May 8 & 9: The Grand Canyon

By end of day tomorrow, I’ll have hiked 41 days on this trail.

It rained again last night, a light calming mist. I take some time to dry tents and tarps on the pinyon trees around me, but by 7:15 I’m headed north again. I take one last look at the Peaks, finally free of clouds and glowing in the first light, then vow not to look back again. It’s been wonderful to meditate on that land, and that history, but for all I know, the furthest north our family story extends is Lockett Meadow in the inner basin of the Peaks. It’s time to turn my attention to the Canyon in the last days I have on this trail.

My thoughts are on miles and water. Itineraries on a long hike are fluid, and I’ve decided to end this portion at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. If I can hike those 52 miles by tomorrow afternoon, I can make a surprise return home two days earlier than planned. I’ll come back and hike the canyon itself in September with Emma, which will complete my mission in a beautiful way. I’ve already accomplished all I really wanted from this adventure, and I’m eager to get home to Chinita.

In the meantime, water will be as daunting as the mileage. There are no springs or streams here, and I walk 12-18 miles between each cattle tank. But the air is cool and the distances are easy. The corrals and cattle tanks are like way stations on a pilgrimage: East Cedar Tank on the north slope of the Peaks at mile 632, the round trough and corral at Lockwood Tank at mile 651, the rusted red of Russell Tank at mile 662. I have always resented the highways that blow past the small towns of Arizona, severing the old connections between the town and the traveling. Walking between these old camps restores that slower narrative for me.

Maybe it’s the increasing lightness of my pack, but the knowledge this hike will soon end keeps my mood light. The landscape doesn’t change much, I walk through a constant rain, and the trail is muddy. But I’m good. Mid afternoon brings sunshine and two wonderful sights I didn’t expect. To spare my (now aching) legs, I leave the single track and instead walk on the forest service road next to it. Because I do this, I stumble upon Lockett Lake, which I never knew existed. Apparently Henry Lockett ran sheep here in the 1800’s, and when the creation of the national park forced him to leave, they named this lake after him. I see old barbed wire and fence posts and wonder if they are his.

The second surprise comes later that afternoon when I hit Grand View Lookout. I had been looking forward to the water cache below this fire tower, but didn’t expect it to be open. I climb the long series of metal steps to the top, rewarded with cellphone signal and glimpses of the Grand Canyon about a mile away. After making my last Mother’s Day texts and calls, I climb down and search for a campsite. A herd of 18-20 elk thunders ahead of me in the fading light, and wild turkeys gobble yards from where I set camp in the dark. I hiked 32 miles today.

In the morning I’m up quickly and out. It’s a big day. I have to hit Grand Canyon Village by 3 if I’m to make it to Phoenix – and a flight home – tomorrow. I walk through small canyons that drain into Coconino Wash, which in turn drains into Bright Angel Wash, which after a mile spills dramatically into the Grand Canyon itself. I’ve been to the South Rim dozens of times in my life, and I’ve always wanted to approach it exactly this way.

When I finally walk into Tusayan, and Grand Canyon Village beyond it, I’m shocked at the noise. The sight-seeing helicopters fly just above the tree line every fifteen minutes, and the tourist buses line up at the entrance station. At first I silently channel my inner Abbey (“Get off your fat ass and into the woods!”), then my inner Mathiessen (I think about his final night in Katmandu). My spell isn’t broken. The outside world only makes my inside world richer. My footsteps on the path sound thunderous. By three I’m at the South Rim, then in a shuttle bound for Flagstaff and then, finally, Chinita. My true home.

Now, as I write this last post in the taxi from the airport home, what most sticks with me is not that last image of the Grand Canyon, as beautiful as it is. What sticks with me is that last stretch before Tusayan, when I walked on pine needles knowing that what was behind me was beautiful, what was in front of me was more beautiful still, but content to simply be in that moment right then. I think of that last herd of elk, barely seen in the forest twilight, hooves thundering, then vanished. The taxi pulls up to the apartment, and I hit send.