Solo Backpacking Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim: Day 6

I woke just before before sunup this morning. Dressed in the dark in my tent, stumbled up to the Phoenix composting john, and only then did I turn on my red camp headlamp. I found out later I probably should have had the light on when I dressed.

I’m really looking forward to my morning coffee, a primary reason I love camping, and set about making it. I brought my feather-weight MSR PocketRocket stove on this trip. This tiny stove is less than half the weight of my MSR Whisperlite International I take on bike tours, and also boils water in half the time—under 2 minutes. Good, because I can’t wait. Breakfast is a Clif Bar, so that’s simple enough.

Juan and Richard left before the sun was completely up, shortly after 5:30. Today’s mileage is the least of the trip so far at 4.5 miles, but the elevation gain of 3,300 feet will be the most I’ve shlepped my big bag up this trip. But I did more climbing at higher elevation during my trip in Colorado last August, a three-day trip that took place entirely between eight and twelve thousand feet. So I wasn’t too worried. The one thing I am “worried” about is my mileage. Based on my my total thus far, the 4.5 miles to the trailhead will leave me just short of sixty miles for the week. 60 is a nice round number for 6 days of hiking. And with no more side trip hikes between here and the Rim, I guess I’ll be forever stuck at 59.5 miles.

I left Indian Garden around 6:30. I could have kicked myself for not arranging lunch with Juan and Richard at Bright Angel Lodge, but thought perhaps I could  catch them on the way up. Just outside Indian Garden I stopped to take this panorama shot.

After hiking a further 20 minutes, I was wondering why I was struggling a bit. That is when it really hit me how much hiking poles help you when you’re backpacking. Simultaneously dawning on me was the fact I left my hiking poles behind and would have to hike back to get them. In my mind, I could see them propped against the picnic table as I always do. Turns out, I left them almost a mile back, leaning against the fence just outside the campground, where I’d stopped to take a panorama pic. I was reminded of the famous Chinese idiom, 塞翁失马 (sàiwēngshīmǎ): Who's to say it's bad luck or Blessing in disguise. Sure, I have to hike back a couple of miles to retrieve my poles, but now I will certainly top 60 miles for the 6 days. Forty minutes later, I had my poles and I was past the point where I realized I’d forgot them in the first place. All was well in my little world.

Close-up from the above panorama, bottom right corner. Note hiking poles. 

I did see several California Condors riding the thermals high overhead. Unfortunately, they were well beyond the range of my iPhone 13 Mini.

Nary a soul at 3-Mile Resthouse.

The petroglyphs between 1 ½-Mile RestHouse and the 2-mile mark.

I didn’t see Juan or Richard at the 3-Mile Resthouse, but I did catch up to them at the 1 ½- Mile Resthouse. And we agreed to meet for lunch at 11:30 at Bright Angel Lodge.

Paula and Bruce from Yuma, Arizona.

Also at 1 ½-Mile Resthouse were Paula and Bruce, whom I invited to rest with me in the shade by the water spigot. Paula and Bruce are from Yuma, Arizona and I met them briefly at Indian Garden where they were camping for two days while taking short side trips on the Tonto Platform. I had hoped to chat them up in camp, but they were gone especially early this morning. Bruce is originally from Tucson, Arizona and we had a lot to talk about the hundreds of hikes in the five mountain ranges surrounding that city. Bruce and Paula have been hiking in the Grand Canyon for decades and have hiked pretty much every major trail and most of the minor ones. They agree with me about the the glut of day hikers swarming around these easily accessed places like Indian Garden, especially overrun since the pandemic. They long for the sixties and seventies when visitors were relatively sparser as were the regulations. But when I agree and suggest that perhaps we need to start permitting all hikers into the Canyon, they demur. On the one hand, they are old-school conservatives who value their “freedom” to hike when and where they choose; on the other hand, they also clearly love and respect the very landscape a permitting system would help protect. In any event, good on you two septuagenarians for continuing to get out there to hike; you’re an inspiration.

The boots reveal the coat of dirt that is less visible on 

the rest of me.

I got to the Rim around 10:30, and checked in with the folks at Bright Angel Lodge registration desk, which also handles Thunderbird Lodge reservations. I was told I could start the check-in process at noon and then get into my room when the cleaning was finished, probably around 2:00. 

I waited near the top for Richard and Juan, and whose heads popped up above the rim a short while later.  We hopped the Blue bus for Parking lot D to drop off our backpacks, and for me to grab my overnight bag, then drove back over to the Bright Angel parking lot to grab the last spot. We got on the wait-list for Fred Harvey Burger and landed a table fifteen minutes later in the Tavern, thankfully well away from other paying guests, who might be put off especially by me, shower-less for six days (although I had taken several dips in Bright Angel Creek) and dusty from today's hike.

At Fred Harvey Tavern, I ordered a Beyond Burger with cheese and fries, and a massive lunch salad of romaine lettuce, roasted beets, carrots, and sunflower seeds. I devoured everything, washing it all down with a Tower Station IPA from Mother Road Brewing Company in Flagstaff. The salad made my week, but was that beer good. Sweet Richard, flexing his inner mensch, sprang for the whole shebang. 

I got into my room by 2:00, showered the Coconino sandstone and Redwall limestone dust off my body, then took a two-mile hike over to the Market and back to grab a couple beers for tonight and some road food for tomorrow’s trip to Moab. 

A better view of my post-hike dishevelment. Note the 

skipped shirt button from dressing in the dark

this morning.

Writing these last few prosaic paragraphs makes me realize my week of poetry is over. Six days and sixty-one miles through perhaps the planet’s most stunning landscape. I can’t say it changed me, except for maybe losing a little weight, but I am glad I got to experience it while still physically able, and while the climate still allows. 

This should read 59.4 miles but for my absent-mindedness.

Photos Ignored by the Artistically Stunted Editor

Solo Backpacking Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim: Day 5 (Sunset)

Plateau Point, center, reaching out into the canyon. Indian Garden is the ribbon of green.

As I promised, I am treating myself to a sunset at Plateau point. It's a flat, short 3-mile round trip from my camping spot to Plateau Point. I hiked out south on the campground spur from the main trail, and hung a left at the sign for the Plateau Point Trail. One other backpacker from camp, an aging Californian from Pismo Beach and his younger, barefoot hippy friend were on their way up this evening as well.  I'd chatted with them over the water spigot earlier in the day and we both agreed Plateau Point was one of the reasons we'd decided to camp at Indian garden. They headed up about thirty minutes ago. Also at the Point we’re a couple of lovebirds, who either hiked down from the rim on a day hike, or they’re stealth camping at Indian Garden. 

Here’re a few pictures of the hike, followed by your moment of Zen.

The top of the Devil's Corkscrew.

Your moment of Zen.

Sunset at Plateau Point, with two fellow campers and two love birds down for a day hike. I hope they have head lamps for the hike back to the rim.

Solo Backpacking Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim: Day 5

It’s my final day on the canyon floor before I begin my two-day climb up the Bright Angel Trail and out. Today is a short day, five miles and 1,300 feet of elevation gain, with most of that concentrated in a section called Devil’s Corkscrew. Devil and screw sound pretty ominous, but I’ll keep an open mind. Plus, my 40-pound pack is now down around 35 pounds, so feeling light. I also feel like I feel on day five on a bike tour: way stronger than when I started. It is going to be a scorcher today, but I trust the higher elevation and shade in Indian Garden will keep things a little bearable.

With such a short day, I am also planning to catch a sunset at Plateau Point this evening, a short, flat three-mile out-and-back from Indian Garden Campground. I’ve heard it’s spectacular, unearthly. But that can be said of most of the Grand Canyon.

Indian Garden is so-called because it was used seasonally for centuries by ancestral Pueblans, Cohoninas, and Havasupai, who were attracted to the perennial springs of this little oasis, and the relatively flat land of the Tonto Plateau that lent itself to farming. Indian Garden provided a summer respite from the heat, with tall shady cottonwood and aspen groves, and a big, broad plain to grow food for the winter. They made their way to and from the South Rim via a nascent Bright Angel trail, probably using ladders to traverse the steep, rocky outcroppings. The Havasupai were still farming in 1910, but after Teddy Roosevelt declared Grand Canyon a national monument, they left and were probably forced out, to make way for tourists like me.

My neighbor offers to take my picture as I was heading out. Looking really good here with my 5-day stubble and dirt-tinged shirt.

Normally one would say, wow, what a beautiful sunny morning, but what I wouldn't do for overcast. But yeah, beautiful.

One shouldn't anthropomorphize other animals, but these folk don't look too stoked to be here.

I leave Bright Angel about 6:15 and set a pretty good pace and would make it to Indian Garden in just over two hours. I seem to be getting more fit every day, my knee and arm have scabbed over nicely and I never think about them. And the bruises I developed on my shoulders from my pack have faded and been replaced with muscle. As I head toward the Silver Bridge across the Colorado, I pass by the burro corral and can’t help but feel for the poor beasts tied up and waiting for their next load of primates, supplies, or trash. Surely they can’t enjoy their days toiling up and down these trails. I’m sure the park service will defend their use, enabling as they do those who might not otherwise be able to make it into the Canyon on their own. And of course the handlers will always rationalize it by saying that is what they were bred to do. And that is certainly true: a mule is a one-off sterile result of interbreeding species. Of course, the National Park Service doesn’t have a history of the kinds of horse and mule abuse meted out by the Havasupai tribe at Havasupai Falls that helped shine a light on pack animal abuse in the first place. That said, perhaps we should consider the mules more than the humans when weighing the pros and cons of burro rides.

The Silver Bridge is a 500-foot suspension built in the late 1960s. It connects the North Kaibab Trail on the north side of the Colorado River, to the Bright Angel Trail on the south.

I was glad to see no one approaching from the south as there is little room for maneuvering around another hiker carrying a big F.O. back pack.

View of the once mighty Colorado river, emasculated in the 1960s by the Glen Canyon Dam, which cut the flow through the Grand Canyon to a relative trickle, changed the riparian flora and fauna, and slowed to a crawl the hydraulic erosion of the rocks in the stream bed and the canyon walls. The reservoir formed behind the dam, Lake Powell, which took 17 years to fill inundated a canyon of immense beauty and destroyed an ecosystem and for what? Why to provide boat recreation and water to an already overpopulated desert, in a climate that can't support a hundredth of the current population of Homo "so-called" sapiens. Ironically, climate change has shrunk Lake Powell to the level in was in 1963 when it was first being filled. Soon, it will disappear completely. Or let's hope so.

It's hard to see from the picture, but this trail is covered in wind-blown soil and sand, mini dunes really, which, while very cushy, is not a great footbed for backpacking. Waah.

The first half mile after crossing the Silver Bridge was like hiking in the Kalahari, with deep, slippery almost quaggy sand underfoot. Not ideal, but I had absolutely nothing else to bitch about because I was walking on the flats. Much of the elevation gain is coming up at the Devil’s Corkscrew set of switchbacks in a mile or so. 

I catch up to a group of young backpackers near the top of the ‘Screw, which I didn’t find terribly challenging. This was a group of six kids (late thirties and full-ass adults, actually) who had just landed from their six-day oar trip down the Colorado and were now hiking out. These self-propelled adventurers tend to be self-limiting and younger, sifting out those who can abide the noise of motors and the cacophony of 20 fellow travelers. They prefer not to have their idyllic vacation disturbed by screaming motors and gasoline fumes. 

Smiling in earnest.

This young woman asked to take my picture, which I obliged and also returned the favor. Every one of these young river rafters raved about their trip, even the spindly thirty-year-old taking up the rear and struggling with his pack. They all wanted to do the trip again, maybe even opting for the optional 18-day tour. I might have to try it myself.

Pole-resting break.

Getting near the campground. I approached from the right, which points to the Colorado River. 

Tonight just before dusk, I plan to take the Plateau Point Trail out to Plateau Point to catch the sunset. That hike will get its own blog entry as this post is already overladen. I wish the editor would just do his job.

I arrived at Indian Garden about 8:30 and pick out the shadiest spot I can find. The young couple in the adjacent site are from Lawrence, Kansas, she wearing an NCAA champions t-shirt, of course. They are packing up and leaving a day early because some animal got into their food storage box during the night and ate their lunch and dinner. They told me the they saw a pink rattlesnake previous day lolling in my camp site. I thought that was pretty cool and really hoped it would return. Apparently, Indian Garden is rife with these The snakes evolved a pink hue due to their pink surroundings, the Redwall limestone prevalent at this altitude. 

From the National Park Service (NPS) Grand Canyon website

Grand Canyon Rattlesnake Crotalus oreganus abyssus Often described as pink in color, this species is found nowhere in the world but the Grand Canyon. Commonly observed from Lees Ferry to the vicinity of National Canyon, primarily below the rim.

I pitched my tent despite (or because of) the snake sighting and because of the deep shade. Then, 30 minutes later, stupidly moved to an adjacent site because of its incredible surrounding backdrop, and then moved again back to the shade as the sun rose, and as detour-directed hikers from the main trail (see helicopter story below) obliviously traipse through my site in a steady stream. But mostly it was the disappearing shade of this otherwise drop-dead gorgeous campsite. I have really become sun-averse, and my chronic squamous cell carcinoma will back me up on that. So I move back to the shade just in time before a backpacker duo arrive who would have surely taken this most-coveted and shaded spot.

From NPS Grand Canyon Website

The Grand Canyon rattlesnake (C. oreganus abyssus) is a subspecies of the more broadly spread Western rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus). Blending into Grand Canyon's varied rock layers, this venomous pit viper uses its rattle to warn predators off, the tiny muscles firing up to fifty times per second--some of the fastest known to science. Take a "Minute Out In It" to appreciate the power of a zoom lens, since our ranger knew to keep a very safe distance from the hemotoxic venom of this coiled carnivore.

But one can't really miss at any of these sites. This campground is really deluxe. Besides the plethora of trees and shade, each site also sported a ramada, itself great for shade, and also as protection from those rains that come in the monsoon season.

The site I temporarily moved to simply because it was real perty. But the arc of the sun took much of the shade away so 30 minutes after I moved I moved right back. My tent is free standing, however, so I just picked it up in toto and moved it.

I made the right choice on this site, twice.

Water (stone cube), conveniently located a few paces from my tent.

My own campsite backdrop ain't too shabby.

After I settled in to my shady camp site, a couple of fifty- (or sixty-something, I can’t tell anymore) backpackers arrive to replace the Kansans who had since departed for the Rim. They are obviously good friends as I could hear them good-naturedly flipping each other shit and generally joking around. I asked where they were from and my ears perked up when they said Pensacola. I spent a year in school at NTTC Corry Station in Pensacola after I finished Naval boot camp in San Diego in the late 70s. I was attending the naval intelligence school, to learn cryptology and electronic intelligence. They had hiked down the South Kaibab and are hiking out tomorrow, as am I.

Juan Fraga was born in Cuba before moving to Florida as a baby. Juan spent 12 years in the Navy as an air traffic controller and now works as a technical consultant. He served on the U.S.S. Enterprise, and the Midway, which is now a museum in San Diego. Richard Loza retired after serving 20 years as a medic, working first for the Marine Corp, and finally as an instructor at Corry Station. Juan and Richard are both Marlins fans and also support the Marlins local AA team, the Blue Wahoos. Juan, tells me his hiker name is Falls Like a Pro, because of his propensity for catching himself with his poles when heading for the ground. Richard also has a hiker name, Earthquake, because of a time when his camp cot folded in two while he was sleeping and he dreamed he was experiencing a tremor. Juan is quite the quick wit, and Richard can also hold his own repartee. This is Juan's second big trip backpacking in the Grand Canyon. Several years earlier he and his daughter backpacked from the North Rim to the South Rim. They are both really sweet guys and I don’t think they’d mind me saying so.

Juan "Falls-Like-A-Pro" Fraga (left) and Richard "Earthquake" Loza.

At one point just after noon, a helicopter makes a noisy appearance above the main trail. I see a litter (stretcher) attachment and assume it is an air ambulance. I asked a passing ranger if that were the case and she said that no, the company that built and maintains the toilets, Phoenix Composting Toilets out of Whitefish, Montana, was here for the annual collection of blue composting barrels. But the attached litter was standard on all helicopters, even those used to pick up poo; apparently, they pull double duty. 

The barrels are wrapped in a thick cargo net three at a time and then picked up by a sky hook on a cable dropped from the helicopter. There are twelve barrels all told, and the helicopter would make three more trips to pick up barrels. This procedure also explains why the main trail traffic was routed through the campground for an hour-and-a-half and I was relieved to hear that hiker traffic was temporary.

And of course, as one would expect, after they hauled away the barrels from the main trail toilet, they turned their attention to our campground toilet, which also had twelve full compost barrels. We were told we could stay in our sites, but that would turn out to be a big a mistake, as we were to find out shortly when we experienced our own little helicopter shit-show.

Helicopter arriving.

Dust bowl that filled our lungs and gave me a week's worth of Covid-like symptoms.

A ranger attaching the sky hook to the cargo net holding three compost barrels.

Blue barrels ascending...

...and being hauled up to the awaiting truck on the South Rim. The Phoenix blurb about this composting system on the wall of the toilet said this compost was organic garden-ready. Pretty impressive.

After the first dust storm, Juan, Richard and I decide to head over to the Amphitheater where an eager young ranger, Ranger Rebecca, was about to give her four o'clock presentation on Canyon safety. Rebecca obviously loved her job and it showed. She reminded me of many a first-year teacher, over worked and under payed, working in a job increasingly disrespectedt but buoyed nevertheless because of her personal joy in helping others, but unlike in teaching, working in a place that was its own reward. 

Rebecca extolling this place so many peoples have considered sacred. And doing it with alacrity and zeal.

The amphitheater lies just behind the stone wall.

After a dinner of Hatch Chile Mac and Cheese (which didn't disappoint), I headed out on my sunset hike to Plateau Point. 

(To be continued...)