Visions of Grandeur

10-20-2002

Hiking into eternity

PHANTOM RANCH, Ariz. - Grand Canyon: No name could be more fitting, no words to better describe infinity. Beholding it in person is the only way to appreciate its magnificence.

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Standing on the edge of a sheer thousand-foot precipice, itself dwarfed by vast emptiness, you gain a perspective available nowhere else on Earth.

Over the past 65 million years, the fluvial chisel of the Colorado River has gouged a glorious gash through the rising Kaibab Plateau, a mile-high mountain of alternating layers of limestone and sandstone. It has etched several hundred feet farther into the Vishnu Schist, the 3-billion-year-old bedrock on which much of North America stands.

Hike down any of the half dozen trails that lead from the rims to the river a vertical mile below, spend a night or two at Phantom Ranch, the rustic enclave along Bright Angel Creek, and that perspective will be etched in memory for life.

For, as expansive as vistas from the rim can be, the views encountered hiking to the river can be life altering.

Since 1903, when President Teddy Roosevelt called it the one natural scene every American should see, travelers from around the world have come to be awed by Arizona's Grand Canyon.

The vast majority arrive in summer's heat, stroll along the edge for an hour or a day and then leave. Catching more than a distant glimpse of the Colorado itself requires more time, energy and determination.

But summer is not the best time to make that investment.

As my wife, Sari, and I discovered, late November may be one of the better times of year to visit. The summer crowds have dwindled, and daytime temperatures are considerably more pleasant. The corollary benefits of those factors proved to be considerable.

Established in 1922, Phantom Ranch was an enclave of simple stone cabins and campsites built around a central cafeteria and bathhouse, all designed by Mary Colter, the energetic hostess who helped Fred Harvey Co. and Santa Fe Railroad civilize the West.

There have been changes over the years, of course -- a few cabins and bunkhouses added, water and sanitation improved, but, by and large, Phantom Ranch has remained a relative oasis of comfort among the Earth's oldest rocks.

Phantom Ranch must also rank among the planet's most exclusive retreats, based on effort rather than expense. Although some guests arrive on the backs of mules, river raft and the very occasional helicopter, for most, getting there requires a steep, long hike down from the nearest road.

Be prepared

For me, Phantom Ranch is also well named. Although this was my fifth visit to the Grand Canyon, I had never actually seen the ranch or even the Colorado River. Despite my long, strong urge to hike the many miles down to the bottom, the circumstances had never been right.

My first encounter came as a 21-year-old during a cross-country hitchhiking ramble. A friend and I arrived at the North Rim late one July afternoon in 1970. Though ignorant about the canyon and unprepared for hiking, we immediately struck off down North Kaibab Trail, thinking we'd walk in "just far enough to see the river." Little did we know.

Without food or water and wearing only shorts and T-shirts, we started down the steep switchbacks of the trail keeping track of neither time nor distance.

It was at a 100-yard stretch of trail barely three feet wide, gouged into the solid rock that hung over a sheer cliff dropping hundreds of feet, that I discovered my fear of heights.

It was absolute, dizzying panic, and after maybe a dozen steps, the only way I could move myself forward was to crawl. I made it past that barrier and a second tight stretch, but soon the sky began to darken.

Merely contemplating crossing those two cliff faces in the rapidly deepening dusk was more than I could handle, but without equipment or sustenance, spending the night on the trail didn't seem a viable option either. With both the temperature and darkness falling rapidly, we were both close to panic, realizing the variety of dangers we suddenly faced.

Fortunately for those two babes in the canyon, we happened on the pumping station on the trans-Canyon water pipeline. The caretaker took pity, gave us some water, rice pudding and two blankets and let us curl up on his back porch.

With teeth chattering, we survived the night, got up early the next morning and quickly climbed out, with me again on all fours at parts, despite the humiliation of encountering another hiking party. From start to finish, my first canyon visit had been a humbling experience.

During the next three decades, I made other quick visits to the South Rim with my young children or aging parents. On the last sojourn, the park ranger strongly advised me that a hike with my 7-year-old son would take at least 10 hours, which would have made it impossible for us to stick to our schedule.

As a parent, I was thankful for the advice. Instead, we hiked down Bright Angel Trail for three miles, and just getting out from that point turned out to be a challenge for my son. And so I left the canyon once more, still not having seen the Colorado.

Happy anniversary?

Last fall, when I suggested that to celebrate our anniversary, we hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, spend two nights there and then walk out, my wife, Sari, had some trepidation.

Although she's a strong, enthusiastic walker, long-distance backpacking has never enticed her, and she wasn't sure how her knee, weakened by an old injury, would hold up. I assured her she could make it down to the bottom and back, but we'd also have a private cabin, meals and shower waiting for us down at Phantom Ranch. That allowed us to minimize what we'd have to carry in the way of water and snacks for the trail, or changes of clothes and gear for possible foul weather. She said she'd try.

The next advantage I discovered to off-season canyon visits is reservations are much easier to make and less expensive. Although North Rim facilities close each year from mid-October to early May, the South Rim is always open, except during occasional snowstorms. Some ancillary services are seasonal, but the prime amenities and the main attraction are fully functional year-round. During the warm months, the limited space at Phantom Ranch can be booked 23 months in advance and is often sold out a year ahead of time. For our late-November trip, however, we were able to reserve a cottage with less than a month's notice. When there, we met a young couple from Germany who had booked their reservation just the previous week, when the post-9/11 bargain airfares had persuaded them to see America.

Quite a hike

We arrived at the South Rim on a Tuesday, following an easy flight from Pittsburgh and a smooth, scenic drive north from Phoenix. Only eight hours after leaving home, we were contemplating the great silence of the canyon from our room at El Tovar, the grand old park hotel poised right on the lip of eternity.

With only 70 guest rooms, El Tovar is a National Historic Site that ranks high among the National Park System's grand old lodges. While furnishings and fixtures are venerable, they have been well maintained, and the meals we had there were enjoyable. Its balcony rooms offer one of the best views imaginable from any hotel.

Of the two primary trails that lead from the South Rim down to the canyon, Bright Angel is the longer, taking 7.8 miles to wind down the river, and another two to reach Phantom Ranch. By contrast, South Kaibab Trail reaches the Ranch in a precipitous 6.7 miles.

We opted for Bright Angel for several reasons. On my three previous trips to the South Rim, I'd walked down Bright Angel a few miles and I was familiar with it. Though steep, its entrance leads into the head of a valley and seemed less terrifying to me than the tight rocky switchbacks of South Kaibab that start down along a ridge where the bottom has no tomorrow. Also, we were advised that water isn't available on Kaibab, which would have been more of an issue in summer. The late November weather was also something of a surprise. Ice coated the edges of Bright Angel Trail as we leisurely started down at 10:30 the following morning, when the morning sun was high enough to provide some warmth.

At first, the going on the trail was treacherous, but within a quarter mile, all trace of ice and snow had melted away. As we made our way down, I realized that hiking into a canyon is like climbing a mountain but in reverse: The deeper you go, the warmer it becomes.

The sky was a clear, bright blue as we wound our way down through a series of sweeping switchbacks, making good progress with our toe-jamming steps. Although down would seem to be the easier of the two ways to walk, it does take a toll on the toes, shins and knees.

Making steady progress, we took three hours to cover the 4.6 miles down to Indian Gardens, where we stopped for lunch. That's where I noticed the note on the bulletin board advising that a Pacific winter storm would be transiting the area on Thursday and Friday. What did that forecast mean to our plans?

We continued our descent through the stunning rockscape, reaching the river about 3 p.m. Although the trail traversed several very steep slopes, I didn't experience any of the old vertigo panic. When I sensed myself getting nervous, I found that focusing my attention on Sari's heels in front of me helped calm me.

When we finally reached the Colorado River, we rested for 15 minutes. Another advantage to coming in the off-season was that we had the trail and riverside virtually to ourselves for nearly half an hour. As tired as I was at that point, I certainly was thrilled and felt a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment at finally making it to the river's bank. Watching its wide, resolute flow provided another perspective on eternity.

Then, somewhat rested although sore, we shouldered our packs and headed the final two miles upstream along the river, over several cliff faces and across sandy dunes to the silver Bright Angel suspension bridge.

Two foot bridges, the only crossings to span the river for 100 miles in either direction, are situated at the two edges of Bright Angel Creek's wide mouth. The more famous black suspension bridge, which was blasted into the rocky cliff faces in 1936 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, was a mile upstream from us. We crossed the newer, silver bridge. Phantom Ranch, our residence for the next two nights, lies on the other bank and another half mile up the creek.

Ranch hands

In addition to plenty of water and places to sleep, Phantom Ranch offers two hot meals a day and a menu that hasn't changed in decades: heavy on meat and carbohydrates, without concession to dietary sensibilities or vegetarians.

There's bacon, eggs and pancakes for breakfast, with two reserved seatings, at 5:30 and 7 a.m. Dinner also has two seatings, depending on one's choice of entree. The steak dinner is at 5 p.m., Irish stew at 6:30. All food is served family style at three tables. A word to the wise: Don't be late for a meal.

Box lunches -- a bagel, tubes of cream cheese, jelly and sausage, bags of cookies and pretzels and apple juice -- are also available,. Although not particularly appetizing, they did satisfy any hunger we worked up and were as good as the "meal" we'd had on our flight from Pittsburgh.

That evening after dinner, we sat in the dining area and chatted with other overnight guests; the tables were cleared and board games brought out. The guest list changed by the day, and we met a remarkably international group of people: Germans, Danes, Brits, Indian and Japanese. The other half comprised Americans, several from Arizona, but also others from across the country. More than a few were repeat visitors; several said they hiked down the canyon three or four times a year.

But as different as each group was, everyone had two things in common. All had expended considerable effort to get into the canyon, and all were aware that considerably more effort would have to be expended getting out. That made for an interesting fraternity.

It was barely 9 p.m. when we made our way back to the tiny stone cottage and crawled into the lower bunks of the tidy room's two beds. Neither of us had any trouble falling asleep, although Sari was concerned, unnecessarily as it turned out, about scorpion visitors.

The next day was intended to recover from the trip down. We decided to take a short hike up the North Kaibab Trail, which follows Bright Angel Creek out of the inner gorge to the North Rim, 14 miles by foot and 5,800 feet higher.

We didn't get that far.

Our stroll that day covered about four miles, along the slightly sloping trail that switched from one bank of the creek to the other over footbridges. The more leisurely pace allowed us to appreciate the geological grandeur even more. Our day passed in a flash, as we wandered among rocks more than 2 billion years old. In mid-afternoon, the skies clouded over, and snow clouds wrapped the ridges at the upper end of our vistas. But by the time the precipitation reached the canyon floor, it was only a mist that occasionally managed to form into drops.

Back at Phantom Ranch by late afternoon, we decided to explore a bit further and took a stroll back down to the Colorado and crossed over the black suspension bridge. We also were scoping out our possible route out of the canyon the following morning. Whether to go back up Bright Angel Trail or the steeper, shorter South Kaibab was an issue that occupied our discussions. I felt comfortable with taking the trail we knew; Sari was in favor of the more direct route.

After a beef stew dinner that evening, we played backgammon in the canteen and went to bed early. We had the late breakfast the following morning, and by 8 were crossing the black suspension bridge, having decided to try the South Kaibab Trail.

It was a steady climb up a series of switchbacks from the river but was less taxing on the feet than the trip down. The views were truly awesome, with broad canyon panoramas and frequent, increasingly vertiginous glimpses back down to the river and Bright Angel Creek. Several stretches along precipices made me very nervous, but, again, by paying close attention to the trail and Sari's feet in front of me, I made it without incident. I don't think I'd have been as comfortable coming down that route as I was going up.

A winter storm had indeed blown over while we had been nestled in the canyon. Considerable snow had fallen the night before, and it blanketed the trail for the last couple of miles, occasionally reaching knee-deep. Luckily, other hikers had come before us and had broken a path. The trail wasn't icy, and the well-defined path actually made walking easier. The snow created some stupendous canyon vistas. At several points, we stopped to watch the long, swooping flights of a condor across the broad expanse of the Tonto Platform.

It was about 1:30 p.m. as we negotiated the tight, steep switchbacks of the trail's final quarter-mile. Our passage out had taken us just over 5 1/2 hours, about the same time as the trip down. Since the climb out was supposed to take twice as long, clearly, Kaibab was the quicker trail. Just as we crested the rim, up pulled the free shuttle bus back to our car, and we jumped on, both feeling surprisingly chipper considering the climb.

And that was our grand canyon experience.

The journey had been an affirmational experience for both of us. I'd overcome my reticence about heights and had finally seen the river. Sari made the journey without difficulty. And, because we'd accomplished the feat together, it also turned out to be affirmational for our relationship.

Still, as expanding as the hike had been, we'd seen only one small wedge of the river, maybe two miles wide and 10 deep, out of an abyss 277 miles long and up to 15 miles across.

That's how it is with the best travel experiences. Appreciating how far you've come is the first step to realizing how much more remains to be seen.

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