Grand Canyon – Page 2

The Meaning Of Life – Grand Canyon, Day-2

To understand the meaning of life you have to play below the rim …

When I saw Grand Canyon for the first time, I was on a cross-country motorcycle trip and couldn’t stay long. Standing on the South Rim, I felt it. I’d walk on the floor of the Canyon one day. It may be better not to know your future but in a quantum universe the future is now and sometimes you get a sneak peek. Four months later my old friend Jeff invited me to take that walk. Thirty-five years earlier we explored classical Greek thought together and now we’d explore Grand Canyon. It turns out we were no more prepared for our encounter with the Canyon than we were the Greeks. But after two days in the Canyon we came to understand the incompleteness of life above the rim.

There And

After an arduous 12 hour hike down the 7 mile Kaibab Trail we stumbled into Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Canyon in the pitch black night. We looked and felt like death. We had missed dinner by hours but the cook took mercy on us and whipped-up some camp food. It was awful. We didn’t care. We hurt too much to eat. We fell into our bunks and that’s the last thing I remember about the day we hiked to the floor of Grand Canyon. But our tale was only beginning.

Once we laid down in our bunks that was it – we couldn’t move … the next sound we heard was the breakfast bell … we hobbled outside, looked up through the trees, and saw the morning light bouncing off the rim

*Everyone at Phantom Ranch was custom-built and fine-tuned for hiking the Canyon … Jeff and I didn’t belong here*

*At Phantom Ranch everything needed for operations is brought in by mules.*

*This little guy came crashing down a cliff and popped-out of the brush catching me and him by surprise*

*This angle is seen only from the Canyon floor … photographers light is gone in a nano so you have to be in the moment*

*The terrible power of the Colorado River is palpable at the river’s edge … fall in, you’re gone*

*The Grand Canyon biota has it all: rivers, forests, grasses, rocks, deer, birds, fish, bighorn sheep, black bears, phantoms, and sand dunes*

*The wilderness, yesterday’s tortuous march, and this smooth River trail caused us to underestimate the struggle ahead*

Loren from Luxembourg … we met him yesterday on the way down … he is ideally configured for hiking the Canyon … Loren took side trips all day long and lapped-us often … we saw him so many times we actually miss him

*The Canyon Wilderness even has beaches*

*Our pace was like slow-motion only slower … faster going up, 1 mph vs 3/4 mph … but 12 hours each way*

*We were told the 12 mile Bright Angel Trail going back up was smoother than the Kaibab … it’s a Canyon legend*

*You find yourself looking up a lot wondering if you’ll see civilization again*

*The obstacles on the Bright Angel Trail caused Macbeth-ian despair in us … it’s a good thing we didn’t know about this ahead of time*

*On the way up, the plateau is a major milestone*

*A sampling of the “smooth” Bright Angel Trail*

*We finally breached the plateau … but we’re less than half-way back to the rim*

*We’d have to corkscrew around that rock to get to the Canyon wall switchbacks that would take us to beer at the Bright Angel Bar*

*There is no end to arduous barriers on the Bright Angel*

*Daylight was waning quickly … we ended up walking 3 hours in the dark on dangerous switchbacks*

Rugged individualism and self-reliance were born in the wilderness and that’s probably where they belong … there is little room for empathy or compassion or lending a helping hand when one or the other can cost you your own life … it is a stark brutal fact of life below the rim … you must plan ahead and take care of yourself … our planning was inadequate but we took care of ourselves – and we made it back to the top at 8:15pm, 12 hours to the minute after departing Phantom Ranch

Back Again

Macbeth’s despair of life’s meaning in the face of contrived struggle became a metaphor for our dangerous march down but a young Indian boy named Pi became the metaphor for our hike back up. Macbeth never found the meaning of life but Pi did, trapped on a lifeboat with an adult Bengal Tiger. In the better version of the tale. The Canyon is like an adult Bengal Tiger: it has no empathy, no compassion, and though beautiful, it is not your friend. Grand Canyon is an unforgiving wilderness. It forces you to confront things about playing above and below the rim. Starting down, you’re like a giddy 12 year-old who just wants to see the bottom of the Canyon. But the Canyon has other ideas. It teaches things you never knew about yourself and reminds you of things you forgot. Like being 60. You may not discover the meaning of life in the Canyon but life above the rim will mean a whole lot more after you walk with the ghosts at Phantom Ranch.

In their quest for the meaning of life the ancient Greeks claimed to investigate the things above and below the Earth. That’s what they said. In spite of our encounter with the ancient Greeks and now Grand Canyon, Jeff and I still don’t know the meaning of life. And we freely admit it.

Jeff & me playing below rim – January 30th 2014

The Sweetness of Life

My friend and I are connected now in a different way than before. Whether we see each other again in 35 or a billion years we’ll hug, cry, laugh, and regale each other with memories of that contrived struggle in the Winter of ’14 … that long dusty march that could well have led to a meaningless demise, a tale told by two idiots, full of sound and fury signifying the sweetness of life.

Author Notes – Update February 5th 2018:
The overtones of lament seem melodramatic in retrospect. But Jeff & I were unprepared for the difficulty and danger we encountered on our journey … I had a romantic notion of what it would be like … navigating the trails in Grand Canyon was arduous for guys our age (he was 58, I was 60) … when we made it back up to the South Rim on the second night, our bodies locked-up and we could only hobble for the next few days – we were told we had “the Canyon crawl”

The trails themselves were alternately hard-rock and thick mushy dust with all manner of obstacles that demoralized us … at any given moment we may well have fallen hundreds of feet to a grisly death, victims of a misstep, a stumble, or being lackadaisical … there is no accounting for how we made it back alive

Phantom Ranch is a working camp on the floor of the Canyon … for a small fee on top of your Park entrance fee, you can be assured a hot evening meal, a warm bunk, hot breakfast, and a brown bag lunch for the hike back to the South Rim above … there are several tent campsites where most people stay … it was 17 degrees that night, we were beat to death, and grateful to have a warm bunk … the breakfast bell came right before dawn and it’s a good thing it did – we ended-up needing 12 hours to make it back up the Bright Angel Trail, the last 3 of which were in pitch black darkness on treacherous switchbacks overlooking drops of several hundred feet

If you think there are safe places at Grand Canyon consider this – one month after we left, a man was posing for a photo with the Canyon as his backdrop when a gust of wind blew the hat off his head and into the Canyon … he reached-out instinctively to grab his hat and fell 300 feet to his death leaving his wife holding the camera while his 3 kids watched in horror … this happened right outside the Bright Angel Lodge restaurant on the South Rim in a tourist area where people pose throughout the day … no one is safe in Grand Canyon and each person must be responsible for themselves … it’s the opposite of civilization … and it’s wondrous

Jeff & I should never have hiked to Phantom Ranch but I’m glad we did

‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ – Grand Canyon, Day-1, Afternoon

To dance with a billion year old ghost you have to leave some things behind…

The floor of the Grand Canyon was the surface of the Earth over a billion years ago and is the only place you can walk on Mesoproterozoic soil. It’s time travel without a way-back machine and we couldn’t wait to get there. But with the afternoon half-gone it was dawning on us that we weren’t going to make Phantom Ranch before dark. Phantom Ranch is a working ranch on the Canyon floor and holds the key to dinner, a warm bunk, and a big breakfast for the hike back-up tomorrow. The Canyon’s wondrous beauty and our insane struggle meant we might not make it to Phantom Ranch. Things were becoming dicey as darkness fell upon us. It’s not the first time a beautiful vision caused men to be late for dinner. Our steak dinner at Phantom Ranch would be a dish served cold. We were beginning to fear tomorrow and the 12 mile hike back up to the South Rim. The Kaibab Trail was only 7 miles and it had eaten our lunch after only halfway. Young hikers scampered past us like Jackrabbits and we didn’t know it at the time but one of us was beginning to suffer from hypothermia, the deadly killer of even the most experienced trekkers. Did I mention there is no water on the Kaibab Trail? The awesome views on the descent from the South Rim along the Canyon walls turned into a brutish ‘ignorant march’ through terrible breathtaking beauty. The tale continues…

photographers light 1 — *View available only to those who descend below the rim*

photographers light at redrock layer 1 — *The photographer’s light lasts less than 30 minutes*

photographers light at redrock layer 2 — *Colors are distinct mineral layers*

photographers light on plateau — *The plateau – less than half-way to the Canyon floor*

detail of arduous Kaibab trail 2 — *Treacherous beauty – one little trip, you’ll never be seen again*

Darwin award candidate — *A “Darwin Award” candidate in all his glory*

trail to rr stop — *The first and last latrine stop on the Kaibab – it’s now or never*

latrine lady — *This young woman was employed cleaning latrines by the National Park Service – some people will do anything to hike the Canyon every day*

hikers around tree at rr stop — *At the latrine stop everyone gathers around and shares stories*

young women trekkers at rr stop — *These young women were day-hiking the Kaibab – humbling*

dead tree at rr — *Even dead things are beautiful in the Canyon*

the beginning of real pain — *As we left the latrine stop to resume our descent, physical pain went with us … the pounding you take on the Kaibab is merciless*

indian nps water treatment engineer — We met this guy as he was hiking out … employed at Phantom Ranch as the water treatment engineer for the past 15 years he works one week on and one week off – he was headed up to the rim for a week of R&R

redrock section begins — *The crevice into which we’d be descending shortly – or so we thought … everything is farther away than it seems*

descending below the plateau — *We breached the plateau – we’re halfway to Phantom Ranch!*

detail of arduous Kaibab trail — Kaibab is arduous and brutal … each step sent shock waves up our entire body causing us to move at snail’s pace … young people bounded up and down like bouncing balls completely unfazed … we were awestruck by their performance but powerless to up our game even a little

mules at halfway — *The linen and grocery mule team brought the demoralizing news that we’d only made it halfway at this point*

mules at halfway rear view — *It was like a scene from a Cowboy movie … but these are real jobs with real people who love doing it*

trail goes from red to green — *The change in color marks the descent to the plateau but it only gets steeper and more arduous after that*

detail of Colorado and plateau line — *Our first glimpse of the Colorado gave us renewed hope and lifted our spirits*

fakeout view of Phantom Ranch — *The mule station below … Phantom Ranch is about a half mile up the Bright Angel Creek from there*

first view of the bridge to Phantom Ranch — *The bridge across the Colorado! But then we saw those wicked switchbacks and it killed our spirit*

two jeffs — Finally reaching the bottom we were seeing double … when he caught up to me Jeff didn’t offer a word, a nod, or a wink – he just kept staring at the ground and disappeared into a dark tunnel leading to the bridge entrance … I noticed that he no longer had his wool coat which weighed 5 pounds if it weighed an once and guessed rightly that he’d donated it to the Phantom of the Canyon at some point back up the trail, a fitting end to a coat that had made so many journeys here with him in younger times

tunnel to bridge across the Colorado — *Jeff was frightfully catatonic when he entered this tunnel and I had to scramble to get my backpack on and go find him by following the tick-tack of his hiking sticks*

Once we saw the light at the end of this tunnel leading to the bridge over the Colorado we knew we were going to make Phantom Ranch that night. It was a pitch black march over the last mile on the floor of the canyon and it was getting cold but our minds were preoccupied with tomorrow. Given the damage to our 60 year old bodies inflicted by 7 miles of hard-rock, would we be able to make it up the 12 mile Bright Angel Trail tomorrow and back to the known world or would Macbeth’s long shadow of dusty death condemn us to a billion years on the canyon floor? We shall see…

the long shadow of death — *The long shadow of dusty death on the Kaibab Trail*

A Tale Told By An Idiot – Grand Canyon, Day 1, Morning

[ In Act 5, Scene 5, Macbeth shares a wrenching haunted lament about life … ]

If we believe Macbeth then every day but lights the way to a dusty death … a walking shadow strutting an hour upon the stage then heard no more. Contrived struggles … an ignorant march toward a fruitless demise … a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Macbeth concludes that in the end life has no meaning. The death of the conniving Lady Macbeth and the meaningless slaughter of his men in the resulting war haunts him. Macbeth would’ve been at home in Grand Canyon. This place sucks meaning from your marrow, steals your empathy, your compassion, takes your memories, your wisdom, and leaves you with a thousand-yard-stare. Then flings you onto its billion year old stone floor where you’ll have to reassemble yourself, get up, and march all he way back up to the rim after you sleep with the ghosts at Phantom Ranch. No one will help you. No one can. In the Canyon you are on your own. Remember that above all else when you hear us tell our tale.

path on the edge — *You are always one misstep from a dusty death*

switchbacks on the canyon wall — *The only way down the first leg is a terrifying switchback along the sheer face of the canyon wall*

Start out too early, or too late and you’ll miss “photographers light” which lasts for mere minutes around mid-morning at Grand Canyon. By sheer luck, our timing was perfect and we saw a light show like no other on the planet. The Canyon was whispering to us, “Danger, go back.” But we never heard it. And thank God.

Stay tuned for the sturm and drang of descent to Phantom Ranch …

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