There Is No Way Out Of Here

From earlier in the summer…..

 

After a few days driving around the blast furnace between Los Angeles and Phoenix. I had had enough of the color of brown. I was eager for some fresh air, cool breezes and a bit of green.

I headed to the mountain town of Flagstaff, Arizona via as much of the old Route 66 as I could. It was a quick drive since there isn’t much of it left and the road that is left is mostly just shops selling Rte 66 memorabilia. At least in that part of the country, it has been mostly replaced by Interstate 40.  

I got into Flagstaff on a Sunday afternoon and wanted to take a walk around town before I committed to it. I parked with all the other boondockers at the Walmart and walked the 2 and half miles back into town. Playing against type, it was along a mostly non touristy section of Rte 66.  

One of the downsides of being on the road full time is that there are more days that people need to get up for work in the morning than not. Most evenings, it’s pretty quiet out there including Sunday nights in Flagstaff.

It was still a bustling little town center and I enjoyed walking around it. Not so much the two and half mile walk back to the Walmart along the not very well lit walking path.  I don’t know how we got by before the Free Flashlight App on our phones. The night chill had me second guessing my desire for cool mountain breezes too.

The evening’s stroll wore me out and even the comings and goings in the 24 hour Walmart parking lot didn’t disturb me much that night. When I woke up Monday morning, I realized it was a long way to Friday night. The plan changed to heading up to the Grand Canyon and wait out the week.

I remember driving to the South Rim from Flagstaff on one of the cross country drives my family took back when I was young. I don’t remember the trip taking as long as it did this time, an hour and a half or so. An Hour and a half well spent in my humble opinion.

I took a long time getting to the main visitors center of the South Rim because I kept stopping at every viewing point and taking in the views. I should have taken in less views because I had gotten to the camp ground around lunchtime and all the available car camping sites were already taken.

I did get an offer from a guy who was sleeping in his car across country to share his spot. In the interest of random adventure, I took him up on it. I pretty soon regretted the decision as he was super excited to have a new friend and wouldn’t shut up. While we waited in line to get me registered, he had gone through all the photos on his phone of his recent trip to Las Vegas and in a teenager sort of way bragged about the scantily clad women that he had taken selfies with. These are the women that stand around tourists areas and offer to get there pictures with losers for $5 so they have something to brag about at their Tuesday Bowling League when they get back home.  The National Park Reservation Gods were smiling on me that morning though because there was no room for both my car and trailer in his spot.

I thanked him for the offer and hightailed it out of there. Not having a chatty camp mate made the outrageous $50 a night campsite just outside the park gate almost bearable.

I unhooked the trailer and drove back to the Park for more views.

I hadn’t really planned very far into my day so I just found an open parking spot and headed out. From my parking spot, my park map showed that there was an 8 mile hike along the North Rim that was nice and flat.  I walked for a couple of hours before I came to the Grand Canyon Village, where the pricey lodges, shops and restaurants are concentrated. There I noticed the shuttle buses running the length of the trail I was on to pick up the tired folks and takes them back to the lodge for expensive food and drink. Expensive food and drink isn’t such a big draw for me but I realized that my stopping every 20 feet to take in the views was going to make for a nighttime return. I hopped on the shuttle and took it to the furthest stop and did the hike in reverse. I made it almost all of the way back before I ran out of water and Clif Bars. There isn’t any place to replenish your supplies so I hopped the bus back to the lodge for an expensive beer break.

The one beer was just enough to rest my feet before I had to head out again to catch sunset in the canyons. I learned from the shuttle bus driver that there were a couple of good sunset vantage points along the trail I had spent the afternoon on but too far to reach in time by hiking to them. Back on the shuttle bus.  The sunset was pretty good but the shuttle bus driver must tell all the riders about these vantage spots so I was not alone by a long shot. There are some places to watch the sunset with a lot of people (Mallory Square in Key West comes to mind), but mostly I like them quiet and introspective. This was somewhere in between. Lots of people jockeying for the best position to take a camera phone picture that will soon get an Instagram filter cause God didn’t do a good enough job. Oh well. I enjoyed the canyon’s changing colors but left before the sun sank below the horizon. All these people were going to need a shuttle seat and I didn’t want to get caught in that crush.

 

It still took a long time to get back and by the time I got to the trailer it was way past dark. The campground was in the little town that sets right outside the park but still can charge exorbitant rates for food and drink. I was really tired so I just went out for a pizza and crawled into the sack.

During my roaming around the Grand Canyon Village, I stopped in and asked about any last minute openings at the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Canyon. They mostly reserve out a year ahead but I heard there were sometimes last minute cancellations if you ask at the right time. I did and there weren’t. Probably just as well, I wasn’t equipped for a rustic overnight.  The trail to the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Canyon is a 10 mile classic though. It is shared by the mule trains that haul tourists down and back up. Crossing the Colorado River at the end and surrounded by high walls for most of the trip.

 

I decided to just do a day hike to Phantom ranch instead. 10 miles down and 10 miles up. Except for the fact that I have been pretty much sitting or laying down for the past 3 months, how hard could it be. 

I got up early to blue sky and chilly temps. Perfect for a hike. With my Clif Bars packed and my 2 liter Camelbak filled, I headed down the trail. It wasn’t long before I noticed the signs of my impending doom. Contrary to its pretty name, Bright Angel Trail is a death march for those of us stupid enough to do it in one day.

      

After all these years, you would think that I had learned by now but as usual, stubborn beats smart most of the time. Off I went to bottom of the Grand Canyon.

It is a beautiful hike. You would think that having nothing to see but rocks and brush for 10 miles would get old but it never did. There is even a little forest and primitive campground about halfway to the bottom which is a nice rest stop with a piped water supply before making the final push to the river.

Once I got past the campground, the hikers were few and far between. I got passed by a young Scottish guy trying to burn off the poisons from a Las Vegas Bachelor Party before he had to get on a 12 hour flight back home. He didn’t take much stock in the warning signs because he was even less prepared than I was. He had a 20 oz bottle of water and that was it. I even had to make him use some of my sunscreen because he was getting pretty red and still had 4 hours of hiking ahead of him.  Even so, he was still in way better shape than I and a few minutes later he was long gone.

That was the last human I saw until I got to the river. There was a couple of people down there and the Scottish guy. I took off my shoes and stood in the rapidly moving chilly river. I was tempted to continue another hour to the camp but to tell you the truth, I didn’t have that many steps left in me. Plus there skies looked like they were getting dark. Canyon storms tend to have a lot of lighting and can turn torrential quickly. I had a power bar and headed back up the “hill”.

I headed back up the same trail that I came in which I don’t generally like to do but this trail looked different in the opposite direction. That and I was getting tired, so I was mostly just looking at my feet to avoid tripping over them. I did stop to talk to a slow moving solitary hiker that I passed. He was hiking from the North Rim so his slow pace was nothing to hold against him. The Sky was turning black and raindrops were starting to fall in my head so I hurried on. Hurry is relative because I passed him mostly because he was moving sloooow.

I was lucky because the temperature stayed below 80 degrees the whole hike. Still I was dragging after another break and water refill at the campground, it was a slow going back up the steep trail to the rim.

I came upon another hiker that had left on another trail and hadn’t told his sister at the top where he was going. He told all the rangers that he came across that he was reporting in fine in case she put out a safety check APB with him. We had the same pace so it was nice to have a chat to take my mind off the pain. The trail is mostly in the shadows towards the end of the day so it was getting chilly. With a couple hours left, the Clif Bars were long gone and the Camelback was empty.

There is no option other than to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It was slow going but we finally reach the top of the trail. His sister was there waiting for him and she was PISSSED! I think she thought I was somehow involved in his going off the grid. I slowly backed away from her berating him and headed to the car. I still had a mile to walk to the parking lot. I stopped at the café for a Pizza, beer and water. By the time I was done, I was shivering uncontrollably, dizzy and extremely tired. For the first time that I can remember, I couldn’t finish a pizza and almost left an unfinished beer on the table.

I walked back to the car and crawled into the trailer around 7and pulled my self into a tight fetal ball and passed out. Kind of against the rules to sleep in the parking lot but no one bothered me and short of a bathroom break in the middle of the night, I slept pretty well.

I felt like crap for a few days afterwards but as far as I can tell, no permanent damage. The warning signs were kind of true. If it was a warmer day or I had any less food and water than I did have, the hike could have gone a different way.  

 

 

Here is a gallery of some of the photos I took at the Grand Canyon.

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