September 22, 2001
"The Death Stroll"
| That night, I slept well, despite that I was sleeping on a
hard sandbar. I awoke only one during the night, and when I opened my eyes, I
immediately focused them on something remarkable. Up in the sky, perfectly
centered over the canyon, was the Big Dipper. "That's pretty cool," I thought,
gazing up at it. Then, I fell back to sleep. The next morning, I awoke at 5:30, as did John, and the two of us quickly got dressed so that we could join his parents at their campsite. After breakfast, at which time we ate up all of our remaining breakfast bars, we quickly and efficiently packed up our backpacks so that we could get an early start. We were finished by 7:00 a.m., and, shortly thereafter, we began our hike. We had thirteen miles to go; we were going to complete the trip that day! The first three miles of the day took us nearly two hours to complete, as we passed through more of the boulder chokes and struggled to find our route. In the book entitled Hiking and Exploring the Paria River, John had read that, after mile twenty-five, it is possible to stay on the south side of the river for five miles, at which point we would have our first river crossing on the High Water Trail (at mile thirty). However, the route on the south side of the river was sometimes difficult to find, and at other times, it was treacherous and steep. Furthermore, we were not able to stay out of the river; in fact, we had to cross it several times, in the rapids, in order to avoid obstacles on the shore. A lot of the route involved some steep scrambling, which I absolutely hate, due to my lack of balance and my fear of falling (I blame that on the Hell's Gate Trail #37). We would find ourselves on a good footpath, established by hikers who had been there before us. Then, suddenly, the trail would force us to climb down a steep embankment, with loose rocks and small boulders over which we had to climb. Although John (the "mountain goat") handles these areas with great ease, the same is not true for the rest of us, and we had to take our time getting down. There was another area where the route was less than a foot wide, and on the other side of it was a steep drop. The best thing to do was to find a finger-hold on the side of the cliff and hug the wall as we scooted along it sideways…without looking down! That one was difficult to do, but we managed to make it through without a hitch. Although there were some dangerous areas involved in route-finding, there was at least one fun section, something that all of us enjoyed. We had had a little bit of trouble finding the route, so we started hiking on a very sandy trail for a while. The route soon took us downhill very steeply, but as it was all sand, all we had to do was slide down as the sand gave way under our feet! What fun that was!  We also encountered something interesting along the way: uranium deposits. At one point, the route that we were on took us over giant hills of uranium that were blue-purple-gray in color. "You mean, we just walk right over them?" I asked. "Is that what you did last year? Is that safe?" "I guess so," John replied, "although, we haven't had anymore kids since then." "Well, I think that birth control has a lot to do with that…" After crossing over the mounds of uranium and continuing on along the trail, we were able to look back and see uranium deposits all over the walls of the canyon. People had mined for uranium in Paria Canyon in the early part of the twentieth century, and many claims were staked there. All of that route-finding and scrambling took its toll on me, and I was soon exhausted, after only hiking three miles. At mile twenty-eight, we took an extended break, so that we could all regroup and replenish our energy. Then, once we were ready, we continued on. At this point, we found ourselves on the High Water Trail, which, as John described it, was nothing more than a straight shot across the desert, with several river crossings, some of which were back-to-back. Last year, he described it as a "death march", for he and his father had done sixteen miles that day, from Shower Spring to Lee's Ferry. By the time they had reached the High Water Trail that day, they were exhausted by determined to make it out of there that day. So the two of them marched like robots through the burning desert, their only saving grace being the threatening thunderheads that had gathered overhead, which protected them from the burning sun. For us, it was merely a "death stroll". Although we were not so lucky to have thunderheads to block out the sun, we only had thirteen miles to travel across the desert. Lucky us!. Once we were on the High Water Trail, the hike did become much easier. The steep descents were long gone, and the treacherous areas were few and far between. There was actually only one area that I had trouble with; there was a four-foot ditch that I had to jump over, but I just could not do it. When I tried to get into position, the sandstone gave way, and I almost fell into the ditch. John became frustrated with me, because I would not jump, and we got into a screaming match. It was all for nothing, too, because there was another way for me to get across the ditch, one that was safe for me and for his parents to use. We argued about it for the next mile, until we finally patched it up.  Although the High Water Trail was, for the most part, a long, straight shot across the desert, there was a lot of interesting things to see along the way. At 31.5, we came to an area in which the rocks and boulders were covered by ancient Indian petroglyphs - we stopped there to take pictures. Then, a half of a mile later, we came to the first of the homesteads of Paria Canyon: Wilson Ranch, which was homesteaded in 1918. Today, nothing remains there but a foundation and an old tank, as well as old rusted car and pump parts. The old site is shaded by several cottonwood trees and provided us with the perfect spot to have our lunch. Our lunch menu that day consisted of macaroni and cheese…but the problem was that we had already run out of water in our jugs. We were also running low on water in our bladders, which meant that we were going to need to filter water while we were there. John decided to use what little water he had left in his bladder to boil the macaroni, and Bill went down to the river to filter that nasty, chocolate brown river water. And that took forever! After lunch, John went down to the river to see if Bill needed help. He brought with him an extra filter cartridge, so that they could change the cartridges out when it became too dirty to filter the water. Basically, Bill would remove the cartridge, hand it to John, and pop a clean cartridge in so that he could keep pumping while John cleaned the dirty one. They repeated this process every few minutes for about an hour, at which time they had finally pumped enough water to fill all of the bladders. Hopefully, that water would last us another three hours, as we still had six miles left to hike. As we left Wilson Ranch, we came to one of the old uranium mines in the area - it was marked by a large yellow sign, with the "radiation" symbol on it. The sign warned of high levels of radiation in the area and asked visitors to please stay away. Although I didn't dare get too close, I did stay on the trail to take pictures before continuing on. The long, scorching hike across the desert soon began to take its toll on us, as we struggled to keep cool and hydrated. Each and every time we found shade, whether it was under a cottonwood tree, a mesquite tree, or the shadow cast by the surrounding mountains, we stopped hiking to cool off for a few minutes before going on. The person it effected the most was Erika, who was starting to grow very weary from the heat. We did everything we could to keep her moving. At every stop, we made her drink water and sit in the shade to take the weight of the backpack off of her back. All of those little breaks helped her; she was going to make it. At mile thirty-six, with only two miles left to go, we finally emerged from the wilderness area and re-entered the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which manages Lee's Ferry. I was very excited to announce that to everyone else, because that meant that we were almost done! And then, we got lost. Truthfully, we were not lost. We knew exactly where we were: we were at the last river crossing…but we could not get down off of the cliff to get across the river! We had managed to lose the High Water Trail, and as a result, we ended up at the Spencer Place, another old homestead. The Spencer Place was nothing more than an old crumbled house made of stone, standing out in the open, without any shade from the trees. We stopped there for a second or two to take a picture then continued on until we came to the edge of the cliff. We hiked along the edge of the cliff for several minutes, trying to find a way to get to the water. Finally, we managed to find a way down, and we soon completed our last river crossing! On the other side of the river, we came to the trail registry, where we stopped to sign our names. Now we were in the home stretch; in just one hour, we would be back at the motor home, drinking beer and sitting in the air conditioning. That thought seemed to energize me; I caught my second wind, and after that, I was hiking strongly all the way to the end. Just after we signed the trail registry, we began to find the first signs of Lonely Dell, the last of the old homesteads in Paria Canyon. It had been established by the Johnson family, who ran Lee's Ferry in the early 1900's. The first thing we saw was the old corral, which was not far from the trail registry. Then, at mile thirty-seven, after stepping onto the old jeep road, we came to the Picture Window barn and the old green truck, as well as the cemetery, where all of the Johnsons are buried, including the four Johnson children. The story goes that a stranger had come to visit them from Utah; the stranger arrived with his child, who was sick. The Johnson children all came down with diphtheria soon after the stranger left, and each child died within two weeks of each other. They were all buried together in the cemetery, with one headstone depicting their names.  And finally, we arrived in Lonely Dell - an oasis in the desert. The old houses that the Johnsons build were still standing and are now well-maintained by the National Park Service, and it is open to the public. Set on a field of green grass, there are several cabins constructed out of logs and stone, as well as an old cellar that is several degrees cooler than the external temperature - John and I both stepped inside to check it out, and the cool air was much appreciated. Lonely Dell was equipped with picnic tables, under the shade of giant cottonwood trees, all in a row. That was where we stopped to take one final break, as well as one last group picture, using the timer on the camera. If we didn't look bedraggled enough in our midpoint picture, we were certainly going to look the part now!  Once that was said and done, we walked through Lee's orchard and found ourselves at the cliff, one-tenth of a mile from the motor home. This would be our last obstacle of the day. John and Bill had been laughing about it for three days, stating that we were going to hate climbing up that cliff. They had also joked that the "last one in the motor home has to shower last," because that would be the person who would have to wipe down the shower. "That's easy," they would say, "we just leave them down at the bottom of the cliff to fend for themselves." Very funny. Of course, having just finished a forty-mile hike in three days, I was not about to let one little ten-foot cliff stand in the way between me and the motor home. I was determined to make it up that cliff. John scrambled to the top first, being the mountain goat that he is, and then dropped his pack. We all dropped our packs, too, and one by one, he hoisted them up the cliff using his hiking stick. Once the last of the packs was on top, it was my turn to climb up. Bill gave me a boost from the bottom, and I managed to get my foot onto the piece of piping that was sticking out of the cliff. From there, John took my hand and pulled while I scrambled the rest of the way. As I reached the top, I started laughing, because, as far as I was concerned, it was over. Next, John and Bill helped Erika climb up the cliff. She had a little bit more difficulty that I did because she could not put her wounded knee down to enable her to scramble up the cliff (she had wounded her knee while backpacking with us in the Sierra Ancha Wilderness Area). However, she, too, made it to the top. Finally, John helped Bill work his way up the cliff, and that was it. It was over. We picked up our packs and wandered through the trees until we found ourselves back in the parking lot at Lee's Ferry, in front of the motor home. Once we were there, we quickly dropped our gear and peeled off our wet and muddy boots - words cannot describe how wonderful it felt to be rid of my boots! His feet bare, Bill went into the motor home and grabbed four celebratory beers, while John went around to one of the compartments to pull out four chairs for us to sit on. We didn't even bother to move the motor home out of long-term parking. We had our end-of-trail celebration right there in the parking lot, next to the fish cleaning sink, in the shadow cast by the motor home. John and I only had one beer apiece; after that, I switched to water. Although I had been drinking lots of water, I still ended up becoming dehydrated, and all evening long, I drank water, a little bit at a time, to try to rehydrate. Later in the evening, I actually began to feel sick, and I was certain that I had heat exhaustion, but as I continued to drink water, the symptoms went away. By morning, I was fine. After finishing our beers, it came time for us to leave the parking lot and return to the campground, where we would stay one more night before driving home. We managed to get the same campsite that we had had before we left (though Bill insisted that it was not), and once we were parked, we took a moment to unpack some things from our backpacks before we took turns showering. Meanwhile, John decided to use the cell phone to call Janice and Danny, to let them know that we were coming home early. They were glad to hear it, because Mary had been a little fussy while we were gone. She was fine, but she really did miss us. We told them that we would be home around 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, but they informed us that Mary would not be home until 5:00 p.m., as they were all going to Prescott for a day trip. And after we hung up the phone, we realized something: how were they planning to get to Flagstaff? Certainly not in our Jeep! We had even made them promise not to go four-wheeling in our Jeep! Nonetheless, there was nothing we could do about it now, so we forgot about it and went on with the evening. Naturally, it was a short evening for us. We had debated whether or not we should go to dinner or eat a frozen pizza at the motor home, but in the end, the pizza won out, because we just couldn't motivate ourselves to drive all the way to the Marble Canyon Lodge. It was a good thing that we didn't, too, because we were in bed early that night. Had we gone out to eat, we would have been returning the motor home at the same time! That evening, as I lay down to go to sleep, one thought crossed my mind: "I did it!" Wow, what an adventure! Would I ever do it again? Absolutely! Return to Paria Canyon. | |
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