The Grandest of Canyons

The North Rim The South Rim

STATS: North Rim. 8,250 feet. 30 degrees. 5:30 am. 14 miles to the Colorado river. Noon. 95 degrees. 2420ft. 7.5 miles back up. 7,200ft. 75 degrees. 5:00 pm 8 liters of water (for me) An apple, several granola bars, hummus, pita, cheese, crackers, and lots of dried peaches. 55 pictures.

As you drive south from Fredonia through the Kaibab National Forest, there is no indication that the earth is about to split open in front of you, breaking into a maze of of canyons so deep you

can't see the bottom from the top. It must have been every covered wagon trains worse

nightmare, sudden cliffs falling a mile down to the the river that's responsible for carving the whole thing. You'd have to just give up and turn around. Now, instead of a journey's biggest inconvenience, the Grand Canyon is a journey's destination, with nearly 4.5 billion visitors annually.

Brandt and I set out on May 30th to see the whole thing. Ok, obviously not the whole thing, it's an enormous park of 1.2 million acres, more miles of wilderness than anyone could ever cover. But, we decided to cover the most popular trail from the North Rim down to the Colorado River and back up to the South Rim. The route we planned is 21.5 miles long. With 5,770 ft down and then 4,780 ft up. There are several campsites along the way, but the trip is so popular that you need to make reservations way ahead and if you were camping, you'd have to carry all of the heavy camping gear that slows you down. So, we opted to day hike, fast and light. Brilliantly, we convinced our friends, Felicia and Bryant, to hike it in the opposite directions, trade

keys, and drive each other's cars home to Vegas. Genius.

Except that the park service strongly discourages people from doing this hike. It's hot, long, and steep. They have signs posted at all the trailheads with scary stories of people who've died hiking in the Canyon. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HIKE TO THE RIVER AND BACK IN ONE DAY. It's dangerous because you hike down first, and some people don't realize the difficulties of hiking back up. Most hike, those out of shape or unprepared people would never make it up far enough to get into trouble, but here at the Grand Canyon, they flock down the trails. People treat it more like a pilgrimage than a hike....a journey that you have to make, however arduous the trip, however unprepared you are. Hundreds of people have to be rescued every year. However, we

were feeling confident. Felicia, Bryant and I all hike in the desert for a living, and Brandt's in pretty great shape, despite his indoor job.

So wet set off from the North Rim on the North Kaibab Trail at 5.30 am. It was really cold, and we couldn't convince ourselves to leave our sweatshirts and hats in the car. I even kept my long-underwear on. A middle aged guy was taking off on a cross canyon run as we reached the trailhead. That's right, RUN. His wife dropped him off and was going to drive around to the south rim to pick him up, and she told us that he'll probably get there before she does. It's a 4 hour drive. Crazy. The first mile of our trip, we also met a few hikers just finishing their trip, they left the south rim at 7:00 pm and did the hike under the light of the full moon. We were feeling less and l

ess ridiculous about our plan.

The first 7 miles flew by, the scenery changing around ea

ch bend, as the side canyon we were hiking in descended and twisted toward the Colorado. We quickly warmed up and gave up on all of our layers. The trail drops hard and fast, and suddenly we had arrived at the first campground, Cottonwood. From Cottonwood, it's a rolling, winding trail along Bright Angel Creek for 7 more miles to Phantom Ranch, the lodges and campground near the river. During this section, we passed a lot of other hikers, day hikers and backpackers both, trekking along.

As the creek twists and turns below high rock walls, we felt like the Colorado river canyon would

open up in front of us just around the next bend. Or the next one. Or maybe the next one. Finally, we reach the riverside campgrounds, and happily sat down in some shade for lunch. 2/3 of the hike down. Except all that was left was climb. We'd been expecting to see our friends for the past few miles, and we finally found them here, and had a little chat abou

t the hike and where the cars were parked.

From the bottom, sitting on a sandy bank, soaking our sore feet in the cold Colorado, the canyon doesn't feel that enormous. You're so deep in, you can't see to the top,

you can only see the

first row of rock wall. It wasn't until we began the uphill climb that the views began to expand, the

canyon growing wider with each vista. We loaded up with water, crossed a large bridge constructed in the 1930s and headed up an impressive series of switchbacks on the South Kaibab Trail. We choose to go up this trail for several reasons, although it had no water stations: it's a bit shorted, less popular, and I had been on the Bright Angel trail (the other option) before. It was hot and steep, but we made pretty good time, resting the in shade whenever we found some.

The views from the south rim are more impressive than from the north rim, but almost unbelievably

so. The canyon looks so expansive that it seems more like a backdrop or a photograph than a real geologic possibility.

Except that hiking up from the bottom helps give you a sense of scale; you're hiking so hard it can't be an illusion. The trail frequently switch-backs like this. Luckily, you've got a good excuse to catch your breath while admiring the scenery. To me, the north rim seems prettier just because it's not so mind-blowing, and there's more of a sense of solitude. We made it to the top in about 4 hours, the trail getting more and more popular as we reached the rim. Tired, sore, and incredibly pleased with ourselves, we set off to find ice cream, dinner, and a place to camp, in that order.

I'd recommend the trip for people in pretty good shape. We met a lot of people doing the rim to rim day trip, and many of them didn't look as fit or prepared as we thought we did (I'm a bit of a snob about this stuff....fyi) but they were doing it. I was pretty sore the next day, I think from descending the first 7 miles so quickly...if I had slowed down a bit and rested more during that part, I probably would have felt better the next day. It certainly would be nice to slow down, camp, and enjoy the trip spread across a few days too. They aren't the type of views that you'd quickly tire of.

A Purse for Emily

I won two dollars at the Delaware County Fair. My mother submitted the purse that I knit for my sister this summer, and it won third place. I lost to a pair of lacy socks and possibly a cabled sweater.

The purse began as a gift to makeup for my absence at her graduation in may. To truly mark the occasion, I picked a pattern harder than anything I had previously knit. 4 panels, 3 major panes, a whole lot of new pattern stitches, with 34 bobbles each. The weekend Emily graduated from Carnegie Mellon, I was knitting at a campsite in Nevada's Delmar valley, while my coworkers

teased me that the piece on my needles most resembled a beautifully textured thong.

I knit and knit and knit. Her birthday rapidly approached. Luckily, the purse was built of four panels- I could give her two for graduation and two for her birthday. Or, really, two weeks after her birthday, when I headed back east to spend a long weekend with my family and friends on vacation.

I knit in the middle of nowhere. 12 hours of work, make some dinner, knit until the sun set on

our campsites. Watching the last rays of the day reflect off of the canyon walls in the Big Rocks Wilderness. Working by headlamp as the stars flicker into perspective. Knitting in gloves by the side of a tiny alpine lake in Idaho's Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness as the temperatures dropped with the setting sun. Reclining in the Sunday afternoon shade with my needles in hand at the Shady Motel in Caliente. I knit in the Tule desert, the Delmar Valley, the Pahroc Range, The Hiko Range, The Muleshoe Valley. I tried to knit as Brandt drove the curving roads through redwood forest in Humbolt County, but it was too windy for my weak equilibrium.

I was almost done when a car accident caused my elbow to swell into a useless lump. I had all kinds of good excuses for being late on my gift, a lack of electricity, too much time driving, small stitches, big purse, lost needles, airport security, etc... But I finished it- and mailed the pieces home for her and Mom to sew it's lining and call it done.

This purse brought Emily into my life this summer. It gave me a reason to talk about her, tell her best stories, to anyone who would listen. The simple, polite inquiry, "What's that you're knitting?" opened the door to as many emily stories as I could squeeze into the window before they stopped listening, and then a few more. It brought her to the desert- to more valleys and ranges and sunsets that she'll probably never really know.

Now, Emily is carrying this purse around Baltimore- to restaurants and ceramics studios and art museums that i'll probably never know. But hopefully, if people ask about her beautiful and unique accessory, she'll have a chance to talk about me- bring me to life a little bit in her world too.

Star-gazing

It's been a good week for stars. Which is fortunate, because star-gazing is good for the soul. Maybe it's just my soul, but feeling like a tiny speck on a tiny planet beneath a sparkling, infinite sky can heal most of what ails me. It's calming, inspiring, a way to feel connected to a world larger than I can really know.

This week, my sleeping bag rolled out in the the Big Rocks Wilderness, dwarfed by the boulders of the Pahroc Canyon, the milky way was shining clear. Last month's monsoon clouds have cleared, the half-moon rose late, and the high canyon walls block any faint light pollution from spoiling the view. In the hour or so before I'd drifted to sleep, I usually saw more than 15 shooting stars, big sweeping flashes across the sky. Sleeping out every night in the desert, I am used to seeing a few before I close my eyes, but this show was above and beyond.

Seeing a good shooting star makes you feel special. Good luck, make a wish, etc... But as it turns out, there are millions of meteors flashing across the sky, throughout the day and night, caused usually by sand-sized grains of astronomical grit, burning up with friction through the air molecules of the atmosphere. However, according to space.com, we can usually only see .005% of the sky at one time, bringing our eye's share of shooting stars to an average of 12 per hour. Which means that maybe, if you catch them all, you should still feel pretty special.

Last night, the sky-show got even better. A big electrical storm hung over the Delmar valley to the south of us. We could barely hear the thunder, but the sky flashed and glowed with lightning strikes every minute or two. Far enough away to be fear from the fears of rain (and putting up a tent in a wet, 2am panic) and lightning-strike fire, we just enjoyed the light-show.

Shooting stars diving across the sky into a cloud of flashing light. I sleep well after a show like that, once I convince myself to close my eyes....

How often does the NYTimes speak to you?

Seeking: an absorption in the immediate so intense and complete that the idiot chatter of your brain shuts up for once and you temporarily lose yourself, to your relief.

Camp Cooking

Too many people think that camp food is ramen noodles, freeze-dried mush, or easy-mac (that's right Christy and Clarissa- I'm looking at you) and whenever I go camping with them, they are astonished with what i end up making. I'm not trying to brag, really, it's just that because I'm always camping, if I didn't make decent food in the field, I would never eat anything good. It's like when people are surprised that i floss when camping. If I didn't floss when camping, when the hell would I floss? So gross. But I digress.

The point is that I've been eating pretty well in the backcountry this summer, and I'm pretty pleased about it. My crew takes turns cooking for each other, and we're all a bit competitive, so when it comes to eating dinner, we've all been winning. So, I just wanted to share some of the season's best recipes.

Car-Camping Winners:
Work is lovely because we drive these huge trucks with ample space for coolers and rubbermaid bins with cutting boards, cast-iron skillets, and vegetable peelers (just kidding, i never peel anything, even when i'm in a kitchen- but you get the idea).
#1. Apples and Sweet Potatoes
-Cook up a bunch of couscous or quinoa and let the grains fluff up in the hot water while you chop up apples and a sweet potato. Make a sauce of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup and steam/roast the veggies for maybe 20 minutes, covered, stirring frequently. Chop up some soy-sausage and stir in as the veggies get squishy. When the sausage chunks are hot, let your amazed friends serve the mixture on top of the grains and top with feta cheese and crasins.
#2. Easy Curry
-Make instant rice. While it is fluffing, chop up two vegetable- like a zucchini and a bell pepper or onion and eggplant, and some garlic. Most combos are good. Put 1 can coconut milk, the veggies, a scoop of curry paste (which does not need refrigeration, fyi)- i usually use green, but any flavor is good, in the pot, and cook for about 10-15 minutes, until the veggies are getting slightly soft. Chop up some extra firm tofu and stir in. When the tofu is hot, serve over rice, and if you are feeling really fancy, top with cilantro.
#3. Cowboy eggs
-Saute a bell pepper and onion. Dump a bunch of eggs on top, and scramble. When eggs are almost done, stir in some spinach, so that it wilts in the hot mixture. Serve wrapped up in tortillas with cheese and salsa.
#4. Roast veggies.
-Instant rice. Chop up sweet potato, bell peppers, chilies, onion, garlic. Roast in olive oil, which takes about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper or a little red curry paste. Optional topping- mix some chopped up cucumber with yogurt and cilantro. This might be the prettiest recipe. And James deserves the credit for this one.

Okay- now I'm hungry enough that I need to go get some lunch.... I'll write up the best backcountry winners soon.

Half Dome by Moonlight

First, allow me to state the obvious. Yosemite Valley is beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful, especially in the wet, tall, green and granite contrast to the open basin and range, the dry, high desert where I spend my time. But Yosemite is also Crowded, crowded, crowded. Campsites were full, backcountry units were full, parking areas were full. That's what I get for living in the middle of nowhere- I forget that when you travel to one of the nations most popular parks- you pretty much have to plan ahead. And we did not.So, although there was a collection of rain clouds holding tight to the Sierra Nevadas, we knew that the moon was almost full, so I suggested that we hike up halfdome in the moonlight instead of fighting the crowds up in the morning. No campsite? No sleep? No problem. We packed up, rain gear, thermals, and lots of chocolate covered coffee beans.

We started the hike at 10, on the last shuttle to the trailhead. Once our eyes adjusted (we were trying to go headlamp-less as much as possible) we made pretty good time up the very first few miles of the John Muir Trail (which I am now making plans to conquer- hopefully next summer) to the first enormous, moonlight-glowing waterfall. We crossed the stream and headed up a long series of steep, rocky steps past the second falls, only tripping occasionally on hidden roots and slippery rocks.

At the top of the falls we could see halfdome rising in the moonlight, and realised that we were way ahead of schedule. There was not much point in arriving at the summit before sunrise, it'd be too cold and windy to hang out long. So we stopped to nap several times, adding layers and cuddling into a 5-way spoon. After about half an hour of rest, we were too cold to continue and had to resume hiking to regain the feeling in our fingers and toes. So we just hiked slowly- enough to stay warm but not get to the top too fast.

We reached the first summit at first light, after another long rocky staircase. Then, the challenge of the tip-top peak appeared before us, two cable handrails climb the last 300-ish vertical feet along a slickrock slope of 50 or 60 degrees. We climbed it, reaching the peak as the sun just barely broke free of the clouds.

We thought that we would be the first ones to the peak, having passed a few other parties with similar, sunrise on the summit plans within the last half mile. I lead the cable climb, and to my surprise, found 4 guys in sleeping bags sipping coffee on the summit. Probably 15 more people followed us up, but the clouds on the horizon were still dark and omnious, so we choose not to linger. The idea of sliding down the already slippery rock in a rainstorm did not appeal, so we headed down.

The sun rose, and burnt off the clouds. About halfway into our victorious hike down, we ran into the first of several huge packs of dayhikers, the trail was literally packed solid with uphill moving hikers by 8 or 9 am. I am SO glad we hiked in the night's solitude.

We reached the park valley in late morning to discover that we still couldn't get a campsite or a backcountry permit, and that my car had been impounded for violating the no visible food in cars bear-protection rule. Reality sucks. Half Dome was awesome.
We got the car back, some pizza, more caffiene, and hit the Tioga rd back east, through some snowflurries and switchbacks until settling in to a campsite at a hot springs just north of mammoth lakes. We went to sleep at 7pm, and it was so worth it.

Addictions

I have discovered podcasts. I am behind the times. I can freely admit this- living in a tent in remote parts of nevada makes it difficult to stay on top of things like new technologies, films, and celebrity gossip. We work in areas of radio silence sometimes- or the only station we can find is such bad popcountry that silence would be preferable.

But, since this device called an ipod (have you heard of them?) entered my life, this had all changed. I can just play it through the my Dodge SuperDuty's stereo (his name is Sir Galahad, fyi, the white knight) and we are saved from inspirational lyrics like "Baby, I want to check you for ticks," and "He had one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on my.....heart." But, better music is just not enough- i missed NPR- news, this american life, car talk, i even miss the misery of marketplace.

Then, I discovered that you can download all of these amazing radio programs, and many more, straight from itunes to my computer for free. I catch up on my weekly news with Wait, Wait, Don't tell me, a pop news quiz in which I never know any of the answers any more. We listen to This American Life and Science Friday on our way to work for the week. On my personal time, I drool over the Splendid Table and laugh at Savage Love.

And I've discovered new podcasts I never knew i was missing- like WYNC's Radiolab- a science meets culture show that is brilliant, and The Moth- a live, storytelling series performing in NYC. PRI's Life on Earth is fantastic. Scientific American has these 60-second clips on new discoveries and research. Slate.com's book club podcasts has expanded my reading list. I'm devouring the back episodes of Radiolab, thinking about how exciting science is and how many fascinating ways there are to turn science into stories. Maybe they need an intern?

I never thought i would become so addicted to an ipod- but it's enabled me to get back in touch with the world outside of the Ely BLM district- excited about what good reporting and good storytelling can do to an audience. Addict them. See me, example A.