Day 50. Part 2. Wednesday April 19. Grand Canyon Village to Mile 690.6 (South Kaibab Trailhead) to 704.1 (Trail to Ribbon Falls) & back to Mile 698.5 (Clear Creek Trail) to campsite. Walked 13.5 on trail northbound plus 5.4 southbound plus 2.2 road walking from Yavapai Lodge plus 2 on Clear Creek Trail - in all walked 23.1 miles. For the 13.5 northbound on trail, 1895 up, 5269 down, total grade 535.7 ft/mi. For the 5.4 southbound in trail, 463 up, 1557 down, total grade 377.2. For the last 2 miles on Clear Creek Trail the app won't calculate but there was an overall elevation gain ( though with some ups and downs) of 1000 ft, so total grade at least 500 ft/mi.
Oh dear, Trail Friends,
Making choices and dealing with finitude is truly hard for a greedy person. Which photos do I share? What if I forget some of the stories that made this pilgrimage meaningful?
Suppose I forget to tell you about the man I met coming up the South Kaibab trail as I hiked down. He was covered in sweat. He had hiked down the Bright Angel trail - the 9 mile trail with gentler grade - and was now hiking up the South Kaibab with its greater than 10% grade. "I'm Irish" he said. "We Irish have to do things the hard way." I said that maybe that fit with the Irish writers I loved. He said "That's what we're good at. Writing and making war."
Or the man I saw running up the North Kaibab trail toward the north rim. "Are you an ultra runner?" I asked (proud that I'd learned the term). "Not really," he said. "Just seemed like a good day for a suffer-fest."
Or the young man I walked by when I was heading for the Yavapai Lodge front desk. "You look all ready for a wilderness hike," he said, as if he thought it an awfully fun joke. When I didn't laugh he repeated it (patiently),but I still didn't laugh. Afterwards I found myself thinking up rejoinders like "I've just come from 680 miles of a wilderness hike" - but the more I thought about the less I could guess what his joke was about.
I wasn't prepared for the Grand Canyon to be the desert in bloom all over again, only this time against the backdrop of the majestic canyon. Majestic is the best word I can think of for this place. Vast. Awesome. And the quiet. Especially the vast awesome majestic quiet when I camped out alone or when I sat and watched the sky darken and the stars come out.
I made a collage of the flowers for photo 6. And yes the middle photo is not a flower. He's the first lizard on the whole walk willing to sit still long enough for me to photograph him.
The hike down was the great joy of the hike. I said to myself that if the whole hike had been suffering, it would have been worth it for this. It helped me realize, or formulate into words, my belief that moments of beauty (including the beauty of human kindness) can out-balance even long stretches of pain. (As a child I believed just the opposite. I am grateful for the change. )
I started at the lodge st 4:20. I decided not to take the shuttle to the Trailhead. I wanted the solitary quiet encounter with nature. So glad I did. In the first early predawn glimmers of light I could vaguely make out the canyon beside my walk. It was so unimaginably steep and deep in that darkness. It set the mood perfectly for my hike.
Because I cannot bear to choose, and cannot accept the fact that no photo can give you the experience of walking into this canyon in the changing early morning light, I made another collage.
The mule train picture reminds me that a woman mule rider informed me that mules are badly spooked by umbrellas. So every time I saw a mule train coming I unfastened my umbrella, removed it, and carefully collapsed it.
Speaking of which here's the photo of me with umbrella attached that shows the silver on the outside. (Chris has been requesting this). The umbrella has been very helpful in the unshaded heat.
Usually I take my sun hat off when the umbrella is up. Great to feel breeze on my head.
A lot of the walk I was imagining coming back again and bringing my whole family. I even imagined a family thanksgiving in the canyon (though the weather is probably prohibitive). There was such a longing to share all this beauty. I was happy to be hiking in imagination not only with my father (of the past) but with my family (because realistically it can probably never happen except in imagination. And happenings in imagination can be very powerful. I imagined Chris, my brothers and their spouses, my sisters, my nieces and nephew and grandneice (I imagined her in a backpack carried by her dad). The more unrealistic it seemed the more vividly I imagined it. Everyone loving the place as much as I did, each in their own way. I imagined all of you too - but we had to spread out a bit so we could all experience the solitary joys as well as connectedness.
When I reached the bottom and decided I wanted to complete the pilgrimage, I was hiking along Bright Angel creek (which I am camped beside on my rest day as I write). It wasnt exactly disappointing, but it wasn't what I'd pictured either. I guess the term "Bright Angel" and the way I made it a metaphor for the shining spirit within each of us, I pictured a crystal clear creek that sparkled in sunlight like diamonds.
Instead, Bright Angel creek is muddy and murky but it plunges along with vitality and vigor and ferocity - its music is almost a roar, and its movement - white water waves swirling and heaving around rocks and curves - is powerful. I began to think of our "bright angel" spirits not as clear and transparent but as muddy and murky, plunging energetically toward our fates be they redemptive, heroic, or tragic. That fits with my love for Freud and the notion of the unconscious as the source of most of our choices and motivations. Not crystal clear transpstent sparkling rationality but a complex and conflicting mix of instinctual desires that heave us forward, will we or nil we. So photo 10 (a collage of two) is a tribute to Bright Angel creek and to the strong and inscrutable forces that shape all our destinies.
To be continued in Day 50, part 3
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