Grand Canyon 2007

Elderly do the Big One:

Grand Canyon 2007

10/11  South Rim Motel

Having endured our summer walk through the hills of Grand Teton National Park in August, we once again signed up to hit the trails, this time in the less friendly, harsher environment of the Grand Canyon.  Steve and Fay had planned a five day, four night backpack down the Grandview Trail to ultimately stand on the banks of the Colorado River, nearly 6,000 feet below.

We started the five hour drive from Ivins fresh and fully coffeed at 8:00 A.M.   The Toyota struggled up the steep, winding hill out of Hurricane, roared by the polygamous enclave of Colorado City and tore through Jacobs Lake on our way to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  Finally, a good five hours into Tour de Arizona, our stomachs started to growl and my tender sitting instrument was in need of a break from the front seat of Old Red.  Steve suggested stopping at Cameron, where a certified traditional Navaho trading post/mega tourist trap is located a few feet off the highway.

When we were seated and given our menus, I informed my companions that “when in Rome, you do as the Romans.”  In other words, if you’re in Cameron, you order Navaho Tacos.  The taco, in all honesty, was huge.  The greasy fry bread spilled over the sides of the platter and was topped with a Teton sized mound of absolutely tasteless beans and sprinkled lightly with a  few crumbles of cheddar, a smattering of lettuce and crowned with one slice of sterile tomato.  

Ok, the food wasn’t great; bland as eating cardboard with paste.  No, paste has more taste.  That’s an unfair comparison to Elmer's.  However, the real trouble started almost immediately for me.  I no more crawled into my drivers cockpit, than my stomach started to revolt in the most violent, disgusting way.  I could feel each one of those beans fermenting in my tender little tummy, and with it, a pressure was building equivalent to a major thermonuclear device.  For the next ten hours every moment was agony.  Yes, I would excuse myself while walking along the rim of the canyon, and emit long, trumpeting flutters of flatulence throughout the day, embarrassing Steve, Fay and the prim, proper and gas less Kim, but it never seemed enough.  Here I was, walking by one of the great wonders of the world, watching grazing elk, mountain sheep and deer, and all I could think of was giving birth.  I now know labor, ladies, and let me say, “You are amazing to have lived through it.”

10/12 Horse Shoe Mesa

The hike down the Grandview Trail was supposed to be an easy one.  “It’s only,” Steve explained, “three and a half miles the first day.”  Sure I was a little bummed about having to carry three liters of water for our first night’s dry camp, but with the short distance, it couldn’t be all that bad.  Right?  

WRONG!  One hundred percent wrong!  It was approximately 2600 feet of elevation loss in not 3 1/2 miles, but only a little over two miles.  It was 2600 feet of backpacking Hell.  Ninety-five percent of the trail offered uneven, steeply graded terrain where one would have to carefully step down on pieces of loose gravel, while navigating between awkwardly placed boulders.  In places, the miners, who had constructed the trail, had built a cascading pathway of crudely placed stone, a cobblestone walkway of sorts, down endlessly steep sections where you fought to gain purchase with your hiking boots.  Considering that I had 45 pounds on my back, it was more difficult than you could imagine.  Pathetically, it took us a little over three hours to make our first night’s camping spot, an absolutely breathtaking location overlooking the jagged peaks and multicolored mesas of the Vishnu and Rama shrines.

10/13 Hance Spring

After we had our breakfast bars and granola and two cups of disgusting instant coffee, Kim and I took off to “check out” the steep, double diamond descent from Horse Shoe Mesa past Page Spring and into the Hance Wash.  The day before, on our difficult walk into the canyon, a well intentioned character from somewhere in the midwest had told us of the trail, describing it as “the worst, scariest, most treacherous 500 yards he had ever experienced.”  I listened to this information with a bit of skepticism, knowing that it was a park service trail, but it filled my wife with absolute terror at the thought of even looking at this sure fire wall of death.

I told Kim the next morning that we would take a look at the trail and then make up our minds.  I explained that we would drop our packs at the top and that I would help her down before ascending to retrieve our possessions.  The flatlander was absolutely correct in describing it as steep, narrow and with long drop offs.  Just to make it more interesting, God had dropped sacks of multi-sized marbles, otherwise known as rocks, in every location where you would have to put your foot down in the descent.  Other than that, it was a piece of cake.  Easy!  We quickly wound our way down the zigs and zags and before we knew it, we were looking down at Hance Springs, the last source of water between the rim and the mightily Colorado River.  

That afternoon, Steve and Fay day hiked down the wash until the walls turned from limestone to marble, and they faced boulders the size of  small homes.  Kim and I trudged up the Tonto East Trail, marveling over the steep wash and surrounding peaks and mesas.  The canyon walls in the distance lit up a bright orange in the fading late afternoon sunlight.  

I know it sounds stupid, but food takes on a new meaning in the back country.  This was our first real venture into the world of freeze dried dinners and even though I didn’t love them, they have their attributes.  Each night was pretty much the same, with only a change in the main course.  Dinner that night was Mountain House Teriyaki Chicken and Rice.  Not exactly P.F. Changs, but at least there were no dishes, as you eat out of the same bag your meal is cooked in boiling water.    Each night I would also slowly savor each bite of my two cheese stick appetizers, relishing every morsel of nutrition, and then after the meal of the day, was my dessert.   I can’t tell you how wonderful those three caramels tasted. 

It was late that night, probably around 7:30 P.M., when I was making my last rounds around camp before crawling into my tent.  I looked up on the hillside to see two small lights coming down the trail toward us.  Knowing that it would be a big challenge to find a suitable campsite in the area and that ours was the easiest to see, I went up on the trail to meet the midnight walkers and assist them in finding their Motel 6 for the night.  A young couple, probably in their early twenties were walking along as if they didn’t have a care in the world.  Sure they had come down a double diamond trail in the dark that had gotten my respect in the middle of the day, and yes, the young man’s light was dimming badly, with maybe only a few more minutes of battery left.  They didn’t seem concerned at all.  After introductions, I helped them to their campsite, where they told me that they wanted their wake up call at 4:30 A.M. and that Eggs Benedict with toast would be adequate.  I assured them that it would all be ready for them and bid them a good night.

10/14 Hance Rapids of the Colorado River

We took a leisurely five mile stroll to the river to see the magnificent Hance Rapids.  Secretly, I was hoping to find boat loads of partially drunken, friendly rafters who would take pity of us poor backpackers, offering us ice cold beer and barbecued steak.  It was not to be.  The only rafters we saw didn’t even have the energy to wave, much less offer culinary delights or refreshing beverages.  

We situated our camp that afternoon on a boulder strewn plateau overlooking the river, and then unloaded everything in our packs except our bone dry water bottles.  We then set out to the river for our first bath in three days and to pump water for our dry camp.  The half hour walk to the water was uneventful and even bordering on pleasurable until the last few hundred yards of slogging through sand.  Like a well trained army, we immediately set out to complete our work before cavorting about in the 50 degree Colorado River water.  My muscle deprived arms were bordering on fatigue by the time we had topped off our six bottles.  Steve and Fay then took a long walk down the beach as Kim and I tore off our clothes and waded into the cold water.  Damn, and I mean, damn, was it stimulating.  It took all of the courage that I could muster to finally submerge my body.  Scrubbing away the layers of trail dirt was out of the question.  It was dive in, dive out and then watch your quarter inch sized goose bumps evaporate in the warm sun light.

October is a wonderful time to hike in the canyon.  The days are reasonably warm and the nights are perfect for quality slumber, which is a good thing, as the nights are endless.  The sun goes down at 6:00 P.M. Arizona time.  Fay insisted that we stay up until we had seen a star, but with no campfire to tell stories around, sitting in the dark just wasn’t that much fun.  We frequently were in our tents by 7:00 P.M. and I would read until around 8:00 P.M., when I would belatedly turn off my head lamp to conserve battery strength.  From then on it was laying there, wide awake, day dreaming about everything from eating seafood in a fine Alaskan restaurant to having a burrito at Taco Bell.   I have never slept so much in my life.  When the sun would finally work it’s way over the canyon walls the next morning at 6:30 A.M., I would nearly tear down the tent door leaving my twelve hour prison.  

10/15 Hance Springs

We woke up earlier today than ever and hit the trail running at 8:30 A.M.  Kim and I started before Steve and Fay and nearly got lost within the first half mile of camp.  Here I was, day dreaming away about cold beer and pizza, and I came upon an area where someone had piled a large bunch of rocks in the middle of the trail.  Concentrating on  a mushroom-bacon cheeseburger by now, I merely stepped over the obstacle and continued on my happy way.  A few minutes more I found more rocks blocking the trail.  Again, I merely lifted my legs a little higher and kept right on going.  It was only when our course wound around a rock ledge several hundred feet above the river and when I had to get down on my hands and knees to crawl under a rock outcropping that I realized something was amiss.  At the same point I heard my wife’s somewhat panicked voice, “This isn’t the trail we took yesterday, David.”  With more than a little embarrassment, Kim and I carefully reversed our course and worked our way off the ledge and back to the junction where a new trail had been built.  Within minutes I was back on cruise control, my mind safely drifting off to more interesting topics than paying attention to what I was doing, walking.

The rest of the day went like clock work.  We made the five mile walk in less than three hours, getting to into our new camp site just when the canyon was heating up.  It was probably only about 85 degrees, but to our frail Wyoming skin it felt like 105 in the shade.  

The four of us spent the afternoon in the shade under the only giant cottonwood in the area, moving our worn bodies periodically to match the movement of the sun.  I would occasionally find the strength to walk down to the spring to wet my baseball cap, which felt like an air conditioned suite at the Hilton when I put it back on my head.   

I realized that it was time to go home that night.  Upon pulling off my boots and socks, I found myself breathing in an unbelievably vile odor that burned my nostrils like toxic waste.  I hurriedly drove my feet deep into my sleeping bag, hoping that Kim wouldn’t notice the natural stench emanating from my lower appendages.  Since our tent is the smallest model ever sold, offensive odor is no small topic.  It was time for an honest to God shower.  A long shower of much soap.  A shower with a scrub brush.  After all, if I could no longer stand myself, chances are......

 

10-17 Home in Ivins

The long walk out was finally upon us.  Secretly, I think all of us were a little apprehensive.  After all, we were climbing out of the Grand Canyon, and we all remembered the hugely steep trail we had descended in getting in here.  

At the first sign of daylight, I was out of the tent like a jack rabbit and offering a wake up call for Steve and Fay.  Kim immediately set to her tasks of stuffing our bags while I started our Pocket Rocket and the morning’s coffee.  Having just completed the Tetons trip earlier this summer, Kim and I now function like a well trained pit crew in breaking camp.  It was only minutes before we were ready to walk. 

After stretching out and downing our mandatory dose of “hiking medication”, we started up the steep ascent, many pounds lighter in our packs, but with a slight sense of dread embedded in our hearts.  As usual, we had worried ourselves sick over nothing.  Yes, it was tough getting the legs and lungs going, but after we had built a pace, the uphill climb turned out to be actually enjoyable.  We stopped at the old mine site above Page Spring, where we watered up and munched on salty snacks, and then again about half way up the main trail.  Switch back after switch back flew by, and then to my shock, we started to see sure signs that we were at the top.  Portly tourists dressed in white sneakers and carrying twenty pounds of camera equipment started to appear everywhere on the trail.  We knew that we had won the game.

When we finally crested the last hump, I looked down at my watch to see that we had done the over five mile, approximately 3700 foot climb in 3:40, surely a new world record, and we had proudly achieved it without steroids.  Advil yes, steroids....no!  Take that Marion Jones.

We sat on the rim wall waiting for our friends to crest the trail for a time, but soon realized that the climate was changing for the worse.  A powerful wind blew out of the south and the temperatures had dropped to the low fifties.  Black rain clouds lurked in the horizon.  It was time to hide out in the car.  We were done and we couldn’t have timed it better, as the new residents of Horse Shoe Mesa, Hance Springs and other Grand Canyon locations were going to be cold, wet and miserable.  We were going to be home.   A warm, dry and happy home.