Friday, April 21, 2017

Day 51. April 20. Clear Creek campsite to Bright Angel Campsite

 Day 51. Thursday April 20. Clear Creek Campsite, 2 miles off AZT, elev approx. 3600 ft, to Mile 698.5, elevation 2637, to Campsite, mile 697.7, elevation 2470. 

Dear Trail Friends,

Right now there is a very strong wind blowing that has been blowing on and off most of the day and spreads a gritty sandy red dust over everything (my air mattress, stuff sacks, clothes, skin). I do not like this wind at all (to be spoken to the "tune" of "I do not like green eggs at all.")

In fact I am feeling a little on the miserable side. I went over to Phantom Ranch today to treat myself to a beer (a special Bright Angel IPA) and have felt sick-ish ever since.  Not to mention the worry that kicks in about feeling sick-ish. 

On the other hand, this morning I felt grand. I sat in my tent with the netting unzipped so my whole tent front was an open air window and gazed at the canyon around me changing as the sun rose. I was alone in a big quiet beautiful spaciousness and loved just sitting and looking. Photo 1 is a collage of my view as the sun rose and there was more and more light on the canyon walls. 

 

When I packed up after a leisurely morning and started walking I was pleasantly surprised that the trail was nowhere near as difficult as it had seemed in my exhaustion the night before - when I had attributed sadistic motives to the woman ranger who suggested I camp there. 

About half way down I could see Phantom Ranch below me. (Photo 2). I thought a lot about our friend Magda Mische who once managed Phantom Ranch and loved this canyon. I thought of her living and walking here and loving this place. I wondered if anyone working here now remembers her - decades since she was manager and now I think five years now since her premature death. Thinking of her - I think she was in her 50s when she died during a scuba dive - reminds me that none of us knows how long we have to live. And profoundly grateful that I can live my life the way I want to, doing things I live. 

 
 

If you look at the trail you may see several small buildings with dark roofs that blend in with the green around them. From the same overlook, in the opposite direction, was a stunning view of the Colorado River. For some reason I remember a teacher I had back in the 70s when I took offset printing at a community college and dreamed of starting a poetry press. When I told him my name was River he wanted to know which river, and when I had no answer, he began to call me Colorado. I don't always get humor. Especially (to make a gender-alization) male humor. 
Anyway photo 3 is a view of the Colorado, who,I dare say, without being task-oriented has accomplished a great deal more its life than I have in mine. 

 

Photo 4 is a view of the back of my campsite. 

 

Photo 5 is a genuine Grand Canyon rattlesnake that crossed the campground path. The only reason I saw it was that everyone was standing around taking photos of it. 

 

"He really moves beautifully" I said to a man beside me. "How do you know it's a he?" the man responded. "I guess I think of all rattlesnakes as male" I said. The man guessed he thought of them as female. 

Just before dark I realized that the gentler trail up the canyon, the Bright Angel trail, is not part of the AZT and so not part of my app. And here I am planning to start early tomorrow in the dark having no idea where the trail is. So I asked the couple I had chatted with over beer (lovely couple from Ontario - she's originally from Tennessee but moved to be with him. He's a paramedic and she's an accountant. They talked about how different Canada was in its willingness to have government provide needed social services. ) They pointed me in the right direction and I followed the trail across the bridge over the Colorado (a different bridge from the one on the South Kaibab trail) and saw where it turns. So now I feel confident I can find  my way. 

On the way back I saw a notice posted on a bulletin board saying not to use white headlamps and cause light pollution of the night sky. The notice said to use red light (which I know my headlamp has it I have not figured out how to turn on, and which I find does not especially help me to see in the dark) or failing that to hold the headlamp low in your hand pointed down toward the ground. Also hard to do given that I use trekking poles and again does not allow me to see and follow the trail ahead. But I am thinking about it and how I might comply with the intention (to avoid light pollution)and still hike in the dark. 

That I think is all for now. I wonder if my feeling sickly today is related to the loss and disorientation involved in finishing a long walk (or completing any long term task or project, or giving birth to a baby). Once someone said (or quoted) to me "The cure for post partum (depression) is looking." Today I read a lot of my posts (my iPhone couldn't go back further than Day 27. But I read most of those it had) for this trip. Which is maybe a little like gazing at a baby?  What was once inside one's own body and being is now  separate. Leaving one empty. But if one can look, one can start to know it as its own being. A little like Ribbon Falls, after all, and the people emerging from the darkness into the light in which they can see one another. 

Thank you. And goodnight. 

2 comments:

  1. River, your journey is amazing, the photos are stunningly beautiful. xo ~Cynthia

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  2. Glorious.

    Your words have had a good outcome in my heart.
    Tj

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