One of my favorite memories from my mid 20s was a 9-10 day trip I took in September of 1998 to hike across the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim, along with a short overnight hike in the Emigrant Wilderness in northern California. In recognition of the 10th anniversary of that great trip, I thought I’d post an updated / edited account of that trip, along with some background / history. Sorry no photos, as I took all the pictures in either print film or slide film and have not yet begun the enormous project of getting those all scanned to digital yet. I’m splitting it into several pieces due to the length.
Prelude / Trip Background
Let's go back to 1995 for some background of this 1998 trip. While working on my Masters degree in mechanical engineering at UT Austin, I got an internship for the fall 1995 semester at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, NM. That fall, I spent almost every weekend exploring and/or hiking in the areas surrounding Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and up into Southwestern Colorado. This internship really sparked in me a love of mountains / canyons / outdoors that I had not experienced much earlier in life. Growing up in Memphis, TN and Austin, TX, there’s plenty of rather nice outdoor stuff to do and see (e.g. Texas Hill Country and lakes, Enchanted Rock, etc.), but nothing that you’d really call stunning / unbelievable scenery.
This internship was my first time in my life living in an area with much closer access to mountains, and I loved it. I got hooked on hiking, travel, and seeing new places in the outdoors. One highlight of that internship was a 4-day weekend trip I took into Colorado in October, where I first saw Ouray, CO, in the southwestern part of the state – one of the prettiest places I’ve ever seen, even including the Grand Canyon. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison River was pretty impressive, too.
When this internship ended in December, I took a couple of days to visit the Grand Canyon for the first time (South Rim) before heading home to Austin. It was a very impactful and awesome experience for me. I was really unprepared for how vivid and “3D” the Canyon was, compared to photos I’d seen. Even professional photos of the Canyon really cannot do it justice. I literally found myself saying “Oh, my God” several times. I have several photos in my album from that trip, and in many of them I was probably WAY too close to the edge. I sometimes climbed around / over railings to get a better view. I was, frankly, pretty lucky to have not fallen in! It snowed at the South Rim on that trip, and it was not very crowded, so it made for kind of a magical overall first experience at the Canyon. I really wanted to hike down into the canyon on that trip but really did not have time then.
In Dec 1996, I finished my master’s degree from UT and got a job offer from Motorola in Austin that would start in Feb 1997. So I had a month off before I had to go be a “real adult”, and I did not want to waste it just hanging around Austin. About this time, Texas had just beaten heavily-favored Nebraska in the 1st-ever Big 12 championship game 31-21. (I recall Steve and I jumping around his living room after James Brown hit the tight end for an improbable 60-yard gain on a 4th and 7 to seal the game).
So, as the Big12 champion, Texas got invited to play in the Fiesta Bowl against Penn State in Tempe, AZ. I decided that I wanted to go see the game in person, and I also figured that it would be a good opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon again, and maybe do some hiking this time. I didn’t mind traveling alone … since I was an only child growing up, I was always comfortable doing things by myself. While planning the trip, I discovered that there’s a lodge down inside the Canyon right by the Colorado River called Phantom Ranch.
I rented a car in Austin, made a reservation for two nights down at Phantom Ranch (planning for a 3-day hiking trip), bought a ticket to the Fiesta Bowl, and hit the road, stopping in El Paso for a night of breathing the, um, clean air from Juarez, Mexico. Before the Fiesta Bowl, I did a few fun things in the Phoenix area. I went to a Suns NBA game, played golf at the TPC of Scottsdale, and did a day hike up to Weaver’s Needle in the Superstition mountains just outside of Phoenix. A strange side note from that golf outing was that someone in my foursome offered me a drag of weed – this guy had some disguised in a regular-looking cigarette. That’s something you much more expect to happen on a disc golf course in Austin than on a PGA Tour course in Scottsdale!
While on the day hike at Weaver’s Needle, I stopped at a point in the trail where it was a bit unclear which way to go (I’ve heard it’s probably not good to get lost alone in the desert!). A lady named Cathy Schuyler happened by and, seeing I was alone and looking a little confused, offered to hike with me. We had a nice hike and visit, and I thanked her for her company. When I told her I was going up in a couple of days to do a hike into the Grand Canyon, she told me that she was planning a rim-to-rim hike (hiking across the entire Canyon from North to South Rim) with several friends for fall of the following year (1998). We exchanged email addresses and she said she’d keep in touch with me if I wanted to join their group. On a random meeting like this, I wasn’t sure I’d hear from her again.
After that day hike, I went to the Fiesta Bowl, where Penn State pummeled Texas. I ran into a few friends from UT at the game (guys from a Christian group called BYX that I was a part of for about a year), and enjoyed visiting with them. Then I headed north for the Canyon, which is about 4 hours north of Phoenix. I didn’t think I’d see anyone I knew after the Fiesta Bowl. What I didn’t know at the time was that a couple of my friends from BYX had also planned to go up to the Grand Canyon and hike down into the Canyon after the Fiesta Bowl. Imagine my surprise when I parked at the South Kaibab trailhead and start putting on my hiking boots and backpack to hike down in, when I look over and see a couple of guys I know! The guys were Darius Sitzman and David Crowley, guys from BYX. There also were a couple of other people with them that I hadn’t met, one of which was Darius’ girlfriend. It was a very strange, random, yet welcome surprise to have company for this hike.
This was my second time at the Canyon, but it was pretty cool to watch other folks see the Canyon for the first time. When we first started hiking in, the trailhead was shrouded in fog, so you really couldn’t see much. But as we descended the first 50-100 feet down, the fog broke and you could see the Canyon clearly. I seem to recall that Darius’ girlfriend, who was seeing the Canyon for the first time, cried upon seeing the full expansive view from the South Kaibab trail.
Another memory I have of that hike was this Pemmican dried energy / nutrition bar Darius was carrying with him that looked like a block of dirt and gravel. He kept offering us a chance to taste it, which I politely declined … we starting referring to it as the “Dookie Bar”.
Other than the Dookie Bar, that whole hike was just wonderful, and it was during this hike that I discovered Plateau Point for the first time. I think Plateau Point is one of the coolest lookout points on Earth – more on this later. I also have a fond memory of calling my mom from the pay phone down in Phantom Ranch, saying “guess where I am?” After this cool trip, I had officially fallen in love with the Canyon and definitely wanted to come back.
Well, Cathy Schuyler kept her word, kept in touch with me, and (along with her friends) arranged the trip. So, on Friday, Aug 28, 1998, I flew to Phoenix to hike across the Canyon from North Rim to South. I also arranged to meet up with my friends from grad school Robert and Linda Canaan in California for a short hiking trip after that.
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