I did not originally plan on visiting the Grand Canyon. Before I left Singapore, my mother had admonished “Don’t go near the Grand Canyon it is dangerous, if you want to go, just stay on top. Don’t go down”. I guess it was a combination of orneriness, Eric’s rejection, and the underlying fatalism of the trip that made me decide to hike the Grand Canyon after I left San Francisco.
When I found out that backcountry hikes required permits that were booked months in advance, I looked around for a guided trip that still had an available slot and that was how I connected with Eb – his Boucher-Hermit loop trip had an available slot. The trip happened to start on my birthday (Singapore time) and I remember thinking that if there was a point to carry on, this would probably decide it.
I arrived in Flagstaff and met Eb outside the hostel. “The other four in the group bailed” he said, “But I know you came a long way so I’ll still take you. Are you fine with exposure?”
“Yes” I said, thinking he meant the sun “I’m used to it”
It was not that kind of exposure he meant. I froze when we began the traverse of Hermit Gorge when the ground fell away next to my feet as we traversed the lip of the cliff. I struggled to keep my acrophobia in check as we climbed over rock slides and stepped over plummeting gaps. I chewed gum furiously to distract my mind from my fear, and eventually settled on a system that enabled me to progress. It was akin to sight-reading music – one cannot look just at the next note (or step) because you will trip over what comes next, yet don’t look too far ahead to freak you out or miss your next note (or step). I remember thinking “Well, I did plan to disappear, so … if it happens it happens”
We camped on Yuma Point, watching the shifting shadows of temples and buttes that warmed and cooled as the sun lowered in the horizon. The stillness was broken by a helicopter that flew past us and gradually descended into the canyon beyond us.
“Someone’s in trouble. That’s a rescue helicopter.” Eb said.
After dinner, Eb took out his ukulele and sang a few songs. He told me only 2 parties are allowed on the trail for safety, as it was recently put back on the maps. I suspected the others bailed when they found that out it was considered one of the most difficult and demanding trails on the South Rim.
Eb asked me what I thought.
“They should put a warning sign like the one in side mirrors: Objects in the Grand Canyon are further than they appear” I quipped.
Eb laughed. He told me there was a song he heard on the radio that he was quite taken by. He did not know who wrote it and he was unable to find it. One day when he heard it on the radio again, he pulled over his truck so that he could write down the lyrics. Eb cleared his throat and sang a song that cut into my heart.
If it wasn’t for the wind,
I wouldn’t know which way to go
If it wasn’t for the moon,
I’d never let my feelings show
If your feelings didn’t show
I’d couldn’t tell where you’d been
I wouldn’t know which way to go
if it wasn’t for the wind.If it wasn’t for the rain,
If it wasn’t for the wind (David Olney)
I wouldn’t know how to feel
If it wasn’t for your touch,
I didn’t know that I was real
And if I wasn’t real
I’d be a stranger to pain
I wouldn’t know how to feel
if it wasn’t for the rain
I asked Eb to repeat the lyrics and I wrote it down. When I returned to civilization, I searched and researched and discovered it was a song written by David Olney. It has been one of the songs I sing to the canyon ever since.
Perhaps Eb sensed this was an important trip for me. “Why don’t you go ahead?” he said and gave me the opportunity to navigate. The trail was faint and broken and hard to discern at times. Each time I went off trail, Eb would point the way. He would take the lead in the tricky sections. (I did not realize it at that time but this was a lesson from the canyon/trail on finding one’s own path. It was a lesson I would embrace 15 years later on the Gems route)
“The trail is down here. You keep going up” Eb called out as I was navigating my way over another rockfall.
“I’m sorry. My instinct is to climb away from the drop” I replied, gingerly making my way down to where Eb was.
Eb took the lead when we arrived at the Hermit shale – a weathered red layer piled up in 40 degree loose slopes atop the Supai cliffs with the consistency of powder. The “trail” at that time was faint and angled towards the drop like the rest of the shale. I froze and I started slipping to the edge. Fear was no use, one had to keep moving.
There was a faint trace of compacted shale only a few inches wide reflecting a dull finish. The first time I slipped I had lost my balance and stepped downslope off that trace. The shale gave way beneath me and I slid down halfway down towards the edge. Instinctively I repeatedly jammed my hiking stick into the shale as I slid until it lodged into something which stopped my descent. Using it for balance, I gradually hauled myself onto a stable part of the trail.
“Are you ok?” Eb asked
“Yes” I panted
“Make sure you step on the compacted part, this is very unstable because it has not been used for a long time.”
That was my first near-death experience.
We continued further and though shaken, I slowly regained my confidence. However I lost my nerve again when the trace petered out to nary an inch. I did not think it could support my weight, nor was I confident to balance on it so I stepped upslope and the soft shale collapsed pulling me down to the edge.
Instinctively, I spread myself out to slow myself down and I stopped sliding in a sumo-like stance with my back to the edge, my hands above my head clutching my hiking pole. Eb was maybe 20 feet above me. I could sense the drop behind me from the different tone of the wind racing up those walls.
“Take off your backpack” Eb shouted
I shook my head “No” – half the food and water was in my backpack which could jeopardize us.
“Here grab on to this” Eb grabbed some rope from his pack and threw it towards me.
I shook my head “No” thinking how ridiculous, even if I could reach it, I will just end up pulling both of us off.
“Give me a minute to compose myself” Through my periphery vision, I could tell I was close to the edge.
I tested the shale around me with my hiking pole, nothing took hold. Breathing heavily and chewing my gum furiously, I tried to make my way up using my hiking pole like a tight rope balance. I took 2 careful steps and slid back. 1 step that slid back. 1 step that took. 1 step that slid back. Slowly I made my way up the loose shale. sliding back with every other step. When he could reach it, Eb leaned over and held onto my hiking pole to help steady me while I used my remaining strength to scramble up the final stretch.
“Are you alright? Do you want to carry on?”
“Yes”
That was my 2nd near death experience. (Years later, the memory and sensation of falling was triggered again when I saw a picture of the sketchy eroded bit on the Nankoweap trail.)
After we left the shale behind us, Eb let me try navigating again. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I picked up animal trails that dead ended in cliffs.
“Oops, I lost the trail again” I said around 11am when I stopped at a sheer drop.
“No, you are right, this is the trail. It continues down there” Eb pointed to a line etched in the vegetation hundreds of feet below.
“How do we get down?” I asked
“We climb down.” Eb replied
I felt weak and stammered a joke about how perhaps I should have done what other Asians did and stayed on a tour on the rim.
“If you are having second thoughts, we should turn back now”. Eb said
“Why?”
“There is another drop after this once we cross the butte”
I thought about it – I wasn’t sure if I could do the descent but I was sure I could not face that shale again.
“This is a loop right?”
“Yes.”
“Will the loop come back to where we just were”
“No.”
“Does the remainder of the loop traverse the shale like that?”
“No.”
“OK, I’ll do it”
“I’ll go first. Be careful, take your time. It is very steep. Keep at least 10 feet from me. Warn me if you dislodge any rocks.”
We did not say a word as we climbed down the Supai cliff break down a series of rock falls. It was exposed in sections and we would send a rain of loose slippery rocks each time our boots slipped.
When we reached the bottom of the Supai the sun was getting intense. Eb set up a tarp and we napped and watched lizards do pushups on the rocks. We waited until the sun lost its intensity, crossed the saddle of White Butte and did the 2nd steep descent through the Redwall Limestone onto the Tonto Platform, continuing past the Tapeats until we reached Boucher creek.
We dropped our packs and I followed Eb down Boucher creek until we reached the Colorado river. Eb filled our water bottles, shook in iodine tablets and set his watch. I listened to the roar of Boucher rapids where the creek meets the Colorado and watched the setting sun set the upper cliff faces on fire.
“Here, drink this” Eb handed me my water bottle when his watch beeped
I tasted the cold water of the Colorado and I realized it was my birthday, I was 23. I had made it. And for the first time since I was 12, I did not feel detached from the world around me. I felt I’d come home.
We made our way back to where we dropped our packs to set up camp.
“Watch your step, rattlesnake!” Eb warned. The rattlesnake reared and slithered off. “You know they say that it is good luck to see a rattlesnake”
“Why?” I asked incredulously
“Because If you see them, you won’t step on them accidentally.”
I could not argue with that logic.
As we prepared to hike up to the Tonto platform the next morning over to Hermit canyon, we encountered another group descending the opposite stretch of the Tonto from across Boucher creek. We exchanged pleasantries and chatted for a bit. It turned out the rescue helicopter we saw earlier was for one of the members of their party.
When we reached the top of the Tonto platform, the rising sun suffused the canyon in a dusky golden glow. I looked across to the stretch of the Tonto across from Boucher Creek where the group we met had descended.
“Where were they coming from?” I asked
“That is the Gems route. The most remote part of the canyon” Eb replied
And in those few words, a secret desire was born.
Atop the Tonto platform, my heart felt free for the first time as I traversed ledges and circled the base of cliffs. I went ahead of Eb and it was as if I was alone discovering secret views of the inner and upper canyons. My soul flew past the rocks, cacti and scrubby vegetation that lined up the base of cliffs, catching glimpses of the Colorado river below. A brief rainstorm had made them greener, some of them bloomed. Surrounded by this infinite ephemeral beauty, something changed in me, and I wept and sang to the canyon
I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger
a-trav’ling through this world of woe
where there’s no darkness, toil nor danger
in that bright land to which I go
I waited for Eb prior to the descent to Hermit canyon. As I waited, I gazed at the distinctive fallen boulder across the canyon that would later become a recurring dream.
“You took off like a rabbit!” he exclaimed, when he caught up.
“What’s on the itinerary for today” I asked after breakfast.
“Nothing, the previous groups I’ve led either needed a rest day and soaked in the creek to recover for tomorrow’s hike out, or they were freaking out thinking they will never get out. What would you like to do?” Eb replied.
“I wish I could stay here” I thought. “Can we explore some more?” I asked
“I’ve done some bushwhacking up Hermit Creek in the past, I’d like to see if I can get to the head of the canyon.”
We spent the day climbing boulders, bypassing waterfalls, bushwhacking through the riparian vegetation as we worked our way up the creek. We stopped in the shade of an overhanging rock for lunch.
“I have a confession to make,” Eb said. “This is as far as I have got. I don’t know what comes after this. Do you want to turn back?”
“No. Let’s continue”
“You are very brave” he said,
“Or very foolish” I replied.
Eventually we got to the head of Hermit creek and paused. Between us and the headwall was an expanse of barbed grasses. Eb and I looked at each other and agreed that seeing it was good enough – we did not want to spend the rest of the day removing barbs from our skin and clothing.
As we were hiking out on the last day, Eb pointed to switchbacks across from us. “That’s where we are going”
I noticed a line running across 3 of the switchbacks. “What is that?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe it is a log” Eb squinted
When we got closer, it turned out to be a large rattlesnake sunning itself. We had to first step over its tail, then its body, then with great trepidation its neck. It didn’t seem to mind which was good for all involved.
I don’t remember much about the climb out after the rattlesnake encounter. Eb and I had come across an abandoned campsite in Hermit canyon strewn with trash the day before. Judging by the amount of bottles, cans and even a folding deck chair left behind, it was apparent the group responsible was inexperienced and had underestimated the canyon; and had attempted to ditch extraneous weight to make the climb out. Eb did not want to leave the trash in the canyon but it was too much for him to carry, so I offered to help.
Thus I plodded up, carrying out more weight than we carried in, with other people’s trash filling our backpacks to the brim, and strapped to the outside.
On a Greyhound heading to Georgia afterwards, I thought about what had happened in the canyon. When we arrived at the destination, I took out my medication in my backpack and tossed them in the bin. I have done what I never thought was possible – I have the strength to deal with this and carry on. That was the last time I was on medication.
It was my first hiking trip, and the beginning of my trips into the wilderness. People think I do it for adventure, to photograph and see new things, but what I have not confessed until now is I go into the wilderness to be alone to heal to weep.