Tuesday Voice: Grand Canyon adventure—Part 2

In and about with people

By James T. Carney

[Sequel to "Why the Grand Canyon?"]

Actually, one of the most interesting and enjoyable parts of the trip involved interacting with the other 16 people (including the two guides) in our group. I suspect that we had an unusual group in two respects. (1) These people were physically hardy—unlike me, they were all outdoorsmen (and women); and (2) they were extremely friendly and the group got along very well. There were two couples (one from Wisconsin and one from British Columbia), two groups of two friends (including John and myself), one aunt and the niece from Kilimanjaro, and six unattached individuals (although one, David, a North Jersey boy like myself, had left his wife up on the South Rim.) Some of them had done some training for the trip; many, however, were taking it in stride. One fellow traveler was Susan Wilson from Miami. She was a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and a retired financial analyst for the DOD. I asked her how she had trained—Miami tending to be flatter than a pancake—and she said that she went up and down the stairs in her apartment building. That sounded even more boring than going up and down the Southside Heights.

This trip was a little unusual one for the Road Scholar organization. Most of their tours are closer to the kind of academic trips college alumni groups offer. That is, there are often lectures at some point along the way and the emphasis is generally more academic than physical. The activity levels range from Easy (which means sitting in a lecture hall all day petty much) to Challenging. However, looking at the last publication from Road Scholar that I received, there were only two or three trips listed as “Challenging” and none was as physically challenging as the Grand Canyon trip. This trip seemed particularly suited for John and me as people who had some affinity with Winnie the Pooh—the bear of little brain. The best thing about the Road Scholar program is that it enables men and women to go on a trip with a group of people who have generally the same interests and who are generally good company. I am handling an estate for a widow whom I told about the program. She had always wanted to go to Newfoundland but did not have any close friends and did not want to travel alone. I think that a Road Scholar trip will work out well for her.
    The one problem I have with the Road Scholar trips (and, indeed, with any tour) is that I always figure I can go wherever a tour is going without the need for a tour guide or organization. I have fortunately always been able to enlist unsuspecting traveling companions who are taken in by my confidence game—at least, fortunately for myself if not for them; on the other hand, I have always brought anyone who went with me back in reasonably good condition. I have never been concerned about traveling in foreign countries since I have always believed that Churchill was right when he said that if you speak loudly and firmly enough, the natives will understand English. Of course, that is a problem only in some parts of the United States.
    One compelling reason for taking the Road Scholar trip to the Grand Canyon is that it is almost impossible to get accommodations at the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Canyon without being part of a group. (Indeed, even getting a permit to camp at the Angel Canyon camping grounds at the bottom of the Canyon requires one to request at least 12 months in advance of one’s trip) So this trip really justified a tour.

View of the Grand Canyon from the South Rim

On Monday morning (March 4, 2013), we got up and set out. Although the South Kaibab Trail (which is the steepest and shortest trial to the bottom) was a little icy, it did not require us to use crampons. I had three water bottles of which I used only part of one; although dehydration is a major problem traveling in the Southwest, I have found that I use relatively speaking little water and these two bottles were all dead weight. All of us were equipped with hiking poles, which I had never used before the Inca Trail trip. I believe that their main use is in going down, although I used them going up as well. Some of our group were less comfortable than I was with them. Going down is both easier and harder than going up. It clearly does not require the same energy and strength that going up requires; on the other hand, it is more dangerous because the chances of falling are greater. One really good thing about both Grand Canyon trails that we hiked was they were both quite wide and quite clean—i.e., they had no trees growing across them and precious few stones to trip on. Of course, the fact that they had to be used by mules meant that they had to be wide and uncluttered. Certainly, they were much easier hiking than most trails I had been on.

Mule train passing me on the South Kaibab Trail

    Speaking of mules, we passed several mule trains on the way down and on the way up. Mule trains have the right of way. (I operate on the basis that anyone else on the trail has the right of way.) Some of the mule trains were carrying passengers—poor souls. I doubt if any of them were able to walk the next day.
    One of my major objects of academic interest on the trip was the composition of mule shit. I saw a great deal of it on the way down and even more so on the way up. There were two major conclusions I drew from my study: (1) mules eat grass and (2) mules do not digest grass very well, with the result that most of their droppings consist of blades of grass. Despite their tendency to litter the landscape, mules are indispensable in the Canyon since they are the only sources of supply for the Phantom Ranch and the U.S. Park service employees at the bottom of the Canyon. I also concluded that the cow towns in the old west where transportation was always by horse must have been as dirty as shit, since horses are no better than mules at personal hygiene.

The actual trip down on the South Kaibab Trail was rather uneventful. We did have splendid views of all levels of the Canyon—something that you cannot see very well from the Rim. There was one point on the trail where we went for almost a mile on somewhat level ground. This portion was known as the Mormon Trail because it had been laid out by a group of Mormons. (Smart people those Mormons—everyone else had to dig into mountains, but they had a level surface to deal with.) On the way down, I talked to one of the guides who had spent his last twenty years living in Flagstaff (aka “Poverty with a View”) with its low wages and high cost of living. He was doing what he wanted in life, which is something admirable, although I have always been happy that my tastes for enjoyment have been more profitable. Although the trail to the bottom was about eight miles long, it was only in the last mile and half of the trail down that we could see the Colorado River, which is the lifeline of the West. Almost all the water used by Southern California and Arizona comes from the Colorado. Without it, those areas would return to the desert. (That might not be such a great disaster.)
    The group had spread out after lunch, which had been characteristic of my Inca Trail trip. That is, I was the last one to reach the Phantom Ranch. The main thing driving me to get there was the thought that I had to make it by 4:00 p.m., before the canteen closed, so I could buy some beer. This thought sped me so much on the last mile of the trip on level ground after I crossed the Colorado on a bridge that I actually passed someone on the trail. I staggered into the canteen to a round of great applause (although no one offered to buy me a beer).

Crossing the Colorado on the way down

    In all events, cheered by three beers and the thought of supper coming up, I dropped my pack in a coeducational bunk inhabited by, among others, two ladies from Wisconsin who took great umbrage at my snoring—as I learned the next day. We had supper about 7:30 p.m. (the ranch served two shifts, the first always being the group that was going to go up the next morning and thus would need the earliest dinner and breakfast). The food was amazingly good. After supper we sat around and talked for a while before hitting the sack.

Breakfast for our group was about 7:30 a.m.. We were given a choice of two trips—one walking along the river, crossing on the bridge we came over, and taking a trail down the other side to cross back on a second bridge, and the other making a 13-mile round-trip up Angel Canyon to Angel Falls. John and I decided (along with half a dozen others) to do the second, on the grounds that it sounded more interesting and might also help us get in shape for the climb up the Canyon. It proved to be the right choice because the terrain we saw was interesting; traveling along a creek with the water flowing down is always soothing to the spirit and the waterfall was beautiful. We were even able to go behind the waterfall, which was an interesting experience in itself. The trail which we took to the waterfall was actually part of the 13-mile trail to the North Rim of the Canyon. We deviated from the trail to cross the creek at a lower point (which involved eliminating a climb and descent on the regular trail). In crossing the creek several times to get to the waterfall, we had to jump from stone to stone—something I was used to from the Adirondacks although I had not done it for quite a while. Our lieutenant colonel from the Army Reserve was further out of boot camp than I and slipped on one rock. We hauled her out and after we got to the falls, in a moment of chivalry, I lent her my spare pair of socks, which she returned later on and bought me a beer besides. Who said chivalry was out of date?

Crossing Bright Angel Creek

    On the way back to the Ranch, I began to feel pretty good and picked up my pace. I actually averaged 3.2 miles an hour going back, which was decent, although in the army one is supposed to do four miles an hour (on level ground) carrying a fifty pound pack. I even passed up several people and got in camp by 3:15 p.m. with plenty of time to draw my daily ration of grog. We had an early dinner that night that included a great steak. Having learned long ago to live off the country, I carefully seated myself next to the one vegetarian in the group and landed a second steak which was as delicious as the first one. Nothing like the condemned men and women having a hearty meal. In deference to my co-ed neighbors, I asked around for a sleeping bag because it was quite warm at the bottom of the Canyon and I would have been quite happy to sleep out. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate one. Now, Road Scholars had tried to deal with the snoring problem by telling everyone to bring ear plugs but either my neighbors did not follow instructions or their ear plugs were not sufficient, because at least twice that night I was aware of being kicked—or perhaps being pressed by someone’s foot—against the wall of the cabin so that my snoring would be smothered. I would not consider the women from Wisconsin to be ladies.

Next Tuesday: “Up and out”
_______________
Copyright © 2013 by James T. Carney

Please comment