Day 52. April 21. Bright Angel Camp to Bright Angel Trailhead

Day 52. Friday April 21. Bright Angel Campground at bottom of Grand Canyon to Bright Angel Trailhead at South Rim. Walked 9 miles, up at least 4800 ft 

Dear Trail Friends,

Life is funny. Yesterday evening I was puzzled and annoyed by a flyer that warned against light pollution ruining others' view of the night sky. Then as I settled into my tent last night the four campers in the site beside me all seemed to be wearing headlamps. White beams shot across the sky at various angles, moving as the campers walked about.  No chance to look out from my tent at the stars. I put on my nightshades so I could sleep through the light show, and realized that the intent of the flyer I had seen was to encourage campers in high density campgrounds to use red lights or hold their white lights low to the ground so they wouldn't bother their neighbors. I learned my lesson. In the morning I did everything at my campsite with red light, only turning on my full power white light when I was on the trail, and being careful to keep my head straight (and beam on trail not on adjacent campsites). It was fun to have life "explain" the flyer to me. 

I started hiking at 4am. The trail of course is well constructed and not dangerous to hike in the dark. In fact walking the footbridge over the Colorado was much less scary at night than in the daytime probably because I couldn't see below me. 

Maybe you'd enjoy seeing a photo of the bridge (in daylight). 

 

The river is pretty fierce right now, both its motion and its roar. The bridge "floor" is made of bars with gaps so one can see through to the tumult below. Speaking of which, I learned from another hiker that Bright Angel Creek is usually as clear and sparkling as I imagined it. Right now there is a lot of snow on the north rim melting and making the creek wild and muddy. Interesting that I assumed what I saw was the nature of the creek, rather than, as the expression goes, a phase it was going through. Not sure how all that relates to the pilgrimage. Not sure I need to be sure. 

I feel deeply content with the pilgrimage today. Proud (and grateful) that I was able to complete it. Feeling changed by it but of course not knowing exactly how I've been changed. Meanwhile I have so so many beautiful photos from today's hike up the canyon that I want to share with you - and as usual I cannot share them all. So shall we all get together for a potluck and slideshow? Wouldn't it be fun to celebrate face to face with all of you. 

Meanwhile there's the blog to write. Let's start with the one photo I know I want to share. It's a composite of a photo of me at the top of the trail at the end of my hike and the one of my father. I think it says a lot about time and place and the generations that I don't know how to put into words. 

 

I really feel as if I connected with the Poppa Bear (as we call my dad) and his passion for the canyon on this walk. I feel deeply at peace about that connection. Again, proud and grateful. Maybe the apple didn't fall so far from the tree. Now why is that making me all teary?

Maybe you'd like to see the beginning of my hike in the dark, under a crescent moon. 

 

I had the hike all to myself until almost 7am, which was wonderful. I took two long breaks and I ate lots of calories (I actually bought myself the archetypal junk food - Snickers bars - when I realized that sugar makes it much easier for me to climb steep trails. ) By the end of my hike (around 10 or 11) the trail was very crowded with people. Almost all of them, day hikers and back packers alike, with big happy smiles. The interactions with people were sweet. Like a young German couple, doctors from Munich, with whom I bemoaned recent election results. Or the sweet young woman (also a doctor) who took the photo for my Poppa Bear composite. Or the couple from Ontario - I think I mentioned them yesterday - who I saw on the trail again today. The people interactions were not separate from the vast natural wonder all around us. They were part of it. 

I couldn't choose so you get two collages. One is more from the lower part of the hike, the solitary morning part. The other is more from the later part as I got higher up the canyon (and people became a big part of the trail. ) 

 

 

I'm in the laundromat near the Yavapai Lodge where to the horror of my Scottish ancestors I am once again indulging myself in a room. I love sleeping in my tent. I also love sleeping in a comfortable bed, having a warm bath, being cooked a hot meal. 

I am so reluctant to bring this blog to an end. To acknowledge that this whole rich and difficult pilgrimage - of which you and the blog have been such an essential part - is over. 

Let me put my clothes in the dryer and we'll see if I'm more ready to bring this to an end. 

I seem to have lost my laundry bag. A great white plastic bag with a drawstring and "laundry" written on it. I lost my earphones for my iPhone too sometime in the last day or two. Endings are another kind of loss because they also involve gain. Maybe all loss does, but I do think endings are a funny combination of death and birth. 

But on the other hand maybe I don't have to end yet. Suppose for instance tomorrow I go to the geological museum and have some deep thoughts about time and the canyon. 

This might be the last entry for the blog but then again it might not. 

In any case, thank you for walking with me on this difficult and beautiful walk. I have been warmed and sustained by your company, your caring and your shared passion for the places and the walking. I feel very honored (albeit a bit puzzled) that you have wanted to come along and also very proud. Forget the potluck and slide show, what I want for our celebration is to make you a gourmet dinner and to serve you great food, great drinks, in a beautiful place - and to do so without attachment to outcome. In a place where all the stories - redemption, tragedy, heroic journey and even the story of human cruelty - can dance with one another for our entertainment until, as Leonard Cohen might say, its closing time. 

Hallelujah. 

**********

Afterword: Tonight at Yavapai Lodge Restaurant, I drank Four Peaks Kilt Lifter beer. I drank this first at the Kearny Inn early in my hike and loved it. I hiked through the Four Peaks wilderness area after Roosevelt Lake. And now I meet this beer again in the Grand Canyon. The playful Scottish name of course makes me think of my father and his pride in being Scottish - not to mention my intellectual/spiritual father Sigmund Freud who would point out with a sardonic smile that the name evokes both that primal desire to lift the father's kilt and seduce him, and so to become the primary and only object of his affection, and the conflicting desire (since our desires do inevitably conflict) to steal the paternal penis and all the phallic power it represents in order to become the primary and only beloved of the mother. 

That said, one could imagine the Grand Canyon as the ultimate (great/grand) mother symbol, and this pilgrimage as learning at this late stage in life that there is more joy in sharing than in trying to conquer. Yes, it was wonderful to sleep alone at Clear Creek Overlook and feel as if I had her all to myself. And yet - the glowing faces of all the people moved by the wonder and majesty of her immense presence - that also is precious. 

Now I'm all tangled up on what kilt lifter beer is supposed to mean to me. Let's just lift those Scottish kilts and do an Irish jig (perhaps in honor of my Irish stepfather who won my mother - but lost her in the end to her sheer determination to be herself and live her life fully - funny that I should interact with two young women doctors as I climbed out of the canyon and that my mother was a young woman doctor back when women doctors, especially married women doctors with children, were rare and surprising. Enough do that a judge in a bitterly conflicted custody case could say "I don't believe in women doctors. I don't think a woman should be a doctor. I find for the father. ") 

Ah - there are so many stories we can weave around this beautiful pilgrimage. I think it's enough to just lift the kilts (lift them just a little - in spite of my nude photo I think that a little bit of mystery is a good thing) and just dance our jig. Hike our own hike, lift our own kilt, and dance our own jig. 

Before I say goodbye for now - I want to mention that my next hike I hope (if I can get the logistics done in time) will be a summer hike of the Oregon coast. This will not be a pilgrimage or task-oriented in any way. It will be, I believe, more a meandering, a wandering, a return to a little girl who loved to walk on the beach and discover what the waves had washed up, before she discovered the adrenaline surge of goals and tasks and competition. It will be about tides and small treasures (especially beach glass which my sister Judy collects) and I very much hope you will want to join me on it. Thank you ahead of time for your support, which makes everything possible.