Charlie is driving overnight again, and he never goes unnecessarily slow so we get to the Grand Canyon before sunrise and well before opening time. We park by the permit office to wait. Green Tortoise have reserved some overnight hiking permits, but some of these are for camping at the bottom of the valley. Given the heat we are now facing, nobody really wants to do this. There is a waiting list for permits so we have to rely on cancellations for the extra halfway permits. In the event we don’t get enough to go around, so we draw straws. Thankfully, I get a long one.
I volunteer to be the leader of our hiking group of eleven who will all be camping at Indian Garden, the campsite halfway down the Bright Angel Trail to the Colorado River at the base of the valley. Being the leader actually means I have to follow the tail to make sure we don’t lose anyone, which leads me to be dubbed the ‘arseman’. Official advice is to bring three gallons of water. There are water taps in the top half of the valley, though the rangers say that these don’t always work.
The group quickly splits into two, with Cristina, the artist Neil, hyperactive Aussie Tenille and her National Parks Tour boyfriend Johannes going ahead as they are determined to get to the bottom of the valley before coming back up to the campsite. I am with the Korean Kids, Hannes the 17 year old German, Line the Danish Aussie, Tom from Belgium, Lucy from Oxford and Emma from Newcastle. We are eventually joined by the bottom of the valley campers Kiwi Emma, ginger haired German Daniel and Brummie Ryan, as they are finding Army Captain K and his wife Jenny are stopping for too many photo ops.
It is no great revelation to say that the Grand Canyon is hot and dusty. Frequent signs warn against hiking between 10am and 4pm. We didn’t set off until after nine and it is a three hour hike to Indian Gardens. We are glad that the water taps do work, as carrying three gallons of water each would be tiring in itself. On the trail we pass a posse of horse riders coming up the valley from an early morning trip, and we spot a snake slithering by the rocks at the side of the trail. I am no snake expert and it is only a small one, but its red diamond markings indicate it is not one that you would be well advised to pick up and put around your neck.
We catch up with the lead group at Indian Garden for lunch. Line and Lucy are keen to continue down to the bottom of the valley straight after lunch, but after consulting a ranger, who references the fact that it is 120°F (c. 50°) in the sun, we decide to hang around until four o’clock before making the descent.
There are food lockers at the campsite, and Cristina has decided that one of them is exclusively for the lead group. On the initial stages of this tour, I got along with Cristina, but by this time I had come to see her as a needy attention seeker and had wearied of her habit of handing out easy compliments to everyone she speaks to as a way of ingratiating herself. I also had noticed that she was the last to be seen when meals needed preparing or bins from the bus needed to be emptied. I had denoted her as the most irritating person in the world, just as I have concluded that the best pizza in the world is in Cambodia. By this time, I was making no attempt to hide my distaste and I tell her how irritating she is. That said, nobody else in the group seems to share my feelings. It is another cliché to regard travelling as a journey of self discovery, but if I have discovered anything about myself, it is that I am fast becoming a grumpy old man. I am turning into my dad....arrrghhh!
However, I am not the most annoyed person here. While we are eating lunch, a Ranger stops by with a man whose fourteen year old son has gone missing from the trail. There are helicopters circling overhead, but the man appeared more angry than worried, saying that if we should see his son, we should tell him that he probably doesn’t want to see his dad right now.
After the little spat with Cristina, I go with Kids and Line to cool off in a small pond a ranger had told me about. It is hidden behind stables off the side of the trail near the bottom of the campsite, but it isn’t a big secret as we find it packed with boy scouts. With the temperature gauge posted to a fence stopped at the highest it can go, it is more than appreciated though.
In the absence of young Neil with his fiddle, we have another hiking musician in Kids, who plays a small type of flute which looks much like a hash pipe. He has a captive audience at the pond but, with his Korean sensibilities, he perhaps doesn’t realise that ‘My Heart Will Go On’ may not be to everybody’s taste. However, in this context, it sounds like a pleasant atmospheric tune.
It takes another couple of hours to get to the Colorado River. We find a small beach at the bottom of the trail, and take another cooling dip making sure to avoid the white water currents.
On the way back up, we come across a couple of college girls hiking back up the valley. One of them, a black girl, is struggling to walk any more than ten steps or so before stopping for another break. She is carrying a gallon of water, but appears not to have taken any drink from it, rather missing the point of the official advice. They had no camping equipment and are aiming to get back to the top of the trail, which seemed a delirious notion. At first, I offer to walk with them, but soon realise that it would be more helpful if I fetched help from the Ranger’s hut at the campsite.
I get to the Ranger’s hut at dusk, but there is no answer at the door. I use the emergency phone line outside, explaining to the voice at the end of the line that I had just left someone suffering from heat exhaustion and unable to walk more than a few steps. The response I get is a sceptical one to say the least, with the voice asking if the girl had asked for assistance. I explain that even if I had asked her that direct question, given her full bottle of water, I didn’t think she was being rational anyway. The voice says that she will report to the Ranger so that ‘she will keep a lookout for her’.
Now dark, I decide to go back down to see how far up the girls had made it. I am relieved to find them near the bottom of the campsite, although the black girl is now unable to take more than a couple of steps each time before stopping. I escort them to the Ranger’s hut, but still get no answer from knocking. I phone the emergency line again, and again the woman at the end of the line asks if the girl has asked for assistance herself. I tell her that the girls is hardly able to speak and that she is outside the Ranger’s hut door and is no state to go any further, but as I am in the middle of the conversation, the door opens. The Ranger had clearly just got out of bed. So much for her being told to ‘keep a lookout’. I leave the girls in the care of the Ranger. The hut is more like a small house and they will be getting a lot more comfortable accommodation than I will. I learn from the ranger that the missing boy she told us about at lunch time had been found back at the top of the trail, having abandoned his father after he had been left behind.
Back at the campsite, my dinner is a melting granola bar and a very mushy sandwich. Drained of energy, I lie down under the tree and go to sleep, though it is probably only eight o’clock.
 |
| a snake slithers under the rock |
No comments:
Post a Comment