Day 27: Tuba City to Grand Canyon NP, AZ (Page Two)

TUBA CITY to GRAND CANYON NAT'L. PK. (North Rim), Page Two

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DAY TWENTY-SEVEN COMMENTARY (Page Two)

So after leaving the schoolgirls on their own in the village of Hotevilla, AZ, I was finally back on the road, and -- let's face it -- somewhat sadly. I headed back out along the mesa towards Tuba City and beyond. Riding due north out of town, I passed a sign which had arrows pointing in opposite directions, indicating “North Rim” and “South Rim” of the Grand Canyon. You see, in the course of some eight hundred miles, there are only three points where one can drive across the Colorado River, and this was one of them. I had been to the South Rim before, but this time I was headed to the North.

There was more incredible scenery on Rte. 160 on the way to the crossing. Mesas consisting of similar underlying formations rose at regular intervals on the right side of the road over the course of dozens of miles, whereas on the left there were sand dunes perched upon rocky bases instead. Eventually, Rte. 89A branched to the left, while 160 climbed its way up along the face of the cliffs on the right and disappeared into a narrow notch high up and very far in the distance. I was heading down the slope towards a valley floor and in the direction of the ridge on the other side. I was soon to arrive at the Navajo Bridge near Lees Ferry (click here for a history of the bridge crossing).

Once on the other side of the Colorado -- which, some fifty miles ahead, would begin to carve the Grand Canyon in earnest -- I passed through small “towns” along the way, tucked in against the cliff faces of the mesas behind them. Sporting names such as Vermillion Cliffs, Cliffdwellers, etc., some consisted of little more than a cute inn or two, a restaurant/tavern, and possibly a general store, but each looked extremely inviting in that inexplicable, “on the road” way. Naturally, being on a timetable I had to resist the temptation to drop anchor, but there were some opportunities to capture some unique photographs.

The road began to climb, overlooking the broad plain and its narrow vertical slash somewhere down below; the topography gave way to hills and pine trees. It began to get much cooler here as well -- and that came as no surprise when I passed a sign indicating that the elevation was nearly 9,000 feet! When I arrived at the town of Jacob Lake, where begins the road to the North Rim, I was more than a bit disappointed to find that I still had some 45 miles to go!

I dealt with some curious/annoying driving by a maroon Ford pickup in front of me and covered the distance as quickly as possible. There were stretches in which many of the trees had recently burned in a fire, which lent a spooky feel to what otherwise would have been lovely scenery. Past these areas were lush, green pine forests rolling down into meadows on either side of the road. Eventually I reached the entrance to the camping area and eyeballed the campsite I had reserved, before checking in with the park ranger, who was away from the station for a few moments. The site was nicely wooded, but it slanted at a rather extreme angle, and holy mackerel was this whole place like Grand Central Station! Campsites everywhere, and without a doubt mostly RV's and trailers, rather than tents. Gotta be honest, I wasn't digging it much at all. And so my general lack of enthusiasm for the scene helped determine a course of action I had been mulling since the first days of planning; that is, rather than stay here for two overnights and spend the in-between day hiking about, I would plan to load back up in the AM and head out to the Toroweap Overlook.

Toroweap is a small collection of undeveloped campsites further west along the North Rim, but which can only be reached via a sixty-mile, three to four hour drive over maintained, yet mostly washboarded dirt Bureau of Land Management roads. More information (and excellent pictures) can be found here at the National Park Service website, which I strongly recommend visiting. For the moment, however, the question was, should I relinquish my (pre-paid) reservation for tomorrow evening when I formally checked in with the ranger? What if I didn't get as early a start as I had wished? What if I found the road too demanding on the bike and trailer? Sixty miles over dirt is a long way; while I trust the bike (and the trailer that I built by hand myself), as I utterly must, else launching myself cross-country was an unwise decision -- perhaps it would be a good idea to just keep the reservation, in case I had to come back and use it, wouldn't it?

People, as they say in the trading business: nothing done! Here again, the decision was sort of made for me. When the ranger returned to the station, I overheard him telling the gentleman in front of me -- who must have made his reservations far later than I had -- that he could not use the same campsite for two consecutive nights, so he and the family would have to pack up the gigantic trailer and move it to the second night's site. Meanwhile, here I was, entitled to the use of my own site for the same length of time, yet thinking of not using it, so I figured this was as good a reason to head to Toroweap as any. I interrupted and explained the situation to the ranger and to the would-be camper, told him he could have my site for the two nights, and I'd take the one he had for only the first night and get out of there in the morning. Funny thing was, he too wanted to make sure I thought I'd definitely hit the road, considering I'd be giving up my next night's reservation in a full campground if I changed my mind or ran into issues as outlined above. Never mind all that, I said, let's do it. Problem(s) solved! And let me ax you, how thoughtful was it of the guy to come over to my “new” site and hand me a $20 bill, as a nod towards my non-refundable cancellation, and to the assistance the change was to him and his crew? I'll answer that one for you: extremely thoughtful, and fantastic all around. And it helped make my dinner -- all acquired back in Hotevilla -- go down in even more pleasant fashion!

The moment was now upon me to visit the North Rim for the first time, so I headed out along Bright Angel Trail, named for the Bright Angel Fault it provides a direct view of at its end. As I distinctly recall feeling when I had first visited the canyon, at the South Rim, way the heck back in 1986 (!), the spectacle of the scene is truly, truly awe-inspiring. Rows and rows of layers and layers of rock, different in color (and even notably changing as the evening sun was setting), billions of years old and exposed to the elements; cliff faces plunging over a mile down to the upper “plateaus”, with the gorge channeled by the Colorado River another thousand feet further down. The quiet majesty of these timeless formations is utterly humbling, and rightfully so, yet, to me, it is all somehow re-assuring as well. The constancy? The ultimate stoicism? The countless seasons and sunrises and rain storms these unflinching sentinels have presided over? Perhaps it's this very permanence that makes the human concept of “life” almost comically frail, and yet simultaneously so enjoyable, so estimable, so worth living to its fullest. Perhaps there's something to these forms that tell you, without any doubt, “there's still time.” They tell you that as you watch them today, like they'll do tomorrow, like they did yesterday, and like they've done every moment of every day since they were created and shaped, whether anyone or anything is standing there looking at them or not. You can't pull your gaze away; you have to tell yourself you must eventually leave, or else you'll be there all night, just looking down, looking at them, trying to get the message, hoping that you are; wondering if everyone else is, hoping that they all are too. I'm sorry to bore you; I just don't know how to describe it any other way. I could stare at them, agape, for hours. Click here to see a sequence of just some of these images.

Meanwhile, back here on Planet Earth, there was a funny situation developing. Naturally, everyone wishes to have his or her pictures taken with the Canyon in the background, so eventually one must ask a stranger to snap a photo for them. Considering, as we have, how many Europeans were traveling across the west in the late summer, the chances were excellent that there'd be a European either asking, or being asked, the question. What's so funny about that? Well, the truth, as I observed, was that -- given their sheer numbers -- it was far more likely for one European to ask another to do the deed on their behalf -- perhaps leading to a German asking a Spaniard, in English, to take his picture! Nothing but accented English all around! Now, once I got caught up in the rotation, I became the go-to photographer, and I would ask aloud if, say, there were any Italians who needed their picture taken, because I hadn't been asked by one yet. Someone from Denmark jokingly asked if I would accept dollars as pay for all this work, and I said I only accepted Euros, but would happily give change back in USD. Meanwhile, as exotic as the idea of travel from the Asian nations would reasonably seem, I reminded myself that we were about 2,500 miles closer to them where we stood, and as such the visitors from South Africa would have to take the award for longest distance traveled to get here.

On my walk back to the campground, I passed by the lovely North Rim Lodge, which had an outdoor seating patio arranged to face the canyon. I thought this would be a good time to (1) locate and purchase a bumper sticker for the trailer, and (2) enjoy a frosty adult beverage while watching the last of the sun's rays illuminate the peaks below. Walking through the cavernous (and crowded) indoor dining area, I noticed that the bar loomed up ahead, so I ducked in and prepared to order a Sierra Nevada draft. The bartender -- not necessarily slow, not necessarily indifferent, just...not that great?...eyeballed me, and then another party of about eight, and went to the group first. What a jerk! So, what, now I have to wait for eight people to order eight different drinks? Forget it. I continued on, found the gift ship and bought a bumper sticker, then returned to the bar, for nearly instant service as it turned. Great thinking, n'est-ce pas?

I scooped up said frosty Sierra Nevada and snapped a wonderful picture from the patio's edge. The light was definitely beginning to fade, but it made for beautiful colors against the clouds in the sky to the southwest. Sun now down, time to get back to camp, but wait: here's the camera, here's my beer -- “yo, I said where's the bumper sticker at?” (props on that one to the Beastie Boys -- Ed.) Uh oh; the bumper sticker is MIA, and the only place I can think of where I might have left it is in the bar. I go back in, angle towards the area I had ordered from, and see no sign of the thing. Hmmm...what's all this commotion down at the other end of the bar? The dude is asking someone, “is this your bumper sticker?” Before that goes any further, I yell over, “No, that was mine,” and point at the spot where I had been standing. It all adds up in the guy's head, so he hands it to me, thus gaining back some credibility, even if due merely to circumstance.

Thus having averted disaster, I am back at camp and, remember, fully committed to Toroweap in the AM. In my mind this will almost undoubtedly be without the trailer, which will likely shake itself to pieces over the washboard road. I must be prepared for backcountry camping (no water, no electricity, no nothing), but I must also be prepared to hike in over the last three miles or so, in case the bike itself cannot safely negotiate that most difficult stretch of the BLM road. I jot down a short list of things that need to make it all the way to the Toroweap campsite (the bivy, food, water, camp stove, shovel, minimal lighting, spare clothes, etc.), then remove it all from the trailer to put into my backpack tonight, thus allowing a quick morning departure. It occurs to me that this will be the backpack's first use on the trip just as I discover that the thing is somehow all wet! So I hang it up on a tree to hopefully dry out overnight, but nothing seems to go back into the trailer in the normal packing arrangement, and it doesn't really all fit. All told, removing everything, then re-aligning and replacing it all wastes nearly two hours. Two hours during which I could have been sleeping, and waking up earlier! And although I forgot to mention it when I first used the bivy back in Manitou Springs (see Day Twenty-Three), the term “self-inflating” -- as it describes the sleeping pad that fits inside of it -- does not mean what you think it might: if you really want padding, you gotta blow it up yourself. Huff, puff, huff, puff, good night!