The Grand Canyon

July 1: Silver City, NM to Lyman Lake State Park, AZ

First casualty of the trip – I wrote about this day and then lost the post. It is somewhere on the Pad or the laptop, never to be seen again. Here is a short recap:

Today we drove out of the Gila and into Silver City, an adorable sleepy-eyed tourist town. It has a charming main street/downtown area with lots of old buildings repurposed into all manner of shops. We spent the day eating and working on a post. We started off at Vicky’s for breakfast: J – huevos rancheros (“Don’t worry, it’s not spicy.” Damn.), and R – southwest benedict. Next we went to Javalina Coffee Shop that was full of what can only be described as DragRats (if you aren’t familiar, grundgy punk rocker types). No A/C and no food drove us to the Curious Kumquat, an awesome gastropub with a great menu and an attached international grocery store. Unfortunately they weren’t serving anything besides chips and salsa at 3pm. They sent us to Diane’s Deli and Bakery where we got some killer sandwiches, served with a pickle and a cookie. Everything on the sandwich was fresh and the whole thing was slathered in spicy mustard. I had two kinds of cheese on mine, but the woman ran through my options so quickly I could barely catch a word let alone make an informed decision. I might have said the words jalapeno and Havarti and somehow that was translated into cheese. No worries, it was still spectacular.

After lunch, we went to Three Dogs coffee shop, which was way more our “scene” than Javalina. Good jazz, steel pipe and wood tables with copper trim, and ristretto shots as standard. I wanted to devour my café au lait in its exquisite no handled, earthenware bowl/mug, but it gave me such a fierce headache I had to leave half of it, much to the owner’s horror. We stayed until close and he rewarded us with a soon to be day old scone, chocolate cherry lime. Delish.  Next we needed to find a place to camp. We chose the Apache National Forest, adjacent to the Gila, but in AZ. We were quite dismayed to learn, however, that the entirety of the Apache was closed due to the current Wallow Fire. The woman at the Gila made us feel so silly for no knowing the entire was out and all parts of the Gila were open again that we didn’t even consider that the fire still raged through the Apache!! Curses. We ended up driving until we made it to Lyman Lake State Park, paying $15 and sleeping on a horribly sub-par piece of ground. They literally had no spots suitable for tent camping, what are they using the park fees for anyways? We did get a shower out of it though, so I suppose that was worth something. We stayed up a while hunting constellations with our eyes and camera, but the pictures where all a mess and our baby star chart is proving itself less than useful when you have a large sky to enjoy – half of the constellations are covered in a blue film representing the horizon! Sleep came slowly and fitfully as we slid to the bottom of the tent on our Thermarest slides.

July 2: Lyman Lake State Park to Kaibab National Forest

Today we finished driving to Flagstaff, AZ to visit both the Grand Canyon and Robert’s cousin, Rae. We skipped Petrified Wood National Park after learning that the trees aren't still standing - lame! Our first stop in Flagstaff was Late for the Train Coffee Shop, where we sat for a long time finishing the last post. When hunger started making us grumpy, we went to MartAnn's for lunch. It is an awesome little Mexican food joint whose signature dish was chilaquiles. I got those, Christmas style (with both red and green sauce) and Robert had a burrito drowning in green chili and pork sauce. It was so tasty and they had great decor - skeleton and calla lily paintings. We took leftovers for dinner, paper plates covered in foil and headed to the public library to finish our post without having to drink more coffee.

On our way to the Grand Canyon, we stopped off at a Safeway to provision. We talked to a ranger on the phone and she suggested a few camping spots: Mather Campground (in the park) – fully reserved until next week, 10X Campground (in Kaibab National Forest) – first come, first served meaning it too would be full in the late afternoon when we showed up, and then, miracle of miracles, there is undeveloped, open camping all throughout the Kaibab National Forest so long as you are further than ¼ mile from the highway. SWEET! This is a much better plan than at Yellowstone, where there is camping in the park and in private establishments surrounding the park. We quickly found multiple roads leading into the forest where others had camped before it seemed. It wasn’t scenic or anything special, but it was free and a mere two minute drive to the park. We ate our leftovers for dinner, coupled with a fresh salad and did logic puzzles and drank wine before falling fast, fast asleep.

Second day without a usable picture! Yikes, sorry.

July 3: Grand Canyon Day 1:

Since our campsite is right on heavily used road, we decided to break camp each day instead of leaving our $400 tent and sleeping supplies to be stolen, leaving us in a lurch. We broke the fast with cereal and milk on the tailgate and headed to the park. Robert, having never seen the Grand Canyon before, kept saying, “They say there is a canyon around here somewhere. Can we go see it?” It took a comically long time to get into the park, find our way to a parking spot, fill day packs, coat ourselves in sunscreen and desert garb, fill water bottles, find a shuttle bus and get to the edge of the canyon for a view. He seemed appropriately impressed once we did get to walk up to the edge and he could visually confirm the presence of a grand canyon. We got on the Blue Shuttle and rode it to the Red Shuttle, which took us west along the rim towards Hermit’s Rest. We jumped on and off the Red Shuttle to take in the scenic overlooks.

Our first view of the canyon

Jenn waiting at the bus stop for Hermit's Rest

The Grand Canyon is amazing and it grew on us as we saw it more and more, but let’s get one thing straight – I was here for the condors. There are less than 400 left in the world, increased from a low of 15 in the mid-eighties (only one of whom was a female!). After the decision to start a captive breeding program to prevent extinction, the California condors were slowly reintroduced into the Grand Canyon, an ideal and native habitat for them judging from the 10,000 year old bones found in several caves throughout the park. There are currently 70 condors in the park and I wanted to see at least one of them. We studied up on their appearance: 10ft wingspan, bald pink head, predominantly black body and wings with white highlights. (They are often confused with turkey vultures, who sport bald red heads and black wings, but are 2/3 the size of a condor.) Imagine my surprise when at our very first overlooks Robert exclaims, “Look!” and there are two ginormous birds soaring low in the canyon. They matched the description and I began snapping pictures like a crazy person. The other people on the overlook looked at me like I had gone mad, “what in the world is so important down there?” and then, as I took my eyes off them to check my settings, they were gone. It was exhilarating. Robert has good eyes. He also noticed that one had actually landed and was perched on a distant cliff, but we waited and waited and the black spec remained a black spec (it was a bird, just reluctant to fly again). We pushed on to the next few lookouts, eyes searching for more condor friends, but the skies were empty.

Bee - not a condor

Condor 80

Mating Pair

It's a big hole

My new shirt matches the sky

As luck would have it though, Robert’s sharp eyes spotted a man with an antenna. I was distracted and just heard, “I want to talk to him!” before Robert mobbed the guy. The man was indeed tracking the radio transmitters attached to all the condors’ wings. He explained that there was a nest nearby, just hidden from view and he was tracking momma and daddy condor, hoping that momma would soon go back to the nest to hang out with…baby condor! He was doubtful that we had actually seen condors because mom and dad had only flown into sight range for about 10 min, but when I showed him our picture he stopped trying to tell us that we had seen a turkey vulture. The white patches on the tops of their wings are actually their white tag numbers and zooming-in completely revealed that we had at least seen 80, or momma, and more than likely it was daddy with her. Very cool. Mission accomplished. We can go home now…wait, could we see them again? Closer this time??

View of “Battleship” Formation, nest cave on far side of first jut, at bottom left intersection of 1/3 lines

We stayed and chatted with the guy for about an hour and a half, willing to stand in full sun just for the chance to see mom as she returned to the nest cave. According to the transmitter, Dad had taken off to go play on the North Rim and was more than 20 miles away. This chick is this pair’s first attempt at mating, but they are doing well so far. The chick has been fed regularly and their nest cave is more than large enough to allow for practice fly/hopping. Mom is only 9 years old, just old enough to start laying fertile eggs, so the fact that they got the egg hatched at all is a great feat.

Our new best friend was full of condor stories and facts. There is another mating pair by Pipe Creek, just east of us on the South Rim, and they, too, have a chick. Both chicks hatched in April and won’t fledge (take their first flight) until November. The parents will continue feeding the babies for another six months after that, what a lot of work! He also told us about the best way to attract a condor: find a cliffy rock ledge, lay down and act dead – they scavenge for food and they will come check your out as a possible meal ticket.

One of my favorite stories though, was about a condor protecting her nest cave. A peregrine falcon (I think, Robert says it was a hawk) came too close to the cave and the female flew out of its nest, dive bombed from above, swooped up and rammed the offender in the chest with its head. Feathers were everywhere. It would have been quite a sight to see.

The one sad story that he told was about the impact of lead hunting ammunition on the condor population. Every six months, each condor is trapped and tested for lead poisoning because it has killed so many of them already. Some hunters use lead ammunition, but it splinters when it hits an animal, leaving shards of lead scattered in the carcass. Lazy hunters will leave their kills where they die, and even if they do field dress the carcass, they leave a gut pile strewn with lead shards. Either way, a dead deer is quite a boon to condors and soon they come to scavenge – ingesting the lead as well and possibly leading to their death. This is probably the single largest threat to the condor population. This past May, three condors died, their crops full of lead – it wasn’t hunting season so it is assumed that a farmer had to kill a cow for some reason and used old lead bullets. There are several hunter education campaigns currently and some legislation passed or in the works to get lead bullets banned in all states where condors fly (UT, AZ, CA), but getting through the bureaucracy is taking some time. We never did see momma condor again and when the afternoon monsoon rolled in, the giant lightning rod receiver had to be stashed.

 

We pushed further west on the next shuttle bus, all the way to Hermit’s Rest. The rain started falling just as we pulled away from the bus stop and we got sought shelter for quite some time inside the gift shop, by the giant fireplace, thumbing through open copies of some nice photography compilations. We finally decided the rain had slacked enough to allow for a quick sprint to the next bus, but it was so full, we had to wait for the next one anyways. Just as we were about to get on, I spotted an awesome Grand Canyon Rattlesnake curled up just off the path, but we didn’t want to have to wait for the next bus, so I just snapped a few pics and the light/focus isn’t quite what I would have liked. Alas.

Yes Jen had to take a picture of the squirrel

Grand Canyon Rattle Snake

After the rain, we wandered around a bit more, visited the well-stocked grocery store, bought two beers and two packages of ramen soup (total: $3.67). We returned to our car and left the park to find a campsite for the night. We tried a different spot this time, even closer to the park and a little more secluded. We supped on ramen soup and then Robert attempted pad thai with fried egg. It was tasty, but nothing compared to what we could get in SEA. We will try again. We also played with ravens…until we noticed one was eating a dead bluebird.

Campsite Raven

July 4: Canyon Day 2

Bird ID #1 Please

Bird ID #2 Please

Today we got up early to stalk the condors. Our friend said that he sees them in the mornings most reliably, so out we went. It was overcast so the light was no good on the canyon, but the heat was tolerable. We retraced our steps from the day before and were rewarded with several spots. The first few sightings were distant and not even picture worthy. Then, however, we happened upon two of them perched together on a not so distant cliff. We snuck closer for a better view, why didn’t we bring the tripod? I ended up on the edge of a facing cliff, crouched between two rocks, trying desperately to get the camera to rest flat and steady for a less-blurry shot. We watched them until they flew again, immediately 10x more majestic than when they are perched. They circled and circled and passed directly over us! It was astounding how large they are and how steadily they soar.

Canyon in clouds, no condors (stop looking)

Perched Condors

We finally lost sight of them and decided to explore a bit to the east. We walked along the Rim Trail to a very disappointing geology museum and rode a shuttle up to Yaki Point and then got back to the store for our afternoon beer snack. We enjoyed these beers under a shady tree and listened to a ranger talk about condors – unfortunately, we were better informed than she was, but we still enjoyed hearing about them all over again. A word about the beer selection – it is excellent! The store allows you to buy anything you want as a single and they have all the AZ brewed-beers collected into one section. We have been trying all the different ones we can and so far, none has been disappointing. Thanks, store!

Lots of over-looks

Robert's nose

Can you find Robot

All that I see is mine

Jen almost fell off the rim when this bug landed next to her

Why are you looking at me with that giant eye? --Scrub Jay we think

Next we drove to Camper Services (aka Shower and Laundry Hut). I had to wait in line, seemingly forever, to use my eight quarters for an eight minute shower.  I didn’t understand why the women’s line was so much longer than the men’s until I heard the shower next to me cut off and a new set of eight quarters clink into the Aqua Miser. Two showers! I was done in less than 4 minutes and felt guilty, but stayed in the water until it cut off. Robert took second shift in the shower (we only have one set of soaps), but had learned the system well enough to know that he could use one of their towels for free and save his still clean and dry towel for another day. We waited on our laundry and then returned to our campsite for dinner and sleeping. We ate green curry and a salad. Being clean is the best sleep aide ever.

Picture that ruined the next days pics….

July 5: Canyon Day 3

Today we hiked. No more wandering around the flat Rim Trail, we hiked down into the canyon. We chose the South Kaibab Trail because it was less used than the Bright Angel Trail, but both are used extensively. We didn’t get a crazy early start, but it is impossible to sleep in when you are camping in full sun in the desert. There are hiking warnings all over the place: “Stay safe. Hike smart.” “One hour down = two hours up.” “One liter of water per hour of hiking.” “The park service does not recommend hiking down to the river and back up in one day.” etc. We are the kind of people that listen to warnings, especially while hiking. We believed the park service, took a gallon of water each and planned to hike two hours down and four hours up. The trail was very steep switchbacks down into the canyon and it was gorgeous. The canyon really changes depending on light conditions and viewpoint, below the rim is best. I am sad that we didn’t try harder to get a backcountry permit to stay overnight below the rim, but there is always another time. We hiked at a leisurely pace and stopped a few times to gaze at the scenery and stuff our mouths with sunflower seeds. By the end of our allotted two hours, we had passed a few mule trains, seen a few swallowtails (our inside man told us that three weeks ago the park service caught people catching them and selling them for $200 apiece) and reached Cedar Ridge, where we had lunch. 

Pretty desert flower

Mules are smarter than tourists

We sat in the shade and admired the view for quite some time, even spotted a few condors far, far away. After PB&J and an apple apiece, we started our hike up. It was a tough, sweaty, heart-pounding affair, and as we started I remembered how grim all the people we passed hiking up looked, but we were back on the canyon rim in less than an hour! Damn conservative estimates, we could have gone further, but we believed you, park service! Oh well, we did beat the monsoon, which commenced shortly after we topped out of the canyon. We heard one ranger telling a tourist that if she was hiking during a lightning storm, she should both stand on tippy toes and curl into a ball and hug the rock face. Robert wanted to see someone do that as he hiked by them. That being said, we were on the rim during a storm and there was lightning as well. Robert didn’t bring his rain jacket and was hesitant about using the umbrella. Lightning really isn’t a joking matter at the Grand Canyon; the rim is struck 14,000 times a year and several people die each year from being struck. We managed to get back to the bus station without becoming one of them and even spotted a western tanager (bird) along the way! (Sorry, no pic. It was raining!)

Yep, this is my valley

The top set of switchbacks up to the rim

After the monsoons cleared we walked around the Rim Trail a bit more, finding an even larger glut of tourists smartly marked with stickers according to their tour group, lest little Johnny wander off and need to be returned to his bus driver. We scurried past them, stopping only to take a picture of a lizard gorging on recently hatched flies. 

Aww... Look how fat he is.

Eventually we tired of the rim and all the people and headed to the store for beer and back to our campsite just as it was getting dark and gusty for a second time that day. We had a hell of a time putting up our tent in the blustery drizzle, but eventually Robert found a rock to use as a hammer and we were able to properly secure our house. Tent up, rain down. We retreated to the car to drink a few beers, hoping the rain would let up and allow us to cook the beans that had been soaking in my Nalgene since yesterday. It took a while, but finally it relented and we put the beans on to cook. Three hours later….the beans still hadn’t softened into edibility and we were ready to be asleep (one of us might have already fallen asleep on the steering wheel in the driver’s seat). I called it – mashed potatoes for dinner and the beans will have to be dealt with at another time. We stowed our gear boxes, scarfed our side dish and passed out in the tent. Rain sucks and so do dried beans. 

Mmm... Dinner

Despite millions of signs to the contrary, people really enjoyed taking pictures of, trying to pet, and feeding the no longer wild squirrels that littered the park. One mom even said, “aww, look how fat he is.” (The squirrel in question was neck deep in a bowl of ice cream.) No wonder. Is that how you raise your kids, ma’am?

Future visits to the Grand Canyon would be improved by stalking sunrise and/or sunset, especially when storm clouds weren’t hazing up the horizon. Trying to catch a serious storm from a vantage point over the canyon. Taking a raft trip down the Colorado and hiking into the canyon as a multi-day trip. Other than that, it was great for what it was: lots of condors and some pretty vistas – way too many people though.