Edith wrote this story eight years after her trip to the Grand Canyon. The trip took place in 1973. Edith did not finish chronicling her story, but she did achieve her goal! She successfully hiked down the Kaibab Trail from the South Rim to Phantom Ranch and, after a night’s rest, hiked the ten miles up to the North Rim on the Bright Angel Trail.
At the beginning of summer, I decided to plan a unique and unusual vacation for myself! I wanted to do something entirely different from the usual vacation, yet I didn’t have much money to spend. I felt I needed a complete change from the life I was living, even if it were for only one week out of the fifty-two! The "life I was living” was an eight to five job, city traffic, four children, and more than my share of responsibility and frustrations. I was desperately seeking escape from the ordinary.
After twenty-five years of marriage which had recently ended in divorce, I was still in the process of raising children, with one in grade school, one in high school and two in college. I was, of course, thankful to have them, and due to that responsibility, my life had a purpose and meaning which it might not have had during this crisis.
The children had each had a turn at a special vacation of sorts, camp, trips with friends, school tours, etc. We, as a family, had had some particularly good times together, too. I had taken them on an exciting raft trip earlier on the Rio Grande River in Big Bend National Park which brought us the family togetherness we especially needed at that time. It was an exhilarating experience. Now I felt it was my turn to have a vacation on my own. I felt slightly guilty in planning it until I began to hear the plans each of them was making for the summer. They were delighted to hear I wanted to do something without making them go along. We were each searching for independence of a sort.
The question was, what would it be? I searched through travel magazines and brochures. I haunted travel agencies, libraries and magazine stands. I read the Sunday travel pages. There were some tempting trips, but most I could not afford, or they took too long. I only had one week’s vacation left.
I had to admit to myself I felt a little strange trying to plan a vacation alone, for I had never taken a vacation alone before. I had travelled alone, of course, from one point to another, but always to be met by someone at the other end. I had seen many parts of the world and lived abroad for a good many years. But, the idea of vacationing alone was strange to me, but a step I wanted to take. Looking back some years later, it seems unbelievable I was so nervous about it, yet I meet people fairly often today who are going through these same ‘withdrawal’ symptoms, widows and divorcees particularly, who have been sheltered or have always had a partner and are suddenly thrust out into the harsh and cruel world, or so it would seem.
As though in answer to my search for the perfect ‘special’ vacation, a brochure arrived in the mail one day early that summer from the Houston Museum of Natural History. It described a HMNS trip in cooperation with the University of Houston School of Continuing Education, which was to be a geology field trip to the Grand Canyon National Park for laymen. “Hmmm,” I thought as I began to read the details of the trip. The group was to meet in Flagstaff, Arizona where the trip would begin. We would spend a day visiting an extinct volcano, see an ice cave in the lava, climb down into the mile-deep impact crater, also in the area. The latter would be an ‘exercise’ for the walk into the Grand Canyon which we would do two days later. We would have a half day on the South Rim and spend the night in the lodge in the Park, leaving for the interior of the Canyon before dawn the next morning. We would spend two nights in the Canyon and have one free day to explore or rest. Another day would take us out to the North Rim where we would spend the night in the lodge there. Our bus would meet us there and drive us the 180 miles back to Flagstaff. On the way back, we would see points of interest, including Glen Canyon Dam and the headwaters of the Colorado River, before the river begins its tortuous trip into the Canyon.
As I read and reread the description, I became more and more interested. The cost was reasonable, it would be sponsored by a non-profit agency and was an educational one at that. It was a time in which my life seemed absolutely void of any intellectual stimulation for which my mind was so hungry. So, what if I had never had so much as a course in biology and anything remotely close to geology! I could afford the tour but hadn’t quite figured out how to pay for the round-trip airfare to Flagstaff. I would worry about that later I decided and sat right down to write my deposit check, which I mailed back before being tempted to become more practical and not go.
Shortly, I received a receipt and a notice of the first meeting at the museum to hear details of the trip. I drove to the meeting with butterflies in my stomach. I was committed now, no backing out! I found my seat in a room full of strangers. I thought to myself that I was probably the only one in that room who didn’t have a friend or family going along! How wrong I was.
Leaders of the trip were introduced. They were an impressive bunch; the geologist was a professor at the University of Houston and seemed very bright, eager and full of good humor; an ornithologist, also full of good humor and knowledge, which he seemed very anxious to share; the assistant director of the museum, who was also a biologist; and the Director of Continuing Education at the University of Houston, who apparently led groups of this sort several times a year, although most were not as far away as the Grand Canyon. All of their trips were educational and were in some way related to natural science. Some included a trip to the Big Bend, a trip to Padre Island to see the Whooping Cranes and the National Seashore, birding trips to preserves and the like. My appetite was again wetted, and I would find out about those. As he talked on, I could see that many of the participants in this trip had taken trips with him before, and I was to learn there were all ages, single, married, retired, young and old, all with one purpose, to have an interesting vacation which would be a learning experience. Where had I been all this time? I had been missing this sort of thing which was going on right under my nose! How had I been fortunate to get this last mailing? I should join the Museum if I wanted to take more of their trips, I told myself.
We were given literature to study and to familiarize ourselves with about the canyon, its wildlife, geology, our needs for the long hike and training for it. I felt a little smug in that I was sure I was in better shape than most for I was a jogger, though at that time, I was only doing about fourteen miles or less a week. I was to find out I wasn’t in that great a shape after all! But you’ll hear about that later.
After the meeting, those who were interested in carpooling were to meet at the front of the auditorium. What a wonderful idea, I thought. That would save enough money in lieu of airfare to buy the expensive hiking boots we were advised to get. Only seven people came forward, and I mentally thought, “two cars”. I was right. There were three men and four women including myself, and I was at least twenty years older than them. “Good grief! It is a good thing I paid my deposit,” I thought, for I was close to running away from this group. But there I stood, trying not to look in my middle forties. The men wore jeans, had an assortment of beards and long hair and leather sandals. I wondered if they all smoked marijuana and played guitars. The women looked a little better, though two were in faded jeans also, and one had long straight blonde hair all the way down her back. Only one other person in the group had children besides me, and she was divorced with three youngsters and seemed to be searching, as I was, for a change. She looked to be a little older than the others I decided, and later I found she was in her early thirties.
Only one in the group offered to drive, and we needed another car. I offered mine reluctantly, for I didn’t want that responsibility, but there was no other car. Mine was a Chevrolet Impala and the other car was a Volvo station wagon. We discussed the distance, the cost of gas (considerably cheaper eight years ago) and hotels, and how many nights on the road we would have. The men offered to figure out the cost for the entire trip, and we planned to meet one month later to make our final plans. We exchanged telephone numbers and addresses, then each went our separate ways. I felt somewhat better after this brief discussion but was still a bit apprehensive. I was also grateful that they seemed to accept me as an equal. I certainly didn’t want to go as their mother or chaperone and certainly not as an ‘older lady’. They began by calling me Edith straight off and this seemed to set the mood.
For the rest of the summer, I had worked out a program of training. It had been recommended that we climb stairs in office buildings several times a day, at least twelve flights. Twelve flights!!! I had to start off slowly and was happy to do four or five the first week, but gradually worked up to the required number. Later, I found that several of the participants were climbing stairwells in the Shell Building and the like (my building only had eleven flights) and it paid off.
I bought my hiking boots which weighed several pounds each. I bought the required wool socks and inner cotton socks and began my ‘hikes’. We were to put at least twenty-five miles on them to break them in. I felt like a fool that hot summer tramping around in them. Had I to do it over again, I would have gone on short hikes in the country, especially on weekends, but as it was, I went to Memorial Park or walked in the neighborhood. I thought I walked a tremendous amount, but later in the depths of the Canyon, I regretted I had not put many more miles on those boots, as I nursed the biggest blisters I had ever had in my life.
I continued my jogging at home, sure I was going to be in better shape than anybody. I was not going to let my age get in the way. That was in the days before jogging had taken on such extreme popularity, and I must say, it took some discipline to get out there every day in the summer heat when practically no other women were jogging, or men for that matter. The exercise from the stairs, walking and jogging were tightening me up, and I began to feel really fit. I also swam when I had the chance, so when late August rolled around, I knew I was ready for the long-awaited trip.
During the summer, we seven carpoolers met and made final plans to include our traveling menu also. Each of us was assigned to bring a snack. We learned about trail food from Mike who, it turned out, was an avid Sierra Club member and quite knowledgeable about such things. He advised us to know about such things. He advised us to buy good quality backpacks, sleeping bags, etc., but none of the women heeded his advice. We opted to “beg, borrow and steel” as none of us felt we could afford one. Dorothy borrowed her son’s Boy Scout backpack, Lynn and I borrowed ours from friends, neither were of high quality at all and Judy bought a cheap one from a surplus store. The three other men took Mike’s advice. They were all going to sleep in the campground near the small lodge in the base of the Canyon, but we were going to pay a little extra and sleep in bunks and get our meals the two nights we were down there. None of us had ever camped like they were planning to do, and we were dubious. This was before the great surge towards backpacking. Mike was the only one who knew anything about it, and we were to learn much from him on this trip and discover how very little is essential on this type trip, but the essentials such as a good lightweight, down-type sleeping bag, a lightweight camp stove, flashlight, the minimum cooking equipment and clothes could make a trip like this a real pleasurable experience. He was with a bunch of greenhorns.
Mike was a biology major in school and now worked and went to school, with hope towards going to medical school one day. He worked in the medical center in some aspect of space medicine. He took backpacking trips at every opportunity and had hiked the canyon the year previous, at Christmas time, alone. I found this hard to believe. He tried to describe his reasons, but it went over my head then. How could anyone ever camp alone in a vast place like the Grand Canyon? Or anywhere, alone, I wondered. Though I sometimes longed for solitude, I had never experienced it, nor did I really understand it, nor could I have benefitted from it at that point in my life. I had much to learn from this young man.
He gave us advice on how to pack. It had been agreed that we could only carry one backpack each from Houston as there was no room for more. He finally relented saying that we ‘girls’ could carry a small bag with essentials such as make up and toilet articles. The rest of the space had to be saved for food, for we didn’t plan to eat in restaurants on the way out or back except for an occasional hamburger. I was afraid to speak up at this point, but I longed to say, “Let’s eat at least one hot meal a day.”
We found that some participants were flying out, others were driving with families or friends, as part of a leisurely vacation along the way. My group all worked, had rigid vacation schedules, and had to make use of every spare moment. We left at 5:30 p.m. after work, meeting at the appointed place. All arranged to be brought to the meeting point except Mike and me, who were owners of the vehicles. We had an uneventful trip to Dallas/Ft. Worth area, found our way through the maze of freeway interchanges and headed for Amarillo. We stopped at the hotel where we had booked reservations about 2 a.m. It was hot. Although I had carefully checked out everything on my car before the trip, including the air conditioning, it went out as we passed around Ft. Worth. We stopped at a garage the next day when we passed through Albuquerque, but to no avail. It was too expensive and complicated and besides it was Saturday, and we had a deadline to meet. We had to arrive in Flagstaff Sunday night.
Enroute to Grand Canyon (1977)
We alternately drove, enjoyed the scenery, got acquainted, ate snacks, stopped and exercised and stretched our legs, and took pictures at the interesting stops. Mike and I were the only ones who had travelled further west than the Texas borders, so there was much ‘ooh-ing and aah-ing’ along the way. When we reached the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, we allowed ourselves several hours to explore and take pictures. We enjoyed Gallop, New Mexico and felt we were at last in the real west, in the land of the Navajo.
We were amazingly congenial. Judy, the tall, rather colorless blond whose hair reached her hips, worked for Shell as a secretary, but was decidedly better educated and had not reached her potential. She was in the trap of female discrimination, which we would all be hearing so much about and which I was only just becoming aware, having led my protected life for so long. Lynn was a biologist, much to my surprise, for she seemed so frivolous at first, with a minimum of brains. She soon enlightened all of us on the many species of birds we were to see.
She kept her binoculars in her lap on the entire trip and her birding list was handy. She knew about plants, too, and insects, adding still another depth to this adventure. Dorothy had a dry wit and was a real joy to have along. She was enthralled with everything. This was a whole new world to her. She was highly intelligent but had not finished college. She had a good job with a chemical company in Houston and was determined to one day have her own business. While my own divorce had been a bitter one, causing much unhappiness, hers had been a mutual agreement, simply that their interests were entirely different. She was bored and wanted a different life. They were amicable. He was an executive with a department store chain in the East. She came back home to Texas. He furnished the children with wardrobes and paid a minimum of child support which was all she asked. She had bought a house in Bellaire with her share of the money from the home they sold and was in the process of fixing it up. I learned that she was quite independent and did everything from painting and carpentry, to shingles, and to my astonishment, could change her oil, spark plugs and the like. She was also quite feminine, lovely to be with and was a very upbeat person to be around. A good lesson for me, for I could play my private ‘violin’ at the drop of a hat. Self-pity had become a good friend of mine.
Fortunately, we women had a great and glorious goal that week in August; to have a good time and all the fun we could cram into one week, for it had to last each of us a year. None of us had another week of vacation left. It was such fun discovering each other and ourselves. We enjoyed good humor and laughter, and I look back at this period as the point of a new beginning for me in mid-life.
The three men were as diverse as we women. Mike was married, but his wife hated camping. She had helped put him through school and was still working full time while he continued to work and go to school. He spoke fondly of her, but I wondered how they could agree on his taking remote camping vacations during holidays which they might have done together. But I didn’t ask. He did say the only way he could relax was to get away by himself periodically. He had come on this trip to learn about geology. He was interested in everything to do with nature. Jon was from the East. He had been educated in private schools. His father taught math at Culver Military Academy. He was only beginning to get interested in the natural sciences and had been a math major in college. He now worked at NASA for one of the big engineering companies. He was divorced, not long, and again, seemingly felt no animosity towards her. “We just had different interest and decided to part." He seemed to take it so lightly. I kept quiet about my own divorce which was still like a knife in my heart which I was trying hard to suppress. I had seemingly recovered, but when I heard other people’s marriage and divorce mention it so lightly, I knew their experiences were not the same and wondered indeed if they had actually experienced “marriage”. Would I ever really recover from almost a lifetime of marriage? Would my children ever recover? I felt they too were marked for life. It was the beginning of an era in America when divorce would be as common as marriage itself. I had been raised to think divorce was something that happened only to other people, but to no one we knew or wanted to know. Nice people simply didn’t get divorced in my generation. There was always a way to work out differences.
Gene was a part time law student and lived with his mother. He worked for the railroad and apparently had to sacrifice a great deal to make this trip. He was the quietest of the four and had never been on this type of trip either. He had bought a beautiful new backpack, and it was loaded to the hilt. His was the heaviest of our seven backpackers, and he seemed to have anything any of us could or would need. He had been going to school for several years, and the end was nowhere in sight, for he had to work long and hard and helped support his mother.
For the trip we had agreed to rent one double room for the men and one for the women in the motels to save money. I didn’t like that idea too much, for I didn’t think I would be all that comfortable sleeping two to a bed, but I hesitated to complain because I quickly realized my colleagues were much worse off financially that even I was. The second night on the trip, it became evident that Jon and Judy had become terribly interested in each other. I was the naïve one of the bunch and was astounded when I saw the two of them registering for their own room at our first motel while the rest of us continued as originally planned, except that the two women left, Dorothy and Lynn graciously let me have the full double bed which Judy had vacated. I accepted gracefully, saying that the next night we would take turns. No one said much about Judy and Jon, and I certainly wasn’t going to be the prude. I prayed that this didn’t become a sexual orgy between these newfound friends. Jon and Judy paired off for the rest of the trip, and he even bought her a sleeping bag so she could plan to camp with him in the campground in the Canyon later. To my amazement, there was not one of us who smoked. I had hoped there wouldn’t be because of the closeness we would have to suffer in the cars. There was no hint of pot or even beer for that matter, which I had needlessly worried about. Mike made sure we were not litterers and lectured us constantly on the rules of good camping and hiking all of the way out to Flagstaff, so by the time we actually were in the Canyon, we dared not drop so much as a prune seed or orange peel. “It is not biodegradable in zero humidity," Mike would say. Mike told us about the Sierra Club, its purpose, and expounded on our country and how desperately we needed strong environmental laws. He described the club in Houston and the trips which are offered through both the local club and the national organization. He was again whetting my appetite for ‘adventure with a meaning’, and I was to learn much from him and join the Sierra Club, as were each of us to do at a later date.
When we arrived at the posh hotel in Flagstaff, we began to meet other members of the tour. They looked somewhat more refreshed than we did, but after quick bath and fresh clothes, we felt better. We had a meeting after dinner to discuss the field trip. What were strangers to me, soon became friends. Many different professions were represented, many diverse personalities, career women were there who had made other trips with the Museum, widows were there who knew the leaders well and chose this medium to study and travel, and heal their hearts, as did other divorcees, I was to learn. I heard no self-pity on this trip, and everyone was so excited. The consul general from Belgium in Houston was on the trip, but he didn’t let anyone know this until the trip was over. He was one of us, and we had such fun with him. He was delighted when we took his picture at some precarious points for him to take back to show his wife and children.
The next morning we boarded the waiting bus, each dressed for hiking. We saw the extinct volcano, climbed it, explored the ice cave, visited cave dweller ruins from the past, arrived at the impact crater, which I had actually see as a child of nine when my family was on vacation in these same parts. And I had also been fortunate enough to see it from the air during a cross country flight years before. What excitement for me to now be on my way to descend into its depth. At the bottom we had our first lecture by a geology professor. The climb out was considerably more difficult than the walk down, and we were all huffing and puffing from the effort. At the top we were told this was child’s play compared to what awaited us.
We arrived at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon about five in the afternoon, in time to view the awesome sight in its best light. We watched the sun set and then went to dinner at our lodge. Afterwards we met again for our final talk before our descent the following morning. “No one is to leave alone in the morning. The professor will be at the departure point at 5:30 a.m. and proceed. He will stop at various rest points to answer any questions. Take your time going down and enjoy the view. Refer to your geology maps and your scenic maps which will name the points in view. Travel in pairs. Do not travel alone." We were checked to be sure everyone had water containers. We each had to carry four quarts of water in our packs. We were to wear our regulation hiking boots. No street shoes. A few members of the party were not going down but would ride the bus around the rim to the other side in a leisurely two-day trip to study wildlife, birds, plants and the like with one of the leaders. The other three would accompany the main group.
We returned to our rooms and carefully packed our backpacks. Everything had to go into them. Unfortunately, we thought ‘everything’ was necessary. We would have to carry anything we thought we would want or need once we got out on the North Rim with us.
Mike came to our room to check our packs. He was horrified when he found how much we were taking. We had several changes of clothes, bathing suits, makeup, toilet articles, trail food, cameras, film and the usual, except we each had extra pants, sneakers, pajamas and what seemed perfectly logical necessities. Lynn had her soft contact utensils which seems extraordinarily burdensome, but insisted she had to have it all with her. Our packs weighed in at fifty pounds. Mike said he could live a month in the wilderness with a fifty-pound pack, and we didn’t need half of what we were taking. He made us take out a good deal such as extra shorts, shirts, etc. and we did as he said, putting it in paper bags and storing it in our two cars for our return to Texas. Our packs were still overweight and of course unnecessarily so, as we were to learn. We regretted every excess pound, but there was no way Mike could convince us of that.
He had a similar problem with the men, especially Gene, who had brought items like Campbell Soup in the can. He adjusted our straps, tried not to be too negative about our poor-quality backpacks and said good night.
We met, packs and all, at the appointed place and found the leader had indeed proceeded ahead. We soon dropped out of sight, too, in the early morning fog and began our descent into the depth of the Canyon on Bright Angel Trail. Our adventure had finally begun. We could see in the distance a few bodies walking briskly along and heard them behind us along the trail. Soon though, we were all spread out. Dorothy and I walked about the same pace and stayed together. Jon and Judy ambled along well behind. Lynn and Gene walked together. Mike was way ahead, nimbly, almost skipping down. Soon we began to be aware of deep mud puddles which we learned were the results of the mule trains which descend daily. Before long one passed us, and we hugged the cliff as the mules with their passengers went determinedly by. On the well-travelled Bright Angel Trail we would be passed and meet numerous mule trains, some travelling along the East Rim while others going down all the way to the bottom to Phantom Ranch. None, we learned, would be ascending on the North Kaibab trail to the North Rim.
We walked for miles without saying anything except "look at that" or "what scenery". It became a game with oneself to guess what was around the next bend. What had looked so bare and dry from above the day before, became green plants, rushing streams and signs of animal life. Ground squirrels peeked at us behind rocks. Birds swiftly passed overhead and beneath buzzards flew on air currents. Insects crawled across our dusty paths. The Canyon was a desert, but it was alive. Rushing streams appeared but had been warned not to drink of it. As we walked, we became aware of the heat of the sun which began to penetrate. I got out my hat. We grabbed for our plastic containers of water and almost immediately felt thirst again. Our sleeves were rolled up. We next found a shady spot to rest. Sunscreen was applied. Longer silences between friends occurred. We checked our maps. The rest stop was not too far ahead. If we could make it by noon, we could eat lunch there.
When we finally reached it, it was with relief and we took off our backpacks and sat down on a rocky ledge and took our boots off. Mike came around checking our feet for ‘hot spots’. He had brought a supply of mole skin and scissors and patiently showed us what to do to prevent blisters. He said they were starting even though we couldn’t see them and said we should apply little round pieces of mole skin patches on red spots that were appearing. Soon it was time to pack up again. We had a long way yet, and the day was getting shorter. The rest had been good, and we had enjoyed some of our carefully prepared ‘trail food’. It was my first experience in eating granola, a mixture of oatmeal, honey, brown sugar, nuts of various kinds, and wheat germ all toasted together in the oven and then laced with raisins and M & M’s. M-m-m- good!
Our packs seemed to be getting heavier in spite of the fact that we were extravagantly drinking our water which should have lightened the load but didn’t at all. When it was time for lunch, we joined our entire group. A little stream ran through this small shady campground with trees. It was evident campers had been here with more to follow. But not for our group. This was only a quick lunch stop. Again, I took off my heavy shoes. My feet were roasting and hurting. They definitely deserved freedom. My bare toes soaked up the cool water like cool water over burning coals. How wonderful it was, a little bit of heaven. “Better not soak them in that water. You’ll get blisters,” Mike warned us as he passed by. I was not going to take those throbbing feet out of the cool water. After an hour’s rest and the lunch which we had prepared the night before, we packed up again and set out on the trail. The next stop would be the mighty Colorado River.
Grand Canyon (1977)
The trail was getting quite steep and the precipitous cliffs were on either side. The path began to narrow. A whole new set of muscles were needed. The afternoon sun was burning down on us. We could see the river at the bottom of the Canyon, but distance was deceptive, and we didn’t reach the river until five o’clock that afternoon.
Dorothy and I finally reached the river. We threw down our packs. Some of the other members of our party had rested along the way and were behind us. Mike and the others had stopped earlier for a ‘skinny dip’ in a pool, but we had envisioned a dip in the Colorado River and planned to be the first ones there. We girls brought our bathing suits, but when we touched it, we found it icy cold and very swift and deep. At that point we didn’t care. We threw our packs down, took off our shoes, lay down on the hard rocks with our heads on the packs, pulled our hats over our eyes and promptly fell asleep. We were exhausted. The temperature had been gradually rising all day and the heat absorbed in the huge rock canyons. The trails had become so narrow that the heat was all around us as we walked. My toenails felt like they were about to come off and my swollen feet were aching with blisters. Where was Mike with the moleskin? I was soon in a deep sleep. I lay back on the shady flat rock and immediately dozed off.
Suddenly, I heard someone standing over me laughing. It was Mike and the rest of our group. Dorothy and I had slept over an hour. They woke us since we were to arrive at the lodge by 7 p.m. and still had two miles to go. Wearily we got up, put on the heavy gear and began walking. Soon the trail gave way to sand. We seemed to make very little progress and the sand radiated heat. It seemed we would never get across it, for almost two miles we trudged in it, and finally we saw the bridge. The camp would be just beyond and then the lodge. We took pictures of each other, one by one on the bridge, and then walked another half mile to the campground and lodge. We had completed the first day of our trip down the Grand Canyon.
--- to be continued…..
