FALL MIGRATION September-October 2021
A Delayed Launch South
Our annual fall migration south began with a more substantial “pulling up of roots” than usual—we didn’t just pack-up our trailer and leave. This fall was more cataclysmic than that: we moved to a new apartment first, then we drove off. The old and new abodes are only 1.3 miles apart but they are worlds away from each other, in a very positive way. Fortunately, I didn’t have to say “We packed-up and moved” because friends kindly did that for us while we were traveling. We returned from taking refuge from the wildfire smoke on the Oregon coast a day before picking up the keys to our new apartment and professional movers came 3 days later to literally do the heavy lifting. It was my fantasy move that I didn’t think was possible—I felt like royalty.
We intended to be on the road a week after our moving day but we postponed our departure by a week. The screen of wildfire smoke we’d drive through was deflecting, as well as the excessive heat when we were south of the smoke. Then we delayed 2 more days because of the difficulty in getting reservations for Friday and Saturday nights—always challenging on short notice. Those postponements used up any ease before our scheduled 6 weeks of reservations in Flagstaff, AZ and the Grand Canyon, but we expected it to work.
A Delayed Launch South
Our annual fall migration south began with a more substantial “pulling up of roots” than usual—we didn’t just pack-up our trailer and leave. This fall was more cataclysmic than that: we moved to a new apartment first, then we drove off. The old and new abodes are only 1.3 miles apart but they are worlds away from each other, in a very positive way. Fortunately, I didn’t have to say “We packed-up and moved” because friends kindly did that for us while we were traveling. We returned from taking refuge from the wildfire smoke on the Oregon coast a day before picking up the keys to our new apartment and professional movers came 3 days later to literally do the heavy lifting. It was my fantasy move that I didn’t think was possible—I felt like royalty.
We intended to be on the road a week after our moving day but we postponed our departure by a week. The screen of wildfire smoke we’d drive through was deflecting, as well as the excessive heat when we were south of the smoke. Then we delayed 2 more days because of the difficulty in getting reservations for Friday and Saturday nights—always challenging on short notice. Those postponements used up any ease before our scheduled 6 weeks of reservations in Flagstaff, AZ and the Grand Canyon, but we expected it to work.
Moving-up: at last we had enough kitchen floor space for a nice garbage bin (black, foreground.)
We had lived in budget-priced “traveler’s apartments” for 20 years after giving up our lovely house in an urban forest to become international cyclotourists. The economy of the regrettable abodes was satisfying and financially rewarding but the low quality and sorry ambiance wore on our nerves. In July, Bill announced that he was finally ready to shed his excess stuff, which had been my non-negotiable criteria for moving up. Amazingly, we were able to secure a wonderful apartment in a tight market within a month of emotionally committing to the big move and we were in the door a month later. I too had wanted a better place to call home for years but I didn’t want to handle the silly excess of stuff yet another time.
Nothing is perfect when renting, especially when needing to rent sight-unseen and in a hurry like we were doing for the third time in 20 years, but we were positively thrilled with the upgrade. We felt like we were in a home, not in what looked like a storage unit with a kitchen and bedroom.
We gained a secure garage instead of a carport or an open parking lot for our vehicle. We can barely finesse our huge truck in and out of the ground-level parking garage but at least we can. Close to a dozen hand trucks and carts await us to haul our groceries and gear up the elevator to our unit, which is heavenly.
Unlike our old house, sweeping our little balcony is the extent of our outdoor maintenance and we won’t have to worry about freezing pipes in the winter or deal with the perpetual damp coolness of our house’s charming forest setting or the noisy traffic of our last apartment. Instead, we look out onto a quiet, pleasant, landscaped courtyard in a downtown setting.
Interestingly, the several neighbors that welcomed us beamed with delight and pride—they all LOVED living there. They radiated the same deep contentment and satisfaction that we immediately felt, which amplified our joy.
The inviting sky bridge between the 2 buildings.
I’d grieved the loss of our own washer and dryer for our 20 years of travel and now, at least when we are at home, we have our own. Like children with a new toy, we delighted in running multiple loads of laundry one evening without worry. Almost all of the clothes dryers we have access to when at our previous apartment and in RV parks, have multiple settings on the dial but only one actual temperature, which is “Bake.” I babysit the dryers, opening them every few minutes to check for overheating, which can have a sudden onset, and to shuffle items between 2 or 3 dryers to optimize speed while reducing the odds of melting our technical wear. It’s sheer bliss to fearlessly turn my back on our higher quality clothes dryer.
The central boiler for hot water is also a treat. Heaven forbid, we can actually both bath at the same time in our shower and bath/shower rooms. There is no waiting for the water heater to recover. One night we flaunted our new luxury by running the clothes washer and each bathing simultaneously. What indulgent, reckless abandon for the old folks! And what a treat to not potentially expose ourselves to rain, wildfire smoke, or covid when using a public laundry facility.
The morning of Day 2 after our big move, we began a quick cull of 4 of our remaining boxes of fabric from a sewing binge that felt like it was lifetimes ago, hoping to further reduce the stash to 2 bins before loading them on to their newly compressed wire shelves. I was in the kitchen and Bill asked: “Have you decided how much garbage we should keep?” It was music to my ears. A month prior when doing the recent big sort for the move, he concluded that he had been surrounding himself in garbage—lesson learned, lesson applied!
Back To Trailer Life
In the week leading up to our departure for Flagstaff, Bill noticed that the mechanism on our trailer’s slide-out was again rough and noisy. Luckily, our mechanic Wayne, in La Grande, OR could take a look at it on Monday morning, our 2nd day on the road for the winter season.
One of us could sort of watch TV through the slide-out side window that was almost in the kitchen instead of outside where it belonged.
Another call to Wayne that evening and again the next day resulted in us reconciling ourselves to having him ship the parts to an RV shop near Palm Springs and then having the repair done on that shop’s first available date, November 9.
It took a lot of back-and-forth between us to accept the “press-on with our itinerary” plan rather than wait at home to have Wayne install the parts. It was a grim necessity to live in our trailer for 7 weeks with the retracted slide, which essentially divided our lovely trailer into 2 small compartments, or “living with our dining room in our living room” as a friend aptly said. It wasn’t a cheery prospect but at least we had a plan to which we could both commit and immediately organized around it. Bill kept reminding us that it was 49 days, so the countdown was on.
Hwy 89A
Last year, we missed our usual migratory route to Flagstaff and the SW on the iconic Hwy 89A because we were driven out of Colorado in August by wildfire smoke. There were no RV sites available on our usual route to Flagstaff for the first 3 weeks of September until our 8-month-old reservations kicked-in; we barely managed to find space to park in Albuquerque. The air quality there wasn’t perfect, but we worked around the bad days to hike.
We were blown away by the transformation of the roads and businesses on what had been sleepy Hwy 89A, a route off of the north to south I-15 freeway to Bryce National Park, Zion National Park, Pink Coral Sand Dunes State Park, and other red rock destinations. In the last 2 years, rustic, dumpy RV parks that we’d reluctantly previously stayed in had been transformed into beckoning venues. The motel chains had been busy building and Hwy 89A itself had been widened in places, repaved, and freshly striped. Regrettable-looking little villages had been gentrified to the point of being charming and little towns had replaced crummy, roadside restrooms we never used into inviting rest stops.
AirB&B tent & RV sites at a ‘rags to riches’ Kanab RV park.
Delaying our trip south by 7 and then 9 days had delivered the cooler temperatures and better air quality we’d hoped for until our 5th day on the road, at Kanab, UT. We’d finally gotten in early enough to go for a short hike, but I was flattened.
At 88°, I assumed that the heat was dragging me down, that I’d lost all of my heat acclimation. I struggled to ready myself for the walk but got underway. After a half mile, I checked the air quality, which hadn’t looked great but was getting good marks on the apps. The hourly report finally told the story: the healthy air suddenly had been tarnished by some unknown source of toxins and the AQI at 80 was more than 50% above acceptable, the PM2.5 was more than double the healthy limit of 12, and asthma was burdening my breathing and walking. Thirty minutes after returning to the trailer and buttoning-it-up, our indoor air quality numbers were nice and low but the outdoor numbers had worsened by about 15%. It was frustrating to be so vulnerable to the crud in the air and yet comforting to know how to diagnose and treat my shortness of breath.
Flagstaff & The Grand Canyon
Flagstaff, AZ
A week in Flagstaff always kicks-off our 6 weeks spent in the area, with a total of 2 weeks in Flagstaff and 2 two-week stays in the Grand Canyon National Park’s RV park. It’s our first venue for the winter snowbird season and we split our time between hiking to the 9,300’ Elden Lookout from 7,000’, shopping for 2 weeks of food for the Grand Canyon, and settling into our trailer for the season.
This particular week, much of Bill’s time was spent performing a major toilet repair that required more than a day of labor, training time watching superb YouTube videos, and shopping for parts and tools. Neither RV service appointments or parts are easy to come by these days and having Bill take on this difficult job was a game changer, especially since the repair need presented as water on the bathroom floor one evening.
Our own Mr. Plumber in crazy-tight working conditions.
Solo Preparation
On the 4th day of our first 2-week stay in the Grand Canyon, we launched ourselves separately to make our first crossing between the Rims since 2019. Covid concerns and my disc issues put the kibosh on doing our event even once, let alone twice as was the usual, in 2020.
We had organized ourselves for Bill to leave me behind if I returned to the South Rim while he pressed on to the N Rim alone. We’d separated our food; duplicated emergency supplies; and bought new, easier to use walkie talkies so he’d know if I’d had to bail. Back at Flagstaff a week earlier, Bill had finally accepted my long-standing urging to not acquire my disabilities and to live his own sports life without me.
My challenges had been worsening, ranging from devastating muscle and breathing difficulties from anti-hypertensives; to deep angst about becoming an invalid from a stroke because there was no sweet spot for me between blood pressure control and medication side-effects; and chronic, intermittent limping from disc and muscular dysfunction in my buttock muscles. I was a mess and had been for too long.
Dozens of “Maybe I’ll be well in the nick of time” opportunities for healing before events had come and gone but this crossing event looked like it was on the cusp of a break through for me in the 11th hour, though we had our doubts and had prepared for failure. Part way into the 3+ hour descent down the S Kaibab trail that began in the dark, I was certain that I would make it.
And then Bill dealt with the new electric cooler that was shipped with 2 broken fan blades.
We pride ourselves in making the south to north crossing in under 12 hours with about 90 minutes of that being non-moving time, which includes eating, refilling water bottles, pit stops, photos, and rest plus the—unique-to-the-Grand Canyon delay—patiently waiting for a mule train to pass. This year I was slower by over 35 minutes, with almost all of my extra minutes being spent in ridiculously frequent pit stops for the first several hours necessitated by my medications, though Bill was on track for a personal best.
A smaller portion of of my additional crossing minutes were spent enjoying lounging with Bill, whom I hadn’t seen all day, and who waited 30-40 minutes for me at Manzanita Springs, a little more than 5 miles from the top. Oddly, there was a snoozing rattlesnake under one of the prized benches at this filtered-sunlight stop. A trail runner reported to Bill that the snake also had been there in the morning when he cruised through.
We were stunned by the presence of the snake and took turns keeping an eye on him while we ate and chatted with each other and other hikers. All of our 8 rattlesnake encounters had been with agitated snakes in their ‘ready to strike’ pose, including hissing and rattling their tails. Never had we seen one with the calm of an old family dog sleeping while hikers bipped between the water spigot, pit toilet and benches. A hand written sign indicated that there was a snake underneath the bench but the kind person didn’t mention it was a rattlesnake, though we had no doubt. Later, someone else on the trail knew it was a Hopi rattler; the snake was still snoozing when we left for the N Rim.
We were thrilled to have completed a Rim-2-Rim event this year after having done 12 crossings in the last 6 years, excluding 2020, but I found myself in that classic conflict that makes no sense: the day before it I had feared that I’d never be capable of doing one again and yet once I’d made it, I regretted not doing better. Gratitude and yet always striving to do better—I guess there is nothing wrong with that contradiction as long as it doesn’t foster bad behavior.
Thanks, Mike!
Like I always do, a couple of minutes before cresting the N Rim trailhead near sunset, I began psyching myself for hitching a ride for us to the Lodge 1.7 miles up a low hill at 8200’ elevation and after 21 miles of hiking. So far, we’d always succeeded and I didn’t want to fail since it was later in the day than on previous crossings. I reminded Bill to paste a big smile on his face (regardless of how he felt) and to hang his mask on his chin to help us look friendly and respectful.
His body said “You can’t see me” but his eyes were open.
We knew he wasn’t waiting for us but I playfully answered back “I’ve got a Bill here!” He was too easily confused when my name didn’t match the companion on his list, so I laughed again, emphasizing that I had a Bill though surely not the one he was looking for. But I’d learned that one of the secrets to hitch hiking at the N Rim was to engage any way that I could and I grabbed this easy opportunity to be on his radar and to be pleasant.
We couldn’t quite track what Mike was saying but finally understood that his clients were late for their prepaid, 4 hour ride to the S Rim with him. While I held up my first ever “Need ride to Lodge, thanks” sign and between his ramblings, I began interjecting that we’d appreciate a lift to the Lodge and we’d be happy to pay. Mike continued thinking out loud, reminding himself about the strict agreement with his clients while his companion interjected “He can take you.” She was right, he did, and for free. People have been amazingly cordial about giving us a lift over the years and being at the end of a miles-long road that goes nowhere else, we have no concern about our safety in doing so.
Once inside our warm but rustic cabin, we could finally assess our post-hike condition, which was exceptionally good, better than ever before, and by a lot. We were stunned because our specific training for this event over the last 2 years had been poor. We were behind on our targeted 2,000 miles for the year; we’d done very few 20 mile hikes, which was our usual preparation; and had missed weeks of hiking in the preceding 2 months because of wildfire smoke.
One small compensatory improvement we had made in the days before the crossing was reducing our pack weights from as much as 18 pounds to 12 to 14 pounds, depending upon how much water we were carrying at the moment. We refill our water at least twice over the course of the 21 miles. The lighter packs would have helped our performance, but we wondered if we were still experiencing new metabolic benefits from being keto or low carb for 7 years.
The appreciated sign didn’t mention it was a RATTLEsnake.
Neither of us had felt confident enough about our conditioning to hike back to the S Rim the next day, so we had pre-booked the 4 hour, $90 per person shuttle ride from our cabin on the N Rim back to the South Rim the next morning.
We’d seen all 7 of our van mates on the trail the day before and the now-raucous 4-some seated behind us reported on their 17 hour crossing journey, including 5 hours of down time. Theirs was serious downtime, lying in the cold, on the ground, in the dark several times for half an hour at time, hoping to somehow make it out. Luckily, they were in before the fierce thunder and lightning storm that woke us about midnight.
They were 40-something Floridians who had trained by doing three, four-mile hikes on flat land and this was their first experience ever with hiking up 4000’ in 5 miles to 8200’, the classic elevation known to sometimes trigger acute mountain sickness. Not surprisingly, the 2 women were barely able to walk this day because of knee pain—anatomy makes women more vulnerable to knee strains. We hoped that they had no permanent damage. One woman had applied herself in at least getting the right footwear, having trialed 11 pairs of shoes from REI, which has a generous return policy. Part of the fun of hiking in the Grand Canyon are the stories from other people—stories you can’t make up!
Still Hiking After Rim-2-Rim
Ah, it was the end of a perfect day in the Grand Canyon, one of those days that could be a contender for the best day of the year. We had headed out to do 9 miles round trip on the S Kaibab Trail to Tip-Off together--the start of the Rim-2-Rim we’d just completed a few days before. Walking to the approach from the bus would bring it to an even 10 miles with 3200’ of elevation gain on the notoriously difficult trail—our premier training trail in the US.
Two weeks earlier in Flagstaff, Bill had finally accepted my standing invitation to go on ahead at his own speed after compromising his fitness for several years by matching my diminishing capacity due to medication side-effects. He excelled but within a week, he had over taxed his vulnerable back while I had started doing better, so on this day, we planned to largely hike together.
The press of tourists at the trailhead at the top of the S Rim quickly began diminishing like it always does on the way down to Ooh-Aah Point, the first viewpoint and less than a mile into the canyon. We were descending amongst the eager and optimistic travelers and the few that were absolutely terrified by the combination of a difficult surface and steep drop-offs. Their counterparts looked desperate while gasping for air on their hard climb out. Being on this trail is a sobering experience for all and we did our best to cheer them on.
The scenery became more dramatic and the trail mates fewer in number when we dropped down to Cedar Ridge and headed towards Skeleton Point. The chill of temperatures in the 40’s at the start was rapidly shed while we moved into what felt like the 80’s on the wind-sheltered and sun-exposed parts of the trail.
The muddy Colorado River & treed Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Canyon seen from Skeleton Point.
There was no haze, no wildfire smoke in the air and despite the approaching severe winter storm, the winds were light. We lingered to socialize at the new and only shelter on the trail at Tip-Off with the hearty hikers at this convergence between the S Kaibab Trail that is either all up or all down, and the Tonto Trail, which parallels the Colorado River high above it.
Normally, we drop down a few hundred feet more for our picnic with a superior view of the Colorado River and the canyon but I invited Bill to join me in dining in my ‘cabana’ like I’d done a couple of days before when alone. Then, I’d lingered for almost an hour and a half instead of taking 30 to 40 minutes for a leisurely lunch. In these endlessly long times of isolation because of covid, it was sheer delight to chat with a rotating group of experienced hikers. We had all savored the break from the hot sun in the open-air shelter. The cabana guests this day weren’t quite as rewarding to visit with, but we both welcomed the social break and the longer-than-usual rest their presence encouraged us to take.
The tables had turned and though Bill was still faster than me on the descent, I took off like a rocket after lunch. The previous day I suspected that my power that had gone missing for over a year was returning and I’d specifically selected this hard hike to see what pleasant surprises might be lurking under the surface for me. “Barb was back” was clear to see and was amplified by Bill’s stream of complements between his gasps for air. I’d all but given up hope that I’d ever be well enough again to thrill from such power and endurance but there it was. Even at 2 months since stopping my antihypertensives, I hadn’t yet thrown off all of my medication side-effects but the generalized muscle pain and dysfunction and shortness of breath had receded into the background. No longer being dizzy and wobbly like I’d been for years helped my performance as well.
We’d been passed several times by a 15 year old boy and his slightly older companion that were it giving their all, but the 15 year old was starting to lag. They would dart ahead and then stop to rest while we, the ancient tortoises, just plugged away at a steady pace. Shortly below Cedar Ridge, which was about our half way point back, the seated boy commented that he had leg cramps. I’d offered him my extra water several times, but he had declined. My leg cramps occur in bed, not on the trail, so I was at a loss of what else to suggest.
Such complex geology!
Surprisingly, I soon noticed that the 15 year old had made it to the edge of the Cedar Ridge mini-plateau and was sitting with his head hanging down. He was understandably distraught, concerned that he wouldn’t make it out, that he won’t make it to the top, which was only about 2 more miles. After a few exchanges, he accepted my offer of a dozen nuggets of Himalayan rock salt that we carry for just such occasions. A few years ago, we’d switched from passing out regular table salt to pink Himalayan rock salt since it was more distinctive, perhaps less suspicious, and more palatable because it dissolved more slowly.
He said little except “Yes” when I repeatedly offered him a refill to the palm of his hand. His silent buddy had come to sit with him and quietly urged him to drink water after each bolus of salt. I kept coaching him to let palatability be his guide—that that was how we judged our salt needs when in trouble. If straight salt tastes fantastic, you need it; when it starts tasting nasty, you’ve had enough. Bill joined us and urged me to give him the rest of the little bag, which the kid gladly took.
While we were off reorganizing our packs for the final stretch, I noticed the 2 boys heading up the trail. Once we were under way, I kept looking ahead for them, with no success. We were both delighted: the 15 year old was surely doing well because he had had good power earlier in the climb.
Our joy in reaching the Rim was amplified by seeing the non-stop, ear-to-ear grin of the triumph 15 year old standing on the highest spot at the top of the trailhead, dangling the little bag of salt I had given him; he looked liked he had been waiting for us.
We were deeply honored that he was pleased to see us again and that a 15 year old male would return our waves; his happy grin rapidly become etched in my mind while his ‘rescue’ story was being retold among others around him.
There is nothing more heartwarming than helping someone who feels that all is lost by doing something so simple as giving them salt and restoring them to the hero that they are. We hoped that it would be a lasting transformational moment, one that taught him the value of asking for help when you need it, of accepting help, of showing gratitude, of being open to helping others, and the power of simple science. We hoped that at age 15 that he would be old enough to have permanent benefit from his dramatic emotional and physical rebound on his epic hike in the Grand Canyon.
We began to chill in our still sweat-soaked clothes while we walked back to our trailer around 4 pm from the shuttle bus we’d ridden from the S Kaibab Trailhead. Delightfully, our trailer intentionally parked in full sun was 82° inside, the perfect temperature for shaking a chill from wet skin and clothes but a temperature that can be unbearable otherwise.
We basked in the glow of a very successful hike on a strenuous trail in our varying states of recovery from injuries, our smiles from our own accomplishments being amplified by the lingering image of the young hiker’s smiles. We made our simple dinner while enjoying another hour of viewing the dark green junipers and pinyon pines against the high elevation, brilliant blue sky out our windows. Hot showers, tending to a few chores, and then we’d be off to bed, at last having been reconnected with the simple life we love so much that had disappeared for months because of physical pain and other life disruptions.
Show-Stopper
Two days after our blissed-out day on the trail with the 15 year old, we spent the afternoon hunkered-down from the wind storm in our trailer. We’d made our planned 6 mile walk along the South Rim in the morning and returned for an indoor lunch and a desk-work afternoon.
The snow was just beginning to fall after a night of thunderstorms & plummeting temperatures.
Before we’d even settled under the covers, the low probability thunderstorm and heavy rain ramped-up hours ahead of forecast. Our thoughts immediately turned to all of the tent campers in the region, from the nearby car campers to the backpackers scattered throughout the Inner Canyon. It was already a wretched night to be housed in anything less than a sealed tin-can like we were.
It was exactly a week ago that we had completed our 12+ hour trek from the South Rim to the North with 96° temperatures forecast for the low point at the Colorado River and Phantom Ranch area. We made it up to the North Rim about an hour before sunset but that night, a terrific thunderstorm let loose that continued off and on for almost 36 hours. The good news-bad news was that we had scheduled with the 7 am shuttle the next morning for a ride back to the South Rim rather than doing our usual ‘doubles’ of walking back that day. Hiking one way and taking the shuttle back had been in deference to my barely-good-enough back and hip injuries.
Ironically, even if we’d planned to hike both directions, we would have tried hard to be “walk-ups” for the shuttle: all-day downpours and thunderstorms aren’t our idea of fun hiking. And here we were, exactly a week later, again sleeping amid the roar of thunder and high winds. Rather than be a 36 hour event, this latest cold snap that was forecast to drop the temperatures at the Rims into the teens, would last a week.
This time, the precipitation would be less than 24 hours, but it would include hours of snow. Unlike the storm a week prior that was a bit of a surprise, our current storm had been on the books for a week, since the first one. I’d been manically checking 3 different forecast sources for the N Rim, the South Rim, and Phantom Ranch multiple times a day for the week to decide to ‘go or not go’ for our second event.
We had reservations booked for two October Rim-2-Rim-2-Rim events 9 days apart, which had made it easier to be prudent and only go one direction the on the first one, on the 4th. If that went well, which it did, our reward for playing it safe would be doing the whole event the following week, but it was now in jeopardy.
While watching the forecast lows drop lower and lower, it became compelling to cancel. The image of descending in the dark for an hour in temperatures in the teens and with wind was terrible—we didn’t really have the gear for that kind of sustained cold. That harsh image became overlaid with that of walking in patches of ice—ice that would form from the puddles lingering from the previous week’s rainstorm, and then the previous night’s rain. And then the amounts of possible precipitation rose as high as ¾’s of an inch—quite a lot for a day at a desert venue. Descending on icy patches covered by fresh snow in the dark on a steep trail two mornings in a row made it easy to conclude what the adult decision would be.
The snow had been light on the S Rim but we didn’t want to descend on ice in the dark.
Sadly, we reconciled ourselves to “1 actual out of 4 Rim-2-Rims planned” for October of 2021. That was better than 2020, which was 0 out of 4, but the previous several years had sustained our expectations for 4 out of 4. Darn! But as we lay in bed on Monday night listening to the raging thunderstorm and rocked and rolled in the strong wind gusts, we had no doubts that we’d made the right decision to have canceled the day before.
The snow accumulated on Tuesday morning while we enjoyed the rare Grand Canyon spectacle in the comfort of our trailer. Given the forecast, it was planned as an “in” day. Perhaps if the snowfall slackened and winds abated, we’d go for an afternoon walk. No matter how brightly the sun might shine then or the next day when we would have done our crossing to the N Rim, we knew we made the right decision for our level of risk tolerance. Unfortunately, the epic crossings wouldn’t be an option for us until next October because the N Rim lodging would be shutting down for the season in a few days. Only several days later did we learn that the N Rim had received 10” snow on Tuesday night, the night before our scheduled crossing!
Canceling our Rim-2-Rim-2-Rim coincided with my years of structural issues, that had peaked with damaged discs a year ago, suddenly getting better. A month earlier, our sports massage guy at home cracked the code on my long standing problems and they were unraveling. The chronic limping and the pain were receding, though not completely gone. The week that began with our 21 mile crossing between the Rims closed out with me logging 73 miles, more than Bill’s back would tolerate. And on the Wednesday and Thursday that we planned to do Rim-2-Rim-2-Rim, I proposed that we do two 20 mile walks back-to-back on the S Rim: not quite as many miles and perhaps 10% of the elevation gain of our Inner Canyon crossings, but it would be excellent conditioning in the cold weather in a safer setting. That would garner us over 60 miles for the week, helping to meet our annual goal of hiking 2000 miles a year or about 40 miles a week, a goal that had been threatened by body woes, moving, and wildfire smoke. Sadly though, our annual need for peak conditioning was in the rear view mirror, it was the Rim-2-Rim-2-Rim not done. No matter, we were motivated to recapture the fitness that should have been if our bodies and the air quality had been better.
Back to Flagstaff
We were able to safely drive back to Flagstaff, on schedule, a few days after the big storm because the roads were clear of snow. We’d be there a week, again doing laps to Elden Lookout, making more unexpected repairs to our trailer, and restocking our refrigerator and freezer for the 2nd of 2 two-week stays in the Grand Canyon. The closure of the N Rim lodging facilities in mid-October always makes our 2nd stay in the Canyon feel quite different than the first, but it has its own pleasures and we were looking forward to them.