It’s a Small World

The alarm woke us shortly after 3am. Yes. Woke us! Clearly we had slept a little. It still hadn’t cooled off much, but there was a teensy breeze. Throughout the campground we could see the winking lights of other hikers packing up and starting up the trail. You do what you need to do to beat the heat! The upper rocks slowly became more visible in the early dawn, and by the time we actually headed out we could just discern the trail without lights. That didn’t seem to register with a few other hikers, I saw one headlamp still glowing at the halfway point, where the sun was already high in the sky.

I guess I hadn’t looked at the trail map much and was vaguely disconcerted by the fact that it climbs up and down along the river for a mile or so. Nobody told me I’d have to gain the same elevation more than once.

Bright Angel trail is beautiful! It follows a creek a lot of the way, and is even in the creek for a hundred feet or so. There’s little water crossings, lush greenery and it smells like a zoo. Red canyon walls tower above you and it’s totally breathtaking. In a good way. Shortly after turning away from the river we reached the first challenging bit, The Devils Corkscrew. This is a fairly steep series of switchbacks that is stunning. It will also make you kick it into 4 low. We put a plan in place to rest every 500 vertical feet and up we went. I may or may not have stopped and looked at the scenery a-bit often.

The good thing about climbing the canyon is that you can’t see the top most of the way, so it’s not demoralizing how far you need to go. Another good thing this time is that there was no mules. Apparently it’s normally quite crowded, but they weren’t running them now.

Havasupai Gardens was a welcome sight and we spent a while splashing at the water tap and consuming food. By now it was hot enough that getting your clothes wet felt terrific! Some construction workers came running by, clearly they were a little late for work… What a way to commute! The water pipe is being redone all the way along the trail, so they were working on that. I can’t believe they roar up and down every day, they must have a home base somewhere.

Three miles from the top we started to see a few more people. They still mostly looked like hikers, but it didn’t take many more switchbacks before we started to see the Very Optimistic Day Hikers. Honestly, if I was a Ranger I believe I’d get a little cynical. We had been on the trail four or five hours already, and felt like it had to be midday for sure. I have no clue how much water and electrolytes we had consumed, but it was a lot. And then along would come a duo of girls, dressed in their hiking skivvies and fashionable sandals and they’d wave their Stanley cups and debate if they should “go all the way to the bottom or not”. My mind snorted a little.

There was the father/daughters hike that also didn’t seem to be panning out. One of the girls kept lagging behind and stopping to rest in every patch of shade. A few of us asked her if she was alright and she always said yes, but when her loving family disappeared up the hill and she was left crouching on the trail, I decided to really ask. Still she insisted she was fine. “Oh I’m great, just dizzy and lightheaded so I need to rest some.” “Oh yes I have water, I just can’t drink it very much cause I have to balance sips and nausea.” You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help, so we left her to her fate. Enough Rangers were around that we weren’t too worried she’d pass away before more help came.

And so we toiled up the last steep stretch, excitement mounting as each step brought us closer. Heath felt better and better the longer he climbed, go figure, and popped out of the Canyon raring to go. Andrew never changed pace and never got tired, in spite of being our pack ass. If anything got a bit heavy it was just handed off to him. Seriously, stepping off that trail is just a total rush! I wanted to do wild dances all over the parking lot but didn’t for the sake of those around me.

Mather Campground showers felt so good, even if the floors were dirty. We scrubbed the salt waves off our faces, tried to detangle our river hair and in general had a very luxurious five minutes. Yup, the showers are 5 minutes for $2.50. It was enough and we piled (literally) back into the Flex for the drive back towards Phoenix.

Just out of the park we swung into a McD’s for some reward food. I ordered a McDouble, small fry, Large sweet tea and a Carmel Sunday. Wow. Some very nice eating, that. Everyone’s orders looked pretty similar and we were a happy bunch.