Their Own Self
FRED Columns
Their Own Self
FRED Columns
Down And Up Again
Three Maniacs And Four Days In The Grand Canyon
March 31, 2003
Last September a couple of college buddies and I walked across the
Grand Canyon, from the North Rim to the South. It was one of those trips
we were always going to make, sometime, but hadn't. Planning had been
elaborate. The Park Service wisely limits foot traffic, requiring permits
that must be gotten far in advance. It's a nuisance, but keeps Disney
out. Rob and I flew into Denver, where Dan lives, and drove the rest
of the way.
The open road was a relief. The flight out had not been pleasant. The
country was in the grip of its new institutionalized fear. The security
police were being themselves. I had thought to bring a book on the Wahabis
to read on the flight, but had imagined a security apparatchik deciding
he had found a terrorist. I left it at home.
On the far side of the Rockies the land flattened out and lost the
excessively lived-in appearance that begins to make Colorado look like
the East. I realized that I hadn't crossed the deserts since I had hitchhiked
them in the Sixties. Much had changed since then, and more since I had
first seen the big empty lands while crossing the continent at age six
with my parents. The deserts were still appallingly large despite the
intrusion of the Interstates. Towns, though, were giving way to the
homogenization and franchised conformity that cause any part of America
to look like any other. The West remains magnificent territory.
The Canyon was the same glowing caldron of reds and dusky purple that
I remembered from earlier trips, changing shades and hues with the dying
sunlight. It is probably impossible to take a bad picture of the Canyon.
At the North Rim we checked into the lodge, ate, and hit the sack, suspecting
that four a.m. would come early. It did. We saddled up in chilly darkness,
had breakfast, and hoofed it toward the trail head. The last day would
be a climb of 5000 vertical feet, so we kept our packs light at about
thirty pounds.
Going down, you don't see the Canyon. The trail descends through a
narrow side-canyon, a crevice, so that you find yourself traversing
vast walls that loom above and fall away to depths that an acrophobe
would not want to contemplate. The rock face varies from green to tan
to brown, weathered by thousands of years of wind and rain. You walk
for hours in a huge shaded silence. The thought inevitably comes that
you are in the presence of something above your pay-grade. The Canyon
was old when whatever partial molar and fragment of jawbone, thought
to be our ancestor, was gnawing bones in the perplexity of too much
skull and not enough content. It will be around when we are long gone.
I doubt that we will be missed.
In my wandering years I passed through the South Rim, I forget just
when or why. Hitchhiking by its nature is anecdotal: You remember people
and places, but not how they are connected. At a place on the rim that
did not seem much traveled, I climbed down a face that was exposed enough
that I probably shouldn't have done it. Falls tend to be long in the
Canyon. In the rock face I found a small chamber, hollowed out I thought
by hands. It was deep enough to escape both weather and detection, and
did not look natural.
I sat in it for some time and surveyed the Canyon, which wasn't doing
anything. Since then I have wondered whether anyone else had been there
since some Indian, for whatever reason, had sat where I was sitting,
and watched for… what?
We continued down. A cold stream ran along the trail much of the way,
tumbling and splashing and seeming to enjoy itself mightily. When the
urge hit we sat in it, buck nekkid if we chose, until the heat of the
trail had dissipated. If life gets better, I'm unaware of it.
The lodge and campground of Phantom Ranch at the bottom were, like
everything in the Canyon, well run and full of good people. Long-haul
backpackers are extraordinarily convivial and decent. I don't know why.
They seem to have a better idea than do most of what is important to
them. Those who solo hike the 2000 miles of the Appalachian Trail, as
several of these had, tend to be self-contained and able to fend for
themselves. We ran into a couple of Chinese nurses from San Francisco
and an Australian gal and her boyfriend to pal around with. They confirmed
me in my liking for both Chinese and Australians.
We were booked for two nights at Phantom. The next morning Rob and
I did a twelve-miler up the Kaibab Trail, across the plateau on the
Tonto, and down Bright Angel. The climb out the next day would be a
serious day's walking. We wanted our legs to be ready for it. Besides,
we're crazy. For hours we went across rolling empty pink country, immense,
pocked with blue-gray vegetation like frozen mortar bursts. A shriveled
creek provided water and shade for lunch. Except for us and one idiot
who had gotten lost--you can die in the desert---the world was deserted.
I decided that if God hadn't created the Canyon, he missed a good
chance.
To be on the safe side we began the climb out at first light. Rob
and I had a long history of week-long up-and-down hikes through the
mountains of the East, with substantially heavier packs, but this was
going to be pure, steady, serious ascent. We wanted to get the jump
on it. The store on the South Rim carried a book called something like
Death in the Canyon, of which there are some. I'm told that most
involve out-of-shape people who proceed to cash in because of heart
attacks and heat stroke. Still, it is wise to respect the geography.
It was a hump, but not a killer. A major help were Leki poles, now
almost universal in the back country. Their virtues are hard to quantify,
but they improve balance, avoided twisted ankles, and shift muscular
effort to your shoulders. You go faster. As we ascended above the level
of the plateau we found ourselves on endless sunny switchbacks overlooking
the whole gaudy basin. The walls of the Canyon have well-marked strata.
You measure your progress by which of them you have put below you.
It was a splendid trip. If you have the chance, do it.
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