I laid upside down in the back seat with my head on the front seat arm rest between Tim and Phil staring up at the stars through the sunroof of our rent-a-car Hyundai (A nice ride by the way, equipped with heater seats…more for entertainment than comfort). It was one of those moments that cameras cannot capture and words cannot describe. You can take a picture of friends, but not friendship. You can write about stars, but adjectives fall short of wonder.
I had a lot of these moments this past week.
Tim, Phil and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park. We pulled into the park about 2AM, drove past the signs that say “Do not camp or sleep in cars”, found a parking spot facing the yet to be seen canyon, and closed our eyes.
Morning came quickly. Tim wasted no time violating every “leave no trace” rule. But we let that slide…he doesn’t have a colon.
Then the view of the canyon. One of those moments.
All together we hiked up and down 11,106 feet in elevation across a distance of 22.5 on an average of 3-4 hours of sleep (depending on which part of the car you got that night) in 2.5 days (The rest of the time was spent on the road making videos of kids on bikes and bananas flying out the windows to the tune of Shawn Mullins). I learned to respect the canyons. They’re just postcards until you hike them.
The North Kiabab trail (“pronounced” K-eye-beeb; aka Corncob) taught me this lesson. We trekked halfway to the bottom of the Canyon on this path till we got to the roaring springs and then went back up. Maybe the most physically challenging thing I’ve done. The 3,000+ feet down we joked about asses (you can ride donkey’s a third of the way down). The 3,000+ feet back up we dragged ours. On the way down we stopped to take pictures and laugh. On the way up we stopped to take naps and cry. I’d do it again any day.
After Cape Royal and Uncle Jim’s trail we headed north a couple hours to Zion National Park in Utah where we met up with Ranger Neff and her brother and sister-in-law (refreshing people). It was good to see Juli again. It was good to see her with red rocks in the background. She belongs in Georgia O’Keefe painting.
That night the four of us climbed Angel’s Landing. There are parts of this trail that are only a couple feet wide with anchored chain on a rock face to the right and a 1200 ft drop to your left. No wonder the sign said it was hazardous to hike in darkness. I wondered as I climbed, “If I could see this drop-off would I still be climbing this rock.” Then I wonder if there was a spiritual insight in that thought.
It was one of the scariest and fulfilling things I have ever done. Sometimes I wonder if fear is actually a blessing and not a curse and danger an invitation not a warning. Fear teaches us what we love by showing us what we are afraid of loosing. Danger urges us to risk what we love in order to keep it. They both cause us to trust and grow. And they both make for some great stories and memories.
Atop Angels landing we watched the stars (“some of the best on earth”), attempted to take some group pictures, and called JMak (our old boss) who was not surprisingly up doing homework. I miss that dude.
We trekked back down and shut our eyes for what felt like a few minutes in our four-wheeled sleeping bag. That morning we hiked a hidden canyon and napped on the lodge lawn until Juli got off work. Gelato, laundry, the Virgin River, Daddy Ray’s, picture, goodbye, The Colorado River, Mt. Humphries, Outback, I40, Nitequal, Ben Folds, nap, fried chicken, goodbye, work. It went too fast.
Thanks Phil, Tim, and Juli for the pictures and stories, and for the moments too big for 4x6 glossing paper and too articulate for times new roman black ink. I missed all of you more than I thought.
