Tuesday Voice: Grand Canyon adventure—Part 1

Why the Grand Canyon?

By James T. Carney

Why the Grand Canyon? was a question I was asking myself resentfully on the morning of March 3, 2013 as I woke up constipated and filled with fear that I was embarked on an expedition that I was not up to. I remembered the wise words of my college roommate Mo’s invocation of Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” defense when I told him years ago about my concerns about making a trip to Italy with my son’s in-laws, who were going to spend half the time with their Italian relatives who spoke only Italian,which—contrary to my sister’s bold assertion that it was readily comprehensible to any Latin scholar—was unintelligible to me. I didn’t say no to that trip and I didn’t say no to the Grand Canyon either but at that particular moment I was heartily regretting not having learned from the prior experience. Sometimes the spirit of adventure gets the better of my normal, conservative, lawyerly self.
    Well, how did I get involved in a Grand Canyon trip? It started out in 1996 when my wife and I and another couple drove around England and I had a glimpse of Hadrian’s Wall— something which fascinated me both as an Englishman and a somewhat outdated scholar of Roman History. I resolved to come back and see the entire Wall, which meant walking the entire length of the same. After an abortive trip in 1997 with my son Jim, I came back 13 years later with my friend Rich Gainar from my old days at United States Steel and we spent nine days walking the length of the Wall from Browness-on-the-Solway to Wallsend outside of Newcastle. While I had spent some time training for the trip by walking around Mt. Lebanon (my municipality) for several hours at a time, the trip was not an arduous one. We averaged about eight miles a day, and the terrain was rather level except for two days in the center of the Wall where we did a fair amount of climbing up and down ridges. That was a great trip because there was a series of forts and museums to visit along the way and the Brits had finally learned to keep beer cold, so there was something to drink each night. The people were friendly. One problem I had hit with more traditional approaches to traveling is that as avid a historian as I am, I get bored after a few days of just looking at things. I do like hiking and so what I call the Hadrian’s Wall approach seemed to me to provide a great combination of hiking and viewing historical sites. I had found—I thought—a modus vivendi for touring.

Two years later I gave my new approach another shot as I made a trip to Machu Picchu by traveling the Inca Trail in Peru. This was definitely not a stroll since we went up to Dead Woman’s pass at 14,000 feet. Rich could not make this trip because he had sleep apnea and could not camp out for three nights without electricity, as we were required to do. So I enlisted another friend from the old USS days—John Shortridge—who is a tremendous athlete—something I am not. I spent a fair amount of time training by walking around Mt. Lebanon again, but John and I made about three trips to the Southside Heights with its 4,000 steps. I was convinced after three tours of the Southside Heights that I was ready to go.
    I was right—barely. I did hike the Inca Trail—refusing to let the porters carry me at one point—but it was not easy. While the Peru trip was a great one (and involved a lot more than just the Inca Trail), I found that the trail was so physically difficult, and I had to take so much time each day getting to our camping spot, that I did not get to enjoy the company of the people with us or to see the ruins that we were passing. Never again, I vowed after that trip.

Several months later, my friend John suggested that we go on a trip down and up the Grand Canyon that was sponsored by the “Road Scholars,” whose members have to be age 55 or older. I hesitated at first but hearing the call of adventure decided to go. Why? is a good question. It was certainly not a historical trip. Of course, the Grand Canyon is historical in a geological fashion but I am one of the world’s most unscientifically interested people. Moreover, the trip involved climbing out of the Grand Canyon in one day, which meant an ascent of 4,000 plus feet—which is more than I had ascended in any one day on the Inca Trail. Finally, the trip was scheduled for the beginning of March and I knew that weather conditions would be problematic. It reminds me of Emerson’s lines, “When duty called ‘thou must’ / The youth replied, ‘I can’” The problem was that there was no duty calling and I am no longer quite a youth. Mo suggested that I was trying to prove something by making this trip and since he knows me better than I know myself, he is probably right.
    In any event, John and I started off training again. This time, though, I did very little walking around Mt. Lebanon; rather, I spent most of my time on the Southside Heights. On each trip, we tried to increase the distance we would cover (and the number of steps we would ascend) so while we never exceeded our time of three and half hours, we covered a lot more ground and steps by the end of the period than we did in the beginning. I got to the point that I could pretty much follow our route in my sleep.
    Training is boring. John and I also spent some time hiking in a park near Pittsburgh where we would go over snowy trails, which was good preparation if we hit bad weather in the Canyon.

Finally, the day arrived. I got an email from John saying that he did not approve of my approach of arriving at the airport at the last moment and that he wanted to pick me up at 5:15 so we would have plenty of time to spare for a 7:00 a.m. departure. So, grudgingly, I got up at 4:00 a.m. to be all ready to go. 5:15 came and went. 5:30 came and went. At 5:40 I called John and got him out of bed. By the time John got to my house, it was 6:00 a.m. and we rushed off to the airport. O.J. Simpson had nothing on us as we went through, and despite the dire predictions of the gate agent, who nevertheless gave us boarding passes, we made out flight with about one minute to spare. After that start, the rest of our trip was uneventful, stopping our rental car at Flagstaff to have a delightful lunch with my Aunt Susan (my father’s youngest brother’s widow) and on to the South Rim and the Grand Canyon visitor’s center. Most visitors come to the South Rim of the Canyon, which is accessible from Phoenix, whereas anyone going to the North Rim has to come from Las Vegas.
    We started to meet the other members of our group at dinner and then following dinner reassembled for formal introductions and an initial briefing. John and I were feeling quite self-satisfied as we looked around the room at our fellow travelers—all whom had to be older than 55. I noted one woman who looked as though she was almost 80 and thought, If she can make it, I can too. Any feelings of comfort that I had at that point were quickly dissipated when the tour leader went around the room and had everyone introduce his or herself. One woman said that she had not done a lot of hiking but she had been up on Kilimanjaro the year before last. One of the men, who was 6′-6″, mentioned that he had been in the Special Forces in Vietnam. After the tour leader went on to describe how difficult this trip was, I began to think about dropping out and taking the car back to Flagstaff and visiting my aunt for a couple of days.
    The only thing that saved me from a total collapse of nerves was taking a practice hike the next day when we went down (and up) about a mile on the trail that we would take getting out of the Canyon. It was pretty icy so we had crampons to keep from slipping on the ice. I had never used them before but I managed reasonably well. After hearing the guide say that she used this trip to weed out anyone whom she thought would not make it and that all of us had passed the test, I felt somewhat more optimistic. Also, the information that it cost $3,000 to be evacuated from the Canyon certainly moved my Scotch soul to greater determination. I suppose that it would have been cheaper to have ridden a mule back up at least. (For some reason, everyone I know keeps talking about donkeys but these were mules on the trail and I knew, a, the difference between and ass and a mule and, b, that the last thing I wanted to do was spend eight hours riding on top of the one the meanest, most ill-tempered animals that God graced the earth with.) One thing that I did learn from the practice trip was that I did not need all of the heavy clothing I brought, so I left some—but not enough—in our car.

Next Tuesday: “In and about with people”
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Copyright © 2013 by James T. Carney

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