Waking up after my first night on a backpacking mattress was a little interesting. I’m not talking about the stiffness in the legs or back, although there was a little of that. Neither am I talking about the beautiful scenery.
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| Although there was a little of that too. |
No, it was interesting because of the friend that my brother made just upon waking as he stepped out of his tent.
Yep, that’s a rattlesnake. And not just any rattlesnake, that’s a rare Pink Grand Canyon Rattlesnake. Lucky for us right?
Actually, given how chilly it was that morning the snake was more than happy to coil up and take a nap in the vegetation between our campsite and the trail and let us be. So, after moving our tents farther away, we found ourselves able to calmly coexist with the wildlife.
I noticed two things that morning. One: backpacking tents are freaking amazing. They’re meant for quick tear down and compact packing and it shows. I remember fighting with tents when I was little for hours as everyone got frustrated trying to decipher the half-legible instructions, but with the half-dome tent I was using it took less than five minutes to have it in its bag and strapped to my pack. I need to get one.
The second thing? Oatmeal tastes amazing while camping. Sure, the massive amounts of brown sugar helped, but I do that normally.
We broke down camp quickly and started on our way, about an hour earlier than we had the day before. My pack felt a little more secure than the day before, but not by much.
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| My awkward smile says, “I’m pretty sure I packed this ALL wrong.” |
Hiking was easy going, the trail wasn’t nearly as steep as the day before and we were completely in the shade due to the shape of the canyon. The trail was so easy, in fact, that we made really good time and decided to go ahead and take the side trail to Ribbon Falls when we saw the sign for it.
This was perhaps the best decision of the entire trip.
We dropped our packs at the top (after all, the 7 mile hike tends to weed out the majority of the thieves of opportunity and the thought of carrying more weight weeds out the rest). As we hiked around the corner we quickly realized that this wasn’t just another pretty waterway coursing down a cliff face.
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| This was a VERY pretty waterway coursing down a cliff face. |
The amazing thing about it was that the rock dome underneath the falls had been formed by deposits of stone carried by the water, slowly building up to a solid hollow shell of rock that just barely reached the base of the falls.
At first we just took pictures in front of it since we knew that the water was freaking cold and it looked pretty deep.
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| Holy crap look how big it is close up! |
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| This is easiest the coolest picture of Dad and Phil |
But then a group of hikers that had been with us on the trail decided to go into the water and take pictures in the hollow shell so of course we did too.
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| The blur isn’t from the water, it’s from us shivering. |
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| And here you see the great Grand Canyon troll coming out of his lair |
And the best part was that you could climb about inside of the thing. We blatantly copied the pictures of the girls before us.
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| I almost fell three times on the slippery rocks climbing up to this point |
But, in the words of every informercial everywhere, wait, there’s more! There was a second trail that wound its way around the falls and let us reach the pool that lay at the top of the dome.
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| Every bit of Ribbon Falls was gorgeous |
We were a bit sad to have to head back up the trail and put our packs on but our dowsing kept us cool even as the sun started to burn through the morning. And there were plenty of other pretty rock formations to keep us entertained.
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| How is this still standing? |
Soon, much sooner than we thought, we were at Phantom Ranch. Phantom Ranch is this wonderful oasis in the middle of a broad plateau at the bottom of the canyon of which I, alas, didn’t take any pictures. I’ll have to wait for Mickey to post his.
The best part of Phantom Ranch was probably not the scenery, however, it was the Canteen. They sell food down there, as well as things that are perhaps better than food: lemonade, snickers bars, and t-shirts.
And these t-shirts are the real deal. You can only buy them from the ranch, and they only sell them on the bottom of the Grand Canyon. They even change them from year to year so that you can tell when someone managed to make it down to the bottom of the canyon.
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| Mine looks cooler, but you get the idea. |
We bought them, of course, all the while bemoaning the fact that the people who road the mules down got to buy them too.
But what I, and my brother, did take pictures of was the Colorado. This was our first sighting of the huge river that carved the canyon and it was as muddy on the day we saw it as it had been when the Spanish first spotted it.
Usually it’s not this muddy, due to the dams upriver that filter out some of the silt, but due to the recent rain it was running fast and red.
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| It’s a big river, in case you weren’t aware. |
We took some pictures of the bridge that we would cross on the morrow and headed back to hear a lecture on geology which, after all the rocks and strange formations we had seen in the last couple of days, we were extremely excited to attend.
We had a wonderful campsite again, this time with shelters built right into the walls. But as soon as it got dark we realized that we had friends again.
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| Look how cute it is! |
That’s a Ringtail Cat, and we had several in the trees around our camp. And despite how careful we were with our packs we apparently had several in our packs as well, as Dad found part of his first aid kit on the ground under his pack the next day.
But that’s a story for another time.
Adventure on a grand scale will be continued on Monday.