Sunday, August 31, 2008


I’ve been hiking in the Grand Canyon since I was knee high to a coyote, forty-plus years, and I always thought it would be cool to live on the South Rim. Alas, one has to work there to live there. Just as well, really, or as my boss says, all of us on the South Rim would be doing Bill Gate's yard work.

About three years ago, a teacher at the Grand Canyon School quit halfway through the year, and lo and behold, I was certified in what she taught and available to drop everything (part time job, house, husband, kid) to move up there. My husband then quit his job and moved up to join me. My son was in college, so he was told that we closed up the house and changed the locks, so don’t come home for Christmas.

Well the teacher I replaced came back, but the school hired my husband to teach, so here we are on the South Rim. I also work leading hikes professionally, which I have been doing for 14 years.

Disadvantages: one is 50 miles from the nearest Safeway, pharmacy, and decent pizza and/or Mexican food.

Advantages: The canyon is a 10-minute walk from our apartment.

We hike the Bright Angel Trail several times a week because it is so close and a good workout. Brad mentioned that we ought to keep track of the stuff we see each trip (like the time we had to walk around two big horn sheep who were chewing their cud right in the middle of the trail) and so this blog was born.

Aug. 17

It is too easy to just go in and out of mile and a half so we have been hiking to the bottom of the Redwall. We pass Smilin’ Ranger Todd who is carrying a huge bag of trash. My one little goo packet that I found in a bush seems puny compared to the souvenirs he found rummaging around Three-Mile Rest house.

We pull over on our turn around rock, and Brad vanishes behind the boulders for a little private time. He comes out with a sleeping bag, a coat, underwear, and a pair of sandals and yells to Todd: “I WIN!” Apparently someone took one look at the Redwall switchbacks and decided to lighten his load.

Todd volunteers to carry the stuff to Indian Garden, and we graciously allow him to do so. I wonder out loud why I find underwear on the trail, and Todd explains that they are used for a "wipe".

“I don’t think I really wanted to know that,” I decide.

Aug. 22

Took a group down to mile and a half. The squirrels are horrible! Like ratty mosquitoes on steroids. I scare them off with my squirt bottle.

Note: a simple plastic squirt bottle is good for erasing graffiti off the rocks, cooling oneself down when it is too hot, and chasing off squirrels in a humane manner.

This recalls to mind the time I was busily shooing squirrels, and when I left a gentleman emptied an entire box of crackers on the ground.
“I don’t think you are supposed to do that,” a man tells him.
“They couldn’t get a thing to eat with that crazy lady chasing them around,” he answers indignantly.

Tom Bruno (PSR ranger) stops by and we give him a hard time about directions to the glass walkway. The rangers get really tired of telling people over and over that the walkway is
a) not in the park
b) has nothing to do with the park and
c) is a four-hour drive away from the park on bad roads.

A backpacker tells me to stop hassling the squirrels. I explain that they bite.
Backpacker: When is the last time someone got bit?
Bruno: Yesterday.
Backpacker: So when is the last time someone was bit that wasn’t doing something stupid?
Me: Last month a squirrel snuck up behind a kid that was with me, and bit his hand to make him drop his jerky.
Backpacker: (changing tack) So what’s wrong with feeding them a little? They don’t hurt no one.
Bruno: They just did a study on animals on the Kaibab Plateau, and 14 out of 25 of these squirrels tested positive for Plague.
Backpacker: Well, if there is Plague, you should close the Park.

Bruno and I give up and address our comments to each other. It is fine to disagree, but arguing with a backcountry ranger and a professional hiker? The backpacker starts making kissy noises at the squirrels, but we ignore him and hike out.


Aug. 28 Leaving at 5 AM so we can get a hike in before school starts. It is dark enough that I want a flashlight at the very top, and as we start, a guy jumps out of his truck and falls in behind Brad. Apparently he was waiting for a light, or just for company, for he chats all the way to mile and a half, telling us a lot more than we really want to know.

He tired a rim to rim to rim a year ago and collapsed in the bottom.
Assumingly he stayed with a Ranger to recover. Today he is going to try Indian Garden and out. I would be more impressed with his hiking expertise if he were carrying a daypack instead of a plastic bag full of supplies.

We bid him farewell at Mile and a Half, and he walks on, disappointed to have lost his captive and apparently rapt audience.

Aug. 31

It is raining like stink in the morning, and we almost don’t hike. But yesterday we could not ride bikes because Brad broke a spoke, so we have to do something.

We get to the rim and it is gorgeous! The clouds are in the Canyon and swirl around just below the trailhead. As we work our way down they drift and part, exposing sunlit buttes on the North Rim.

The trail is very muddy and the water bars are slick. We are caught between two mule strings, a problem with leaving later than usual. Normally one can walk between two strings, albeit a bit slower than we usually travel, but today the mules keep stopping to take off and put on their rain slickers (the riders: not the mules) , and the train is so washed out below two mile corner that they slow way down, so we decide to turn around after an hour.

I pick up a moldy sweatshirt, and dig a bunch of trash out from a bush. I yell at two hikers who are shortcutting the switchbacks (illegal, knocks rocks loose, destroys the trail work, and shows blatant disrespect for the Canyon). They sneer and keep going. But, hark, a ranger approacheth. I turn the suckers in and he promises to track them down and give them an earful.

At the top I have to stop five times for people to take pictures of one another. Hello? It’s called point and shoot for a reason? You are not Ansel Adams. But I am mostly polite until a guy stops me at the very top and I mutter, “Oh, come on!” I should be more patient, but my shirt is soaking wet from climbing in 94% humidity and I want to get out of the wind.

As soon as we get into shelter it starts to rain again, so our timing was impeccable.