Hiking the Grand Canyon

 

We had awoken at three a.m. to break camp at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to get as far along our return to the rim before the heat and intense sun began their assault on us. Our guide, another in our party, and I had dropped off some duffels to be carried out by mule at Phantom Ranch, a half-mile from our campsite, and we were returning in the dark to meet the others and begin our upward trek. Straight ahead, in a notch between two distant bluffs, hung the moon - a crisp bright crescent against the darkness that my camera rendered as an amorphous blob.

The canyon exists in two worlds, dark and light, each with indescribable beauty. The dark night, devoid of light pollution, reveals the stars as the original canyon inhabitants saw them – uncountable, bright, seemingly nearly close enough to touch. As the sun begins its arrival, the sky’s occupants disappear, and the landscape is painted with vivid colors.

 

We rejoined the others, collected our things, said goodbye to the canyon floor, and set out. We mounted the Silver Bridge, which traverses the turquoise Colorado River. The canyon, like the moon between the cliffs, was between the dark and light worlds. The stars had vanished and the landscape was gray, its colors yet to blossom.

 

It was an enchanting moment for me. We had seen unforgettable sights; met extraordinary people who generously shared touching, poignant, sometimes extremely personal stories about themselves; experienced exciting new things; learned much. And now we were beginning our hike back home, between dark and light, and suspended on the bridge between the still-gray river and the not-yet-blue sky, forever changed.

 

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A year and a half ago Donna signed us up for a highly ambitious — for us — adventure: a hike in May 2020 from the rim of the Grand Canyon to the bottom and back up. Donna had driven cross-country twice in the past dozen years, once with our son and once with our older daughter, and both times had stopped for a few hours at the canyon. I had never seen it and she knew I would be enthralled by it. 

 The round-trip trek would involve a seven-mile hike down with a 5,000-foot drop in elevation, two nights in a tent at a campsite, and a 9.5-mile return via a different trail. Mules would carry tents, sleeping bags and other supplies - mule trains and people are the only ways to transport supplies to the bottom; we were responsible for carrying water (lots of water), snacks, clothing, toiletries, and anything else we would need.

We trained on trails at nearby state parks, and I was doing hard swimming workouts three days a week. But then the pandemic hit, postponing our trip by a year. We lost training opportunities and we each dealt with some health issues. We wouldn’t be as fit as the prior year, and we were a year older. On top of that, neither of us had ever camped — we were total novices and would have a lot to learn. But we were determined and excited about this adventure.

We landed in Phoenix on Sunday late morning; the temperature was already in the mid-90s. We got our rental car and began our four-hour drive to the canyon, first escaping the heavy traffic of suburban Phoenix, then through the desert, which two-and-a-half hours in gave way to a forest of scrub pine. We arrived at the south entrance of Grand Canyon National Park in late afternoon. In the park you proceed along the continuation of Rte. 64 for a couple miles. At one point several elk sauntered across the road a few yards in front our car, although we initially mistook the large grey hornless creatures for some sort of oversized scruffy western deer.

 

A 14-mile walking trail hugs the rim, with incredible views. It reminded me of the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. We drove on to a couple lookout points on the rim. The immense scale and beauty, which can’t be adequately captured in photos, paintings or words, were breathtaking.

 

A village comprising four or five close-clustered hotels is on the rim trail. We had reserved a cabin through one of them, Bright Angel Lodge. It was a rustic affair 100 yards from the south rim of the canyon built during the Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a jobs-creation agency.

 

The next day was reserved for getting our bearings, exploring, and acclimating to the thin air at the rim’s 7,000-ft. elevation. Parking is extremely limited at the village, even with capacity in the lodges limited by the pandemic, and we reluctantly gave up our parking space to drive to the Desert View area in the west of the park. It was worth it. The canyon opened up, with views that even eclipsed what we had seen from the village.

 

At five p.m. our guide, Tiffany Cooper, met with us and the other hikers in our group in front of the Bright Angel Lodge. She distributed our backpacks and snacks, and went over logistics. The meeting ended, Donna and I had a forgettable dinner at the Fred Harvey Tavern in the lodge, returned to our cabin and did our final packing before going to bed. I set my phone alarm for 3:30 a.m. but was sure we wouldn’t need it – we were both too geeked up to sleep.

 

UFOs

 

The next morning, we gathered our things and headed to the car for the three-minute drive to the Wildland Trekking offices, where we would leave our cars, get breakfast and frozen Gator Ade bottles provided by Tiffany, and board a van to the South Kaibab trailhead. While Donna and I walked to our car, we were admiring the multitude of stars in the still-dark night, when a series of bright lights – about 60 – glided swiftly by low on the horizon like a string of beads. They appeared much closer than any satellite I had ever seen and were brighter and moving faster. Was this a military exercise, testing secret new aircraft? Was war breaking out? Had the aliens begun their attack on Earth?

 

When we met up with Tiffany, I told her what we had seen, hoping to get a more reasonable explanation than looming Armageddon. She explained that they were part of SpaceX’s new low-orbit satellite system and cursed Elon Musk for ruining the pristine night sky (though she had never seen them herself). The satellites, brighter than other satellites because they are in orbit just a few hundred miles up, are the first of a planned 12,000-satellite “megaconstellation” called StarLink to provide internet access to people on Earth. I took the sighting as an omen of good things to come.

 

We arrived at the South Kaibab trailhead at about 5:30 am, made a final stop at the restrooms, and received and adjusted our hiking poles – essential, as we found out, for serious hiking and particularly so for descending. Twenty minutes later we started off in enough daylight to not need headlamps, and Donna and I were full of giddy excitement.

 

Quick Geology Lesson

 

I would like to think that I retained maybe one or two percent of the information Tiffany imparted to us throughout the journey – about the canyon’s geology, flora, fauna, ancient inhabitants, early White pioneers – but I’m probably giving myself too much credit. I picked up some informational books after our hike so I wouldn’t have to rely on my sieve-like brain. As the saying goes, I have a great memory, it’s just short.

 

As we hiked, Tiffany showed us the various layers of the canyon, each with a unique color, texture and other attributes. She taught us that the process by which the canyon was formed is known by the acronym DUDE: Deposition, Uplift, Down-cutting, and Erosion. Below are descriptions of these forces, edited by me from Grand Canyon Geology by L. Greer Price (Grand Canyon Conservancy):

 

·         Deposition – The Grand Canyon contains sedimentary rock that ranges from 270 million years old, at the top, to nearly 2 billion years old at the bottom. Over this time water and earth sediments were deposited as the ocean came in and covered the area, then receded multiple times.

·         Uplift -- Uplift of the Colorado Plateau and the sedimentary layers of the Grand Canyon started about 75 million years ago during a mountain-building event that also helped create the Rocky Mountains.

·         Down-cutting – While the plateau is uplifted, the Colorado River acts as a saw, cutting through the rock and sediment.

·         Erosion - Wind and water continually widen, deepen, and expand the Grand Canyon.

The Descent

Tiffany had warned that going downhill is more taxing on the knees and legs than the ascent. She was right. The poles, which I had derided when we had seen people use them on the easy trails we were familiar with, were lifesavers. Halfway through our hike our quads were burning and our joints aching from the jolts as we repeatedly stepped down tall stairs. We would have been far worse off without the poles, which let us use our arms and upper body to ease down from stair to stair.

 

The sights were magnificent. What we had seen from far away on the rim we were now among. The walls of the canyon getting taller as we hiked down 1,000 feet, 2,000 feet, 3,000 feet. At around 2,000 feet down, or 5,000 feet altitude, we saw the first glimpse of Phantom Ranch, a lush oasis of green among the craggy rocks. Around a few more bends and we saw for the first time the snaking Colorado River.

Mule trains, coming up or going down, were common. A train of a half-dozen mules tethered together are led by a guide on a horse. They have the right-of-way and take the outside of the path. We would flatten ourselves against the canyon wall as they approached and be still to not startle them. We passed Skeleton Point, so named for the carcasses of mules hundreds of feet below that had fallen to their deaths off a particularly treacherous stretch of narrow path. It was a grim reminder to not, as our guide advised, “gawk and walk.”

 

There were not any water stations on the way down, so we were glad to have our water bladders, bottles of water, and the Gator Ade. We each drank between four and five liters. Two stations had composting toilets – with odors not for the faint of heart.

 

Tiffany is a phenomenon. Her waifish frame and honey-sweet Mississippi voice belie her incredible strength and toughness. She was carrying an 80-pound pack, not much smaller than her, like it was nothing. Occasionally if a hiker were struggling, she would take their pack and carry it over her arm like a purse. She didn’t sweat, even as the temperature soared and we were drenched. She didn’t so much hike as strolled while some of us were not so much hiking as staggering.

We learned at the bottom that in February she had – for fun, mind you – gone on a 12-day, 99-mile off-trail trek in the canyon with a friend. Wading in parts through knee-high snow, and sleeping without a tent (she doesn’t like them). I asked her how many nights a year she sleeps outside and she said, “way more than half.” If she were to get into a fight with a mountain lion, I would not bet on the mountain lion.

We descended past the layers of the canyon, distinct by their color and texture. At the top, the tan Kaibab Formation, then the pale green Toroweap Formation, Coconino sandstone, brown Hermit Shale and rich red Supai Group, Redwall Limestone and all the rest. Different layers were hospitable to different kinds of plants – agave plants with their “cowboy killer” spikes, cactus, delicate daisies, tall pinion pine trees.We not only drank a lot, we ate a lot too. Salty snacks to replace depleted sodium, sweets for energy, pepperoni slices for protein. Between the snacks we carried and those Tiffany brought, I’ve never eaten so much. Or hiked so much.

By one-thirty we were close to the end. The sun was high overhead and we were hot. Shade was in short supply. A pair of mule trains had just passed us and entered a man-made tunnel leading to the Black Bridge, which would carry us across the Colorado and to our camp. We were about to enter the pitch-black tunnel when we noticed that only one of the trains had exited the tunnel. We stayed put in the sun and waited for a resolution. Finally, the train leader managed to extract the balky team from the tunnel and across the bridge, clearing the way for us to reach our destination.

 

The Canyon Floor

 

When we arrived, Tiffany had us walk to a beach by the river while she went to Phantom Ranch to make arrangements for us at the campground. While the temperature when we left the rim seven hours before was 36 degrees, at the base the air was over 100 degrees in the shade and more than 120 in the sun. We found little pieces of shade under some short trees to protect us from the scorching sun, unloaded our packs, and replaced our boots and socks with flip-flops. The powdery white sand was extremely hot. We ran to the water, which was icy cold.

 

Phantom Ranch is a lodge, in that there are small cabins for rent and a dining room that serves dinner – stew at 5:30 pm and steak at 7:00 pm (hikers don’t generally stay more than a night or two). Getting reservations for cabins or meals is extremely difficult. Between Phantom Ranch and the beach are 32 campsites, most of which have room for about six tents and a picnic table. We occupied one of those sites.

 

There is also a store (during the pandemic, just window service) that sells basic toiletries, medicine, and souvenirs. You can have a postcard stamped, “Delivered by Mule.” More important, it sells ice-cold lemonade, $5 for the first glass and refills for $1. Honestly, there were times I would have paid $100. The downside is that it was a 15-minute walk from our campsite in the oppressive, unshaded heat. It’s not unusual to buy two at a time.

 Once in town, as I called it, there are a couple highly coveted picnic tables where people would congregate and tell stories, or write postcards, or just rest. An interesting note: Workers live at Phantom Ranch. There’s a dorm, adjacent to a mule pen, where maybe 10 people live. The typical work situation is to work 10 days, then have off four days – but workers have to use their time off to hike up to civilization and back down. That’s a commute.

 

Squirrels are everywhere in the canyon and are bold and pesky. They will go into your pack or your tent if you have food or anything scented in them and they need to be constantly shooed away during meals or food prep. Food and toiletries are kept in a big metal communal locker and backpacks on a heavy pipe stand about six feet off the ground. Deer are also scavenging and not at all intimidated by humans. Ravens and bats are plentiful but not bothersome. Donna and I got buzzed by a hummingbird one evening, and we saw large bees that were similar to carpenter bees. In such a remote, ancient place I expected to see dinosaurs but was disappointed. The canyon also is home to about 100 California condors, but we didn’t see them either (no doubt because they were all here).

 

Our campsite, while almost a half-mile from the river, was adjacent to beautiful, refreshing, fast-moving Bright Angel Creek. We would go to the edge, sit down on a rock and soak our sore feet for a while. Little two-inch-long fish, I don’t know the species, would come in schools and nibble our feet. We called that our fish pedicure. At night in our tent, listening to the coursing water a few yards away and gazing at the billion bright stars above (the tents are all mesh), was about as perfect as can be.

 

Our fellow campers

 

I noted that Donna nor I had ever camped before. This was probably not the best way to be initiated, but then again, we had a guide who was patient and helpful, we didn’t have to carry camping equipment (mules brought that, and food, a couple days prior), and the rest of our party, all seasoned campers who live in Arizona, were willing to teach us and ignore our many foibles. David, an avid hiker, is active in his community’s hiking club and was a Boy Scout leader for many years. Carmen is also an experienced hiker and camper. Joan told us that a few years ago she was overweight and out of shape, and made up her mind to work her way into shape. As a girl she had dreamed of hiking the Grand Canyon, and that became her goal. Her hard work and determination paid off; and her example inspired me to hike on when I was drained.

 

The level of my inexperience, clear throughout our descent by my continued inability to find in my pack things I needed, either through poor organization or failing to remember which compartment I had stowed the item, became painfully clear at the bottom on our second day. I mentioned that we had all brought sandals to stay cool. The front of the sole of one of David’s sandals became unglued, much degrading their utility. That would have been catastrophic for me. But the veteran backpacker pulled from his pack a length of 1/8-inch rope and an awl and sewed his footwear together. Of course, it had never crossed my mind to plan for such contingencies and reinforced the feeling that I, as a beginner, didn’t really belong in a group of experienced campers.

 

We heard remarkable stories – about the canyon, each other, and from characters we met on our journey. Here are a couple about the canyon:

 

Black Bridge -- Tiffany told us about the building of the Black Bridge we had traversed that morning. It was constructed in 1928 and is 440-feet long and five feet wide. It is suspended by eight cables each 550-feet long, four on each side. The cables couldn’t be dragged along the path because of the risk of damaging them, so 49 men, spaced at 11-foot intervals, carried each cable down the path we had just hiked. Eight trips down and back. I don’t know the weight of each cable, but that was a job.

 

Rafting Tragedy -- The Colorado River is a favorite for white-water rafting. The beach at which we were lolling is a stopping point for several of the tour companies because they can take in drinking water for their passengers from the camp spigots. A week prior to our arrival a freak gust of wind had capsized one of the big, 36-foot rafts, throwing the passengers and crew into the cold Colorado. One woman was in trouble – I’m not sure of the exact nature, but a crewmember was holding onto her while they were waiting for rescuers. The woman died in the man’s arms before help arrived.

 

Ascent

We took a different trail to get back to the rim. The Bright Angel Trail is longer than South Kaibab, and older. Bright Angel had been created by animals and human inhabitants for ages, while South Kaibab was created mostly by blasting through rock. In many places along the trail you can see the holes that were drilled in stone edifices to place the TNT sticks in.

Roughly halfway up is Indian Garden, an oasis of a campground. From the South Rim you can see its lush greenness. It is around here that Native Americans many generations ago grew their staples: corn, squash, and beans.

 

The hike to Indian Garden was easy, and by leaving early, we hiked almost entirely in shade. We enjoyed a relaxed half-hour of drinking and eating at a shaded picnic table, filling our water bladders and bottles, and talking to some of the campers. Indian Garden is a destination for those who don’t want to venture all the way to the bottom, or who want to break up the trip down into two days.

 The rest of the ascent was challenging. Shade was gone and the inclines increased. We stopped every mile and a half to replenish, and also in between to catch our breath or try to cool down.

 

For weeks I was anxious about the hike, particularly about the ascent. My anxiety increased when we arrived at the bottom and experienced the heat, which I am not good with, and again during the ascent, looking up first at the imposing two-thousand-foot-tall walls that looked impossible to summit and that we knew hid the destination that lay thousands of feet higher yet. Then after hours of more hiking to finally see the rim so far above us was demoralizing. But as the signs reminded us, going down is optional, coming up is mandatory. So we soldiered on. 

 

The last two or two and a half miles were the hardest. Portions of the trail were called, for good reason, Devil’s Backbone, Devil’s Corkscrew, Heart Attack Hill.

 

Epilogue

 

I was exultant when we at last reached the rim. I was filled with excitement, relief, gratitude. Donna and I had not only accomplished a remarkable feat for casual hikers, but we had experienced so many incredible things, met so many interesting people, were introduced to ways of life that are so different from ours and that we otherwise never could have experienced.

 

The Grand Canyon is a magnet for all kinds of people. The people who choose to live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon amaze me. What a love for it they must have – or maybe it’s something else.

 

We met waiters and bartenders who worked around the canyon for many years. One guy told us he used to work as a bartender on the rim. One morning he hiked down to Phantom Ranch, turned around, and hiked back up in time to work his shift that night. Why? Just for something to do.

 

A clerk in the Fred Harvey Museum at Bright Angel Lodge said she had traveled the world and had lived near the canyon for a few years. She asked where we were from, and when we told her, she recounted some of the concerts she had seen – The Moody Blues, Little River Band, Jimmy Buffet – at Meriwether Post Pavilion in our own Columbia, Maryland.

 

A guy named Daniel, who has been very successful in business, splits his time between Maui and the Grand Canyon, two opposite ends of the spectrum, because, he says, the canyon is where he clears his head and gets a reality check.

 

There are athletes who run the entire way down or up or go rim-to-rim in a single run. There’s rim-to-rim-to-rim (R2R2R). Here’s an article  about a woman named Mallory Brooks who, the week after we were there, in 25 hours ran the 45-mile R2R2R – twice, meaning she netted 40,000 feet of ascents and descents in addition to those 90 miles.

 

Travel is about experiencing new things, learning about different cultures, meeting new people and sharing stories, gaining a little better understanding of our world. We got all that in spades on this trip. 

 

I think people tend to open up to strangers. Getting a chance to talk with people who tell you something about them is a special privilege. You feel a closer connection to people who maybe you thought you had little in common with but you realize even if the only thing similar is your shared love of the Grand Canyon, there is that, and it’s not inconsequential.

 

You also gain an understanding that everyone has a story worth listening to and that while their path may not look like your path, their journey is as fascinating and wonderful and unique as yours.

Here are some more photos: