1998 Grand Canyon / California Trip, part 5

Tuesday, September 1, 1998—Not a morning person, Ribbon Falls, Phantom Ranch, 109F?!
I awoke at about 330 AM to the sound of rain on the tent. Boy, two things that I really do not like are: a) waking up at 330am and b) having to pack up camp in the rain at that 330am! The traditional / local wisdom about hiking in the Canyon is that you should get up really early and complete the majority of your hiking that day before the hottest part of the day hits. The obvious disadvantage to this well-thought-out strategy is the part where you have to get up really early, something I don’t like to do when I’m on vacation!

I’m often get a little queasy / nauseous if I have to wake up too early in the morning and if I’m still tired, and I was not feeling great this morning at all. I grumpily ate some bagel and beefstick, forced down some Gatorade, tried not to throw up, and started hiking about 6am.

I started feeling better later, and our morning’s reward for our early effort was a pleasant side hike (about ½ mile each way) off of the main Kaibab Trail out to Ribbon Falls, a gorgeous green waterfall coming right out of the Canyon wall. We all dropped our main packs and enjoyed walking with no weight on our backs. I was so tired that morning that I didn’t bother to take my camera or tripod out there. I sort of regret this now because I don’t have any pictures from that part of the hike, but it sure was nice to walk without the pack or anything on for awhile.

Mary, who really did want to get some pictures of Ribbon Falls, did an extra mile of hiking to go get her camera when she discovered she had left her camera back where we’d dropped our packs. At the Falls, we all soaked our bandannas and shirts in the water, put them back on, and headed for Phantom Ranch and the Bright Angel campground. I would like to someday return to Ribbon Falls (with a lighter pack!) and shoot lots of pictures there.

The Tuesday morning rain and cloudiness had two effects. First, it kept temperatures mercifully cool during the day. The rain also washed a lot of silt and rock from the upper Canyon down into the usually-clear Bright Angel Creek that runs along the North Kaibab Trail. The runoff made the Colorado river and Bright Angel Creek look like Willy Wonka’s chocolate river. The photos I took for the next couple of days all show the water with that brown look to it. I have a couple of brown-water framed pictures in my cube at work from this trip. They’re not hanging up at home today because my wife doesn’t think the brown river water in the photos goes well with our décor.

We got into our group campsite at the Bright Angel Campground to find that ours was the only site that had covered shelters. Good thing, too, because it rained on us in the afternoon. I don’t mind getting rained on a bit when it’s very hot and I’m out on a long hike, but it’s much more annoying when you’re just trying to relax and don’t really want to be wet. After we set up camp and ate some more of Cathy’s apricots, we went to Phantom Ranch (about 1/3 mile from our campsite) and had a couple of well-deserved beers. Given how tired and hot we were, I didn’t mind that all they had was Coors and Bud – it tasted perfect that day.

Phantom Ranch is just a cool place. It’s a lodge built at the junction of the Bright Angel Creek and the Colorado River, 5000 feet below the Canyon rim. All of the food, supplies, mail, etc. comes in each day by pack mule, and all trash, etc. goes out by mule later in the day. There’s a pay phone down there, and with no cell phone reception (although I didn’t have a cell phone anyway – fewer folks did back in 1998), you see lots of people lining up to call friends / relatives on the pay phone and say, “Guess where I’m at!?”

Inside the Ranch, there’s a little weather information bulletin board that showed the high temperatures that week, both at the Canyon rim and Canyon interior. We saw that the rain that morning came at a fortuitous time, keeping the temperatures in the low 90s. Had we been hiking down into Phantom Ranch the previous day, we’d have been dying in 109 deg F heat! I didn’t appreciate the rain when I had to pack up my tent in it at 4am that day, but it ended up being a blessing.

At the lodge, I bought a Phantom Ranch t-shirt (which they only sell at Phantom Ranch … you can’t get one in the Rim gift shops) and some Gatorade powder packs and relaxed out for an hour or so. Then I walked back to the campsite to play poker and eat a huge lunch (anyone want some more apricots?). It rained on us for awhile mid-afternoon, then after the rain stopped I walked out to the Silver Bridge that crosses the Colorado River and took some photos.

The Colorado River is about 150 yards wide at this point, and flows big (about 15000 cubic ft/sec, I learned at the lodge). I only took note of the water flow rate at the time because my friends Steve and Robert used to be big into kayaking and would often discuss flow rates of rivers. Robert would describe the Colorado River at that flow rate as something that would “munch you”. Most people that run the Colorado river through the Canyon don’t do it in little kayaks, but rather on guided boat tours that use big inflatable rafts that are somewhat less subject to little eddies and unexpected hydrodynamics that can really get kayaks in trouble. I did see a few brave kayakers down there, though.

Later that evening, I went with Irene to hear a lady park ranger talk for about 30-45 minutes on the geology of the Canyon. Beyond the standard educational benefit, the ranger’s talk was interesting for two reasons. One, she seemed overly demonstrative with her arms / hands to illustrate geologic timelines and the layers of different rock in the Canyon. Second, she described a geologic feature that sounded like the word “erotica” or something. It seems really stupid now, but I recall giggling like Beavis and Butthead. Dude, you’re 27 years old, stop giggling like a 13-year old! I must have been pretty tired that night. I slept fairly well and did not get rained on that night, although it was very hot in the tent and I didn’t sleep very comfortably. Since I tend to snore a lot, it probably wasn’t that great for Jim Martin, my tent-mate, either.