The Great Escape

A few months ago, I had a particularly bad work e-mail weekend.

My work e-mail comes to my phone. Usually, I answer whatever seems pressing, and leave the rest for Monday. But there was one weekend where someone went so over the top that I turned my work e-mail off on my phone and started fantasizing about where in the world no Internet could reach me.

There aren't many places. The salt flats of Bolivia. Certain spots in the ocean between French Polynesian islands. Even Cuba has connections in the post office and in upscale hotel lobbies. Even Burma has it, as does Bhutan, Tibet...but you know where you can get out of range without an expensive plane ticket?

The bottom of the Grand Canyon.

I knew this from the rafting trip I took there in 2008, when I went from Lees Ferry to Bar 10 Ranch over six days with Arizona River Runners. I've booked at the last minute via an agent in Flagstaff, because I reasoned they had access to multiple inventories, and that had worked out great.

What if, I thought, I went back to the bottom of the Grand Canyon? Could I get any farther from the office without using vacation time? But how could I justify a trip there given how expensive it is and how I'd already spent six days at the bottom of the Canyon, (not to mention the mule trip in 2002, a North Rim trip in 2012, and various other South Rim trips, including one just a few months ago?

Easy. One thing I'm good at is justifying travel.

I'd finish rafting, flying IN at Bar 10 this time, and continuing to the end in Lake Mead.

Arizona River Runners had a sale trip listed, which I snapped up. I didn't have a lot of my gear with me, though I'd grabbed a bunch to bring back last time I'd been home. I had to buy used Tevas on eBay because mine had split on the 2008 trip, and I didn't know what had happened to the lilac-colored rainsuit (I probably threw it away due to hideousness). I paid for the trip, bought a same-morning-as-the-trip one-way ticket from Burbank-Vegas, and a return for Vegas-LAX for the evening of the trip's end, and sorted out my gear.

And headed off the grid.

Daydreaming for Off the Grid

I'm exhausted these days. I'm really not cut out for being in one spot every weekday, and given much of my life has been dedicated to avoiding routine and inter-office dramas, I doubt that surprises anyone reading this. My last job was about making comics from my laptop, sometimes involving circumventing firewalls in police-states. It's hard to go back to the world of meetings and dental insurance. It's hard to to cooperate with others when I'm used to running my own little ship in the world. But we evolve. We learn. It's all part of existing, I suppose.

But I still need breaks. I booked a short Grand Canyon rafting trip for early May. It's to finish up the Canyon. In 2008, I took the trip from Lees Ferry to Bar 10, and now I'm going to fly into Bar 10 and finish up all the way to Lake Mead.

I'm looking forward to it. There's no cell reception or Internet at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Of course, all my gear is in Jersey City. I'll have to bring it back next time I'm home.

On to Zion

Here's the thing about Zion. If you're heading from Bryce back to Vegas, you must go through it if you don't want to drive the slightly longer route via Kanab. The state road goes right through the park.

And right through a long tunnel, past amazing canyon scenery, and oh, it'll cost ya to go on this road. Twenty-five bucks National Parks fee.

I'd bought an annual pass at my first NPS stop, back at the Grand Canyon. These are worth it if you're going into three National Parks a year, and heck, they're worth it anyway. Support your National Park Service. This is one thing that America has undisputedly done well. A guy I knew last year had driven across the country and said the National Parks were deteriorating due to budget cuts. I don't know what National Parks he was talking about. The ones I've visited on this trip were as deliciously homegrown as always, with dedicated staff and volunteers and the right balance of commerce and nature.

A Helluva Place to Lose a Cow

I followed the long single ribbon of asphalt out of the Grand Canyon National Park's North Rim, through the rain.

In time, the morning chill evaporated. The rain stopped. The temperature rose.

And then I was sweating in 100+ degree temperatures again.

I overnighted in Kanab, Utah, a small town that benefits from being the largest small town near some great movie backdrops. I checked into a Best Western, showered, turned the A/C on high, did some laundry, and left only (twice) to go to a nearby restaurant owned by a guy from Matawan, New Jersey (home of the Jaws shark incident).

The following morning, I drove up to Bryce Canyon. I'd camped here in 2002 with my Aussie ex. We'd both been dehydrated and worn out, me from riding a mule into the Grand Canyon and him from hiking down the canyon to the Colorado and back in one day ("That warning not to do it is a challenge to an Australian!"), so we'd taken short hikes in Bryce.

Gear

Check out my new little camping stove that I got at REI in Vegas.

I'd been planning to only pick up a $10 gel stove—I already have a single burner that goes on a Coleman propane bottle at home, but it was too bulky to fit in my bag. But this was on sale for $29.95, and it fits in the small red plastic triangle for transport. You have to buy new fuel on landing as you can't take the fuel canisters on the plane, but that's the same for all camping stoves.

The only problem is I don't go camping all that much unless I'm actively traveling. And I tend to view camping more as an economic practicality when on the go, not as a destination unto itself. It's not all that much fun when you do it alone. Especially not in the humid misery of summers in the Northeast.

The other piece of my coffee essentials (because ultimately, this stove is intended to feed my morning caffeine addiction) is the mug. I've bought these mugs with matching coffee press screen for almost ten years now, and while they are harder and harder to find, they are perfect for travel because of their compact size. I've searched for more of them for years—they do break when you lean too heavily on the tab that drives the press—and was almost convinced there were no more of them in the world, when I stumbled over a stash of them in a store in Tasmania.

I bought nearly the entire stock.

I'm sure I'll use them.

Ranger Walk

I packed up camp quickly on Monday morning, then headed to the Grand Canyon Lodge for a morning nature walk with a park ranger.

"People worry about mountain lions," explained Ranger Gaelyn, "but the problem here is squirrels biting people when people try to feed them."

We were out  looking for the local version of a squirrel, the Kaibab Squirrel, with its big bushy white tail.

Somehow, I ended up talking to an older woman who was traveling with her husband and adult daughter.

"We saw you in Page," she said. "You know the German guys you were talking to at the campground? We were on the other side from them."

The North Rim

"There's a trail that starts here," said the park ranger, circling a spot on the map he handed me. "It goes along the rim from the campground to the lodge."

I headed over and sure enough, then campground was right on the edge of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. What great real estate. 

I walked along in my inappropriate footwear, grateful for the National Park Service's well-kept trail and resistance to commercialization. I sat down on a log halfway through the 1.2 mile trek. 

What a view. 

I could look at this for hours, I thought. 

But my mind started to wander, and anyway, I had to get to Grand Canyon Lodge to make a reservation for dinner. 

The lodge has giant picture windows and multiple terraces. In the summer, you can admire the view. In colder months, you can sit inside the lodge and stay warm while looking at the orange and golden hues of the canyon. But the lodge only holds so many people for dinner, so if you want to be one of them, you have to book ahead.

The other options are pizza or junk food at the general store, so I didn't want to screw around.

I got my dinner booking, then walked back to camp for a while. I drove back to the lodge at night, since I'd be attending a lecture on Toroweap—an obscure part of the canyon—afterwards and didn't want to walk home in the dark.

Dinner was decent, but the views from the dining room were amazing. I started to fall asleep during the lecture, and slowly drove back to my tent under the ponderosa pines.

What a perfect spot in the world.

Here are some more photos of the last few days. I'm totally sold on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Almost no one was there and the access to the canyon is just amazing.

Add it to your short list.

From Page to the North Rim

I stopped by River's End Cafe on my way out of town to pick up a sandwich. Where I was going was a tourist trap, so food was going to set me back a fair bit.

I headed out of Page into the glaring heat of the Sunday morning, taking a left onto 89 and heading south along a road that wound through low points between giant orange rocks.

Eventually, I turned right onto 89A, pointing my rental car at the dramatic, towering Vermillion Cliffs. The road zipped closer and closer to them, and then suddenly, I was at Navajo Bridge and Lees Ferry at Marble Canyon.

U-Turn in the River

I cowered in the air-conditioned coffee shops of Page during the height of the day. The best one—by FAR—was River's End Cafe, tucked away in the corner of a rafting supply and booking store. I had to wait for two tour buses to pull away, but I was able to get a table in the corner next to an outlet (good for my laptop, and they had wifi too), a hummus and veggie sandwich, and an iced latte.

When the sun started to go lower, I headed a few miles south down 89 to this, Horseshoe Bend. It's a place with no safety rails, the kind of place where people's common sense has to keep them from careening down into the Colorado.

Scary.

But stunning.

Carrying Around Baggage

I'm heading to San Diego Comic Con for work, but since I'll be out west anyway, I'm flying a bit early to check out some slot canyons in Arizona. I'm also going to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and will spend a night at Bryce Canyon before heading to Vegas to catch a flight to San Diego.

But I am not keen to spend too much money on hotels, and that's a part of the world where there aren't a lot of decent budget options. So I've packed my tent.

What's more, I've packed my tent into this checked bag, along with my Therm-a-rest, sleeping bag, travel pillow, towel, titanium spork, French press mug, boiling water pot, coffee, flashlight, extension cord, and car lighter A/C adapter. Most of my clothes fit into this bag too. I've got one extra zippered pack of clothing in my carry-on along with my laptop, phone, chargers, and a whole lot of paper to do with my freelance jobs.

I can't believe this plan worked.

One Final Grand Canyon Post

I promise I'll quit talking about the Grand Canyon after this. But I wanted to mention another trip I took into the Canyon, in 2002.

During Turbo Tour in 2002 (one of the three-and-a-half "lost years" between MariesWorldTour and the start of this blog), I went across the US and Mexico with Turbo the Aussie and Henry the Ford Taurus.
At the Grand Canyon, Turbo foolishly hiked from the rim to the river and back in a day. "That warning is a challenge to an Aussie!' It wore him out for a week afterwards. I took the mule trip, like the Brady Bunch, and was only sore for a day or two.

The other times I went to the Canyon (besides this recent time which involved rafting), Mom and I rode around the rim on horses, and the Other Marie and I took a scenic flight over the Canyon. For some reason, Marie and I took very few photos during the flight, but I have dozens of us at nearby "Bedrock City."

A Week of Rafting

I made a little video of my rafting trip.

I took a tiny $128 HD palm-sized video camera along for the trip. I haven't edited video in years—in the mid-90s, I used Premiere for some personal videos, and back in the 80s, I used this thing called "tape." Other than that, I once learned an older version of iMovie in a few hours under stressful circumstances at San Diego Con. But iMovie changed a lot since then. I couldn't even extract audio and had to use a workaround (boo).

Anyway, I bluffed my way through.

Photos of the Grand Canyon Rafting Trip

I've uploaded a bunch of my Grand Canyon photos to my Facebook gallery.

I can think of at least one person who—were he in the room with me rather than an ocean away and pretty far north—would lecture me for using a little point-and-shoot rather than an SLR. An SLR would have given me more impressive results, true. But these are all right for a wee camera.

Take a look!

Day Six: Rafting the Grand Canyon

"COFFEE!"

Elk yelled the morning wake-up call across the camp. I trundled down to get my coffee, dragging along my luggage to load onto the raft for the last mile's float downstream to Whitmore Wash. We'd fly out four people at a time on a small helicopter, being lifted up to Bar 10 Ranch on the rim where hot showers and cold drinks awaited us before our flight back to Vegas.

My shoes were broken. My clothes were filthy. I had an itchy rash on the back of both arms, my heels were cracking, my shins were scratched with sand where I'd rubbed on gritty sunscreen, and my hair felt like straw. I'd broken the zipper on my duffel bag and my face was taut, the skin flaking off in small patches. Yesterday, I'd been cold in the rapids and actually thought "ENOUGH."

But I felt confident and strong, barely thinking about the problems at home that had sent me scrambling for a quick perspective fix. For the moment, my soul was healed.

Day Five: Rafting the Grand Canyon

I have to admit, I was getting a little tired of being doused with cold water. I'd started to look forward to getting back to Vegas tomorrow and having a long, hot shower. My improvised showers—dumping mugs of Colorado River water over my head after soaping up (with biodegradable soap, of course)—were producing somewhat gritty results.

But still, lazing around the raft listening to the symphony of the engine mixed with buzzing cicadas was a marvelous privilege.

Today I was on Erika's raft. Which seemed fine until I heard that Elk had given every passenger on his raft a manicure during a slow hour.

We pulled up at a slot canyon after lunch for swimming and shade. One passenger had brought her watercolors, and the day turned into a festival of face-painting and kid-art. One kid painted a picture of Elk driving his raft—a big, blue raft captained by a man in a green sarong and a bandana. Looks silly but keep the sun off.

Then, it was time for Lava, the most challenging rapid in the entire run, named Lava because this part of the canyon is covered in dry, black, ancient lava.

I moved two seats back for Lava. Enough! I'd been swearing at walls of water today. In front of children. Lava was mind-blowing, but I think I was too tired to be threatened by the rapid this time.

Our last night on the river included steaks, guitar music, and even a tango.

"August 25, 1869 — Great Quantities of lava are seen on either side; and then we come to an abrupt cataract. Just over the fall a cinder cone, or extinct volcano, stands on the very brink of the canyon. What a conflict of water and fire there must have been here! -Powell Report."

Day Four: Rafting the Grand Canyon

Something was missing when I awoke on the morning of Day Four, on my cot, perched behind a tree above Crystal Rapid.

The pressure. The pressure in my head was missing. The accumulated weight of work stress, undeniable rejection, guilt over lack of progress on projects, and of course the burden of uncertainty over direction and traditional life anchors—all of this combines to shred my confidence, drag me down, steal my enthusiasm, and rob me of my ability to laugh or improvise. It's almost a living, nagging being in my head. A rock that weighs me down.

Unless it's not. And today, four days into exile, the pressure had vanished somewhere into the night.

Delighted, I just about leapt out of bed to greet the day. This untethered feeling is marvelous but elusive. I wanted to enjoy it while I could.

I took the front seat on purpose this time, hanging on tightly as we navigated today's biggie—Crystal Rapid. Later, I moved to the driver's seat in the back, where I almost slid off while holding the video camera. Elk started towards me as I slipped from the chair onto a metal box. But he was driving the boat too. From my peripheral vision, I thought I could see an almost-imperceptible calculation going on in his head. "Can I grab this tourist while maintaining the safety of 13 others and this raft?" I slowed my own descent and he kept driving.

Anyway, I would hate to be tossed out into a big rapid, but this was a little one. I've been thrown into worse on the Nile and the Zambezi, and have learned that holding my breath while not panicking results in being spit out below the rapids, the lifejacket keeping me afloat.

The video camera wouldn't have done so well, though, so I'm glad I didn't get to intimately know the Colorado.

We passed Elk's "nemesis," Bedrock Rapid, which involved a massive, weighty boulder, sharp 90-degree turns, and gliding over an underwater rock with the engine pulled up. At one point, the other raft lost an engine, but Erika quickly changed it.

We stopped in mid-afternoon and hiked to a waterfall.

"You've got a flat," announced the 12-year-old's mother. I looked down at my eight-year-old Teva sandals, scored free from Teva at the start of MariesWorldTour.com.


"Crap." A teensy rock had lodged into the sole, letting in sand. Now the sole had split completely. A metaphor for my own rock, I thought, my own soul's nemesis.

"That can be repaired," announced Elk.

Me too, I thought.

"Not glue. Glue doesn't hold. Zip-strips. I'll show you later."

True to his word, after dinner, before the guitars came out, he punched a hole in the toe and threaded a zip-strip through the sole.

Which was marvelous.

Until the next day, when the other shoe went. I'm trying not to read anything into this.

Day Three: Rafting the Grand Canyon, Part Two

Yesterday, we'd gotten plenty wet in a fun, though unthreatening ten-mile series of rapids called the "Roaring Twenties."

Today's whitewater, however, seemed a great deal more threatening. We were going to hit our first biggie, Hance. Tomorrow's challenge was Crystal, while the biggest, wildest rapid of all—Lava—awaited us on Day Five.

We glided through the gorge, steep canyon walls rising up to our left and right. The red, yellow, and sienna colors were somehow richer than they had been, though in a few days, the walls would turn black as we approached the volcanic section of the canyon.

No way out but through it, I thought, silently reciting the mantra I had recently adopted when considering my apprehension about reassimilation into normal society, my interactions with people that were more than temporary for once.


A mile above us was the South Rim, with Grand Canyon Village and thousands of happy tourists clicking away their camera. They'd be psyching themselves up for a quick hike below the rim or maybe they were riding buses from viewpoint to viewpoint. They couldn't see us down here below the steep walls.

Then, at Mile 77, we were at Hance. A 30-foot drop over a half-mile of boulders. We scouted one rapid this morning. Was it Hance? I don't remember. So many rapids scared the hell out of me that I've forgotten which one was which.

The group was silent as the rafts glided through the smooth water just before the rapid.

"Find your handholds," said Elk, from the motor at the back of the raft. He was perched high above the raft, scouting ahead with a foot on a cooler and another on a metal rim.

"I'm scared," I announced flatly to him, across the group.

"Wise beyond her years," quipped the 16-year-old girl's father.

"Oh, Miss World Traveler is scared." Elk wasn't too fussed about one of the canyon's toughest rapids.

"This isn't the same as getting on the bus in Kenya," I shouted back, just before we descended into the maelstrom.

I faced forward just in time to get bludgeoned by a mega-wall of water.

"Bleh!" I had a second to check my sunglasses and hat before we dipped down and got doused again.

Then the raft bucked and flew, up and down like a roller coaster, before the Colorado spit us out below the rocks.

We were all laughing and howling.

It was fun.

The ride continued throughout the day, with a stop for lunch and water below Phantom Ranch (that's where tourists hike or ride down on mules to stay overnight at the bottom of the canyon). We glided under the old pedestrian footbridge and then under the new one.

"Why are there two?"

"They spent a lot of money to build the new one, but the mules wouldn't go over it, because they can see through it to the river. They'll only cross the old one."

In the afternoon, or maybe it was the morning, we approached a technically challenging rapid. I didn't keep good notes, I'm afraid. Amanda had reminded me to get waterproof writing materials for this trip, but I hadn't had time. I seemed to always be digging around in my dry bag for something—camera, video camera, sunscreen, lip balm—and what I really needed was waterproof everything that I could just keep out and clipped onto a strap.

As we approached the rapid-that-shall-remain-anonymous-due-to-my-lack-of-notekeeping, I realized that Elk and I spoke different languages, though we were the same age and had not-entirely-different backgrounds.

He explained that we had to make a choice at the upcoming rapid.

"Do you wanna go to the side where it has a drop-and-roll, or do this thread-the-needle thing where there's a sick feeling like you're gonna die?"

What came over me? Who knows?

"DIE!" I yelled down the raft. No one argued. A few people nodded.

"If we don't mush through it, it's gonna be a rocker."

What the hell does that mean, I thought, just as we dove into the madness.

Day Three: Rafting the Grand Canyon, Part One

I collected my now-dry clothes from the branches I had stuck them on the night before. I usually carry a few clothespins in my pack when I travel, but because I was going with an outfitter instead of on my own, I hadn't thrown together the same kit that I usually take.

But were I to go back to the Grand Canyon for more rafting—which I won't because I already have no idea how I'm going to pay for this last-minute, soul-recovering trip when the Mastercard bill shows up*—I'd take clothespins. That way I wouldn't have to worry about the wind blowing away my clothing.

I packed my sheet, pillow, and tarp back into the dry bag. My sleeping bag sat unused at the bottom of the pack. I dismantled my cot and folded it up into its sling carrying case. I smeared sunscreen over my feet, hands, shins, neck, and forearms, then pulled on my rain gear over my bathing suit.

The rain gear, which the outfitter rightly insisted we bring along, had been on sale. I had searched a few places first—REI, Paragon Sporting Goods—but plastic outfits were too pricey for one-time use. And given that I'd never needed raingear before in my life (umbrellas work fine in most cases), I didn't want to spend a lot on something I'd never use again. I'd found the sale gear online and bought that. The catch? It was purple.

"It's Barney!" One of the dads on the trip had exclaimed yesterday, when everyone wore their raingear in the morning, having learned the previous day that the Colorado water is freezing cold.

So much for soul-recovering. I feel so much better now.

I pulled on my hat, sunglasses, and Tevas and headed to the raft. My capris and long-sleeved shirt were at the bottom of my daypack. I'd change into them by lunchtime, when the sun had warmed the day up.

We motored downriver out of Science Camp, heading towards the Gorge, the section of the Grand Canyon that everyone who goes to the South Rim views. Today's journey would send us through some of the biggest rapids and some of the most spectacular scenery.

Less than an hour downriver, Elk pulled over.

"Let's check on this hiker."

A shirtless man lay in the shade under a tree, at the end of a long trail. His backpack was beside him.

"You okay?"

"Sure. You guys seen an AzRa raft?" (I think it was Azra, but maybe it was another outfitter. Don't hold me to this.)

"They'll be here in less than an hour."

The hiker was the new guide for a different group we'd seen yesterday. One of their guides had been taken out from the Little Colorado by helicopter med-evac.

"What was wrong with him?" I'd asked our trip leader.

"His knee had swollen up. It's probably nothing, but they don't take any chances because of the new super-bug that's been virulent. It gets in through open sores. Like these." He'd motioned to his cracked heels, something that was happening to my heels too.

Superbug? Like MRSA?

"We're all colonized," one of the doctors on our trip (a passenger) waved off my surprised concern.

"And it's going to get worse," said the other doctor.

"What can I do to not be colonized?"

"There are various anti-bacterial washes, but no one is sure if they work."

We left the hiker and passed under the Desert View Watchtower on the South Rim. It's a rustic observation tower designer by architect Mary Jane Colter in 1932. My mother and I visited it on our first Grand Canyon trip in the late 80s or early 90s. I no longer remember the year, but Marc and David will, because they'd just moved from New York to Hollywood. I was headed cross-country by Greyhound to visit them. Mom flew into Phoenix and met me.

"Just so you know, there's a kid up there who put a quarter into the binoculars and he's watching us right now."

I waved.

And we motored on. Today was a huge day—incredible gorge scenery, constant rapids, and some of the big 'uns.


*Cost of a Grand Canyon rafting trip? A few thousand dollars. Cost of a quick fix to a battered ego? Priceless.

Day Two: Rafting the Grand Canyon

Rumor had it that the strong coffee in the bucket was Peet's Coffee.

I put the strainer on top of my official cup (we each got one for the duration of the trip), and ladled in some Peet's for a nice super-charge.

I'm not sure exactly how the math works, but it seems to me that stronger coffee = fuller porta-potty, which must on some level be deliberate. The staff had asked us to try to get out digestive systems to work in the morning and night, when the camp toilet was set up.

They carried a different toilet for each day. The toilets had hardcore lids for when they were not in use, but the toilet seat moved from toilet to toilet each day. One day, Chelsea had a line of six kids and couldn't get the toilet open.

"I nearly had a riot on my hands," she said.

On Day Two, we broke camp and chugged downriver.

Today's sidetrip was to a marvelous waterslide on the Little Colorado. The smaller river was a rich turquoise. We all hiked to a spot which was full of rafters from other outfitters. Everyone was doing the same thing. Buckling their life jackets around their bottoms like diapers, leaping into the Little Colorado, and sliding down to the pool below.

It was marvelous, but I looked ridiculous in my diaper. I looked more ridiculous than the others, I think, because I'd stripped down to my bathing suit first, so it looked like I had nothing on underneath my life jacket. Everyone else was wearing their street clothes, but I didn't want to abuse them more than I already was.

I did not take any photos of me in my orange, padded diaper.