Section 1: Kaibab to Grand Canyon
"Dammit, now I want a schwarma"
Hello, beautiful nerds! It is definitely autumn, and I am definitely in the desert!
The transport from airport to trailhead was long but thankfully uneventful. I met up with Constantine at the Denver airport on his connection, then got a late flight into Salt Lake City. The next day we found the rest of the crew at the Greyhound station for the next leg of our trip - a bus to St. George, Utah, then a private shuttle from there to the trailhead. Hardy's presence was actually supposed to be a surprise! Constantine kept teasing it to get me excited for trail, but my smartass jokes foiled his plan:
"Give me a hint. Do I have to carry it?"
"Well... no. Not unless something really goes wrong. But it's not exactly ultralight"
"It's not the Hardy boy is it? Haha, of course not."
"Ahhhh dammit, how did you know?!"
It WAS the Hardy boy! I was delighted to see both him and Sie again. The four of us plus Enigma made a fun crew on the PNT, and it's been really great to have 4/5ths of the trail fam back in action. I've never had a crew before, tending to hike solo or with just one other person, and this is the first time I've reunited with people on another trail. I'm a fan! The four of us are quite different personality-wise, but our hiking styles mesh well and the jokes are non-stop. Sie and I tend to be more type-A, miles over smiles, with me pushing late past sunset and Sie rising at the crack of dawn. Hardy and Constantine are strong daytime hikers and easy-going goofballs, keeping things chill in town and silly in camp. It feels good to fall back into the groove. We've been cruising high 20's and low 30's, not pushing too hard through the Grand Canyon. This trail is short, only 800 miles, and none of us are eager for it to be over.
The Arizona trail begins southbound at the Utah border, gently switchbacking up to a cruising altitude of 6,600ft on the Kaibab Plateau. From there, the plateau climbs almost imperceptibly to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, up through ponderosa forest to a breathless 9,000ft elevation. This deceptively flat grassland is actually much higher than the most rugged peaks of the PNT, but you'd never know it, save for a certain tightness in the chest and the frigid nighttime temperatures.
The Kaibab in autumn is painted in the sepia tones of an old Western; pale gold and terracotta, ochre and rust-red. In the saturated light of dusk, the landscape blazes. Each rock and tree is set aglow, as if lit from within by their own private sunsets. The dawn is more delicate, and gives the illusion of walking through an ancient tapestry, faded but no less glorious for its pale hue. The oaks and aspens are a riot of orange; the pines are a deep velvety green, just this side of black.
It's a cliche at this point to observe that the desert is where life and death most visibly entwine. However, it holds true. Each day, we pass a deer skeleton, or two, displayed next to the trail as if in a museum gallery. One morning while answering the call of nature, I unearthed a lizard skull, small and white as an eggshell. I considered it for a moment, then reinterred the tiny creature and took my business elsewhere. I'm not one to disrespect a grave.
On the PNT, the sight of carcasses disturbed me. Death in the Pacific Northwest is a horror of corruption and stench, pornographic in its naked decay. Here though, I find myself almost comforted by these daily encounters. I lost one of the most important people in my life just over a month ago, and the ache in my chest is bittersweet and constant. The elegant desert corpses console me - a reminder that with time, my own grief will fade to bones and become beautiful.
The Grand Canyon is magnificent on another level entirely. We reached the North Rim during an unseasonable cold snap, with daytime highs hovering barely above freezing. It didn't matter. The view off the North Rim is only a prelude to the incomparable beauty below, but even while shivering in a puffy it was an unsurpassable high. All my attempts to describe the Grand Canyon quickly disintegrate into a list of superlatives, so I won't even try. You really have to go see it for yourself. And oh, so many people do!
I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of tourist nonsense, at least inside the canyon itself. Most of those we passed the first day were rim-to-rim runners, overwhelmingly white, wirey and middle aged. The rest of the visitors were as diverse as the canyon is beautiful. We saw groups of yoga moms, jogging and calling out encouragements; families of every shade with middle-schoolers and small children; grannies and toddlers, college tours and Christian teens. One group of older men we passed were struggling up the North Rim, laden with enormous military packs and wistfully imagining their post-hike beers. I was highly amused to see the bear bells dangling off their shoulder straps - there are no bears in the Grand Canyon! There was a posse of elderly Indian tourists, smiling and chatting in a language I couldn't name, accompanied by a surly teenager blasting Bhangra music at top volume. Parents wrangled children in languages from every continent - even if you can't understand the words, the tone of "Get BACK here! Leave your sister alone!" is universal. (I heard one man tell his son, in heavily accented English, "What did I say to you?! Put the lizard down! He is not for petting!" and choked back laughter as the kid tried cajole his dad into keeping it).
By and large, the hikers off the North Rim were courteous and reasonably well-prepared, yielding to uphill hikers and mules, and stepping aside to let runners pass. The real adventure was at the South Rim, where the largest visitor center is located. The climb up Bright Angel is not terribly steep and has plenty of water and rest areas, but was made longer and more tedious by the rudeness of the tourists. I kept having to ask people repeatedly to move and let me pass, flying uphill at my thru-hiker top speed. I took more time contemplating the Colorado River than my crew, so I was a fast solo female on the way up, and many groups of macho guys seemed to resent my pace. They moved aside grumpily and with dirty looks. More than once, I heard men ribbing each other as I went by. "You got beat by a GIRL, man! And she's wearing a pack!" It always annoys me when people assume I'm less capable because I'm feminine; it happened a lot less often when I appeared obviously queer and butch, even though I'm far more competent now. But the rapture of the Canyon view was solace enough - not even misogynist garbage can diminish it.
Getting into Grand Canyon Village, I found my boys at the bar (of course), and we decided to get a taxi into Tusayan for a cheaper hotel and a short nearo. I'm in the taxi back now - going to post this from the Yuvapai Lodge lobby in a minute, and then we hit the trail to Flagstaff! One hundred miles of high desert and contemplation, and then we're planning to zero and run big city errands. Might be doing some shorter miles, but we'll see. I'm recovering from a head cold, and Hardy has a stress injury in his foot, but morale is high all around and the miles are cruisey and sweet. I love the desert, I love my friends, I love this hike.
What I'm listening to:
Mostly just the wind in the pines, and Constantine's burrito farts. But here's a song for you anyway, a personal theme song that couldn't be more accurate to my state of mind.
From the crew:
Constantine has his video of the section up, and it's a good one with lots of views, banter, and signature hilarious malaphors ("Constantinisms" we call those. He keeps pronouncing Kaibab as "kebob" and it's making us all hungry for garlicky meats)
Sie takes incredible photos - I don't even bother getting my phone out sometimes, knowing he's got the shot better than I ever could. You should look at his YouTube Channel too.
Hardy is also a talented photographer and sometimes night-vlogs - his stuff can be found on Instagram, where he's @dzpeebs
That's all for now, folks! If some of these links are broken, my apologies. The wifi at the lodge is iffy at best and we need to get going - I'll fix them in Flagstaff if needed.
Talk soon, and take care.
-Magpie