Be prepared.

Chance favors the prepared.

Pray to God but row for shore.

To be prepared is half the battle.

One of the things with which avid backpackers bore their couch potato acquaintances is the ability of backpackers to be self-reliant. We carry our food, our water, our house and hearth on our backs.

To be self-reliant requires a modicum of self-sustaining equipment. Food, water, warm clothes, and the rest of the Ten Essentials. Too many of the Ten, and the pack becomes so heavy as to lend an odious burden of its own. In Wilderness First Response classes they tell us that if we carry a first-aid kit that would handle everything that could go wrong, we wouldn’t be able to lift it.

The prudent hiker carries enough to muddle through the worst that can happen without burdening the self with excess baggage.

For most of my twenty-five year hiking career I have carried the heaviest pack in three counties due to the just-in-case syndrome. I'll have my pack neatly stuffed with a reasonable amount of weight and reconsider. Remember the Sangre de Cristos, when we ran completely out of food on the 9th day of an 11 day hike? Then I throw in another bag of dried fruit. Remember the rattlesnake-drowning rain on the Grandview Trail when I had a cold stream of water running down my neck and out each sleeve? I replace my light-weight rainsuit with the heavy-duty job. I stuff in the snake bite kit on my way out the door, and my down parka as I lock up the car. People amuse themselves by hefting my pack and pretending to suffer hernia. A park ranger once accused me of smuggling metates. And at the end of almost every hike I carry back a day's worth of extra food, a pint of extra fuel, and a sack of extra clothes which served only as pillow stuffing.

One year, the just-in-case syndrome saved the trip, my husband's toes, and quite possibly five people's lives.

Each Thanksgiving we celebrate Harvest Home by taking an extremely difficult, mostly off-trail route in the Grand Canyon that our first year surviving companions facetiously (I think) dubbed the Death March.

This year's hike had not begun auspiciously. When my husband, Brad, and our friend, Tim, arrived at the Grand Canyon back country office, the rangers said "We've been waiting for you", and hauled me into the back room. Stalwart no-impact camper that I am, I was nervous. My conscience isn't that clear.

Flanked by two armed rangers, I admitted that, yes, this was an organized club hike. I hadn't been able to find anyone willing to hike with us this year (I can't imagine why) and opened it up to a local hiking club.

Was I aware that hiking organizations had special regulations to follow when applying for a permit? Well, no, since I hadn't led an organized hike in five years. Most people would claim that my hikes prior to that time were somewhat less than organized. The gist of the matter was that the rangers were concerned that the dozen-odd hikes I take a year in the Canyon were all with organized groups, and I had neglected to follow the permit regulations. With earnest zeal I assured them otherwise, and they admitted that they had never had trouble from me before.

"You come up here several times a year," one ranger commented, "And we've never had to haul any of your people out of the Canyon. We appreciate that." I vowed to go straight henceforth and they turned me loose.

Because of this we started down into the depths of the Grand Canyon a good bit behind schedule. Beth and Rolf, whom we had not met before this trip, were strong enough going down the steep, loose, rocky route laughingly called the New Hance Trail, and I was confident that we would reach our proposed campsite before dark. On the second switchback, Brad slipped and landed hard on his knee. "Just a flesh wound," he grunted, and at intervals pointed out the blood stain spreading down his pant's leg with a martyred air. About a quarter mile down, the waist belt fell of Tim's pack. Nonplused (it takes a bit to plus Tim) he lashed it together with nylon cord. When it began to snow on the North Rim, I commented that maybe Someone was trying to tell us Something.

We set up camp in a drizzle, but the forecast was for clearing skies on the morrow, and clear but cold afterwards. When I looked out of the tent later that night and saw snow at the Colorado River level, 2,000 feet above sea level, I got a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. In the morning snow had fallen far into the depths, including over most of that day's route, and it was still snowing. I had rarely seen snow that far down into the Canyon, and I was not willing to take an untested group off-trail in fresh snow. Nor was I sure I could find most of the route under snow.
Brad and I made a leaders' decision to turn around and go back out the trail we had come in. We had to cover some off-trail mileage to reach the start of the New Hance Trail, and so we didn't start hiking out until mid-morning. However, Brad and I normally come out the seven-mile New Hance in four hours or so, and we figured we would make it out easily. We had come out of the Canyon in fresh snow before, and we had advised everyone in the group to bring instep crampons--small metal frames studded with spikes that lash to the boot. JUST IN CASE.

We hit snow about 1,000 feet above the River. After climbing another 1,000 feet, the snow was so deep that we could not see the trail markers.
When I had first started hiking in the Grand Canyon, there wasn't much of a New Hance Trail. In its stead was a series of "landmarks" that indicated key points on the route. To get out of the Canyon, the hiker had to hit each of the landmarks. Getting between them was mostly a matter of opinion. Nowadays hundreds of thousands of busy little feet have worn in sort of a trail, so the use of landmarks has fallen by the wayside. Now I flipped through my memory files to recall them.
It helped, of course, to know the formations in the Grand Canyon. The Canyon is there because the Colorado River cut through a number of rock formations that now form a series of cliffs and slopes. Veteran Canyon hikers memorize these formations so we can impress people, but also because it is easier to describe a route to someone who knows the difference between the Redwall and the Supai.

The first landmark to be hit on the way out of the New Hance was the Hakatai ledge where the route left the streambed. We were past that. The second landmark was a set of twin towers atop the Redwall Limestone. I managed to stay on trail climbing to these: a good place to stay on trail since the Redwall forms a nicely sheer cliff.
The next landmark was a long, steep wash cutting through the Supai Mudstone formation, which I call the Supai Chute. We had to contour through calf deep snow for a bit over a mile to reach the base of the Chute, and at one point I could only find the trail by aiming for a large boulder inscribed with graffiti.

Once in the Supai Chute, the snow deepened to knee level and the trail became most recalcitrant. Every time the trail crossed the wash, which it did with depressing regularity, we lost it and spent 15 to 30 minutes finding it again. It became apparent that we would not make it out by dark, and we did not want to risk the chancy business of following a trail less than a foot wide in deepening snow by flashlight, so we decided to camp. Five people crowded into two tents on a semi-flat spot we stamped out on a narrow ledge. I threw most of our gear into the tent to keep it from freezing, pulled on all the clothing I had brought, and zipped into my sleeping bag.
After a disastrous car-camp on the North Rim in a blizzard, I had replaced all my cotton hiking clothes with wicking, fast-dry fabrics JUST IN CASE. I now depended on polypropylene type fabrics and pile (I am allergic to wool, and I had not yet discovered the joys of Merino). The only cotton I carried was a bandanna. I replaced my lightweight, nylon rain gear at the last minute with my heavier, breathable rain gear JUST IN CASE, and it had kept me dry while pushing through deep snow and under snow covered trees that dumped their load as we passed beneath. I had an extra set of long underwear to replace the sweat-dampened set I hiked in. True to habit, on my way out the door I had stuffed in my heaviest down parka. I had lots of clothing, but I could not get warm.

I was shivering so hard I couldn't talk, classic symptoms of the first stage of hypothermia. Brad, huddled next to me in the fetal position trying to warm his feet, was no help.

I have read of people who died while climbing or hiking, and the article invariably said, "At least he went doing what he enjoyed most in the world." I always wondered if that thought was singularly comforting during the last moments when the brain began to mist over. My brain was close to misting right now, and the idea of doing what I enjoyed most in the process wasn't much comfort to me.

I thought of my five-year old, Robbie. He was bright and funny with a vocabulary larger than some adults'. If I was overdue from this hike, he would be frightened. If I was ultimately overdue, Robbie would be raised by his aunt and grandmothers. Sterling women all, but I hadn't suffered through 36 hours of labor to let someone else mold my kid's mind. The idea of getting back to Robbie seemed more important than saving the lives of everyone on the trip, even Brad's (sorry about that, dear).
I knew what to do about hypothermia: get the body out of the weather, put on dry clothing, and supply hot food and beverages. I had the first two covered, but in the mad rush to get the tent up, I had left the stove and pot in the pack.
My options then were: freeze where I was in relative comfort; stuff my dry socks into freezing, wet boots and get the stove; or put on my wet, frozen socks and stuff them into freezing, wet boots and get the stove.

I didn't like any of those, so I dug the extra plastic bags I carry JUST IN CASE, pulled them over my dry socks, and tucked them into the cuffs. Instant galoshes. I unzipped the tent and climbed over Brad, sending a shower of fine ice crystals onto his face. He protested weakly. I skidded over to the pack and produced stove, pot, and fuel bottle.

By now it was dark. It took about a century and a half to clean the stove orifice with a hair-thin wire, holding a flashlight in my teeth and balancing my glasses on my head. Finally the stove roared and I scooped a pot full of snow to melt. I reached for the pot lid--still in the pack. Every drop of fuel would be vital, so I donned my plastic bags again and retrieved the pot lid.

A quart of hot cocoa and a bag of freeze dried sherry beef restored the inner woman wonderfully. I offered the same to Brad, and, groaning piteously, he emerged from his cocoon. Warm at last, I could spare a thought for the hapless occupants of the other tent. I had plenty of fuel, JUST IN CASE, so I threw them a canteen of cocoa.
Since I had dry socks and down booties, JUST IN CASE, I gave the booties to Brad, and he gratefully stuffed his frozen feet therein. Later he was diagnosed with frostnip, and it is likely that the booties saved him from full-blown frostbite.
I snuggled down between Brad and most of our camping gear into a rapidly melting depression in the snow. We put our remaining water between us and the boots under us so nothing vital would freeze, and settled in.

I spent much of the long, cold night reviewing the trail ahead. I could manage the Supai formation: there hadn't been much of a trail there in the 60's when I first started hiking, and I could always fake it through the Supai. Above the Supai were the Coconino and Kaibab cliffs, formidable barriers that would take more care.

There was one spot in particular in the Coconino that I mentally climbed all night long. Near the top of the cliff there are two routes. One, a set of short, steep switchbacks, carries the hiker along a ledge overhung by the last of the Coconino formation. The other suckers the hiker out onto a flagstone-laid slope that ends in an impressive cliff. Every time I come down the New Hance Trail, I block off the flagstone route, and without fail when I hike back out I walk right out onto it anyway. The flagstone is precariously balanced, and I am sure one day a piece will cut loose and skid me over the edge on the ultimate wind surf ride. If I couldn't stay on the best route when the trail was clear, how was I going to find it in the snow?
The snow won't stick to the steepest parts of the trail, I decided. Besides, the wind is blowing, and it will clear some of the drifts away near the top. It was still snowing outside, and I even convinced myself that, deep as the snow was, another six inches wasn't going to make a difference.

We were alerted to dawn by Tim's "sun yell" which he reserves for the first day's sighting of that orb. The clouds had lifted, and we could see the colors of sunrise on their bellies.

We packed quickly, and the stove fizzled out of fuel as we melted the last two quarts of hot water for breakfast. I stomped off through the snow, ignoring plaintive cries behind me that we weren't on the trail, and we should stop and dig for rock cairns. I wasn't wasting any time looking for the trail: if the route worked, I'd do it, trail or not.

This attitude got me to the last landmark, a low pass between the rim and Coronado Butte that I call the Coconino saddle. We had stopped for a snack there on the way down, and I recognized the tree we sat on. I was, incredibly, right on the trail.
I lost it again trying to make the Coconino connection, but I found it where the route narrowed down between a cliff and a gully. There in the center of the gully the snow had blown away from a huge rock cairn, which was greeted by unbelieving cheers. Wind had scoured isolated areas nearly free of snow, but the snow thus eliminated had piled up in deeper drifts elsewhere. The average depth was mid-thigh. I found I could stay on trail, because there wasn't much choice. I could follow a faint depression in the snow, and I could "feel" whether the footing was relatively smooth trail or jumbled rocks. I could not, however, let someone else break trail. I tried pointing them in the right direction, but they couldn't stay on the route.

We found yet another mostly snow-free cairn on a ledge, and we paused to consider. Brad wanted to camp: he was sure we couldn't get out by dark. I figured we only one more mile to go, and we could handle it. Even if it had taken us an hour and a half to hike the first mile, and we were slowing down fast. We agreed that if we weren't out by 3:00 we would stop and camp.

I doubted we could make it through another night in decent shape: our fuel was gone and the sleeping bags had gotten wet the night before. There was no place for a rescuing helicopter to land, and the rangers had praised me for bringing my groups out intact. I was determined, and I was in the lead.

I got off the route a few times, and at one point stepped into a heart-stopping hole. My foot kept going down--and down--and down. I was sure I had stepped through a cornice and into open air when I came to a comforting stop waist deep in a drift.
I pushed through an over-friendly tree and spotted a cairn on a wind-cleared rock about 15 feet over my head. I looked around suspiciously. I was smack in the middle of the flagstone slope--again. Since the snow was hip deep, I wasn't worried about sliding off the edge. Unless the whole slope began to slide, and I wasn't going to think about that. I plowed my way straight up to where I knew the trail hid coyly beneath its ermine mantle.

We climbed a nasty boulder, traversed an even nastier ledge and were back on the main route. We had topped the Coconino cliff, and only the Kaibab cliff remained.
I pushed off resolutely, ignoring all complaints that I was completely off route, that we hadn't contoured this much coming down, that we were doomed, doomed! I recognized a spot where I had taken a photograph two years before. I crunched my knee on a large flat rock blocking the trail. We call it the "sit-down rock" because that is the only way a hiker with a pack can traverse it. I was still on the trail.
At one point, faced with shoulder deep snow that had blown over the edge of a cliff, I surrendered the lead to Brad. He promptly became stranded on a pile of jumbled rock. Wearily I took over again.

I couldn't walk; all I could do was plow and stomp. I tested the snow with my hiking stick to be sure there was solid ground beneath, plowed into it with my leg, and stomped down firmly with my crampons. Plow, stomp. Plow, stomp. Pull myself up by way of a friendly tree. Plow, stomp.

The snow seemed less deep, but I told myself it was a hallucination. I could see trees on the south rim, but that was a hallucination, too. When I fell over the wooden sign that marks the top of the New Hance Trail, I knew it was real and I was out.
The group erupted into weary cheers. I was declared "trail finder extraordinaire". I kissed the trail sign. I was on my way home to Robbie.

Consider a sock.

Socks are worn on the feet. They are used to reduce friction, separate bare tootsies from hard leather, keep feet warm, dry and full of lint. Socks are made of nylon, wool, cotton, or a variety of highly-priced and trademark-protected synthetics. They can be half socks, ankle socks, knee socks, leotards, or body stockings. Socks can be pulled up on the leg so they will creep back into the boot or folded over the top of the boot so rocks can get inside. They can be subdued colors or fluorescent green. The latter is preferred so if you get lost you can stand on your head and attract attention by waggling your feet.

Socks can be used for a wind sock, pulled over the head and used as a disguise, pulled over the hand and used as a mitten, or filled with rocks and used as a blackjack. They can be unraveled and knitted into a dicky or crocheted into a doily. They can be used as a hat. They can be filled with water, placed in an icebox, and used as an icetray. They can be nailed up on the mantle on Christmas They can be filled with paperbacks and used as a bookbag. They can be equiped with a drawstring and used as a purse. They can be cut into strips and woven into potholders. The toe can be cut off and used for a nose warmer. The heel can be cut off and used for an elbow warmer. The ankle can be cut off and used for a wrist warmer. If you feet are getting cold by now, cut up an old glove and use it for a foot warmer.

With this wonderful world of unusual and exciting things go do with this fantastic new product, how can you any longer resist running out to buy 63 pairs of socks? Wonderful things can be done with 126 socks. If you every find a 124 legged mastodon, you can outfit both it and yourself at a moment's notice.

Consider a topo map.

A topo map is not, as the uninitiated might conjecture, a layout of Topo, North Dakota. It is a map containing a series of lines which represent changes in elevation. They are very useful for telling you where you should be and why you didn’t end up there. If a trail is marked along said series of lines, you can spend many happy hours arguing about where the route is with such enlightening comments as, “That can’t be the butte, you dope, the lines go IN.”.

If no trail is marked, the lines can help you discover the easiest, safest, most surefire route, with the help of experienced woodspersons who are happy to inform you that if you insist on trying to climb out at a point where 16 topo lines all run into one, don’t be surprised if you end up trapped halfway up a cliff.

Topo maps are printed on paper. They can be stored rolled-up so that they last longer, and when you try to look at anything on them they can insist on compacting themselves back into their accustomed form. They can be stored and carried folded up, so that the fold lines will eventually rub out all trace of elevation lines and vital lettering. Or they can be framed and hung on the wall with the routes you have traversed traced out in indelible ink, impressing people no end and falling down at inconvenient times, such as when your roommate is gone for the weekend and you’re reading ghost stories at midnight.

Top maps can be used to start fires, to write home for money on the back of, to rough draft a scathing letter to the editor, to use as emergency TP, to wrap fish, to housebreak a puppy, to make a kite, to print an underground newspaper on, to make insoles for your boots, to fold into a boat to cross the Colorado river, and to write to Legal Aid to bail you out when they catch you crossing the Colorado River.

Topo maps are printed with soulful ink, with beauty and truth, with mystery and abandon, and with mistakes so that geologists can make money by correcting them.

So why sit there wondering where the heck the Boucher Trail is located? Run out immediately and buy a topo map so you can unerringly lead people onto a trail that you’ve never been over before. Just because after three years of topo reading I wound up on the Apache instead of the Bass by reading one…

So run out and buy all the Grand Canyon quadrangles from Apache Point to Vishnu. Then buy the large maps of the Western and Eastern sections. Then the geologic Western, Central, and Eastern ones. Then you can begin on the Superstitions. Buy, consume, grow…

Consider a bandana.

A bandana is a square of material in a varity of colors with various and sundry designs executed thereon. A square is someone who refuses to sign a petition for fear of unduly upsetting the Establishment, but we needn't go into politics just precisely now. A bandana can be made of cotton,nylon, wool, silk, cardboard or aluminum foil. It can be red, navy blue, yellow,magenta, or puce. some people may aspire to carry a bandana composed of lavender paisley delicately embroidered onto a chartreuse background, but they soon find it doesn't pay to aspire beyond one's human limits.

A bandana can be used as a muffler to keep your neck warm, a scarf to keep your head cool, a hat to keep your part from being sunburned, or a belt to keep your pants up. It can be utilized as a snare to catch animals (or, if you aspire to lavender and chartreuse, to scare them to death), a fishing line, a hammock for midgets, a net for filtering water, or a necktie for your next necktie party. Bandanas can be used to tie down your hat so it won't fly away in the wind, your canteen so it won't get washed down the rapids, or your neighbor so he won't decapitate you while you ransack his pack (which, incidentally, was tied up with a banadana so it wouldn't fall over while you were ransacking it).

Several bandanas can be tied together to make a tent, a ground cloth, an air mattress to be used with extreme haste, or a graduation cap and gown. They can be cut into pieces and used to play checkers. They can be folded up small and used to patch your jeans. They can be unraveled (or raveled) and woven into a macrame belt. They can be lined with foil and used to boil water. They can be tied together and used as sportswear accessory while your wet pants dry (which probably got wet when they fell down while crossing a creek because you were using a bandana as a belt). They can be used to hold your hair back while you hike, to hold your food while you day hike, or to hold over your face while you hold up the train. They can be used to secure your roommate's hands so she will stop typing while you study for your algebra exam, and they can be used to secure the instructor to the desk while you and your cohorts abscond with the exam that he had no right to give the second week of school.

All in all, a bandana is something no hiker should be without. A bandana is truth, beauty, and a little bit of Rit dye. Join the ranks of bandana lovers, and you too can join in Chicita Bandana's anthem, "Bandana, bandana, bandana is good enough for me".

I hate to hike. I get tired and dirty and hot and scared and blistered and my knee hurts going downhill, my feet hurt going level, and my body hurts going uphill. I worry about rain and get sweat in my eyes and sand in my noodles. I fall down or trip over rattlesnakes or beer cans and curse bitterly at graffiti on the rocks.

What, then, are my motives as ever week I appear, hat in hand and ace bandage on knee to further neglect my bod and state of mental health? I am not, as many claim, a masochist. As my sister claims, a wee bit dumb. As my mother claimed, going through a phase. As my shrink claims, seeking peer approval (at the bottom of the Grand Canyon?).

The analytical mind grappled with the problem and finally resulted in the essence of hiking filtering through my mind.

Waking up to the sounds of birds and breezes and a pink blush in the East. Startling a mule deer who stood three feet away from me for five minutes before we noticed each other. Walking for 14 miles and finding a spring bubbling with water at clear as sunlight. Washing dishes to the rhythm of the rapids. Lying awake at night tracing the course of the Big Dipper as it swings ponderously around Polaris. Standing on a peak where the silence is so complete that the sound of my heartbeat shatters it.

It is entirely removed from the dirt and pettiness of the towns. How can anything be petty in the Grand Canyon? Walking along the trail with grandeur ahead and wonder behind. Waking up to snow-soaked boots and socks and sweatshirts, and all the dry gear in the pack buried under six inches of snow.

Then the simple things like a ray of sun, a pair of dry socks, a clean bandana to whip all that mud off, a dry match, and a cactus frosted with ice begin to fit into the scheme of Things that Make the Hike Bearable. And of course, standing on Miner’s Summit to see Weaver’s Needle with a cap of snow was worth the whole windy, wet, icy, worried night.

I have learned the measure of a mile, the worth of the simple, soul cleansing at of walking, the simplicity of wilderness and a means to escape a worth where nothing makes sense.

This, then, was and always shall be the final reward for daring to step off the paved road into the unknown. May there always be an unknown to step off into.

Okay, so the mule affectionados say it is classically unfair that they are now limited to 10 Phantom mules a day.

Try getting a permit to hike the Corridor during rim-to-rim season. Or anywhere in the Canyon during Spring Break or Thanksgiving. Or during most of the spring and fall.

Try getting a permit for a private river trip. Even with the lottery system, it still takes most people ten years to be drawn.

I am constantly (well, not constantly but often enough) asked if visitors are allow to mountain bike, hang-glide, or BASE jump.

Let's say the Park Service sold the Grand Canyon to private concerns, and there would be unlimited mule rides, backpacking, and river running, not to mention downhill mountain biking (with an uphill shuttle provided) BASE jumping, Xtreme sports events -- everyone could visit anywhere and do anything. The Canyon would become a place that none of us would wish to visit.

And so far as not being able to ride a mule, over Martin Luther King weekend this year -- a three day weekend AND a fee free weekend, three persons rode down to the Ranch on Wednesday. Two rode down on Friday. No one on Saturday. No one on Sunday. So a rider might not be able to get a reservation for spring or fall, but then, neither can most hikers. Bundle up and go in the winter.

So I have hiked to Phantom Ranch, and as of last weekend, I have ridden the mule. I prefer to hike.
When I hike I can carry whatever I am willing to haul. On the mule, I am limited to two plastic bags. Since I had a layover day on which I wanted to hike, I needed some extra stuff.

When I hike I can carry as much water as I wish. On the mule I have a bota bag (I hate drinking out of those) that holds one liter.The wranglers carry extra water to refill, so more water is a possibility. Of course, if I drink enough to be hydrated I need to, not to put too fine a point on it, use the outhouses. There is only one stop on the mule ride, so if one is hydrated, one is in dire straits. Again, the wranglers will stop at the outhouses, but one has to ask, and the whole string has to stop, and the mules have to be restrained so they don't run off while I am using the facilities.

As for the much-vaunted education one gets on the mules, here are some of the things I learned:
The pictographs are painted with cochineal (not).

The resthouses were CCC kitchens until they were turned into resthouses. The CCC did not build the Bright Angel Trail. They did build the resthouses, but as resthouses, not kitchens.

Cedar Breaks is the only place that cedar grows. There is no true cedar in North America, and if they are talking about Juniper, it grows all over the place.

The Colorado River cut the Grand Canyon 80 million years ago. A good trick, since the Laramide Orogeny was only 65 million years ago.

Scientists have proven that the Colorado River used to flow north. This is one idea, but it does not enjoy common acceptance, and it has certainly not been proven by anyone.

There is petrified wood in the inner gorge. The ruins at the Boat Beach were habitated by Havasupai Indians. Brama Temple is called that because it looks like a bull. I could go on and on.

Riding the mules is not, as many have said, for the infirm. It hurts the knees, the back, and the ankles. One needs a strong body core to sit upright, and strong thighs to control the mule. If one has any problem with heights, parts of that trail are terrifying.