After driving for 30 hours straight, Mark, Blair, and I arrived at the South entrance to Grand Canyon National Park. Since my cousin Matt works for the trail crew here, we waved off the ranger asking for $25, and headed to market plaza, where we purchased a 6 pack of schlitz for under $4 and waited for Matt to meet us. It was 7pm local time. The plan was to hike down to phantom ranch on the bottom of the canyon, but it was getting dark.
Matt rolled up in his pickup and jumped out to greet us. He looked about the same as the last time I'd seen him in WI - outdoor to the core, looking every bit the part of someone who's climbed El Capitan in Yosemite, fought fires on Mount Ranier, and hiked rim to rim to rim in the canyon. Matt was lean, red, with a grizzly, canyon beard and a recent mohawk - a sabotaged haircut by park service friends that he decided to live with.
We followed Matt back to his house in the park, where we geared up for the hike. We drank the shlitz pack and filled up our packs with water, sleeping bags, food, and more beer. It was now dark, so we wore head lamps. The trailhead was about two miles from Matt's house, so we decided to walk it. Besides, Matt had to stop by a going-away party for one of his friends. We passed around a beer on the way to the party, and observed an adolescent elk no more than 20 feet ahead. I said it was huge, Matt said it was a little one. We got to the party, threw down our packs, and helped a man and his little girl find her bike helmet with our lights before going inside to greet 20 lean, leathery, laid back park service employees. Everyone was wearing patagonia and looking like they hadn't showered in a week. We met the host, Matthew, who was moving to Mount Ranier. Someone offered us a beer. People were drinking Miller High Life or Longboard Microbrew. Mark and I said we'd take anything, but Blair ordered a longboard "because he'd never had it before." The beer fetching guest arrived with 3 high lives and a longboard for the host. Blair grabbed the longboard, leaving a can of high life for the host at his own party. The guest who brought the beer said the longboard was for Matthew, but he played along and said Blair ordered it. We all laughed, but Blair didn't get it. He just popped the cap and put it in his pocket. He told us of his dream to have a wall in his house covered with bottle caps from all the different beers he'd ever sampled. Blair was a little behind, having been locked away at a dry christian college in Indiana for the last 4 years. We said our goodbyes and continued to the trailhead.
Closer to the trailhead, we crossed a small bridge Matt had spent two months building last summer. It had big shaved logs for railings and support, and was fashioned as close as possible to those built 100 years ago. It was fascinating listening to Matt describe how he built different sections and fastened them together. The Snider half of the family often jokes about Matt being a free spirit, and he even says he's the black sheep of the family. This bridge was truly impressive and he should be respected for his craftsmanship.
Soon we reached the Bright Angel trailhead and began our long descent. It was pitch Black except for the faint lights of the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North rim, exactly 10 miles as the crow flies, but 24 miles to hike there. The moon was full, but it was heavily shielded by clouds. It was 9pm and we had 7 miles to the bottom, so we decided to spend the night at the trail crew house in Indian Gardens halfway down. We made our way down the switchbacks and Matt pointed out sections of the trail that he maintained. Since we could only see about 10 feet in front of us, I had yet to experience the magnificence of the grand canyon in a visual sense. The night hike was still incredible. It was comletely silent, except for the erie "hoos" of far off owls. Matt and I caught up on our way down.
The trail crew house in Indian Gardens was classic. There was bunkhouse with 8 beds in back and a sizable living room and kitchen in the front. Enormous pots and cast iron skillets were housed on top of the cabinets to help feed a dozen hungry and worn out trail crew workers who spend 10 hours per day in the canyon, which gets to be well over 100 degrees. The bunkhouse was empty tonight, so we had the place all to our selves. The four of us sat outside on a picnic table drinking beer and playing eaucre with our head lamps on so we could see the cards. I felt completely engulfed by the walls of the canyon, but very at peace. We were having a great time until a ranger with his shirt tucked in crept up and began reeming us out for waking him up. (It was only midnight). There was a ranger station about 30 yards from our place and I think we just assumed it was empty. It was so quiet we thought we were the only human beings in the canyon. The ranger was hopping mad and we all just sat there at the table listening to him lecture on how he would probably have 5 med-evacs tomorrow and ask rhetorically what we had to do tomorrow. Matt quickly responded that we would wake up at 6 and hike down to phantom. This infuriated the ranger even more. He threatened to "push all the paper he could Matt's way," which did not sound good. I can't speak for everyone, but I've never been yelled at with a level of harshness and ferocity approaching that of the ranger in my entire 22 years. I won't even communicate what he said he would do to us if we woke him up again because it was so malicious and evil I dare not repeat his words. We went inside in a state of shock and sat at the kitchen table staring at each other. We were all worried for Matt, and he was worried about the repercussions. I think I have a pretty good sense of crime and punishment, and the thought of job action being taken against Matt because we woke up a foul-tempered ranger at midnight seemed to me to be an overreaction. We tried to comfort Matt and tell him not to let this guy ruin his day off. Soon we got back to the cards and beers and stayed up till 2:30 playing eucre and cursing the ranger. Blair and I won the card game. When it was time to go to bed, Matt picked up a pad and headed outside to sleep. The rest of us chose bunks and drifted off with the windows open feeling the swirling breeze of the canyon.
I awoke no more than four hours later to hear Matt on the phone with his boss giving him a heads up about the ranger wake-up incident. His boss Billy got the whole story and laughed out loud. He also thought it was ridiculous and told Matt not to worry about it since he didn't have to talk to us again. Billy even asked Matt whether, if the ranger called, he should tell him to go fly a kite, but he didn't say fly a kite. I walked out the door and took in the beauty and gradeur of the canyon. It was truly amazing. This made Matt feel better, and soon we woke the others, ate a piece of kiesh, and continued down to the bottom. The ranger was still in bed when we left, and stopping to talk to a park worker named Jerry of Native American descent, conirmed Matt's identification of the ranger as one of the two gay rangers - not that there's anything wrong with that. His husband was the man at the party trying to find the little girl's helmet. Matt sad they were married in San Francisco. This being said, the husband at the party was much more pleasant than the husband in the canyon. We would spend the rest of the day making gay ranger jokes.
We flew down, according to Matt, making great time to the phantom ranch bunkhouse. The weather was perfect, not to hot on the way down. Matt made us breakfast burritos and we chowed them down. The phantom ranch bunkhouse had the same setup as the Indian Gardens trail crew house. Phantom Ranch is rich with history. Theodore Roosevelt used to stay in it during hunting trips. We toured the grounds and went swimming in the Colorado River, which was colder than lake superior. After the bonechilling dip, we returned to the bunkhouse to crash for two hours before the hike out.
Rejuvinated, we began the hike up the South Kaibab Trail, crossing a 100 year old bridge whose winds claimed Blair's hat. It was another 8 miles out of the canyon and Matt led us at a brisk pace. I looked with awe over the chasms and cliffs. I thought about the millions of years it had to have taken to form all the different layers of rock. This deep scar in the earth should make people believe in God. We took a few short breaks to take pitures, but never sat down. It was a fairly quick climb. Matt warned us about the final thousand feet, called the chimney. It felt like it sounded. We reached the top in just over 3 hours and took a shuttle back to Matt's place. Exhausted, we cooked some frozen pizzas, inhaled them, and were comatose before 10. Last night's sleep was the most I had gotten in the last 3 nights. Matt woke us up and said goodbye (he had to work on the South rim) and the rest of us slept a bit longer. Everyone was sore as hell, Mark's quote while shuffling to the bathroom was "I feel like C3P0 in the desert."
Today, we plan to bike around on the rim and then head for Vegas. Thanks for reading.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
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General Sherman: The Largest Living Thing in the World
Giant Forest, Sequoia
Sierra Nevadas
Welcome to Sequoia
Indian Pictographs at Sequoia
One of Fr. Jonny's Paintings
Fr. Johnny's Retreat in the Sierra Nevadas
Street Painting, I Madonnari, Santa Barbara Mission
Fr. Virgil Painting
Man Hands, I Madonarri Street Painting, Santa Barbara Mission
I Madonarri
Some Chick
Fishin With Goebel
Goebel's dad cleaning fish
Blair's Haircut
Von Dollen Chickens
The Group at the Grand Canyon
Trail Crew Bunkhouse, Indian Gardens, Grand Canyon
Me and some Mules at Indian Gardens
Hiking Down to Phantom Ranch
Blair. Down for the Count
Camp Stove Grilled Cheese
About Me
- Michael Snider
- a tent, between the pacific ocean and WI, United States
- I started writing this to keep friends and family posted about my adventures this summer.
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