Arizona

In case anyone was wondering I did make it to the Grand Canyon. I suppose that it is called "Grand" simply because it is huge.

My initial plan was to drive out Tuesday evening, camp at the rim of the canyon and then hike down in the morning. It is a mile deep so I wanted to give myself plenty of time. My car had other plans. As can be seen from the previous issue of V.V. my car broke down. This forced me to have a good time at Zion on Tuesday then drive down early Wednesday morning.

I needed to be at the bottom of the canyon by 5:00 P.M. for dinner. The drive was slated to take five and a half hours and the hike down, four to six hours. Needless to say I left early and in a bit of a rush. I need not have worried. Arizona, it turns out, aside from being a desert, is one of those rare and wonderful states that don't use daylight savings time. As such I had an hour extra when I showed up.

The extra hour was quite nice, which you may know if you have ever tried to find parking at the grand canyon at 10:00 am on a Wednesday morning. I would hate to try a Saturday in the summer. Anyway they have a nice slow set of "free" buses (it costs $25 to get into the park). By noon I was on my way down.

The trail just falls into the canyon. The path I took in is about 7.5 miles long. It descends 4600 ft. I really should not have worried about getting to dinner on time. As some of you may know, I am tall. What this means in practical hiking-down-a-canyon terms is that I can use the ties across the path as steps. They are about three feet apart and are placed to keep the path from washing out. Assuming it ever rains. It takes most folks two or three steps per tie. That means I can go at a leisurely pace that is about twice as fast as your average bear. I arrived at Phantom ranch at about 2:30.

With all that extra time before dinner I was able to hike around the canyon floor. Take a nap and eat a snack. The bottom of the canyon is 20 - 30 degrees hotter than the rim. It was about 100 degrees. It was thus a good thing that I packed shorts. It was not, however, a good thing that I packed a long sleeve shirt and a sweat shirt. Completely unnecessary, both of them.

I hear that if you ever visit Phantom Ranch you should order the stew. I wouldn't know, I ordered the steak. It was big and fairly rare. I normally like my steak fully dead and thoroughly brown. When civilization has to be packed in each day by mule, you don't complain about the food and you enjoy it. It really was good. The meal was huge and I needed every calorie for the following day.

Dinner was also delightful for the company. I ate with a Danish couple who envied our not-yet-socialist government and two women from New York who envied Denmark's socialist government. Myself, I am perfectly content to pay less than 50% in taxes.

Hiking back up is supposed to take twice as long as coming down. It didn't but I can see why it should. My legs will be weeks in the healing. I took a longer path out. 11 miles long, 4600 ft up and somewhere between 100 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature depends on altitude and where along the path you are.

Most folk left the ranch at 4-5 am. I know because they thought everyone in camp should be awake and made sure that we were. I left at 6:30. Now I know why they left so early. It gets hot. Going up is not bad until you get there.

Once back on the rim.... 4.5 hours later.. I realized I could no longer utilize my calves, my legs were caked a solid 1/8 in thick with the finest red dust you ever did see, and eating french fries was the right thing to do; to replace my lost sodium and depleted energy reserves.

After climbing out and cleaning up I headed to this little place in western Arizona. That's right. The London bridge. It's on lake Havasu. It was a mere 104 degrees there. I took a drink and it came right back out of my forehead. Oh but it's dry heat. I think that means that it is still hot. The bridge was nice though. The little tourist trap of a city around it was kind of hilarious. Texicali with a nice English flavor.





Sam's Summary

• I stepped into the grand canyon.
  
• It was quite a drop
• The heat at the bottom is amazing.
• The deer are spooky friendly
• I ate a rare steak
• I spoke with a Danish
• He was a doctor
• I hiked back up
• It was not a race, but well you know me, I made it into one.
• I passed all the 4 o'clock hikers
• I ate at Wendy's
  
• I saw the London bridge
• I camped in the frying Mojave desert.
• I am at my sister's place in Vista California.