Oh, the Terror! Oh, the Beauty!

As much as I'd love to write about my whole vacation, that would probably take all night and the whole of it doesn't really fit the purpose of this blog, so I'm going to focus on one day. The worst day. The best day.

With only one day left of our vacation at the Grand Canyon, my daughter and I decided to hike to Skeleton Point because it sounded way cooler than any of our other options. We didn't know the trail to Skelton Point would lead us down into the canyon. I just figured the trail continued on around the rim another five miles. That notion was quickly dispelled once we started our hike. It was completely by accident that we hiked into the Grand Canyon that day, but we were so stoked that we got this amazing fortuitous opportunity.

As we continued hiking, we saw signs posted warning hikers about the strenuousness of the trail, which was seeming pretty easy to us, so we decided to hike all the way to the Colorado River. We made it probably 3/4 of the way down, and stopped at Tip Off Point (about a mile and a half past Skeleton Point) to eat, hydrate, and rest a  bit. My daughter was ready to give up on our goal and head back up. I was disappointed, but I also didn't want to push her past her limits. I knew going back up was going to be a bitch. But I tend to have an obsessive mind. When I get something in my head, I often can't let it go. I was so close to the bottom. Only another 2.6 miles. How could I quit now? I tried to convince her to wait for me at Tip Off, but she insisted on heading back up. 

This is where I made a bad decision. I let her go by herself, and I continued my trek down to the river. I advised her to go slow, ration her water, and take frequent breaks in the shade, promising to catch back up to her within an hour or two. We set a meet-up location at the trailhead just in case it took me longer than anticipated. 

I guess I made it to within about a half-mile from the trail bridge that crossed the river (about a mile / mile and a half from the campgrounds and Phantom Ranch) when I really started second guessing my decision. It was 3:30 at this point, and I definitely did not want to be hiking up the canyon after dark. I was also starting to worry about my daughter heading back up on her own. 

I turned around. Making it all the way to the river would just have to wait for another trip. 

At this point, I felt fine. I was starting to feel a little tired. After all, I had hiked somewhere around 7-8 miles of steep, rocky trail from elevation of 7,000 feet to about 3,000 or 4,000 feet in 115 degree heat in around 3 hours. I took about ten steps back up the trail before the heat exhaustion hit me hard. I could barely move. I started feeling incredibly faint and nauseated. I slowed down, focusing just on putting one foot in front of the other. I might have made it close to a half mile before I started seriously thinking I might die down there. I stopped every ten steps or so to rest. I started scoping out crevices in the walls that could keep me from falling off the edge if I were to actually faint, which was feeling like an increasing danger with every step I took. 

I started fearing the worst for my daughter and berating myself for letting her head back up alone. At this point, I only had one goal: to get back to her. But I could barely move. 

I remembered an emergency phone at Tip Off Point--the only one I had seen on the entire trail. I knew that couldn't be more than a mile away. All I had to do was make it that phone, and I could get help. I don't know how long it took me to get there, but it felt like hours, crawling at a snail's pace, stopping every few steps. I hadn't seen any other hikers for hours. No one would save me. I determined I would not die down there. 

I was ashamed to use the emergency phone. All those warning signs that I didn't think applied to me, and here I was one of those stupid tourists who didn't know her limitations in need of being rescued. But I didn't have a choice. This was for my daughter, so my pride was irrelevant. 

I picked up the phone and explained my symptoms to the dispatcher and a park ranger. I had this idea in my mind that someone was going to come get me. Ha! The ranger gave me the combination to the lock on the emergency supplies and told me to rest for an hour, slowly drinking water and eating some salty snacks until I felt myself again. I followed orders. 

Thankfully, as it closed in on the end of the hour, I saw two hikers coming down the trail. They had seen my daughter and confirmed that she was fine. When they saw her, she was already back to the more populated portion of the trail. Relieved that she had not suffered as I had,  I started to make my way back. It was a slow, painstaking journey. Every step was a challenge. With each step, I didn't think I could possibly take another. But I did. One more step. One more step. I just focused on one at a time.

As the sun started setting, I started thinking about all the dangers I might encounter. I unpacked my gear, hung the whistle around my neck, strapped my knife to my waistband, got my headlamp out, and tied my jacket around my waist so it would easily accessible when then sun sank and the temperatures dropped. I started thinking about every danger I might encounter. As the temps fall with the sun, snakes and scorpions come out. There were also warnings about mountain lions. Needless to say, I was a bit terrified, but I didn't have much choice. I had to keep going. I had to get back to my daughter. I knew she'd worry until we were reunited. 

Most of the way up, I kept my eyes on my feet on the trail. I was very unsteady, and the last thing I needed was to trip and fall off the ledge. But every once and a while, I'd stop and make myself look out over the canyon. "Don't miss it!" I told myself. I watched the sun set as I walked. I watched the moon rise. I watched the clouds parts and the stars come out. I watched the color palette of the canyon fade--the reds and oranges and greens and browns dissolved into gray shadows and finally a black abyss. 

It was the most terrifying and the most amazing experience of my life. Every moment, I felt more alive than I ever have in my life. And I made it. At 10:30, I took the last step up out of the canyon. I hugged my daughter and told her I loved her. We shared stories. We shared how scared we were and how proud of what we had both accomplished. 

I didn't make it to the river, but I got close. Based on the number of hikers we saw at each point on the way down, not may can say they made it as far as I did, and certainly fewer can say they also made it back to the top in the same day. I can now count myself among a very small group of people in the world who have hiked the canyon at night.

To understand the scale of my hike, just to Skeleton Point was described on the maps as the equivalent of 240 flights of stairs. I hiked 2-3 miles of trail beyond that. Round trip, that's roughly an additional 5 miles of climbing.

There are some people I won't be able to share this story with. Out of a place of love for me and fear for my safety, they will berate me for my choices and diminish the awe and wonder of my experience. I would prefer to have not allowed my obsession to separate my daughter and me on our hike. I would prefer to have been better prepared and taken a lot more water on our journey. I would prefer to have had a better understanding of my limitations before I set out. But I didn't. And that's ok. I learned a lot from this experience, and I wouldn't give it back for anything in the world. 

I am already planning a return trip where I will hike to the bottom and camp and raft the river and explore everything the bottom of the canyon has to offer.