pack, stick it on the picnic table, empty it and put the food canister away, and start on the tent.  Since it is still dark at 4:00 am, I turn the flashlight on from time to time.  I don’t leave it on.  It is too easy to shine it inadvertently into a neighbor’s tent – something my neighbors aren’t too careful about, BTW.  Then I tear the tent down and pack things away.  It was windy in gusts this morning, so I developed the habit of putting something heavy on top of anything that might blow away, like empty tent bags. 

You know what?  It is now 8:10 and I hoped to write about today while it is fresh in my mind, but I am just too tired.  I feel like an Anaconda that needs some torpor time to digest his meal.  I’ll try to pick this up in the morning.

5/13/02 8:06 am

Well, I am in Williams, AZ, about 1 hour from GC park.  I woke up at 5:00 am on my own.  No alarm!  It took about 2 hours to get the gear squared away and hit the road.  I took extra time with the gear because I had to pack it up for the plane, which is very different from the way it has been packed for the past several days.  Also, I had to make sure my gas bottle and stove were completely free of gas smell, or they would confiscate them at the airport.

Anyway, I was just talking about putting something heavy on light objects so they won’t blow away.  It gets to be such a habit that I found myself doing it at lunch at the Yavapai Café!

Packing the gear away had developed into a routine by the last morning.  In fact, for whatever reason, I started to pretend that I was a special ops ranger trainee under the watchful eye of his DI.  I was stealthily getting ready to leave after a night’s operations.  The DI kept asking me, “why did you open your tent that direction?”  So I had to justify each decision I made and whether it was the most efficient and quiet way to do it.

Once packed up I shined my flashlight everywhere I had been, and hit the trail.  It was 4:50 am.  If my previous hiking was any indication, I should be able to make 2 miles/hour on the way out, making the rim in just under 5 hours.

This was my first time on the Bright Angel Trail (except the first 3 miles on top several years ago), so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  I had scouted out the trailhead the day before – a good habit BTW – it is easy to get screwed up in the dark morning, and take off in the wrong direction.  I HATE taking off in the wrong direction.

I made the beautiful suspension bridge, and clanged across.  The metal grating floor is not well attached, and slams and bangs as you walk on it.  The river flowed dark and quiet below me.  I thought that in crossing the bridge, I would be saying goodbye to the Colorado.  It turns out that the BA trail follows the river for quite a while.  First you gain some altitude, then the trail dips back down to the river, then up, then back down again.  After a while little doubts start to creep in.  Is this the wrong trail?  Did I miss a turnoff?  Finally, the trail started up and boy did it go up!  The trip to Indian Garden was mostly uneventful, except that a couple of hikers coming from Bright Angel passed me!  That means they got started a little after I did, and went by.  I was used to ultralighters passing me, although it was usually an hour or two or three later, when they slept late and then sprinted past me.  Good for them, I thought.  They were the only hikers I knew of other than me that tried to be on the trail before daylight

I made Indian Gardens at about 7:10 am, and the place was real quiet.  I only saw two people my whole time there.  I stopped to use the composting toilet and eat the last of my granola.  It was a good rest and I really needed it.  After about 20 minutes, I was on the way up again.

Doing the math, I figured that if I maintained 2 miles/hour, I could make the rim by 10:00 am.  What was magical about 10:00 I have no idea, but for whatever reason, I bent my head down and ground away step after step.  I remember hardly looking up.  Why?  A half hour or so into this stretch, some folks from IG started passing me on the way to the top.  I wondered looking at them how they got away with such small backpacks.  A little while later, the folks coming down from the rim started to pass me.  They all had a spring in their steps, and seemed eager to see what was around the next corner.  Another thing I noticed was they were so CLEAN!  People in actual white shorts.  How do they stay so clean?  And dry too.  I was sweating pretty well, and they all looked like they had just stepped out of air conditioning.  Shortly after that the first mules showed up.   I came around a corner and one was staring me right in the face.  I dodged back, and the wrangler came around the corner on the lead mule.  This was a freight train.  I tried to plaster myself against the wall, but the wrangler thought it was too narrow there, so I hiked back down the trail a short way, and he passed easily.  Two more mule trains passed quickly after that one, this time with tourists on board.  They all seemed to be having a pretty good time, as they should.

The hiking was getting harder and harder for me, but I kept at it.  I was breathing heavily on the steep sections, and really used my staff on the high steps.  I was just puffing and grinding along when all of a sudden I heard a falling rock above my head.  It was instant adrenaline.  I was erect, alert, with nostrils flared.  Some bonehead was cutting a switchback from 2 trails above me to 1 above me.  His foot must have slipped on a rock, making the sound.  “HEY,” I said, “you aren’t supposed to be doing that!”  He didn’t answer.  I kept walking now, snorting like a bull.  I came around the corner just as he descended from his shortcut onto the trail.  I faced him from about 20 feet and walked toward him.  “YOU SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!” I said.  He looked at me stupidly and said, “What?”  I repeated what I had said with some added emphasis, as I was stomping toward him… I was pissed.  “Why,” he said.  “You could have kicked a rock on me,” I said, noticing he was quite young and clearly chagrined at being caught.  “Aw,” he said, “I wouldn’t kick a rock on you.”  “Yea, right,” I said as I walked by him.  I believe I would have started swinging at him if he had given me some grief, but I let him go.  Hopefully he learned his lesson.  Hopefully he’ll tech someone himself someday.

I noticed that I had a lot of energy for about the next ½ hour, until the adrenaline wore off.

I walked right by the 3-mile rest area.  I didn’t need water (I brought 3 ½ liters from BA, and hadn’t used 1 ½ yet) and didn’t need the facilities.  I did make up my mind that I’d stop at 1 ½ mile, though.

At the 1½ mile rest area, I took off my pack, rested, ate some trail mix and drank some water.  I saw a young Mennonite couple there with 3 or 4 young children, and as I was leaving, I am pretty sure one of the young ones got bitten by a rock squirrel.  I made up my mind by the second day of this hike to chuck stones at every one I saw that seemed at all interested in me or my stuff.  I think a lot of people think they are cute and/or tame.  These guys do not seem tame to me.  They are only interested in what they can steal from you, and seem vindictive enough that they give you a nip if they don’t get a handout.  BTW, I do not throw rocks hard or big ones, but I definitely let the little devils know they are not welcome around me.

The rest at 1 ½ mile did me some good for about 15 minutes or so.  I know I was looking pretty bad by this time.  I was dirty, sweaty, and really leaning on my staff on the steep steps.  I hatched a scheme in my head where the park service would hire an actor to look as bad as me, and have him/her trudge up the hill just as the naive masses are coming down in the morning.  It might make some of them think twice before they hike farther along the trail than their abilities allow.

As the time got closer to 10:00, I began to anticipate the end.  As I looked up, though, there was still a big rock wall in front of me.  The switchbacks seemed to really lengthen out near the top, but finally you round the corner, and there is a building ¼ mile or so in front and somewhat above you… the top!  I don’t remember feeling tired on the last stretch, but do remember being ready for the end.  Near the top I encountered 2 heavy Native American women, and one asked me, “did you sleep down there?”  I looked at her and her friends’ condition and thought they would never make it, but that her ancestors developed this place, and named much of it too.  I also saw she had a can of Pepsi in her hand with beads of condensation on it.  “Yes, I camped and hiked all the way to the other rim,” I told them.  “And that Pepsi sure looks good!”  They both laughed.  I must be in bad shape, I thought, if even Pepsi looks good. J

A little more walking, and there was the sign marking the trailhead.  I was surprised at how emotional the experience was of reaching the top.  People in clean clothes walking by with ice cream cones.  The real world, or is it?  I made eye contact with the first pair of tourists to walk toward me.  “Could I trouble you to take my picture,” I asked them.  They seemed a little surprised at the request, but I found my little disposable camera and handed it to them, and they said yes.  That was one tired puppy they took a picture of.

I kept walking in past the lodge, across the RR tracks, and toward the backcountry office parking lot, and there was the little Daewoo, right where I had left her.  I opened the trunk and checked to see if my wallet had survived.  All was present and accounted for, with one surprise – my wallet felt cool!  It must have gotten cold that night.

The first order of business was to check in at the Mather campground.  It was all prepaid, so they gave me the stuff and I asked them the all-important question – “Where are the showers?”  “Right over there sir,” he replied.  Friends, that was one sweet shower.

Following the shower, I drove to the campsite, got the tent up and gear somewhat in order, and drove to the Yavapai Café, and had a great lunch – Vegi Chili in sourdough bowl, chips and a large Coke.  I got tears in my eyes when I saw that great pile of food in front of me.  I resisted licking my plate at the end, but I did have to think about it.

After lunch, with about ½ day to kill, I decided to try to figure out the busses.  The signs in front of the Yavapai suggested a trail to the Mather Visitor Center to plan the visit, so I found the next bus heading there, and took the short ride.  A modern and well-planned center was there, which I enjoyed wandering around for a few minutes.  Then I followed the signs to the Mather overlook of the canyon.  It was awesome.  After being down in the canyon for so long, this was the first time since the hike out that I had a panoramic view.  Also, there was a pair of Condors flying lazily around.  I had learned by then that this can mean anything, because if they got the urge to move along, they can be out if sight in minutes.  I was thinking these thoughts when a Condor suddenly swooped down and landed on a rock perhaps 20’ away from the guardrail.  The rock was higher than the guardrail, and behind the bird, then canyon North Rim was visible.  Then the ham stood in profile while we all soood there with our mouths open.  Cameras were clicking all around me.  Mine had been left in the car at the Yavapai parking lot.  DRAT!

By this time I had become fairly familiar with some of the stats of these magnificent creatures, and as people walked up and asked what these birds were, I answered them with my normal enthusiasm for this subject.  As the minutes ticked by and people moved away from the bird, I managed to position myself quite close to the spot on the rail closest to the bird.  Imagine standing 20’ away from one of the world’s rarest birds.  Just then, another one swooped down and landed right beside the first one, but behind him.  So it looked like 1 bird with 2 heads.  I struck up a conversation with a husband and wife standing next to me, and happened to mention I was from Michigan’s UP.  He said, “A Yooper, eh? Well, I’m a Troll.”  He explained he lived near the Detroit area, and I told him my wife grew up in Ferndale.  “I grew up in Ferndale too!” he said.  Meanwhile, his wife was snapping away at the birds with her beautiful camera which had a telephoto lens.  She allowed me to look through her camera at the birds, and you could make their heads fill most of the frame.  The husband gave me a card and told me to write my name and address, and he would send me a copy of their bird pictures.  I happily did so and offered to give him $5 for postage and printing, but he wouldn’t hear of it.  So, if he keeps up his end of the bargain, I should have some fantastic condor pictures to share someday soon.

When the birds left the rim, I did too, and wandered back to the Center.  I learned what I had to do to get on the bus that takes you out to the several viewing areas west of Canyon Village.

It was one of the first ones I stopped at that I noticed a person sitting on a folding chair looking into a spotting scope.  Her chair was on a flat rock outside the guardrails of this viewing area.  Since there were others out there with her, I slipped around the railing and stook quietly behind her and learned what was going on.

I learned that since the release of the birds raised in captivity, there had been no successful nests in the wild.  What these people were watching, it turned out, was potentially the first pair thatr may have hatched a chick, and were returning to the nest to feed it!  The first ever in the wild since the birds were released!

The lady (I think her name was Marker) loaned me her binoculars, since she was using her scope, and I was just able to see a bird standing inside the opening of the cave nest (this was the Battleship nest).  With her scope, she was able to see that one of the birds had a full crop of food going in, which could mean they were feeding a chick.  There was talk that someone would rappel down the cliff and visit the nest to see if it had indeed produced a chick.  (sometimes adults will continue to visit a failed nest for quite a while)  So we’ll just have to wait and see what transpires.  The people I talked to were thrilled that the birds had come this far.  Since they had been raised in captivity by puppets no one really knew if they would know how to lay and incubate their eggs.

I visited the rest of the overlooks getting on and off the busses all the way out to Hermit’s Rest, which is a cool place built by the Harvey people.  Then I rode back to the Yavapai and had some supper.  I was writing out my memoirs at the supper table when I just plain hit a wall.  I couldn’t do any more.  I went back to the campsite, crawled into my sleeping bag, and slept until 5:00 the next morning.