Big Hole in the Ground: North Rim

The drive to the north rim of the Grand Canyon was surprising. It was a forest. We expected desert. Then again, nothing about the southwest was what we expected, so I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised. But, seriously, it's a forest. A pretty tall, lush forest at that. You totally expect it to be flat and deserty because all of the Grand Canyon pictures you see show a rocky hole in the ground. Nope.

We drove into the park and turned into the first campground we saw, which happened to be a mile from the rim. I think it may have been the only campground, actually. We chose to do the north rim because we know at this point we can't stand touristy parks, and the north rim is known to be far, far less touristy. We talked to the guy manning the registration booth and found out that their group sites did not sell, so they break them up into 3 parties per group site and sell them for $18. Score! Also, I'm pretty proud that we've managed to get campsites at places that are known to sell out months and months in advance totally on the fly.

We parked, chose our spot in the woods, flung up the tent, and then I demanded we go see the canyon NOW, even though we were going to have to go back in a couple of hours for the sunset. The north rim has one trail: Bright Angel.

We drove the mile to the canyon, and parked at the Grand Canyon Lodge, which is actually quite a nice setup. There are log cabins spread out on the rim, with fancy large main building overlooking the canyon. They even have an area where it's just a huge row of Adirondack chairs on the edge of the canyon for people to lounge around on. What isn't nice is that THE DAMN FRENCH FOLLOWED US. They must have had a caravan of caravans. I don't even know why we hated them so much. Is that racist or something? I don't know. I don't care. They're obnoxious. And loud. We eventually could pick them out by how they walked and dressed.

I don't really have words for the Grand Canyon itself. You look at it, but your brain can't really comprehend what it is looking at, so you don't find it as nice as, say, Bryce. At least with Bryce you can register distances and size, but not so with the Grand Canyon. You walk over, stare at the hole in the ground, and don't really know what to do. It is incredibly hazy, which is apparently because it sucks in the pollution from all the states (yes, states. Not towns.) around it. We walked the .4 miles to the end of the trail, and climbed up on the rocks to gaze out.

I told Ang I didn't really know what to say about the Grand Canyon, and she thought about it before responding, "It's big."

Look again, I'm in there!

We sat there for a while, then started heading back. Bright Angel was a downhill slope, so you have to walk uphill back to the lodge. It sucked. I'm way too out of shape for that crap, and since we just ran out there we didn't have water or anything and it's at 8,000+ feet in elevation and dry.

$50 fine? No problem. Where's my crowbar?

 We made it, and then went back to the campsite to grab my camera and pack a backpack with water, snacks, and wine. We wanted to try out the Angelica wine from Napa to see if all of our wine was actually toast. We were expecting it to at least still be drinkable. It was awful. Awful, awful, awful. And since I can't tell good wine from crappy wine, for me to say it was awful is saying something. We were beyond disappointed. It meant that not only was this wine bad, ALL the wine was bad. I know we keep talking about this, but it is easily the lowest point in the road trip, by far.

Near the general store we came across this guy:

A white tailed squirrel?! The lady nearby got all excited that it was this really rare breed that was only found here, on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and nowhere else in the world. He was moving too fast for Ang to get a good picture, but not fast enough apparently. He was roadkill later that night.

We went back to the rim, and settled in for the sunset. It had rained that day, so the clouds were low and the sunset wasn't as spectacular as I imagine it could have been. Still, it was, of course, gorgeous.

I was dreading the walk back. I was right to worry, however for different reasons, because we spent the whole thing dodging and screaming and running and ducking and covering. Why? The bats. What they don't tell you about the Grand Canyon is that the whole trail has bats, and they're out to get you. Immediately after climbing down, the first one swooped towards us. We weren't actually expecting it to swoop into our faces, so queue the screaming and ducking. After that, it was nonstop. And it may have even been the same bat. One brushed Ang's ear, and she grabbed my arm at one point when I leapt out of the way and nearly fell into the canyon (the trail is tiny and rocky and one person has to stand aside to let another pass).

We made it back to the campsite, bought some coffee from the grouchy, angry general store workers who were pissed to have to actually serve people, and sat on the deck to blog for a while. By the way, the reason we're so slow with the updates is because it takes waaaay longer than we thought to write these and prep pictures, nevermind sit at a random McDonalds (all of them have free wifi) for two hours that we don't have to get all the pictures uploaded.

The next morning, we woke up at 5:30, and refused to get out of the tent for 5 minutes. Then 5 more minutes. Wait, is it light out? No, it can't be...the manager said sunrise wasn't until past 6. Oh, duh, we should have asked when DAWN was. Fuck! GO, GO, GO.

We ran to the canyon still in pajamas to get our pictures of the sunrise. We made it just in time, before the sun made an appearance.

We made the third trek back out of Bright Angel, fearing bats the whole way. As we packed up, we noticed that one of our neighbors was from Massachusetts. Turns out they knew Norwell High, and mentioned one of their friends went there. It was after we graduated, but still, small world. They gave us the rest of their windshield wiper fluid, and we replenished our nearly dry stores from constantly wiping dead bug smears off. What is it with bugs instantly adhering to the windshield? Doesn't matter how fast you wipe it off, it's like cement.

Off to the south rim!