But how was the canyon you ask? Well it’s a bit hard to precisely nail down.
Of course it was beautiful. It’s the freaking Grand Canyon. It’s right there in the name- and it was only all the more grand because I’ve never been there before.
Let’s take a step back for a moment, however, and lay the trip out for you. It all started for me on Saturday night at 1:30, where I found to my immense satisfaction that I had managed to snag one of the remaining two tickets on the earlier flight I had hoped to get. A quick call to the shuttle company (thanks Mom!) and I was off.
Sure, there were a couple more hours of sleep in there, snatched on the way to the airport or on the plane, but I essentially arrived in Tucson on Sunday morning with more baggage to my name than sleep. Although there was a lot on the baggage side of the equation: I had all my gear for my trip stuffed into an extra large duffel that my dad had mailed me hoisted awkwardly on one shoulder as I waited at the terminal for my mom and brother to pick me up.
In between bumping passerby (a backpacking pack stuffed into a duffel takes up a LOT of room) I was pleasantly surprised to find that I hadn’t completely lost my ability to withstand heat. After all, it was nearly 100 degrees in Phoenix and I knew it was only going to be hotter at the bottom of the canyon.
But sleep deprivation isn’t a problem when you have family to entertain you, and my mother and brother were a welcome sight for sore eyes.
After meeting up with my father in Williams (he dropped off a vehicle for my mother to pick up) and our other teammate Mickey in Flagstaff, we made our way to Jacobs Lake near the North Rim. Dinner and breakfast were spent getting as many calories as were humanally possible into our bodies. Well… that wasn’t the goal persay, but let us just say that the food was pretty decent at the inn and we weren’t worried about the state of our girlish figures.
But after that it was a drive to the trail head where we finally strapped on our packs for the first time. Now, I’ve been training with weight, but a load of books and water stuffed in a day pack filled to the bursting is nothing like a properly loaded backpacker’s pack. Luckily even though I was technically carrying more weight (somewhere around 48 pounds all told) it didn’t feel like that much.
We got the traditional start of trail picture, hugged mom goodbye, and stood a moment staring down at the North Rim of the canyon. It was huge. It didn’t look precisely like the pictures I was used to seeing of the Canyon (most of which are usually taken from the South Rim, being how much easier it is to get to there by car) but it looked plenty impressive from where I was standing.
How was I supposed to hike that? I was already feeling unsteady from the weight of the pack at my back. The mules penned up in their corral near the parking lot eyed me balefully, their eyes filled with the dark suspicion that they would end up dragging my ass up from the bottom.
I swallowed, and waved goodbye to my mom as she drove away to drop the truck off at the South Rim.
“Well, there goes our ride,” joked Mickey. “Can’t turn back now.”
We all laughed, but as we turned our boots down the trail I mentally calculated how far I had to go.
24 miles from North to South, an elevation drop of about 5800 feet and then an elevation gain of about 4400. Four days in which to do it. Only 10 miles as the crow flies.
Too late to turn back now.
To be continued tomorrow.