It's About the Journey: May 2009

Ariel's "stressed" face. She had to sit for 2 and a half hours for all the seniors to be given their awards. It was a night of torture for us too except for the couple seconds when they announced Ariel's name and we saw her get her awards.

Ariel receiving her awards. She is graduating with an Honor's diploma and with High Honors. That means she gets to graduate in a white gown instead of the green or blue and gets to wear gold cords around her neck and a special medallion. I was so excited and didn't know about her graduating with high honors..which means she's graduating with a weighted GPA of 3.8 or higher. We were very proud of her. She also received a partial scholarship to attend Southern Utah University in the fall. Good job Ariel!

Todd and I and our long time friend, Dave Parry, left for our Grand Canyon hike on Thursday morning. We got to the camp site around 4:30 p.m. and the guys set up the tent while I got dinner ready. We ate then sat around the fire pit and talked. We had no camp fire, because no one brought any wood. When it got dark it started to rain. We got in the tent around 8:00 p.m. hoping to get a good night sleep before the big hike. As the rain started getting a little heavier, it brought back bad memories from the last camping trip we had. We asked Dave to bring his tent on account that we had discovered our tent was not water proof. The guys went to sleep and I continued to lay there as the hours crept by. I listened to my ipod hoping to drown out the noise of the rain (which I normally love, if I am not trying to fall asleep in a tent.) Somewhere around 2:00 a.m. I realized that Dave's tent was also not "water proof." Water was coming in through the walls and from the roof and dripping all over us. I spread out Todd's water proof coat over both areas of our bags that were getting the wettest. I kept reaching over and feeling around the coat to see how much water was collecting. It wasn't long before I had caught a pretty big puddle. The guys discovered the rain dripping on them around 3 or so and went out and got the tarp and draped it over the tent. This helped keep anymore rain from coming in. When my alarm went off at 5:40 I had to dismiss it since it was still raining. Our plan was to hike down to the Colorado river and back up the same day. I fell asleep the last two hours before we got up.

When we got up we decided we could not hike the original plan because of the weather and the late start. I was very disappointed because I was prepared for this and looked forward to it for quite awhile. Dave said we could do a shorter hike down to Indian Gardens and back up again, if the trail wasn't too muddy. When we went to the edge of the canyon before we started the hike, I saw the most spectacular sight I had ever seen. The whole canyon was full of fog. It was incredible! Within a few minutes of standing there you literally could not see down into the canyon anymore because of the fog. We started down the Bright Angel trail at 8:00 a.m. The trail was pretty muddy and slippery with lots of puddles of water everywhere. We saw a massive condor sitting on a rock ledge as we first started. Of course there were plenty of mule trains going up and down and we had to yield to them and were not allowed to pass them. So we were constantly hiking around fresh (as Dave politely put it...) mule "biscuits" the smell was burned into my nose for several hours after we got off the trail.

We ran into a friendly squirrel at one of the rest stops on the way down. It climbed right onto the front of Dave as he was eating his snack and then tried to get into my pack. As I was trying to zip it up, the friendly little rodent tried to climb right up the front of me. I wasn't too thrilled about that and yes, I was being a little dramatic in the picture of me and the squirrel. On the way down we were diverted off of the trail through some rocky terrain for a short jaunt because there was a hiker on the trail who had broken her ankle. They were bringing a helicopter in and so they closed part of the trail for a little bit. It was pretty cool watching the helicopter fly into the canyon though I felt very sorry for the girl with the broken ankle. I had a broken ankle once and they hurt...a lot. We descended about 3,000 feet by the time we got to Indian Gardens. It took us 2 hours and 20 minutes. We rested for about 30 minutes on a bench, ate, drank, and took off our socks and shoes.

It usually takes twice as long to hike up as it takes to hike down, so I was trying to "psych" myself up for a 5 hour climb back up. The climb up was pretty hard. I could feel my pulse in my head quite a bit. I felt thirsty the whole way up, even though I had been drinking the whole time. I felt a little nauseous and light headed at times too. Dave was kind enough to loan me one of his trekking poles, which I found was very helpful. The trail wasn't nearly as muddy as it was on the way down now and we made really good time back up. We got to the top in 2 hours 40 minutes, which we all thought was pretty remarkable seeing how long it took us to go down. I was a little bit ahead of the guys when we got to the top, I accidentally followed the mule train instead of turning off where the trail went. Yes I am embarrassed to admit, I got lost at the Grand Canyon. I was only lost for about 15 minutes before I found my way back to the truck where the guys were waiting for me. In all we hiked nine and a half miles, 3,000 ft down and 3,000 ft up. It took us 6 hours to complete. We hiked a little over half of the original hike we had planned to do. I was very happy that I was able to do it. I wish I could have hiked all the way down to the river, but after the hike was done I tried to imagine hiking for another 6 or 7 hours, but it was too hard to comprehend. I was really proud of all of us and the great job we did. Of course Todd was a machine as usual. He was carrying a little extra water for me and lots of miscellaneous supplies in his pack. The alcohol came in real handy when I wanted to wash my hands before eating. His pack was so heavy I could barely lift it let alone carry it for 6 hours.

The weather on the hike was perfect. It was about 50 degrees when we started and only got up to about 65 degrees that day. That is unusual for this time of year. We had cloud cover almost the whole time which helped me so much. I am very sensitive to heat and couldn't imagine doing the hike in hot temperatures with the sun beating down. It was a beautiful, wonderful day of hiking in that spectacular canyon and I highly recommend it to everyone. By the time we were done with our showers, it was raining again. We were supposed to camp Friday night too and come home Saturday morning. None of us wanted to face another night of rain in the "not so water proof" tent, so we decided to go home. We packed up the supplies and all that was left was the wet, muddy tent. Dave said he was just going to throw it away rather than bring it home. I was so surprised. He said he didn't want a tent that leaked. He just gathered it all up and threw it in the dumpster. It was very funny. He threw his shoes away too, they were very muddy. He said he wasn't throwing them away because they were muddy, it was because they had holes and were old.

It was a great trip. Within about two hours after the hike was over I could already feel pain starting in my calves and legs. I knew it was going to be bad, usually the pain doesn't come until the next day. I was right. Saturday morning I was in quite a bit of pain in my legs and calves. I have to admit I was glad to see Todd and Dave were limping around too (I know... I am a sick and twisted sister.) I am very thankful for the experience of hiking the Grand Canyon and I will definitely go back again someday. Maybe the next time I will hike down to the river... or maybe not.