I am getting really anti-social on the trail.  Thursday I hiked out carrying two packs (don't ask) weighing 60 pounds.  I tied my umbrella to the pack strap, because it was hot and I don't like carrying the umbrella in my hand.  The mule wrangler asked me to take the umbrella down, and I explained that it was tied on.

"Then you'll have to take the pack off".

One who has never carried a 60 pound pack does not realize how difficult this is to take off and put back on.  It is best to have a ledge of some sort to balance.  Lacking same, I dumped it on the ground and glared  at the mules as  they passed.  Several things I did NOT say:

        I'm 60 years old, carrying two packs, and I'M walking: what is wrong with this picture?

       You are trusting your lives to an animal with 63 chromosomes  that is afraid of an umbrella.

        Those little holes in the sand stone are NOT caused by meteor strikes, there is NO petrified  wood in the inner gorge, and the Anasazi did NOT water their corn by carrying water in buckets.

A gentleman then attempted to assist me in putting the pack back on, but he was so enthusiastic he almost pitched me forward over the cliff. 

After mile-and-a-half house I was really surly.  Dehydrated, underfed, sweaty, and exhausted.  Passers-by would chirp, "Just go slowly and drink lots of water!".

"Really,"I would snarl, "I hadn't thought of that.":

Wearing an umbrella on the pack gives a whole new meaning to the concept of "uphill has the right of way".  Several people ostentatiously bent under or around my umbrella, to which, in the mood I was in, I say bugger you.

At the top a perky little runner with a tiny fanny pack asked how long we had been down.  I leaned on my sticks and sucked air while my companions explained that we had spent a few days in the bottom.  She then leaned under my umbrella to chirp at  me.  Why do downhilll hikers think that those of us on our way out are fascinated by the fact they they are hiking down?  Finally she gave up and giggled, "Well,  I guess coming back out is a little harder,"  and pranced on down the trail.  I hope she CRAWLED all the way back out.

Today there was a mass of graffiti at Ooh Ah, all kids (because they wrote their ages) so it took several minutes to erase that.  There were two guys smoking, with external speakers on their ipods, and I muttered something about not needing to smell their carcinogens or listen to their alleged  music, and Brad said,  "Boy, you ARE still snarly". 

I am really starting to think that people need to pass a test of my devising before they are allowed into the Canyon.  I'll have to get to work on that.