For the next few days I want to forget my devices and concentrate on the Grand Canyon (and staying alive). Even in the lodge on the rim internet is slow and frustrating. On the canyon floor it is pretty much non-existent. Join me again on Saturday when I will post each day’s fun, as recorded with pen and paper. I will have plenty of airport time to do it. See you then!

I didn’t like the way travel day ended – I got a headache that was utterly unpleasant. But yes, I did like the way it ended because I was able to get a room at Maswik Lodge and crawled into a comfy bed and slept the headache away. I love my room, and I have it tonight as well.

The scenery here is quite different from my Wisconsin wetlands. There are lots of rocks, and trees that I don’t recognize. It’s a combination of mountains and dessert. One minute we are looking at tall pines and white barked trees, and the next minute we are on a flat plain with short shrubs and grasses that have not had a lot of water. We can usually see one or more mountains with sharp pointy tops covered with snow.

Flagstaff airport is small – the kind where you walk on the tarmack from your plane to the building. I don’t know how we timed it so perfectly, but my brother arrived only minutes after I did, and we were on our way.

It is about 70 miles from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon National Park.Grand Canyon Village is bigger than I remembered, probably because it has grown. There lots of twists and turns as the roads wind from one lodge to another. It is forested, and as you look out into the pines you can see elk grazing everywhere. Unlike our Wisconsin deer who like to startle and dash into the road, these animals are used to the traffic and stand within feet of cars with no alarm.

Most of today was spent in class with our guides Michael and Nina. There are eight of us hikers and everyone is retired. I would say that several are older than I am and one man is 78! All have done quite a bit of hiking except our Elizabeth, and a couple of them have hiked in the canyon a lot.

We spent the time talking about our equipment, safety on the trail. We filled our duffels for the mules and took them over to the barn. And right before we quit we walked out to look at the canyon and talk about the geology. We toured the Kolb house, where the Kolb brothers had a famous photography studio – hanging on the side of the cliff right below the rim.

We start early tomorrow on our descent. Wish you were all going with us! I have pictures but they are failing to upload – not sure why.

I’m going hiking in the Grand Canyon!! Countdown, 11 days!

After my first training walk in Hospital Lake Forest, I was all charged up about walking 10,000 steps every day. It would be the least I could do to prepare. There isn’t much I can do to replicate the altitude change, but to walk for several hours at a time in my hiking boots, that I can do.

Thinking that it would be beneficial to train on a grade, I decided to look for a hill in Hayward, my Northwoods hometown. It’s in a river valley, and there are hills on both sides of the river, as well as glacier formed terrain throughout the forests and fields – how hard could it be to find a good place?

Since I also had an errand at the far end of Main Street, I packed my papers in a backpack along with a snack and some water. (I’m trying to carry a backpack as part of conditioning too.)  I set off down an ATV track that follows an abandoned railway bed, toward the center of town.  I live on the north edge of this booming metropolis of about 2,300 people. I am within sight of New Moon ski/bike shop, Pizza Hut, AmericInn, Walmart and the tip of the flag flying over Perkins.

This is the town I grew up in and always thought of as quaint, and pretty, in an old-fashioned way. But growth, most of it outside the city limits, has deposited a large electrical station at the intersection of two of the main roads. There is no disguising this huge collection of gray metal poles, insulators, wires and fencing.  It clearly does not say “Welcome to lovely Hayward”. There’s not a time I go by it that I don’t wonder why they put it there in such a prominent spot.

Our Main Street however, is a popular tourist site during the summer, and has even been listed as one of the prettiest in the Midwest at Christmas time.  It ascends from the river and Lake Hayward up a gradual slope, past numerous shops, the bank, the Congregational church, and finally the courthouse and the financial office where I stopped to talk for a minute.

“I’m looking for a hill to climb. Maybe County Hill?”

“Yeah, County Hill might be okay.  Are you parked somewhere near here?”

“No, I need to get 10,000 steps in, so I’m walking, why not?”

No response, other than the “why would you do that?” look.

My destination was only about three miles from home, but somehow this is considered a long distance in a place where no one walks anywhere they don’t have to.  Urban walking is a lost art, at least in Hayward. One of my best realizations, upon moving here, has been that everyplace I really need to go is within walking distance, as was County Hill.

I passed houses where my high school friends had once lived, where my cousin’s family lived, the parsonage of the church (where I practically lived) and the empty lot where my elementary school had once stood. I had time to look at the condition of the houses, to see who had raked their lawn of last fall’s leaves, to see where remodeling had added rooms and a complete new look.

I’m sad to say I saw a lot of neglect – places that made me want to start pulling weeds or scrape peeling paint. Maybe this is always the way things seem when you go back home after many years. Memory is selective and I tend to think things were lovelier in the past.

It wasn’t much of a grade. I walked up one side of the road, had my snack at the top while enjoying the view, and walked down the other side. My attention had been caught by the town cemetery at the bottom of the hill. Cemeteries have kind of a spooky fascination for me. I walked through looking at names and dates, imagining scenarios. There were many family names that I recognized from my childhood years in Hayward.  I found the stone for my first-grade teacher and one of my junior high teachers – people that I had loved and been close to. 

The rest of my walk was uneventful, but I was beginning to feel some soreness in the lower legs. This after about five miles, showing that my conditioning has not been sufficient yet. But my feet were fine, boots were good and I finished with 13,300 steps, meeting my goal for the second day in a row.

Training is tough, especially when I have to have at least two free hours to walk. Being a little sore is to be expected. I will give the legs some rest tomorrow, and then think of another place to see. Believe me, things look different and you see things you did not notice before when you are on foot. Try it.

Guess what? The Grand Canyon is inhabited and it pays to know something about possile encounters with some of those residents – rattlesnakes, Gila monsters, scorpions, centipedes, and spiders.  Hardly anyone is bothered by them and they should not/will not keep me from visiting the canyon. Children, elderly, the sick and alcoholics are most affected by venom, and a lot also depends on the amount of venom injected. Here are some critter facts and advice:

Rattlesnakes; wear protective clothing and footwear, only put your hands and feet in places where you can see clearly, use a flashlight at night. If you hear a rattle freeze, locate and move away. Treatment depends on how soon medical attention is available – you can do more harm than good by cutting and trying to remove venom. Out of 6-7000 bites each year only 10 die. If help is available soon just keep quiet, with the affected part lower than heart, and stay calm (few die).

Rear fanged snakes – compared in seriousness to a bee sting. They are very small snakes.

Gila monster – one of two poisonous lizards in the world. They are rare in the canyon (3 recorded observations in the western canyon) normally slow and unaggressive, but if disturbed will hiss savagely and quickly lunge. They have a neurotoxic venom. Death is possible but unlikely for a healthy adult. Essential to pry lizard’s jaws loose as soon as possible. (ha, like I wouldn’t have thought of that…)

Spiders – Black widow, big abdomen with red hourglass. To avoid being bitten, keep your hands out of cool, dark, undisturbed places. The bite is painful and potentially lethal but death from this bite is rare in healthy adults. Children are more in danger. Keep quiet, apply ice, no other useful measures.

Tarantula – painful bite but no more dangerous than bee sting. Don’t kill them. They have a web lined burrow and come out to hunt mostly at night. (Females can live 20 years!) (If you don’t kill them!)

Scorpions – more than six species found in canyon and only one is potentially lethal to humans. Others cause pain and redness at bite but nothing else. The bark scorpion or slender scorpion is the dangerous one. Uniform yellow straw colored ½ to 3 inches long, no more than 1/8 inch wide in body. Tail and pincers are noticeably slender, tail has oblong segments, small barb or tooth at base of stinger. Venom is neurotoxic and causes numbness and tingling which advances up body – this is a medical emergency. Watch where you place your bare hands and feet, shake out shoes and clothing. Don’t leave bedding on the ground and shake it out at night.

For pictures of a rattlesnake and scorpion click here. https://www.mygrandcanyonpark.com/things-to-do/dangerous-wildlife 

Bees, wasps, velvet ants, blood sucking, kissing (or assassin) bug, all produce only local pain and swelling.

Cactus spines are a real possibility – don’t touch or brush up against them. Pain and possible infection if not removed. I’m taking tweezers.

Geology has never been a compelling subject in my world. I would just as soon leave it to those who find it fascinating – like my niece Jamie who is a geologist. But I have to say that the Grand Canyon is a very unusual, actually singular, place when it comes to geology. The rock layers are found in chronological order, the youngest on top with evidence of past marine life, and the oldest, Vishnu schist, on the bottom with no evidence of life in it. Every kind of formation you can imagine can be found there: mesas, buttes, temples, platforms, castles, terraces, massive walls, amphitheatres, canyons, ridges…

As the Colorado River cut down through the earth it exposed layer after layer of deposited soil and rock. Because the layers were of different kinds of rock, they are different colors, different hardness and different levels of stability. The scenes in the canyon are like looking at a record of time, laid open on the walls of the canyons. The layers match on both sides of the river which proves that it was the process of erosion over time that caused the chasm. The plateaus on either side of the river were once continuous.

Science estimates it has taken 1.2 billion years to erode through all those layers and countless numbers of people, scientists, geologists have been left speechless looking at the grand scale of it all.

That’s all for L.  Short and sweet, but lots of pictures.

Photos from canstockphoto.com