Well, I guess I saw the Grand Canyon

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July 23, 2010

Yesterday was the hairiest day of my trip. I made several consecutive bad decisions that led to a minor freak out. Of course, I had no way of knowing what was going to happen, but I probably should have just planned it a wee bit better.

Bad decision #1—sleeping in until 11am, and not leaving Vegas until around 1pm.
Bad decision #2- cancelling my camp reservations at the Grand Canyon
Bad decision #3- still deciding to go the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
Bad decision #4- not calculating my route to the North Rim prior to departure.
Bad decision #5- still insisting we can make the Grand Canyon prior to dark.

So all of these bad decisions were added to a bunch of unforeseen circumstances that I probably should have forseen given my now expansive road trip experience. The unforeseen circumstances? Road construction.

Add these together and you have Dana and mom stuck in traffic. Then you have Dana and mom driving through Zion National Park, since we didn’t know the turn for the quicker route to the Grand Canyon. Then you have Dana and mom marveling at Zion National Park because there is more road construction and traffic there and you have nothing else to do but sit and look around you. Then you have Dana and mom driving down a country road at break neck speed as it is now 7:30 and we are 60 miles from the Grand Canyon. Then, Dana and Mom are racing the sun on a road that had cattle grazing by the side with no cattle barriers, deer just happily hopping along, probably just dying to cross the street, and mountainous unmarked turns. This is the only way in on the desolate North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and the only way out. Needless to say, this road is NOT one that you want to be driving in the dark.
We made it just in time to see a few views which I will describe later.

Our next step was, what? What the hell do we do now? It’s getting dark, no Park Rangers are around to help us, and we are in the middle of F@#$%ing nowhere! We walked into the obviously booked ladge to talk to someone at the desk. Plan A- beg for a couch, a closet, anything. Play A-shut down by the crazy lady at the desk. Plan B- ask such lady for directions to our cancelled campsite. Crazy lady didn’t have that information. Plan C- ask crazy lady for some nearby hotels. Crazy lady said nearby hotels were at least 50 miies away and probably had no vacancys. Plan D- ask crazy lady what she recommends. Crazy lady recommends to set up camp, in the dark, on a road pull off somewhere just outside the park. Now, the only road out of the park, is the one I described to you with the cattle and the deer. So crazy lady recommends we pull off of on the side of a road, in the middle of nowhere, with lots of animals around, and set up a camp in the dark. Yeah right, lady you’re crazy. And here is where my freak out begins. With no place to stay, short of pitching a tent in a random spot next to the road, I only had one decision left. I had to drive that road in the dark, pray that my glasses would be super sonic animal spotters, and hope that Chloe will decide to give me another 100 miles or so trouble free.

I ended up driving 200 miles until we found a place to stay. There were numerous animal spotting, thank you super sonic glasses! We were in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was a long day but we ended up safe and sound, in one piece, though my nerves were shot. Never again, will I make those decisions again.
Now for what happened at the park. We arrived at Bright Angel trail in the Grand Canyon and the sun has already dipped behind the rocks. We were able to run the .5 mile trail to the view points, and made it with just barely enough light to see that we were standing on the edge of a serious cliff—a cliff, entitled the Grand Canyon. A thunderstorm was happening over the South Rim, and to the west, the clouds and the sky had the most beautiful colors. Dark on the east, lightning on the south, and a beautiful sunset on the west, we truly had some amazing views. The rocks were magnificent and the drop was frightening and breathtaking. What was even more astonishing though was the approach. I expected the Grand Canyon to be a desert type landscape. I thought that approaching it, you would have a feel that soon the river will cut these rocks and you will be at the edge. I thought you would see some miniature rockscapes around you and that it would slowly build. The Grand Canyon doesn’t work like that. You are actually in a forest, with trees. It isn’t desert at all, it is green and foresty and grassy. And it remains so until you get to the edge. You don’t even really see it coming then bam, a huge hole in the ground that extends as far as you can see. My viewing time of course was cut short by darkness. This was disappointing. To do all of that, to go through all of that, only to have a mere 10 minutes at the grand canyon! My pictures suck because of it, and I couldn’t enjoy it, but that was my consequence for all of those bad decisions.

Would it have been better at the South Rim? I don’t know. The North Rim is less traveled. They get 10% of the visitors as the south rim. That alone is appealing. It is also higher, it is the highest point of the canyon, so the views are spectactular. This, with no annoying people to block your views, it became an obvious choice. To get there though, you need to travel some very desolate 2 lane roads. According to experts, the best view of the rock layers and the relief in the park is at Bright Angel point. So that is why we made that decision. Next time, my decisions will be different. I will go back and find out if the North Rim is better than the South Rim. I also need to get a stamp of the Grand Canyon for my national parks passport book. The visitors center was of course closed upon my arrival, so I wasn’t able to record that I had been there. This, I was also disappointed about.

It was overall a disappointing day, but I was safe, I had a bed to sleep in, my car didn’t breakdown in the middle of nowhere, and I was able to see the sunsetting on the Grand Canyon.
We are off to New Mexico to stay with my mom’s friend Carol. Carol is cool and she makes some mean cocktails. I could use one.

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Comments

[P Hobbs]

suggestion for others - north rim
If after 8:00 pm go the volunteer camp host in the camp ground -- they may have an emergency site for you -- never hurts to ask -- the North Rim is remote but beautiful:)