On this final day of 2016, I am going to break with the pattern I've set for writing about our Grand Canyon Rim to Rim trek. Rather then craft the post as if I am writing a journal entry at the end of that day's hiking, I will share the story of our Day Four from the perspective of many months later.
Today is the end of a long and trying year, the common refrain in my Facebook newsfeed for this past week has been, I'm so done with 2016. Between the most baffling presidential election win in U.S. history and a rash of celebrity deaths that hit close to home for many of my Gen X pals, the desire for a fresh start that the new year offers is palpable. Curiously, I find myself less focused on starting anew than in any January in recent memory. There are things about 2016 that I want to celebrate, hold close, feel in my bones for many more months to come.
At the top of that list is Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016. Day Four of our trip, the final climb to the South Rim.
When I attempted to fall asleep under the canopy of trees in Indian Garden campground the evening of Aug. 31, I marveled at how we had not seen one snake in the first three days of hiking the canyon. Snakes were my biggest fear going into this incredible endeavor. But in retrospect, I realized that that fear had all but evaporated when Dillon, our guide, revealed he didn't even bring hiking boots. Sandals were his tools of choice. Still, I fell into the final night grateful for no truly scary animal encounters.
You know what happens next right? A truly frightening animal encounter! The raucous Europeans in the next site had finally settled down long after the 10 pm quiet hour and I was doing something close to sleeping when at 1 am a deep, angry growl sounded long and loud from above my head. Molly in the sleeping bag next to me, Cameron in his tent, Emily in her tent, and I bolted awake and flashed our headlamps at the same instant. The bulbs did absolutely nothing to reveal what made the hair-raising sound.
Dillon, in another of his somewhat unconventional ways, was on a sleeping pad stretched out on the picnic table. He carried no tent with him. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he had popped awake and was kneeling at the end of the table. "It's OK," I heard him say. We all dubiously turned off our lights and no more noises erupted. What I learned nearly 12 hours later, over a relaxing lunch at the top of the South Rim, was that Dillon had also said, "It's a deer."
Emily, Cameron, and Molly heard that part. Daniel, ah sweet sleeping Daniel in the bag next to Emily's, missed the entire ordeal. Because I had not caught the part about the deer, I spent the next hour wide awake, terrified and utterly convinced that the creature I had heard had pointy ears, claws, and teeth and was coming back for us.
About 30 minutes into my terror, Molly whispered that she had to pee. Oh hell no. This can't be happening. But it was, and brave, bold, strong Molly left the mythical safety of our flimsy tent. The minutes ticked away and still she wasn't coming back. It was too much. Shoving my boots on my feet and my fear to the far recesses of my brain, I too left the tent. By the time I found her alive, well, and brushing her teeth at the water spigot near the bathrooms, it was 2 am and we were both wildly awake.
Indian Garden is just under 5 miles into the canyon from Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim and a common resting place for day hikers, so lovely wooden benches dot the area. Molly and I kept our headlamps on the red light setting, which provides plenty of light to see by, but isn't as obtrusive to others, and just chilled on one of those benches by the water spout for the next hour. Dillon planned on serving us breakfast at 3:30 and we had to roll out of camp no later than 5 am, he instructed the night before. His goal was to top out on the South Rim between 11 and 11:30 am. He wanted to get us through the brutal 3,000 foot climb before the heat of the day closed in.
Despite being profoundly deprived of sleep, I noticed almost immediately that my legs felt lean and fast. My pack curled comfortably around my shoulders and waist. I moved with ease. Others in the campground had similar plans, so Bright Angel Trail was a ribbon of bobbing lights in the pre-dawn hours. For the first couple of hours of hiking, it felt like all business. We weren't tourists gawking at our surroundings anymore. We were serious backpackers battling the elements and our mental fortitude to reach our goal.
We started to spread out from each other and those who had left the campground with us, and when I realized I was keeping pace with Dillon and Cameron, a deep satisfaction about the 16 months of training I had completed and how it had prepared my body and my mind for that exact moment left me grinning and dancing a little internal jig.
As we neared Jacob's Ladder, a section of switchbacks even steeper than the Devil's Corkscrew from the day before, I had a tough decision to make. Molly was clearly struggling, she wasn't keeping as close to the rest of us as usual. I knew she was nervous going into the day, and guessed that she was frustrated with herself for not training as much as she could have. I wanted to hang with her, maybe tell stories here and there that would distract her, but I also knew she'd be mad and sad if she felt like she was holding me back. I decided to listen to my body.
I stopped thinking about what I was doing or how far I had to go, I just put one foot in front of the other. And you know what, it was fun! Sometimes I was near Emily and Dan, sometimes just Emily. After a rest, I was near Molly for a bit. One or two more times in the 6 and 1/2 hours of climbing that day, I was with Dillon and Cameron. It was with these guys that the topic of beer came up and Cameron imitated a Rainier Beer commercial from the 1980s in which a motorcycle is zooming down a deserted highway and the sound of the engine seems to be saying, "Raaay-neeer-beeer." It made me giggle there in the Grand Canyon, still seemingly so far removed from things like cold beer, electricity, television. Now, when I watch the commercial on YouTube, I full-on laugh out loud. And picture my friend Cameron on that warm desert day. He had the pitch of the motorcycle down perfectly!
Dillon orchestrated our rest stops brilliantly. Not once did I feel rushed or perceive any anxiousness from him about whether we were staying on track with time. It was probably about 9:30 am when the number of people hiking down the same trail we were headed up became a near steady stream. They always stepped aside for us to pass, and so many of them gave us words of encouragement or mentioned how much they admired what we were doing. They knew from the size of our packs that we had been in the canyon for several days.
It was also about that time that I noticed something amazing, and a little baffling. Emily was just ahead of me, so I squeezed a little closer and said, "Emily, all these people headed downhill, they smell so good! Like they just stepped out of the shower!"
She chuckled, turned slightly to see me, and said, "I was just thinking the same thing!"
This immediately begged the question, What must we smell like? I banished the thought from my mind.
While much of the day felt focused on our minds and bodies, we did continue to learn about the canyon. Dillon showed us fossilized tracks of a lizard crossing a sandy beach, and pictographs from one of the canyon's native tribes. The closer we got to the rim, the better views we had of our tree-covered campground from the night before, and the narrow crevice stretching to the north from which we had come four days earlier.
A friend told me just this week that she's been reading about the National Parks, and many say that the Grand Canyon is the one that most profoundly gets inside the people who visit it, especially for those who descend into the canyon. Yes, I smiled, I didn't just visit or enjoy the views, the canyon took me in, it welcomed me, warmed me, protected me, and embraced me as a part of its life. For a few days in 2016, I was one piece of the vibrant, teeming life that is the Grand Canyon.
Those days were all the more alive because of sharing it with my love and for the blessing of four strangers who quickly became friends.
Today is the end of a long and trying year, the common refrain in my Facebook newsfeed for this past week has been, I'm so done with 2016. Between the most baffling presidential election win in U.S. history and a rash of celebrity deaths that hit close to home for many of my Gen X pals, the desire for a fresh start that the new year offers is palpable. Curiously, I find myself less focused on starting anew than in any January in recent memory. There are things about 2016 that I want to celebrate, hold close, feel in my bones for many more months to come.
At the top of that list is Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016. Day Four of our trip, the final climb to the South Rim.
When I attempted to fall asleep under the canopy of trees in Indian Garden campground the evening of Aug. 31, I marveled at how we had not seen one snake in the first three days of hiking the canyon. Snakes were my biggest fear going into this incredible endeavor. But in retrospect, I realized that that fear had all but evaporated when Dillon, our guide, revealed he didn't even bring hiking boots. Sandals were his tools of choice. Still, I fell into the final night grateful for no truly scary animal encounters.
You know what happens next right? A truly frightening animal encounter! The raucous Europeans in the next site had finally settled down long after the 10 pm quiet hour and I was doing something close to sleeping when at 1 am a deep, angry growl sounded long and loud from above my head. Molly in the sleeping bag next to me, Cameron in his tent, Emily in her tent, and I bolted awake and flashed our headlamps at the same instant. The bulbs did absolutely nothing to reveal what made the hair-raising sound.
Dillon, in another of his somewhat unconventional ways, was on a sleeping pad stretched out on the picnic table. He carried no tent with him. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he had popped awake and was kneeling at the end of the table. "It's OK," I heard him say. We all dubiously turned off our lights and no more noises erupted. What I learned nearly 12 hours later, over a relaxing lunch at the top of the South Rim, was that Dillon had also said, "It's a deer."
Emily, Cameron, and Molly heard that part. Daniel, ah sweet sleeping Daniel in the bag next to Emily's, missed the entire ordeal. Because I had not caught the part about the deer, I spent the next hour wide awake, terrified and utterly convinced that the creature I had heard had pointy ears, claws, and teeth and was coming back for us.
About 30 minutes into my terror, Molly whispered that she had to pee. Oh hell no. This can't be happening. But it was, and brave, bold, strong Molly left the mythical safety of our flimsy tent. The minutes ticked away and still she wasn't coming back. It was too much. Shoving my boots on my feet and my fear to the far recesses of my brain, I too left the tent. By the time I found her alive, well, and brushing her teeth at the water spigot near the bathrooms, it was 2 am and we were both wildly awake.
Indian Garden is just under 5 miles into the canyon from Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim and a common resting place for day hikers, so lovely wooden benches dot the area. Molly and I kept our headlamps on the red light setting, which provides plenty of light to see by, but isn't as obtrusive to others, and just chilled on one of those benches by the water spout for the next hour. Dillon planned on serving us breakfast at 3:30 and we had to roll out of camp no later than 5 am, he instructed the night before. His goal was to top out on the South Rim between 11 and 11:30 am. He wanted to get us through the brutal 3,000 foot climb before the heat of the day closed in.
Despite being profoundly deprived of sleep, I noticed almost immediately that my legs felt lean and fast. My pack curled comfortably around my shoulders and waist. I moved with ease. Others in the campground had similar plans, so Bright Angel Trail was a ribbon of bobbing lights in the pre-dawn hours. For the first couple of hours of hiking, it felt like all business. We weren't tourists gawking at our surroundings anymore. We were serious backpackers battling the elements and our mental fortitude to reach our goal.We started to spread out from each other and those who had left the campground with us, and when I realized I was keeping pace with Dillon and Cameron, a deep satisfaction about the 16 months of training I had completed and how it had prepared my body and my mind for that exact moment left me grinning and dancing a little internal jig.
As we neared Jacob's Ladder, a section of switchbacks even steeper than the Devil's Corkscrew from the day before, I had a tough decision to make. Molly was clearly struggling, she wasn't keeping as close to the rest of us as usual. I knew she was nervous going into the day, and guessed that she was frustrated with herself for not training as much as she could have. I wanted to hang with her, maybe tell stories here and there that would distract her, but I also knew she'd be mad and sad if she felt like she was holding me back. I decided to listen to my body.
I stopped thinking about what I was doing or how far I had to go, I just put one foot in front of the other. And you know what, it was fun! Sometimes I was near Emily and Dan, sometimes just Emily. After a rest, I was near Molly for a bit. One or two more times in the 6 and 1/2 hours of climbing that day, I was with Dillon and Cameron. It was with these guys that the topic of beer came up and Cameron imitated a Rainier Beer commercial from the 1980s in which a motorcycle is zooming down a deserted highway and the sound of the engine seems to be saying, "Raaay-neeer-beeer." It made me giggle there in the Grand Canyon, still seemingly so far removed from things like cold beer, electricity, television. Now, when I watch the commercial on YouTube, I full-on laugh out loud. And picture my friend Cameron on that warm desert day. He had the pitch of the motorcycle down perfectly!Dillon orchestrated our rest stops brilliantly. Not once did I feel rushed or perceive any anxiousness from him about whether we were staying on track with time. It was probably about 9:30 am when the number of people hiking down the same trail we were headed up became a near steady stream. They always stepped aside for us to pass, and so many of them gave us words of encouragement or mentioned how much they admired what we were doing. They knew from the size of our packs that we had been in the canyon for several days.
It was also about that time that I noticed something amazing, and a little baffling. Emily was just ahead of me, so I squeezed a little closer and said, "Emily, all these people headed downhill, they smell so good! Like they just stepped out of the shower!"
She chuckled, turned slightly to see me, and said, "I was just thinking the same thing!"
This immediately begged the question, What must we smell like? I banished the thought from my mind.
While much of the day felt focused on our minds and bodies, we did continue to learn about the canyon. Dillon showed us fossilized tracks of a lizard crossing a sandy beach, and pictographs from one of the canyon's native tribes. The closer we got to the rim, the better views we had of our tree-covered campground from the night before, and the narrow crevice stretching to the north from which we had come four days earlier.A friend told me just this week that she's been reading about the National Parks, and many say that the Grand Canyon is the one that most profoundly gets inside the people who visit it, especially for those who descend into the canyon. Yes, I smiled, I didn't just visit or enjoy the views, the canyon took me in, it welcomed me, warmed me, protected me, and embraced me as a part of its life. For a few days in 2016, I was one piece of the vibrant, teeming life that is the Grand Canyon.
Those days were all the more alive because of sharing it with my love and for the blessing of four strangers who quickly became friends.
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