Day 46. April 15. Mile 625.6 to Mile 647.4

Day 46. Saturday, April 15. Mile 625.6. elev. 6378 to Mile 647.4, elev. 6619. Walked 21.8 miles, 1065 up, 777 down, total grade 84.3 ft/mi

Dear Friends,

Once again, more miles with little up and down and a very very gentle grade. I continue to be amazed that I can hike 20+ miles with such ease compared to how exhausted I was by 15 on the more difficult trail. 

I woke up as usual around 4am and started hiking at 10 til 5. I enjoyed as always walking under a dark sky with stars and a waning moon and watching the light slowly appear in the east. 

Photo 1 shows the sunrise. 

 

I had planned my first rest stop at a water source. They are fairly scarce here. Just before I reached it, Purple Pants pulled up on his bicycle and walked it awhile beside me. It was lucky for me he did because he guessed immediately where the water would be, pointing out a berm (a man made hill) saying that people often built berms to support natural ponds. Sure enough we climbed the berm and found the cow pond which was surprisingly clear (they are often muddy or at least the water is tinted yellowish-brown). 

Photo 2 is looking up at the berm from the pond. At the top are Purple Pants' bicycle, Purple Pants taking a photo of the pond, and my backpack pressed against a trekking pole and some rocks so that I could hang my gravity water filtering system from the pole (there being no trees around). Purple Pants figures out how to get it to balance.

 

Purple Pants also explained why the gps app refers to both actual metal water containers and ponds as "tanks." He said its the term ranchers use, and then hazarded a guess that the word tank, long before we could build metal containers for water, referred to anything (usually a land form) that could contain water. Interesting idea and I hope to look up the etymology of tank if I ever get cell service again. I definitely envied Laughs a Lot who had Verizon. He said he's been very happy since switching to Verizon. "We pay more," he said. "But we actually get coverage."

Also last night with our tents very close together Purple Pants and I had an interesting conversation between adjoining tents. He had a lot of careers - geophysicist with the petroleum industry, software engineer project manager (or something like that) and high school physics teacher. He said none of them was quite right for him, though he enjoyed teaching most. But he was a "task-oriented" person and probably would have been happy in medical emergency work. 

That got me thinking during my morning walk about my own love for emergency work. How clearly defined my task was. A structured interview. Make a diagnosis. Decide if someone is danger to self or others due to mental illness. Arrange for hospitalization. Plan transportation. Notify relatives. Very defined. Very linear. Not much ambiguity. (One tended to ignore the ambiguity and pretend it wasn't there). 

Clearly part of what I love about hiking is there is a clear task. Put one foot in front of the other. Find water. Find a rest place. Eat. Find a tentsite. Sleep. 

I thought how much of life does not consist of simple defined tasks.  How much of therapy did not. How hard it was to know when and whether to figure out what was broken and how to fix it, when to simply be present with another human being as they endure the suffering and tragedy of their life - including the habits of character that create what might appear to others as unnecessary suffering. 

Maybe I am grieving how hard therapy was for me, how much I wished I had been more skillful and confident, done more for people and (oh yes) received more acclaim. An always full practice, long waiting list, reputation for being able to give people exactly what they needed. I knew therapists like that and I envied them. 

Because of course I always wanted to be the best. I was valedictorian in high school. I still remember how delighted I was when, taking undergraduate courses in biology, organic chemistry, physical chemistry and biochemistry simultaneously (to persuade MIT to admit me to graduate school, which they did when I completed the semester with all As), I set the curve on the physical chemistry final exam. 

So competitive. But competition reduces life to things that can be measured and compared. It's like being task oriented. Being oriented toward what can be measured. 

So I am walking along ruminating on all this, enjoying the easy road and my stride, and it occurs to me I am doing 20+ mile days and I am going to arrive at the Grand Canyon on the 17 or 18th instead of the 20th and all of a sudden I get a rush of adrenaline and wonder if I could hike all the way to the Utah border and finish the whole trail. 

I get a rush just like the old emergency rush. Super focused, calm, clear, energetic. I start figuring out how I could do it and also observing how much I enjoy a challenging task and going at it. 

Then I stopped back. Okay, it is great fun to imagine finishing. To outdo myself. To surpass my plan. It's like setting the curve on my own personal challenge. But. I would be doing long days and giving up rest days. I could injure myself. What about the bigger picture. Like the trip to Europe with Chris and sister Judy 3 days after I get back. Can I really afford to push myself that hard without risking the next trip?

It was hard for me to let the fantasy go. I realize I have lots of different story lives for this pilgrimage. One is Ribbon Falls pilgrimage to the place where the people emerge out of darkness into light. It's basically a story of transformation and redemption. One is the Broken Bridge pilgrimage to the place where it is not possible to cross over to the dream. It's a story of tragedy and discontinuity. And last but not least is the pilgrimage to the Itah border, the completion of the whole trail. It's a hero's journey sort of a story. The hero overcomes obstacles (so exhausted she cannot even keep up with her plan in the south and has to bow to her limitations) and ends up surpasses her own expectations. 

When Purple Pants and I were sitting at the crest of the berm and my water was filtering we were agreeing that I (about to turn 70) was the oldest person either of us had met on this trail. "You're a freak" he said "being able to hike this at 70." I liked that. Being a freak felt a little like setting the curve. I just realized I no longer remember the calculations and graphs that give meaning to the phrase "setting the curve." But the pleasure is undiminished. 

It's a good thing I switched out of narrow task oriented focus and considered the big picture. Purple Pants showed me pictures on Facebook of the snow in the north rim. One hundred percent coverage. Four feet deep. Bring your paper maps and compass, expect to spend at least one extra day.  It's melting underneath and could become dangerous if one leg falls through it. 

Obviously (to me) I do not have the snow skills or the time to develop them for that kind of challenge. 

So I am back to my many-storied pilgrimage: redemption tale, tragedy, hero's journey. Just seeing the multiple stories makes me detach from all of them and realize they are just stories. They emerge from my/our need and delight to create stories for our lives. Stories create some of the comfort tasks do. They offer simplicity. 

I should arrive Grand Canyon Village early the morning of the 18th, if my present pace continues. I hope to get a permit to sleep two nights, the 19th and the 20th at Bright Angel campground. Then I'd hike down the 19th, sleep at the bottom, hike to the broken bridge on the Ribbon Falls trail the 20th, and hike back up the 21st. Two days ahead of schedule. Then perhaps shuttle to Flagstaff, get to rest and get clean and visit again with Ted and Melody, before heading home early in the morning of the 25th. All that rest, time to digest and reflect on the experience before getting home and shifting gears to go to Europe, will really be good for me. 

Photo 3 shows you the kind of landscape I hiked through most of today. 

 

Big flat open spaces wide horizons. A simple unspectacular landscape yet pleasurable. 

Then toward evening a slight climb and complete change. Photo 4 shows the trail rising tiward trees. 

 

I expected to camp just over the rise,shortly after entering Kaibab National Forest. But I couldn't find the campsite described in the app and I was finding the evening sun through the trees beautiful and heart-lifting. I wanted a photo but no one little rectangular piece of that woods seemed to even hint at the joy and magic I felt. I ended up hiking a mile and a half more than I'd intended just I think because I was living it so much. 

I did take this strange photo. Just as I began to climb into the woods I noticed someone had put the skull of a cow into a tree. I found it beautiful and eerie. And it reminded me of the Day of The Dead, all the skeletal figures dancing and playing and parading. So here if photo 5 - tree with skull. 

 

There is one more small story I want to tell you. I mentioned that Melody gave me a hawk feather and I sewed it to my hat. It was from a hawk that had died. On the trail I found a tiny blue feather and a tuft of fur (clearly the end of a tail, perhaps a dog, raccoon, possum?) and picked them up with the strange thought that maybe I would see them on my hat. At my second rest stop today there was a black feather. And I sewed them all on my hat. It felt strange. It wasn't art. It wasn't exactly ritual. But there was a sense of connection to these birds and animal who had lost feathers and fur and perhaps their life. All of us together in the same physical world. And simply honoring them, maybe in a sense inviting them to walk with me, blessing them and hoping to receive their blessing I return. A strange idea but I let myself do it. Sewed them on and felt a very soft almost a sacred feeling each time I looked at them on the hat. Just this sense of sharing this strange beautiful world with other living beings. All of us fragile. Leaving parts of ourselves behind and eventually dying. So photo 6 (I'm breaking my rules again of a 4 photo limit so uploading won't be so hard) shows me hatcwith the fur and black feather (the little blue feather you can't see, you just have to imagine it. (That's my sun umbrella by my cheek - silver with a black lining - I have the closed umbrella hooked up to my shoulder strap there more or less in the sane way I hook up the open umbrella. )

 

So that's all for now. If you made it all this way I think you're the freak, not me. And I am enormously grateful as you know for your company.