Our GCNP Trip Went South, But We Persevered. A Tale of One Family

I read this on one of the Grand Canyon blogs and it struck me on several levels. One, most reading this here have a lot more experience than these folks and the trip was modest, yet they found trouble. Lots to 2nd guess yet not so much either, like maybe their even being there was the first omen as he called them. The way little things piled up for them reminds me of an old favorite I like to read over every now and then…Jack London’s “To build a fire.” Nothing so dramatic here, just that story reminds me of that startling, and even cold, observation of a man’s foolish confidence in the face of nature’s power. I will tell you what did annoy me…”My wife, my son, my daughter” over and over again. These are NOT possessions, they are people, so I still don’t know their names and it bugs me. Be nice to know how old the kids were at least.
Enjoy

As the title states, our GCNP trip was one for the ages, and proof that no matter how well you’ve planned everything, Murphy is always close at hand. For full disclaimer, the entire family exited the canyon under their own power via the Bright Angel trail. So, that said, on with the story…

(sorry in advance for the novel)

Our trip began with a flight to PHX on Saturday with a ridiculous amount of luggage. I’m used to making these trips solo, and only going for the duration of my camping trip +1-2 days, not setting up for 4 people for a week, with our camping trip in the middle. Fortunately, the rental car place gave us a sweet deal on an upgrade to a small SUV so we had room for all the bags without a kid having to hold a suitcase on their lap for the ride from the airport to my inlaws’s house in Chandler. Saturday evening, I set up all the backpacks, limiting the load for the kids, lightening the load for momma, and becoming the mule with my larger pack. Thumbs up to Lower Gear in Tempe ([URL]http://www.lowergear.com/[/url], who rented us backpacks for the kids, bags and pads for everyone but me, and 2 2-person tents. They were great to work with on both ends of the trip and got packs that were perfect for the kids. So, I got us all squared away (or so I thought) and we headed North on Sunday to get to Grand Canyon Village before 3pm so we could drop off the sleeping bags, pads, and tents at the mule barn. In order to make things as light as possible for the 3 newbies, we were having the main camping gear sent down by duffel. I’m convinced that this would have been a great plan had things not gone awry.

We were extremely lucky with our lodging. I’d made reservations for Sunday and Monday several months in advance, even before our permit was submitted, with the plan to cancel whichever night we didn’t need once we got the permit back. It worked out that we stayed in the Bucky Cabin at the Bright Angel Lodge, maybe 15yds from the overlook above Indian Gardens and the Bright Angel trail. We took some pictures and admired the view that never gets old, ate some dinner, and went back to the room to finish our preparations for the morning. One really cool thing that happened was later in the evening, after dark, we skipped out to the overlook again. We could see the lights from the north rim, Indian Gardens, and some headlamps bopping up the BA. It was really exciting to see the hikers coming up the trail.

Monday morning came bright and early. It was cold, in the upper 30’s outside, but we were ready with long pants, fleece sweatshirts and jackets, and the warmth that only adrenaline and anticipation could give. It was then that I discovered the first not so good omen of the trip. It appeared that we didn’t get my wife’s hydration bladder closed properly and it had leaked a bit out the filler cap. It wasn’t empty, but the base of her backpack was wet, and some of her clothes were damp as well. ”No worries,” we thought, “it’
s gonna be warm and dry at the bottom, we’ll air dry anything this afternoon and tomorrow and be fine.” So, after a breakfast of protein bars, bananas with peanut butter, and some water, we cinched up our hip belts, grabbed our trekking poles and made our way to the bus stop. For our trip down, I’d prepped approximately 120oz of water for each person. Knowing that nerves would cause my kids to drink more, I planned on a good deal of water to get them to the bottom. They each had a full 100oz camelbak and a mostly full 24oz water bottle. We also had some trail mix, sunflower seeds, more protein bars, and an apple each in our packs.

We caught the 6am hiker shuttle along with some folks that were headed R2R (and maybe 2R, but I don’t remember). There was a lot of nervous chatter as we made final adjustments to our poles and packs around 6:30 and started our trek down the Kaibab. It was just light enough that we didn’t need headlamps, and we hit Ooh Aah point right at 7am or so. Not blazing fast, but it was comfortable, even a bit chilly, and we weren’t in a hurry. Everyone was still happy, and very excited, as we’d never been this far down as a family. They were getting their first views of the canyon from below the rim, and the views that day were pretty darn good. After a snack break and some pictures, we moved on looking to reach Cedar Ridge. Maybe 2/3 of the way to Cedar Ridge, darling daughter decided she needed the facilities located there, so she and my son took off for the last 1/2 mile to the rest stop. More snacks and pictures, and a little longer break, and we were on our way to O’Neill Butte around 8:30.

It was between Cedar Ridge and the backside of O’Neill Butte that the second ill omen of the trip presented itself. Wind. Not a gentle, cooling breeze, but in your face, blow your hat off, cause you to stumble WIND of the 10-15mph variant. It was constant once we cleared the ridge at CR, and cold, chilling you if you stopped for any length of time. It would not let up the remainder of the day. We paused for a break on the north side of O’Neill Butte, not quite to Skeleton Point, and the going was slow. It was about 9:30. It had taken us almost an hour to go a little over 1 mile. Still, I wasn’t too concerned, as I didn’t want to rush to the bottom and get ahead of anyone’s comfort level. There was, however, this little twinge in the back of my mind. Another 30 minutes brought us to Skeleton Point, and the beginning of the end.

On the 2nd switchback below Skeleton Point, right before the trail turns back to the south, the 3rd omen came. I fell. Nothing major, I just hit a patch of loose gravel and lost my footing, right down onto my rump. This scared both kids. I assured them that I was fine, we stopped for a minute or two to calm down, and we continued on. I consider it an omen because in all my years of hiking in Indiana, the Smokies, Ohio, or GCNP, and all of the times I’ve done adventure races where I was running through woods, I’ve never slipped and fallen. Not 100 steps later, before the trail turns back north to start the Reds and Whites, it happened. My wife fell, almost the same as I did, but her leg got caught under her, straining, possibly tearing, her left calf muscle. She could not point her toes and put her full weight onto that leg when stepping down over the logs on the trail, even with trekking poles. So, she was grapevining, turning sideways to bring her left foot down level, then bringing the right foot down and crossing in front of the left. On the higher stepdowns, she was holding on to me while doing this. Both kids at this point started to panic. I kept everyone calm, but started making mental preparations for what to do next, and I still had to get us down the 1/2 mile of the Reds and Whites, then another 3/4 mile to the tipoff resthouse.

Inch by inch, step by agonizing step, we made it down the R&Ws to the tipoff, in approximately 2.5 hours. The pain on stepping over the logs was bad, the pain on the moderate downhill from the bottom of the R&Ws to the resthouse was almost as bad, because she couldn’t take a normal stride. We literally limped into the reststop at the tipoff/Tonto junction. It’s now noon, and my internal timeline had us nearing or at the river by this time given our start time. They rested in the shade of the resthouse while I took stock of our situation. I knew that going down the rest of the way to BAC would be murder on my wife, and I had the added concern of the Devil’s Corkscrew on the way out. So, I made the call to NPS for advice via the emergency phone. The NPS dispatcher put me on with Bill Vandergraff and after a 15 minute conversation, it was decided that we would divert across the Tonto to Indian Gardens. This would be a tough hike, as it was all exposed to the midday sun, and 4.5 miles long, but better than the 2 miles of downhill to get to to BAC. I told him I’d talk to the family and call him back to let him know when we were heading out.

It was a little after 1:30pm when my wife felt like she could start out again. So, I called Bill back and let him know we were headed off and that I expected us to get 1mph at best with the way my wife was moving. I took most of the stuff from her pack and loaded it into mine, and we started trekking across the Tonto. I checked the map frequently to see how we were progressing. It was slow going, but it was going nonetheless. Unfortunately, issues began piling on top of each other. This was par for the course, as a single thing is not usually a problem, but several things stacked on top of one another. Maybe 1.5 miles into the Tonto, still in full sun, my daughter started getting sick. I think she got too worked up and panicked. So, we found a shady spot not quite to Burro Spring, and took a break. That’s when she started throwing up. I knew that things were beyond serious at this point, as any water that didn’t stay in her body was not helping at all. We rested in the shade for a half hour or so, and I kept watch on everyone, trying to get them to have a snack to keep our energy up. About 3:40, my daughter said she thought she could walk a bit. So, she stood up, walked about 10 yards, and threw up again. About the same time, my son mentioned that his camelbak was empty.

I started doing the math in my head, and figured that the rangers at IG weren’t going to be expecting us until 5:30-6pm. I knew that there was no way that my wife and daughter, well my daughter especially, was capable of doing the rest of this trail in 2 hours. So, after a couple prayers and a quick conversation with my wife, I filled her water bottle and my daughter’s bottle from mine. They both had some left in their camelbak, and a nearly full bottle. My son had his bottle, and I had some left in my camelbak. How much I didn’t know, but I knew it was enough to get to IG if we were moving. My son and I then took off for IG, moving at my speed. I told him to be very clear if he needed to take a rest, because otherwise we needed to haul a$$. And he did. He asked for 2 stops, of only a minute or two each, and we reached IG in right at an hour. We met a ranger near the mule corral, told him who we were and filled him in. He knew we were coming, but wasn’t fully up to speed on how we were doing. He posted us up at the ranger station, made some calls on the radio, and started gathering things to go out to meet the girls. He asked if I was able to go back out with him, but I needed to rest and wasn’t comfortable leaving my son at the campground by himself, as there were no other rangers there.

At 5:30, he had gathered supplies to go out and meet them, to get them some food and water, and either walk them in if they could, or set up a camp for them if they couldn’t. According to him, he would probably be back to give me an update no earlier than 9pm. As he left, I started fixing some dinner for my son and I, who promptly fell asleep after eating. He must have been exhausted. Me, I sat and worried. Imagine my surprise, which almost immediately turned to relief, when a headlamp started shining up the trail about 7:30. It was the ranger. I must have looked dumbstruck (and continued to look that way for most of the next hour), when he said, “here, grab this pack.” He had my wife’s pack on top of his own. I said, “you must have made damn good time.” He said, “I didn’t have far to walk, they’ll be along in a few minutes.” I’m pretty sure you could have told me I was kidnapped as a child and was living with space aliens, and I wouldn’t have been more shocked. Five minutes later, a headlamp comes back up the trail and it’s my daughter, followed by my wife, limping along, a minute or two back. I’ll be honest and tell you that I could barely contain tears at that moment and even writing it right now gives me a lump in my throat.

In talking with my wife while making the girls dinner, she told me that they’d rested for another 45 minutes or so, then started slowly making their way along, drinking a couple swallows of water every 10 minutes to keep my daughter from vomiting it right back up. Once they got moving, and the sun dropped behind the wall of the canyon, my daughter started to feel better. It cooled off and they were able to keep going, albeit slowly. They’d made it about half way from where we stopped, when the ranger came around a corner and met them. It had gotten dark on them, so it was a pretty harrowing trip, but the trail was easily visible for that area between Pipe Creek and the Bright Angel Trail. When the ranger met them, she said he was as surprised to see them as they were to see him. He had been hiking (at his pace) for less than 45 minutes. With his encouragement, they trudged on, and 12 hours after they started hiking that morning, arrived at Indian Gardens campground, and a short while after that, we were all reunited at the ranger station.

The trip up the BA the next morning wasn’t nearly as exciting. My daughter, who seemed to be feeling better, was raring to go, so she and I flew to the top in about 5 hours, which is about as quick as I can go carrying nearly 30lbs. I dropped her off at the car with some cash for the soda fountain/snack bar at Bright Angel Lodge, dumped my pack, took some Aleve, refilled my water bottle, and headed back down the BA to meet up with my wife and son. Over the course of our trip up, rangers stopped us 2 or 3 times to let us know they’d seen and/or chatted with my wife and son and that they were doing well. I met them right at the 1.5mi resthouse, took my wife’s pack, and walked out with them. By this time, our phones were getting a signal, so I kept in constant text contact with my daughter. We left IG about 8am, and my wife hit the trailhead right at 4:15, out of the Grand Canyon, but having successfully hiked one of the more adventurous “beginner”; hikes in the canyon.

Everyone at one point or another propped up the others, no one was ever negative. We really came together as a family, each grownup helping a kid when it got tough for them, and each kid helping a grownup when they struggled. My wife and kids were concerned that I was beating myself up for us being in the situation we were in, and I was. But, they helped me see that this wasn’t my fault and I helped them each in more ways than I could see to get us through it. I want to publicly thank ranger Peter Maggio for his help. Apparently, he was on his way to go check out the campground when we saw him, so we’re lucky we caught him when we did. While at IG, we donated 2 days worth of Mountain House meals for 4 people, keeping only a breakfast for the morning, and all of our remaining stove fuel to the Hikers’ assist box. It helped us (meaning me) by lightening the load for the trip out, and it might pay it forward to some other bunch of hikers who get in the weeds and need some help.

The NPS folks managed to get in touch with the mule people and got our duffel sent back to the top a day early, so it was waiting for us when we all got to the top. We grabbed it, ate at the most expensive McDonalds I’ve ever been too (but it was so worth the extra), and headed back to my inlaws’ place for some much needed recovery.

I know this is a really long story, but one I felt needed telling. I learned a ton on this trip, and have started figuring out how I could have been better prepared and trained prior to taking my family on such a strenuous trip.