Tucson has become a new home- I've been here about two months now and it has really settle,d in that I'm going to be here for awhile instead of bumming for a few weeks, and this is a good feeling- A bit more settled, more rooted, getting to know people deeper, branching out.
It has been a while since I wrote and I apologize for the few who actually checked my blog and saw a post they have read already, well here's some new material for the spongie eyes- Many know, many don't that this past weekend I hiked The Canyon, rim to rim and back again- It was phenomenal, words do not describe really what my eyes have seen- what my legs have walked- what my hands have felt- what my spirit has experienced, to help give some a picture here are some things that I have said to help virgin minds understand what being in the Canyon is like- Jurassic Park (without dinosaurs), the place where Tamone and Pumba live in Lion King (Hakuna Matata), True Joy, an insatiable Dream of beauty, Heaven- Just to give you a few.
I'll go ahead and shout out all the boring logistics so I can delve into the heart of the hike- or at least some small pieces- I went to work on Thursday at CHRPA, got off a little early and Me, Dan Wilhelm (CHRPA employee), Harvey Hartzler (retired, part time CHRPA volunteer) and Mark Schildt (Head of MVS house and doctor) all set out to just north of Flagstaff, about 10 miles from the South Rim- We arrived at our Red Feather lodge at approximately 10:30 pm and went straight to bed, awakening at 3:30 am and driving the rest of the way to the Rim and meeting the Trinity Mennonite full hiking group- (Trinity Mennonite is a Mennonite church in Phoenix that Harvey use to go to in the 80's)- We then took shuttles to the South Kaibab trailhead where we headed down into the looming dark abyss around 5ish- South to North rim is 21 miles and took me and Mark about 10 hours to hike (North Rim is about 1600 ft higher then the South so South to North is known to be a more difficult hike)- Exhausted, the remaining life of Friday was spent refueling, looking at the wonderful view in awe of what we just traversed and mainly going to bed- it was about 7 or 8 when we hit the sheets- Waking at 7 or 8 we headed over to the restaurant in the lodge and ate a delicious breakfast, then all of Saturday consisted of walking out the soreness and body cries, reading, making some phone calls, taking pictures, having a small meeting with singing and fellowship- and more eating- (We also ate a really good dinner at the lodge too) It was great to relax mind and body and get geared up for Sunday, in which we got up at 3:45 were headed down the trail by 4 am- Now going back to the South we used the Bright Angel trail instead of coming up South Kaibab and this is longer- We hiked 24 miles on Sunday- arriving back just under 10 hours once again (Me and Mark)- Had a fiasco with finding our bags (and Harvey) but I won't get into any of that.
For a true glimpse into what hiking in The Canyon is like I can only say one thing- do it- As I walked down the North Rim in the dead of late morning- no moon- stars scattered marbles across the sky- silence- entering into an unknown darkness- I thought to myself that no person can truly KNOW this unless they have walked where I am walking, looking at what I see- There are so many aspects and stories I wish I could tell but for the sake of keeping one's attention I will try to stick to just a few- Walking down the North side before the Sun had shed its first rays was as if entering a earthen cathedral of immeasurable size- columns of rock sprouting- silhouettes against the horizon- as if ancestors of old surrounding- encompassing your whole being, you felt as though an ant traveling its daily laborious duties- And so many times we pull our cameras and say "I can't wait to show this to people back home!" and click, the picture is taken to share with others who can't- who couldn't be there- but as I continued to consider these things and conveniences of our modern age, the more I realized that this beauty, the shades-giants of the earth-fathers of the ground, brother to the sky- cannot be captured within a photo, no matter how sophisticated we make our camera technologies they will never capture what the human eye can capture and what those neuron synapses firing as information is traveling from your eyes to your brain cause the rest of your body to feel- So in a since I was truly in marvel of the enormity and power of this natural formation of earth and change- that it is millions, billions of years old, yet still is wily enough to keep a part of its inner heart out of sausage like tourist hands- camera lens- and even the most environmental conscious, professional photographers skills and wishes and hopes and capturing what my eyes saw as we dove into the belly of the beast early that Sunday morning.
There is a falls that lies mostly hidden in the recesses of a few straggled cliffs, Ribbon Falls- and it is a true to its name falls, the water falling is not substantial and creates a kind of ribbon stream that pours from 70 ft of rock- A trail splits off the main trail just half mile past Cottonwood if your going North to South and it is only a quarter mile trail that takes you to this place of transcendent beauty- Mark had bought a book about The Canyon and read that it is worth seeing if you have the time and so we decided we should go, though it was just us two, Dan and Harvey continued on the iron footed journey- All I can say is that hiking the extra half mile (round trip) is more then worth seeing what you stumble upon in that natural corner of cliff and rock- You are in the valley of Bright Angel Creek, desert scrub- hot- cactus- with cliffs high enough to still block the sun at 10 am- but as you travel just a few hundred feet and encounter the the stream coming from the falls, as quick as a bat flaps its wings you enter into a completely different world- the ecology completely change, sounds of gurgling and bubbling water become stronger and more apparent, and your eyes are met with an overwhelming color of green that is not too frequent down in the belly- It fascinatingly reminded me of those old (fairly awful) Bible movies of Egypt and Moses floating down this serene, calm, bubbling stream fenced with reeds and flat leaved bush- odd I know- And as if you peel apart curtain you climb over rock-jump-and stumble (literally) upon this ribbon of water falling 40 ft from the rock above down, splattering on a shell of a rock covered with moss- half pooling and trickling down in an indescribable step stone falls- other half bouncing off the moss shell and making the full Ribbon Falls complete- It is no fib-lie-falsity-or exaggeration to say when I saw this I was truly rendered speechless and had nothing but a smile of euphoric proportions- To put it into a lamens scenario to help some really understand the joy and beauty it brought to my soul, if I were to have a conversation with God (I would first do the rim to rim hike with him and talk about what a darn good job he did designing this place) but then taking him to Ribbon Falls and say, "THAT, is what I would like my heaven to be like- just with all the people I love, food to eat, and it would be nice for the water to be warmer"- Mark took some pictures which I will hopefully be putting up soon on my Flickr that you will be able to see the falls but it won't compare to seeing and hearing and Feeling what the falls was like.
The only bummer of the trip was that coming up the Bright Angel trail which is well known because of its beauty and fairly short trip to Indian Gardens another famous hot spot is that the place is filled with repulsive tourists with their LL Bean boots- designer T-shirts- 900 dollar cameras with tripods- cellphones and ipods, yelling and screaming about how bad this energy bar tastes- when do we get to go back to hotel?- are we really hiking all the way back up?- Can a helicopter pick us up?- Hey! Paul, check it out, I have 4 bars down here- Who wants to carry the water now?- The map says Plateau Peak is only a mile and a half away but I don't know if my legs can make it that far- and blah blah blah, from Indian Gardens on- about 4.5 miles from the Rim- its like a cesspool circus of tourist sores- It really wasn't too bad up until the last mile and a half which is the closest "lookout point"-say u hiked part of The Canyon and set up that expensive camera you got last Christmas and capture the real essence of it from there- people can hike to, so once we past that point it we had a mile and a half to go- breathing hard- legs burning- hiking for over 9 hours by now- can't even look up to check out The Canyon anymore as you don't want to start resenting it this near the end- all you want to do is get out of the beast's clutches and rest of sure, familiar ground, but instead you are dodging- trying to find your way through this maze of tourists who know no trail etiquette and think your just two young guns who want to show off how fast they can hike up from the "3 mile lookout"- I wish we could have held signs that said "We are coming from the North Rim, we left at 4 am and are going on 23 miles- PLEASE MOVE OUT OF OUR WAY"- There were many times I want to make a snide comment or just bulldoze my way right through a lovely European couple taking a calm stroll taking up the entire trail- but I held my tongue and my impatience long enough to get out and sit my weary legs down- though still having to endure through the thousands of tourists that swarm the South hive within just a few hours.
In the end, check out the pictures, feel free to ask questions, leave a comment or give me a call- always willing to describe in more detail about the trip- It will go down as one of the coolest things I've ever done, at least so far in my life.
Note to readers, I've been reading a lot of Jack Kerouac, awesome- phenomenal author who has written many short autobiographical books describing (and creating) the beat generation- most famous of his books that I hope most know and/or have read is On The Road but anyways I really enjoy his books and have embraced his writing style and so you just went through one of my first experiments in mirroring some of what I have weened from Kerouac's writing style- let me know what you think and if it is awful or you kinda dig it- because I of course don't want people to be bothered by the writing of something I want them to read.
Art there, Lord Star?- Diminished is the drizzle that broke my calm. -Jack Kerouac, excerpt from his novella Tristessa
Cheers, Daniel
