I am proud of Primogenitor for many reasons, not the least of which is that he shares my love of the out of doors and sense of adventure. Of of these adventures was a two week long family camping trip through twelve states of the south-west, with a week of camping on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Among the activities we planned for our stay was to take a short day hike with a park ranger down into the interior of the canyon on the South Kaibab trail. Hiking in the canyon during late June can be a warm proposition, so the hike was scheduled to begin at 8:00 so that the group could return to the rim by 10:00 or so. I arose about 6:30 that morning to fix some coffee and breakfast. As I stood by the gravel road running through Mather Campsite sipping on my coffee, a woman walked by, paused, and then said to me, "I just saw the largest elk I have ever seen in my life just down at the end of the road here."
The night before I had witnessed a heard of mule deer migrate quietly through our campsite, and I was convinced she was mistaken. She had seen a muley and not an elk; and I told her as much. However, she insisted that it was an elk and ambled along her way. Naturally I had to take a walk down to investigate.
So I was wrong. About fifty yards down the road was indeed a very large elk, grazing passively in the early morning just along the roadside. Quickly I returned to camp and fetched my camera. I also fetched Primogenitor out of bed to join me in viewing this magnificent animal. We walked back down the road and found the elk still in the same place, placidly munching on grass. After snapping a few photos, I regretted that I had not also rousted my wife and daughter out of bed to see the elk (I had left them behind because I expected the growing crowd around the elk to frighten it off; that it wouldn't be there anymore by the time we returned). I left Primo behind and returned a second time to camp to retrieve the rest of the family.
I should not have worried about the elk leaving because it was in its natural element and was obviously hungry; not going anywhere fast. When I returned again with the rest of our household, I was amazed to see that my son had approached the grazing elk very carefully, and was standing less than ten feet away from it. I snapped a couple of quick photos which have become basis of family legend: Primo the elk whisperer.
After this fun little adventure, Primo and I gulped down some breakfast and coffee and were off on a bus to the trail head for the South Kaibab. This ranger hike was supposed to be three-quarters of a mile down, for a total round trip of a mile and a half. The ranger would stop at various points along the trail and explain natural features such as flora, fauna, and naturally geology. This was all very interesting; for example we learned what a pack rat midden was, and saw one first hand (Google this if you are curious). Once we reached the end three quarters of a mile down, Primo asked me if we could continue further down the trail to the next major point on the trail, Cedar Ridge. This was another three quarters of a mile down. I asked the ranger if this was okay, and she said sure, as long as you have enough water (we each had a full 1 liter bottle).
The day was gloriously sunny, and actually not all that hot considering that it was the desert in late June. When Primo and I arrived at Cedar Ridge around 10:00, a thermometer on the side of the latrine building read about 85 degrees. We offered to snap some photos for a family who happened to be there at the same time, and they returned the favor by taking pictures of us posing in front of the Cedar Ridge sign. We might have stayed there about 15 minutes before thinking of making the return walk back up to the top. At this point Primo asked me, "Hey, where's my water bottle?"
I did not want to hear this.
We made a brief yet frantic search for the lost bottle, but it was nowhere to be found. Rather than wasting time looking for what I knew to be lost forever, I resolved to abandon the search right away and start the trek back up the switchbacks. Thus began the grueling leg of the trip.
The heat and dry desert climate was certainly challenging, but I was surprised that this was not the worst difficulty to overcome. It was the altitude. The south rim of Grand Canyon is around 6 thousand feet above sea level, and our home in Lexington is about a thousand feet in altitude. This means that the top of Grand Canyon is about a mile higher in altitude than I was generally accustomed to. Now here is the deceiving part; since the first leg of this trip was downhill, one does not feel the effects of altitude. But when we turned around and headed back up, we soon found ourselves puffing and winded, stopping every few dozen yards in order to take a drink and catch our breaths. As we struggled to make our way up the hot dusty trail, I was amazed by how many other hikers we encountered on the way down, without water, without packs, without proper sunscreen or suitable foot ware, trotting along as if they were oblivious to any potential danger for sunstroke or dehydration. "You people are going to die down there" I thought to myself.
For a while, I thought I might break down in exhaustion. Luckily we encountered a park ranger who was well fitted out with a bulging pack and plenty of water. He was searching for a hiker reported to be in distress (presumably one of those I had seen earlier casually meandering down the trail to their doom). I asked him if he might have seen our lost water bottle, and when he heard our story, he volunteered to give us a bottle of Desani. To this day I am deeply grateful for this little bottle of water, because we would have been far more miserable than we actually were by the time we returned to the trail head.
Fortunately, the rest of the walk back up the switchbacks to the the trail head was uneventful. There was a faucet at the top and Primo and I fell upon it greedily. We must have drunk a gallon of water apiece. One adventure still awaited us. I let Primo go first, and he wandered off to wait at the bus stop as I lapped the cool water directly from the tap. While I did this, a bus arrived and Primo boarded it. Suddenly, the bus driver started to pull away while I was still at the spout. Primo begged the driver to wait for me, but he insisted on driving off immediately without me on board. Primo quickly dismounted the bus so that we were not separated, and the damned driver drove off leaving us there at the trail head, standing in the sunshine and waiting for another bus.
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