The Grand View

Mesa Verde--> Flagstaff--> Sedona, AZ--> Grand Canyon

Saturday, May 26th, 2012

One could spend an entire lifetime gazing across the rim of the Grand Canyon and still not be able to absorb the overwhelming vastness which it possesses. I left Flagstaff early yesterday morning after visiting with my sister-in-law's family. From there I traveled to Sedona where I meandered through the curves of a red canyon until I finally arrived at the Baldwin hiking trail. From there I walked about a mile and a half to a small pool along the creek where I relaxed and eventually took a dip.

I felt the Grand Canyon calling to me, as it was expected to be the most supreme feature of this trip. Once I arrived however, no campsites were available within or even outside the park, it being memorial day weekend. I turned around without even seeing the canyon and convinced a French couple to let me set up my tent by their RV about 10 miles south of the rim in a flat, piney area.

Anxiety about being kicked out of the full campground kept me from sleeping easily, and I awoke at 4am with the first signs of dawn. Up I sprang, breaking down my site as quickly as possible. I sped back to the park in order to be sure that the first glimpse I would ever see of the Grand Canyon could be during sunrise. And come over the opposing rim it finally did, as if for the first time the sun's yellow beams crossed through space and hit the unique landscape that I'd never seen before that day. Once our sun had risen do did I, needing to find something to eat and more importantly to warm my fingers and feet which were at this point freezing.

I passed a couple male elk grazing on my way to the tourist trap McDonald's about 15 miles away from the park. I returned full of 2 egg biscuits and was ready to explore the GC. I found the Bright Angel trailhead after a short shuttle ride and began to descend. Quite an odd sensation, descending on the first leg of a hike. I promised to pace myself, and allowed for twice the amount of water and time on my way back up. Down and down I went, zig zagging through switchbacks on a trail about 7 feet wide until I reached a gentle slope half way down the canyon (about 3000 feet). On I marched, out to a place called Plateau Point. From there I could both see down to the Colorado River and up to the rim from which I descended. Never a hike like this before.

After ascending like a mule and entering the comfort of my metal horse and home, I proceeded 80 miles North to the town of Page, AZ, founded 1957, where I am in the desert just a few miles south of the dammed up river known as Lake Powell.

The desert makes me uncomfortable. I thought that I would love such a strange and foreign landscape, but instead I just feel that any human being should not settle so far away from a natural water source. The middle of nowhere seems an unfitting term, since I am in a town, but still I feel like that is exactly where I am.