The Grand Canyon

The epic Grand Canyon hike I imagined having...into the backcountry wilderness, Charlie running in to save the day from a hungry pack of coyotes, the old toothless prospector with the ZZ top beard still out panning for Gold, a lone hiker with half of a bloody arm running up asking for a band aid..didn't happen. Or it didnt happen the way I expected. We did spot a coyote though. On our 7am drive into the Yavapai trailhead I turned behind me only to see my cast mate Emily applying her blush and straightening her lashes. [Emily I'm not upset btw. I'm just trying to set the mood]. If this was any indication of how the morning would lay out, I knew then I could scratch any plans of Grizzly Adamsing it into the Canyon. And I was ok with that. We started out on the trail and almost instantaneous I hear 'we can only go down 3 miles because yelp says it takes twice as long coming back and we have to be back by the lodge by 2 in order to get packed and to Vegas by 5.' Just the stuff that would piss off any hiker. Text messaging, calling, adjusting the Lululemon pants, way outside of our world but still very much in our own safe bubble of the tour.

Bright Angel trail

view from the Avapai trailhead

Cassie Sheik and I

 Finally a mile or 2 down it ends up just being the 5 of us; Paris, Steele, Larkin, Ross, and myself. We decide to start heading back but before we do we got into this game. Whoever can hit the boulder we spotted to our north wins. No one is in sight until a few minutes go by we hear 'No throwing rocks'. I'm thinking we just got busted by a park ranger...a few seconds go by and again we hear 'You throw more rocks and I'll tell the park ranger'. well now i know its not the ranger. This middle aged Asian guy comes around the corner looking like an older poorer version of that Daniel Kim guy from Lost. 'who would we hit? There's no one around', I say. 'Fine' he says in a passive but angry voice, 'I'll just go tell park ranger.' At this point I could see him standing there trying to maintain composure, contemplating in his head for brief moment if he could take the 5 of us and then pissed knowing that, in numbers and youth alone, he definitely could not, but too proud to accept the fact. 'We wont throw the rocks. I'm glad you didnt get hit', Steele says 'now please continue'. This is the best part...the man yells at us 'And if you try to send your dog after me, I'll kill him and I'll kill YOU!' Ok what? who said anything about killing? After a glance around at each other in an awkward 'is this really happening moment' at Kim Jong who was now gripping his walking sticks parallel to the ground, we all set off back up the trail in his direction. As I pass him he's still holding his sticks parallel and I notice him gripping even harder. 'On you're left' I say with authority, passing him on the narrow trail glancing down deep into the canyon below. No doubt in that moment my life was fragile but I made it by and we made it back alive and gambling our hearts away 8 hours later.