~5 mi / 9.4 mi hiking
Staying at North Rim Campground

The noise of the wind made sleep a bit difficult, but the good news is that once again the tent held up very nicely. I wanted to be up and out fairly early, since I was going to hike a bit down into the canyon today, and they give all sorts of warnings about dying if you start too late.

So I made it to the North Kaibab Trail by 7:45am, hiked half a mile and down several hundred feet over 15 minutes, and then realized I’d left my water bottle at my bike. D’oh! I’d definitely die without that, so I had to turn around and go back to get it. A little annoying for a trail that I’d already be backtracking over!

As I went down, I kept thinking to myself, “Man, I really should have put my bike on the TransCanyon Shuttle, hiked down to the river and back up the other side in a day, and continued the ride from the South Rim.” Instead, I stopped at Roaring Springs, 4.7 miles in and 3000 ft. down, and turned around. On the way back up, I kept thinking to myself, “Yeah, that through-hike would have been a really terrible idea!” I actually do a lot better on the uphill than the downhill, but by then it had gotten quite hot on the trail, so spending all day out there doesn’t sound nearly as appetizing as it did in the shade of the morning.

On the way down, I even got passed, for the first and only time hiking on this whole trip. By a girl! I was going to offer to marry her as her reward, but I was never able to catch her. Poor thing. My center of gravity and knees and footwear just aren’t prepared to do the running-downhill bit. I’m much more suited for the uphill, because then I just put the cardiovascular engine into “Go All Day” mode and pump away exactly as if I was on the bike. I even bettered the group of ultramarathoners on the way up! Oh, ok, they were doing Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim in one day (insane!!!) so they win automatically, even if I beat them to the top.

Overall there was some cool stuff on the hike, and it gave some additional perspective on the canyon, but still the scale of the thing is just too huge to comprehend. The worst part was the stupid mule rides. First, because they leave their piles of fly-attracting, stinking shit on the trail that nearly makes you gag when you desperately want some clean oxygen. And second, because the mule trains and their Wall-E-like human passengers clog the trail. Luckily they didn’t start down until just before I made it back to the top, but for people starting later, or for the Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim-ers returning to the South Rim, they were going to cause some serious delays.

I was done hiking by a little past noon, so my main goal was to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing and doing some chores. First up was to stop by the bike rental area at the campground entrance to see if they had a wrench to tighten my rear gears. I could tell they had loosened again, and that’s the problem that leads to the much bigger hub-repair problem when the chain jumps off the biggest gear. So just as I pull up to their garage, the chain jumped off the biggest gear. Seriously. Luckily the damage wasn’t quite as bad as it was the last time it had happened, and I was able to pick at the hub and get it rolling smoothly again on my own. Then when I finally asked for the wrench I needed, it turns out that they actually had a whole bike-tool kit, which no one at the garage knew how to use, but it let me fix my problem hopefully for the last time, and monkey around with a couple other things while I was at it.

Then I took a shower (second in two days!), did laundry, and loitered around the campground store eating and doing Internet stuff. It’s funny watching and listening to all the store employees, most of whom are getting on-the-job training and currently have very little idea what to do. But at least they have Wi-Fi, and tables, and re-fillable fountain drinks. Even the lodge doesn’t have Wi-Fi!

As I was sitting there, Dennis & Pat showed up, which was a great relief to me. Earlier in the day I had checked the site we had arranged for them to take and found it empty, and then while I was doing Internet stuff, I suddenly got an email saying that that reservation had been canceled. So I was afraid that there had been some horrible problem beyond the capability of the scatterbrained National Park servants to solve, and they had been left without a space in the campground. Instead, it turns out that they had just gotten themselves a more “legal” site, since mine would have technically been a “tent only” site, whatever that means.

So that was good, because they had generously invited me to dinner with them at the lodge that night (have I mentioned yet how great these people are?), and I had really been looking forward to it. The Grand Canyon Lodge dining room totally beats Bryce’s version; first, it’s a huge airy room with a vaulted ceiling, and second, you can see the Grand Canyon through the windows. Ok, so that latter feature would single-handedly beat most other lodges, even if the room itself was in a Port-a-Potty.

The three of us enjoyed a great meal together, and then walked out on to the porch for some pictures. Finally, I saw a Canyon that made me say “wow”. The setting sun gave it so much more depth and color than I had seen before. We drove back to the campground, and then said our truly final goodbyes for this trip. They would be spending the next few days hiking down to the river and back (jealous!), and then heading home. So unless I fall into the river when I reach Lees Ferry tomorrow, and get swept all the way back into the Canyon where they fish me out, chances of our paths crossing again have finally gone from improbable to impossible. It’s hard to believe that all this path-crossing was born of that improbable moment back at Natural Bridges when a couple of strangers drove up and offered help to a couple of guys who found themselves slightly adrift. I’ve had more interaction with people on this trip than I have had on any other bike tour (maybe influenced by Dennis’s more social nature?) but our time with Dennis & Pat has enriched the experience far more than any other. Hopefully I’ll be able to manage the rest of the way knowing that I won’t be seeing them every couple days!

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 16th, 2009 at 2:57 pm and is filed under 2009 Bike Tour, bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.