We all remember the hike I did last week? The one to 3-mile rest house on Bright Angel Trail? (Down Is Optional...)
Well, yesterday my roommate and I were sitting in our living room when we heard a chopper fly out. This is not an uncommon occurrence for a helicopter to fly overhead, but to hear one so low was. I, in passing, asked my roommate if that was a search and rescue chopper.
About an hour later, 7:00pm, my roommate comes back in the house from an errand she was running and announced that it was, in fact, a SAR helicopter. Her friend had called her from being called in on it to tell her a woman had died on Bright Angel Trail, down at 3-mile rest house.
The woman had died doing that hike I did last saturday. It's the first person to die on the South Rim since I've been here and it's hard for me to wrap my head around. I know there's a reason why I'm here and to look at the safety messages in the park, but it doesn't really sink in that these things happen here. No one comes to the park to die, or have the last memory of someone they love crumpled in a heap and disoriented from heat stroke. It's incredibly tragic.
The park really does all it can to stop these things from happening, even sending out PSAR (preventative search and rescue) teams to talk to people before something bad happens. They have Hike Smart and signs at the trailheads. And yet, people don't listen, nor do they read anything. It's the sad truth of the world we live in that people die unnecessarily just for the sake of either a good time or convenience, or both.
It was with this thought that I went out to hike Hermit Trail, by far the rockiest, steepest trail I've attempted here. The trail in some places is literally just rock faces. Rock shelves laid out on other rock shelves. The trail also has no water sources, so my pack was extra heavy from carrying 4 liters of water (extra water is used to wet my two bandanas when the sun comes out). I started at 7:00 am this time, instead of 4 or 5, because it was raining when I got up and the dark + rain=bad hiking conditions.
I had no idea where the trail would turn in places, mainly because it's hard to see a blazed foot trail when there's no footprints to follow. That's the one issue I had with the rock-trail, I couldn't tell where I was or which way I was going. But the trail is located in the western canyon, so I still had plenty of time in the shade to hike in and out before the sun made it harder.
I made it down to the trail split off point and decided to turn around there. I'd probably gone about 1,200-1,400 vertical feet in maybe 1-2 miles. It was difficult to tell--neither the park maps nor the trailhead gives any detailed trail information.
I climbed back about 400 feet in 10 minutes and took a break. Afterwards, I noticed, I really didn't need one. I did about 1,000 vertical feet up rocky, steep slopes (and I thought the Kaibab trail's stairs were bad...) and barely felt the need to slow down.
I took Hermit Trail with far greater ease than I knew was in me. Surely, this is a sign that I am getting fitter. It wasn't hiking so much as rock climbing at points, and yet, my legs didn't burn with effort, my breathing was fairly regular (still huffing and puffing, but manageably), and my arms weren't tired from planting poles.
I cracked a huge smile when I reached the trailhead. Today was a milestone day.
Here's a video from my break (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opKURQKraBk)
Why am I doing this to myself? I'm in training of course. In two weeks I'm going to be doing a solo rim-to-rim hike over the span of 5 days. The distance? 8,000 feet down North Kaibab and 6,000 feet back up Bright Angel. It's about 25 miles in total.
This may be a national park, but it's still an unforgiving inverted mountain in the desert in Arizona. I have to do everything in my power to be ready for the demands of the inner canyon.
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