Grand Canyon Hiking Trip, Day 1

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/esukrit/FieldCampHikingTrip

The Grand Canyon hiking trip is sort of a tradition for the Astronomy Field Camp. Basically, it’s exactly what it sounds like: The Field Camp students go hike the Grand Canyon. This year, that meant me, Li, Kathy and Jennifer. Regretfully, Steve and Kathryn were unable to come with us; Wellesley started the coming week, and they had to return for classes. Noooo! Kathryn and I were even unable to fight our icicle duel, planned from the beginning of the program! Alas. But there will be other times.

The preparation for the trip started well before the trip itself. Susan Kern, a former grad student of Jim’s (currently at STScI) and avid hiker, arrived Wednesday to among other things take over her role as hike supervisor. We went shopping Thursday and Friday, buying gear on Thursday and food on Friday — we would take breakfast and dinner together, but lunch would be on our own. I did some last-minute laundry with Steve’s help, then spent a few hours trying to pack my bag — and failing. In my total ignorance, I had bought a normal sleeping bag instead of a “mummy bag”, which is a form-fitting sleeping bag that contours to your body, and in consequence is much lighter and less bulky. I could not find a way to fit it inside my backpack. At Susan’s recommendation, I just left it partially disassembled and left it as a task for the morning.

I got up around 4:00 the next morning (slept around 12:00) to get ready and finish packing. We headed out to the Canyon bright and early, around 6:30 — on a Saturday! I napped on the way, and apparently missed our second visit to the Chevron gas station for Li’s bathroom purposes. After a bit we arrived at the Canyon itself. Parking, we met Mr. and Mrs. Kern, Susan’s parents. They are very avid hikers, and they were along to help out with us less experienced students. Li and I collected crampons from them (metal spikes you attach to your shoe to improve grip on the ice). We then headed over to the shuttle station to wait for our transport to the South Kaibab trail. In the meantime, the Kerns helped me with my sleeping bag. My conventional bag was hideously large and hard to fit; eventually, we kind of attached it along the top, using the top of the backpack as straps (see album for bag picture). Eventually the shuttle arrived and we were off. After a wonderful drive that gave us some lovely views of the Canyon, none of which I was quick enough to capture, we arrived at the top of the Kiabab trail. Approximately 6.5 miles long, it would take us all the way down to the Bright Angel campgrounds. At the top of the trail, we chatted a bit with some people we had met in the shuttle, took a bunch of pictures, put on crampons, and did our final kitting. There was much jokes about MIT and physics/astronomy! Apparently people had heard of us. Then we were off. Kathy, Jennifer and Mr. and Mrs. Kern quickly went ahead — Li and I took a lot of pictures as we went, and additionally Li was talking quite a bit with another couple he had met. The trail was extremely icy and snowy, but the crampons and hiking boots worked wonderfully — I never lost stability, even while maintaining an even pace. There was only one issue — my sleeping bag was not quite evenly balanced, and during my walking got increasingly over to one side. I initially tried to smack it back into place, then resorted to smashing against the canyon wall to force it back. Eventually I gave up and took it off and repositioned it. I had to do this multiple times. Grrr!

I had never really seen going down as an issue, so I was surprised to find — exactly as Kathy had warned — that going down was actually a bit of a strain on my knees. I didn’t notice it at first, but when we reached Cedar Ridge, our first general break point, and I put down my pack, I was surprised at 1) how light I felt, and 2) the feeling of relief from my knees. I spent quite a lot of time wandering about, taking pictures. Kathy and Jen headed on ahead. Another older gentleman who for some strange reason took a lot of interest in us (henceforth referred to as Creepy Guy, due to his expressing to Kathy and Jen a desire to see them without clothes. I saw this only once, Kathy says it was ~ 3 times) told us that Skeleton Point some way down would be a good candidate for another meet-up. I headed down, the snow, ice and slush turning to mud through which the crampons were still kind of useful. I eventually ditched them; they had served their purpose extremely well. Eventually we came to an awesome lookout point, from which you could see the Colorado river very well. Here the Kerns broke off to have lunch; I went ahead. I eventually caught up to the rest of the group, hiking near Jennifer for quite a ways down. Li and Kathy were well ahead; when we reached Skeleton Point, we saw Kathy midway along the path, minus backpack. She had ditched her backpack and run up the trail, just to go uphill for a bit! Damn fit people. We then sat and had some lunch. I discovered my turkey sandwich had gotten very flat, and learned that I loved it this way. Note for future: compress sandwiches prior to eating. We took some pictures, including numerous of Kathy’s snowman. This was Kathy’s quirk for the trip: she persistently took her snowman (doll) everywhere, strapped to her backpack, and put it on high places and took pictures. Li had fun with his giant map of doom, spreading it out with rocks and happily identifying features. Jen and I stretched a bit, then as the Kerns caught up, headed out, trying to get a head start on the super-hikers. Kathy put paid to this strategy by rapidly catching up with us, crying out at being left behind. But then she walked with us, so it was OK.

The views up to this point had been excellent all along, as you’d expect hiking the Canyon, so I haven’t commented terribly much on them. But now it becomes absolutely necessary to do so. Mr. Kern had told us that some way along the trail we’d come to a place where the views were truly amazing (I think it was Lookout Point, but I’m not sure). We were on a red rock rock structure, dotted with green. To our sides lay towering masses of red and black rock, richly covered with green plant growth. It was like rubies and black topaz crusted with emeralds, except no stones ever looked so vibrant and fresh. Then we turned the corned and saw the Colorado, and a river of grayish-green with whitefroth was added to the mix. You must see these pictures — they were gorgeous. I didn’t stop taking pictures — it was just so amazing, and I knew my memory was not up to it. At the same time, the sky was a marvelous shade of blue, and beautiful white clouds scudded along it, and the sun illuminated the few white faces of rock. Absolutely gorgeous — absolutely amazing. Even the camera-averse Jen and Kathy took quite a few pictures.

We continued to head down the trail. Now came switchback after switchback, often with pretty green mule shit, making a nice contrast with the red soil of the trail. Kathy started to head ahead of us, while Jen and I began to feel the pain in our legs, from hours of steadily absorbing the shock of us plus our backpacks* descending. There were distractions along the way, such as — rather strangely — a blue squirrel. We’re not kidding. It wasn’t bright blue, more blue-grey, but the blue was there. Jen’s explanation seems rational — probably got into some kind of blue plastic, got stained blue. But there was another one! Did they both? Alas, I was not quick enough with my camera to image the little animal.

By this point we were really starting to hate descending. We just kept moving and looked for the end. Eventually we saw it — the tunnel that lead to the bridge! I started taking pictures, telling Jen I would be calling one of them “the light at the end of the tunnel”. Trudging on, we greeted the dark opening with cries (well, like one cry each) of joy. It was surprisingly dark and rough-hewn, but it was flat! Emerging, we crossed the Black Suspension Bridge — only to be greeted by more down. We groaned and continued. En route, we saw what was purported to be the remains of three Native American structures (perhaps called pueblos? Unsure), but didn’t really see them. Apparently, they have gotten a lot more ruined compared to their first discovery, and are much harder to identify. A bit more hiking, and I was very glad I had attended to the dirt map Susan had drawn many hundred feet above; we had to cross a smaller bridge (over Bright Angel Creek), and continue along another trail. Neither of us quite remembered the campground name either, so we were getting somewhat nervous. But then, we saw this!

The forecast was for rain, and Susan had told us to, if possible, grab the covered campsite, while noting that by the time we got down it probably would have been taken. But we managed to grab it! Or rather, Kathy did; she got there 15 minutes ahead, and jumped on top of the site –literally. When asked how she got on top, she told us to figure it out. Being relatively tall and not terrible at rock climbing, I picked a side, went up the rock, and got on that way. It turned out the other side was much better — many natural hand- and foot-holds — but no matter, this worked. About 15 minutes later, Li and Mr. Kern arrived as well. Same question, same challenge. This was the result. A few minutes later, Susan and Mrs. Kern showed up. All in all, we had made very good time. Susan had said that about 4 hours was the best Field Camp time, and I had done it in about 4:15 — I felt very good about that.

We hung out for a bit, then started setting up. We cleaned out the little slots and set up our tents. Li’s mentor had loaned us his tent (I carried it down, he carried it up), unfortunately neither of us had set up a tent before. So while Kathy and Jen’s tent looked like this and Susan’s tent looked like this (her parents stayed in a cabin), ours looked like this. Yeah. Fortunately, with Susan’s mad skills we were able to make our tent habitable. Then came strip-down — everything we had that was food or in a plastic bag went in these large metal containers, to prevent animals from trying to break into our tent (they have learned to associate food with plastic). This included clothes and the like. This was also the reason our sandwiches would stay fine despite being nonveg — it being winter, it was cold, and since metal conducts, it was like the food was in a fridge. By this time, I was starting to feel the soreness. I was hobbling, groaning a bit, and moving around stiffly. Around this time, I also discovered a very unfortunate fact. The local bathrooms lacked soap. This was a problem. Fortunately, Susan let me use a bit of the dishwashing soap, and I later discovered that the Phantom Ranch bathroom had soap. So it was all good.

We headed over to the Ranch, which was maybe 10-15 minutes away, just to see the area and see where Susan’s parents were staying. Hung out a bit, drank some hot chocolate, headed back, played some Frisbee. I taught Li forehand — he learned fast! I read a bit too — we were told to bring books along, and while I didn’t read a lot, it was fun to do a little bit. Around 5:30-6, we started making dinner — mac and cheese. This was really, really cool — I had never seen camping cooking before, and seeing the little burner and tank of gas and stuff was awesome. I also noticed something interesting — I noticed that when Susan was with us, she was very confident, calm, completely in control, but when her parents showed up, she let a lot of that go — she farmed out some of her problems to them, complained a bit, etc — overall, acted closer in manner to a child. Thinking back, I note that when I’m around Mom (and to a lesser degree Dad, don’t know why) I act in a similar manner — I whine a lot, don’t talk in a controlled manner, etc. I suspect this is generally true of people who are close to their parents — in their presence, we revert to our younger selves. Just a fun observation.

Dinner was great, if a bit sparse — we stuck to about a serving of mac and cheese, which was way less than I usually have. Still, it was probably nutritionally adequate, so no issues. We also had this sort of warm pudding (tradeoff: warm pudding, but it was very loose, not actually like pudding. It was cold. We liked warm more than we liked high viscosity) and hot chocolate. Then came what was possibly the greatest part of the whole trip: the stargazing. The night was clear, there was no light pollution at all, the air was clean — it was amazing. I saw all the things I’ve read about for so long. We saw Andromeda. I saw the Milky Way — the full Milky Way — including the dark regions of the dust lanes. We saw a bunch of stars, and I think Mars and one of the gas giants (Jupiter perhaps? Need to check). We saw satellites (AWESOME!!!) and meteorites (well, I just saw one, I think I weep. Everything else sort of made up for that). At one point I thought I was seeing a whole bunch of meteorites, but Kathy and Susan noticed I was noting them at regular intervals — so what I was really seeing was iridium flares, the light reflecting off solar panels of a satellite as they rotated into and out of view. Susan used her green Laser Pointer of Doom on her ring, using it to throw off an amazing pattern of fractured light. We just waved it around for a bit. I accidentally clocked Susan in the head (I’m still sorry, BTW!). It was amazing — I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars. Wow.

Afterwards, we headed over to the ranch for a bit. Brushed our teeth using the warm water available there, sat down for a bit. Li played some game called Pig with some other people. Jen and Kathy worked on one puzzle, and I joined Mr. & Mrs. Kern for one as well. One by one, we drifted off and returned. Changing for sleep was a complicated maneuver in the tent in the near pitch black (with my ridiculously tiny torch — next time, I will invest in a bigger one!), but it was managed. Then, I went into the bag and went to sleep.

*Interesting anecdote: at the station waiting for our shuttle, there was a scale. I weighed my pack on it and got 50 lb! I was badly shaken for a moment. But thankfully Susan assured me the scale was broken and my pack was at ~25 lb, and that value exceeded the median of the probability distribution.