“Fun time is over. Now it’s time to get down to work”—Campus Life, October 2010 (Days 47-77) PART ONE

**This post covers Days 47-54**

After a little bit of thought, I’ve decided to do some reorganization of my blog. I really liked the format I used for my Grand Canyon post (i.e. breaking up a very long post into small, more manageable chunks). I’ll continue using that format for special events, but I’m also extending it to my posts about weekly campus life. Henceforth, there will be one overall article for the month, broken up into several parts (and hopefully posted over the course of the month). Unfortunately, my blog generally tends to come below my schoolwork on the order of priority. This format allows me more freedom to post when I can—I might only post once over a fortnight, but then post twice in the following week. As I’ve began actually working in earnest here, I’ve realized that I don’t always have a consistent schedule each week. One week, I might have a fair chunk of free time, the next absolutely none. If you have comments about this format, please don’t hesitate to comment on this post or email me at Harry.Lambert2@gmail.com. Now, onto the details…

I left off with the conclusion of the Grand Canyon trip. The following day, Monday, was a very quiet day indeed. The school had sensibly given us the day off school to rest and recoup after our Southwest Studies Trips. For me, the day had rather more significance than just a simple day off of school—my mum and aunt were coming to visit! The first half of the day passed by in a whir (Mum and Nancy (my aunt) weren’t scheduled to arrive until late afternoon). Starting in the early afternoon, I began to receive regular text messages from Mum, updating me on their whereabouts. Meanwhile, I knew that I couldn’t present my room as it was—I had promised Mum that I was actually keeping my room neat at UWC (a far cry from my room at home). Thus a frantic blitz occurred—I needed a spotless room!  Finally, it was time. Walking down to the Welcome Center, my mind was filled with all sorts of thoughts…simply put, I was nervous! At first, I didn’t recognize the car as it came round the corner—I was half expecting Minxy to appear! It was absolutely incredible to see them—weird, though, given that I hadn’t seen them for a month! I had a wonderful time showing them around campus and going out to dinner (a welcome respite from Caf food…). I’ll certainly look forward to seeing them over winter break!

The remainder of the week flew by! It was tough getting back into the routine…especially after such an amazing experience at the Grand Canyon. To add to the difficulty, my teacher decided to kick it up a notch. We’re now fully into the swing of things as far as academics go, and it is starting to test my efficiency. In English, we’re now reading Nickel and Dimed, a really fascinating look into the American poor. My other classes are starting to pick up as well, but not quite on the scale of English. (As with everything, English always has to be that much more difficult!!) All in all, I’m really starting to enjoy my classes—going to school with highly motivated students from all over the world isn’t something you find everywhere, and it is both extremely rewarding and very interesting. A great example is my history class. We’re currently studying World War I in history, something that is pretty common in most history classes. But in how many history classes can you find a German who presents the other side of the argument? That’s the brilliance of UWC…it’s something that I’m reminded of, day in, and day out. 

On the whole, the weekend was pretty normal—I got quite a bit of work done, and just generally relaxed, preparing for a much more difficult week ahead! I’ll cover that and more in my next post.

“We’re actually going to a canyon. I hear it’s pretty grand.”—Grand Canyon 2010 (Days 41-46) POST-TRIP

                After we reached the top, my mental and physical health sharply improved. It’s amazing what a bottle of pure, cold water can do to improve one’s mental outlook. I think we all felt better because of it. We sat around for nearly 2 hours, debriefing and talking about the trip, as well as listening to our guides’ feedback about our performance. Once we’d finished with the debriefing, it was time to get the bus. The school hadn’t arranged to pick us up, so we were expected to use the NPS buses to get us back to the main campground. Right as we were waiting at the bus stop, it started to rain. Most of my team members decided to take off their shirts and go running in the frigid rain—an interesting experience. Once they had had their fun, we got our stuff together and waited once more for the bus. 

                Riding on the buses was actually quite fun. Naturally, walking on with big packs and a slight eau de hiking is bound to cause attention, so we actually met quite a few people on the bus. Once we reached the campsite, we put away our packs and rested for a little while. When Tom arrived with the big bus, it was shower time!! (We had packed all of our shower bags on the big bus). Even though the showers were pretty primitive, I don’t think I’ve ever had a more satisfying, cleansing shower. I felt AMAZING after that shower. It was wonderful. I honestly can’t think of any more adjectives to describe it—the feeling it gave me is beyond words. 

                The school provides a cold meal to all of the Grand Canyon hikers, but what I really needed was something hot and filling. I still hadn’t had any proper food since our “breakfast” that morning. Along with a bunch of other UWC students, I walked over to the supermarket. It was wonderful to see that supermarket again (the last time I was there, I was with my family!!). In the adjoining café, I had a delicious bowl of chili and a sandwich. I don’t think I’ve had such a wonderful meal since coming to UWC—the value of a proper hot meal after wilderness is something that I shall never forget again. 

                We had a pretty quiet night, getting up at 4 AM to pack up and start our return trip back to campus. On the return journey I slept and read Nickel and Dimed, our assigned English reading. It was a pretty uneventful journey—we got back to campus around 4 PM, and went about cleaning up all the wilderness equipment. Thus, at 6 PM, on Sunday, our Grand Canyon Southwest Studies Trip came to an end once and for all.

                What did I learn from the trip? Well, this trip certainly tested both my physical and mental capabilities. There’s nothing quite like taking a 24 mile hike into one of the most unforgiving environments on earth to learn about yourself. I discovered that I do have limits, but that through teamwork, the side effects of these limits can be truncated. I learned about the importance of nutrition and hydration on wilderness—a lesson that will stick with me throughout the remainder of my time in Wilderness at UWC. Finally, I learned that nothing suffices better than working together as a team, creating an atmosphere of accepting each other’s physical limitations, and ensuring that everyone can do the trip, no matter how unfit they may be. I’ll be the first one to say that I should have been fitter and more realistic about my limits before the trip even began. Sadly, this didn’t happen, and it’s a lesson I’ll take away with me for future use. In sum, I actually went to a canyon, and I learned that it’s pretty grand. 

**End of Post-Trip. Link to Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Harry.Lambert2/UWCAlbum02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDKzaGfnMjc2AE&feat=directlink**

“We’re actually going to a canyon. I hear it’s pretty grand.”—Grand Canyon 2010 (Days 41-46) PART THREE

**This is part 3 of my Grand Canyon series. I kind of misjudged the division of the trip, I had to subdivide once more…even then, this post is pretty long (There is a post-trip post)**

 

After taking an hour-long break at the river, it was time to hit the trail again. We started back up the way we came—it was going to be a very, very long 12 miles. By this time, it was late morning (around 11:30 AM) and the heat of the day was coming into full force. Down in the lower canyon, this meant temperatures approaching 105 degrees F. It was HOT! We hiked slowly, taking plenty of water breaks, and making sure to rest in the shade. Regardless, it was hard work. Around 12:15 PM, we arrived back at our creek side rest stop, where we’d left some of our excess equipment. 

Our team then had a pretty serious discussion. Since the beginning of the trip, we had been debating how our schedule would work. This trip was the first one where we had to plan our hiking times, meals, etc. Previously, we had had second-year wilderness leaders who planned nearly everything for us. Thus, this trip was a slight shock. We had NOLS guides on our trip—NOLS stands for National Outdoor Leadership School. Thus, they let us “lead” and choose our own schedule. Unfortunately, we all wanted to be leaders, and that meant that we argued a lot about our hiking schedule. Southwest Studies (Grand Canyon) had come a lot earlier (about 3 weeks) this year. This earlier date meant that we had to deal with much hotter temperatures in the canyon. Correspondingly, it meant that we couldn’t hike easily during the heat of the day, and thus we had much less time to hike. Scheduling our hiking so that we weren’t hiking during the day was proving difficult; by the time we sat down to plan the remainder of our hike, we were already into the heat of the day in our second day. Our guides had flatly told us that we would face an extremely difficult hike if we weren’t out of the canyon by 11 AM the following day. Thus, we had a little less than 23 hours to hike out of the canyon. Keep in mind that it had taken us 16 hours to descend to the creek. Do the math, and you’d notice that we had a bare 7 hours of rest time, including breaks and sleeping—a pretty difficult schedule. As a final factor to consider, our guides told us that it is standard in the Grand Canyon to take twice as long to hike up as it does to hike down. 

What would you do? Sitting there, in the bottom of the canyon, with these seemingly impossible schedule issues…how would you choose to schedule your time?  We ultimately ended up deciding on the following schedule (Keep in mind that it was 1 PM by this time):

Rest until 3:30 PM (wait out the heat of the day)

Hike 2.5 miles to White’s Butte (our original campsite)

Arrive by 7 PM; Pack up our camp and leave by 8.

Night-Hike to Yuma Point (a 4 mile journey)

Camp at Yuma Point

Get up at 4 AM the following day

Hike remainder of trail; be out by 11 AM.

                As we sat there discussing it, the plan sounded more and more doable—I was becoming complacent as to just how hard the hike back up would be. We rested as our plan dictated until around 3:30, and then we began the hike back up. On the return journey to our campsite, I didn’t carry a pack—something I felt slightly guilty about. I was so tired by this point though, I needed a rest—the rest of the journey was going to be difficult enough. The hike back up to White’s Butte was actually a really big turning point for the team. We started working together, setting a sustainable pace for all, and most importantly, hiking faster. Our improved hiking pace meant that we reached the top of White’s Butte in just under 2 hours—the same amount of time it took for us to descend the same stretch. That piece of news was a huge morale booster for our team—I felt like we could actually keep to our schedule this time. 

                We packed up our White’s Butte camp, and set off for Yuma Point. As we left White’s Butte around 7, the sun was just starting to set—it was going to be a long night. We made pretty good progress completing the flat section in the lead up to a pretty tough climb. We reached the bottom of the ascent as the sun set—it was time for headlamps. Before I continue, let me explain something about night-hiking. It’s a very, very different experience from day hiking. For one, it’s at night, which means that you can’t see any further than the beam of your headlamp. It’s also cooler, something that everyone on our team was glad for. You don’t really realize it in the desert, but the amount of water that you sweat is incredible. By the time I reached the top of the canyon, I could lick my arm and literally gag from the amount of salt on it! 

                As we night-hiked, we began to climb. By this point, I was pretty tired—the trip had become one, long endless day that spread out like a kind of endless hell. Some people on our team really enjoyed the night-hike. I found it very challenging, however; generally, to motivate myself while hiking, I look at how far I’ve come, and how far I have to go. At night, however, this method isn’t really possible because you can’t see anything beyond the reach of your headlamp. Thus, for me, the hike just seemed like an endless torture…I had no idea when it would end. Fortunately for my sanity, the night hike did eventually end. We rolled into Yuma Point at around 11 PM, having completed that section of the hike in the same amount of time that we descended—again, another morale booster for our team. 

                Although we were really tired, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep, our guides insisted that we eat a proper meal. Marc, one of our guides, cooked a delicious pasta meal for us—sadly, better than both of my meals combined. It was a really good idea, and we all went to sleep on full bellies. Wake-up call: 4:30 AM; six hours to sleep.

                That pasta was a little bit too good—the following morning, we overslept by half an hour. Three members of our team set alarms…and we slept through them all! I, funnily enough, was the first person to wake up—I woke up with a desperate urge to use the facilities. I looked at my watch, saw it was 5 AM, uttered various words that shall not be repeated, and set about waking everyone up. We all rose pretty quickly—we all knew that we had a deadline to meet—11 AM was only 6 hours away. We packed up and got on the trail pretty quickly. Again, that team spirit which had helped us so much the day before came back to help us again. We moved quickly and efficiently along the trail, making excellent time. We reached the junction with Dripping Springs Trail a little bit before 8 AM. While stopping to eat breakfast, our guides decided to give us a mini-lecture on proper wilderness eating. Our breakfast consisted of left-over snacks that were not that filling. Our guides proceeded to explain that meals in the wilderness need to be high-calorie, high-energy meals (Bagels and Cream Cheese, for example). I began to notice that poor nutrition was adversely affecting my hiking ability. 

                We hit the trail again just as the sun was beginning to hit us. We had made excellent progress thus far, and our pace didn’t slow much as we smoothly slid into our teamwork-mode. We rounded Dripping Springs in a little under an hour, and reached Hermit Trail around 9 AM. The final section was before us! We didn’t rest for long—our water supply was beginning to run dangerously low, and we needed to get up the hill before the sun finished us off altogether. At the top of every Grand Canyon trail, there are the ubiquitous switchbacks, and so we threw ourselves head-first into those. By this time, the day was really starting to get hot—and we were very exposed on the side of the canyon. We hiked slowly, and took plenty of breaks—although there wasn’t much water to go around. I haven’t really talked much about my feet on this trip, but I must say both my feet and my boots are troopers. My feet ended up with a lot of blisters/bruises/cuts/calluses on them, but they got me to and from the Colorado River and back. The same goes for my boots. 

Now, back to the side of the Canyon…At one break where we stopped, I felt very dizzy and disoriented. I don’t know how bad I looked on the outside, but I clearly looked bad enough to give my guides concern. I realized, once I thought about my symptoms, that I was severely heat-stressed/bordering on heat-stroke. Our guides made us take an extra-long break to allow all of us to cool down. Fortunately, after that brief brush with severe illness, we left the difficult switchbacks and started up a gentle slope that took us around the side of the Canyon and up towards the trailhead. The remainder of the hike was fairly uneventful—except for the growing optimism that we were nearly at the top. Finally, at just after 11 AM on Saturday, October 2, 2010 (incidentally, my brother’s birthday), we reached the top. There wasn’t any massive celebration awaiting us; just the knowledge that our hike was finally over.

**End of Part 3 of 3. Link to Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Harry.Lambert2/UWCAlbum02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDKzaGfnMjc2AE&feat=directlink**

“We’re actually going to a canyon. I hear it’s pretty grand.”—Grand Canyon 2010 (Days 41-46) PART TWO AND A HALF

**This is part 2.5 of my Grand Canyon series. I kind of misjudged the division of the trip, I had to subdivide once more**

In my last post, I discussed our team’s difficulties in getting down the Grand Canyon. The second half of our journey is a different story.  I left off just as we were making the turn onto the Inner Canyon trail—to begin our final descent to the Colorado River. What I didn’t mention was that by that turn, I was feeling pretty rough. Due to our shortage of water, I was pretty dehydrated. I was also starting to feel that familiar ache in some of my muscles. After descending nearly 9 miles, my body was starting to feel pretty tired and sore. Throughout the remainder of the descent, I tried to keep the thought of climbing back out of the Canyon at the back of my mind. The trail down to the Inner Canyon wasn’t actually that bad—we completed it in just over 30 minutes. When we reached the bottom of the trail, low and behold, we stumbled upon a creek! Tom Lamberth, the head of Wilderness at UWC, had warned us that Boucher Creek could very well be dry. Fortunately for us, it wasn’t! We had beautiful, clear spring/creek water. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a creek before.

We rested for a while so that we could fill up our water bottles and get the water properly sanitized. In the Wilderness, the procedure for purifying water varies wildly. Some hikers choose to buy proper water filters, other choose to use chemicals. Water filters are very expensive and somewhat fragile, so UWC prefers that we use chemicals. In our case, our chemical of choice is iodine. Iodine has been used as a water purifier for quite a while. To purify 1.5 liters of water with iodine, the following procedure is used: 

1.       Add 8 drops of Iodine to water bottle

2.       Screw on cap, and turn water bottle upside down.

3.       Holding the cap, slowly unscrew the water bottle

4.       Watch the bottle until a few bubble float up through the water

5.       Screw lid tightly; wait 30 minutes

6.       Drink water!

The procedure is fairly simple, and it means that we have totally pure water to drink. The unfortunate side effect of using iodine as the purifying agent is that the water has a rather interesting taste. Some people like it, other do not. I’m fairly ambivalent towards it all—it’s water, I’m thirsty, and I can drink it. It’s a fairly simple decision. While I was filling up the water bottles, I actually ended up stumbling across a scorpion. Or rather, he stumbled across me. I was minding my own business, filling up my water bottle, when he started crawling up my leg, the bastard. Our guides were pretty worried about whether or not I was bitten—a scorpion bite here would have been nasty. Fortunately, I was not bitten.

After relaxing, cooling off in the cool stream, and filling up our water bottles, we set off again, this time following the creek bed towards the river. We wound our way through the Inner Canyon—slowly, but surely. The heat was pretty intense—it was nearly 90 degrees F down there. The hike seemed pretty endless—we thought that the river would be behind each bend in the trail. Finally, at around 10:15 AM, we arrived at the Colorado River!! 

It was a wonderful, beautiful sight. Something that had seemed so remote from the rim now stood before us, a wild and fast-rushing mass of water. Even though the water was totally brown, it was still a wonderful river to see. We sat down on a beach and relaxed. I set up our stoves and got ready to cook while everyone else jumped in the river. We had a delicious meal of quesadillas with cheese (lots of cheese!), chicken, salsa, and parsley (cilantro). They were really tasty and improved everyone’s spirits considerably. Once I’d finished cooking, I went for a dip in the river. Boy was it cold!! The river was incredibly refreshing after a day and a half of solid hiking. While we were at the river, our team mutually decided to start a new “pass down” (At UWC, a pass down is a tradition that is passed from one class to the next). Our new “pass down” was taking a mud bath in the river; I slathered myself with fresh Colorado River mud, and you know what? It was really refreshing—I felt totally clean! 

**End of Part 2.5 of 3. Link to Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Harry.Lambert2/UWCAlbum02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDKzaGfnMjc2AE&feat=directlink**

“We’re actually going to a canyon. I hear it’s pretty grand.”—Grand Canyon 2010 (Days 41-46) PART TWO

**This is Part 2 of 3. Given the long nature of this post, I’ve decided not to post pictures in between paragraphs. If you wish to look at pictures, there is a link to them all at the bottom of the page**

And so the hike down began. Our trip involved hiking along three trails—Hermit, Dripping Springs, and Boucher. Our hike started at Hermit, made the initial descent, split off onto Dripping Springs, and then completed most of the journey along Boucher. As we started our descent, it was still dark, and we were navigating by headlamp. One of the nice aspects of night hiking is that it’s cool. The forecast high for Thursday (the day we started our hike) was 105^oF (40.5^oC), but when we started at 4, it was only 65^oF (18^oC), so it was pretty easy to hike in. As we headed down the mountain, it was pretty slow going—hiking at night is inherently slower because everyone is more cautious! The trail was pretty steep and rugged—only a taste of what was to come! We made it down the initial portion of Hermit Trail before dawn. We started on Hermit Trail because it takes you down to Boucher Trail—Boucher doesn’t begin until about 2-3 miles into the hike. The initial portion of Hermit Trail is primarily switchbacks and takes you slowly down to a plateau in a small side canyon. It was very difficult to see quite how long this portion of the trail was—it was dark, and I couldn’t see how far we had come or how far we had to go. This lack of knowledge would come back to haunt us later in our trip.

As dawn broke, we found ourselves at the junction between Dripping Springs/Boucher Trail and Hermit Trail. Thus far, we’d traveled about 2 miles. It was going to be a very long day. As we left Hermit Trail and stepped onto Dripping Springs, I could already feel the weight of my pack getting heavier. Our hike along Dripping Springs involved mostly small elevation changes—it was primarily a traverse across a very, very large side canyon to the Boucher Trailhead. (The Hermit Trail proceeds down one side of this canyon, and we traverse along the other side.) It was a pretty cool moment when we stepped out onto the side of this canyon. Dripping Springs Trail follows an initial section, but then curves around the side of this very steep (almost vertical sides) side canyon. At times, the trail is literally carved out of the side of this canyon—a pretty cool feeling…and slightly nerve-wracking!

We finally reached the Boucher Trailhead around 8 AM. By this time, we’d already been hiking for over 4 hours…it already felt like an entire day! We started walking along Boucher Trail, which was a very long hike along the side of this side canyon. At times, we were literally hiking along the side of a cliff…the trail was dug out from the side. The trail itself was pretty basic—as a backcountry trail, Boucher Trail doesn’t receive much maintenance from the National Park Service. It was a very good thing that I had such sturdy hiking boots—they proved to be a godsend as we hiked along this pretty rough trail. About halfway along this traverse, we stopped for breakfast (~9 AM). Unfortunately, when we stopped for breakfast, we thought we were about twice as far as we were. Yuma Point, a major checkpoint on our hike, was actually still about 1.5 miles away.

It took considerably longer to walk the next mile and a half. The sun was starting to come into full force, and we weren’t working well together as a team. We were all pretty tired by the time we reached the real Yuma Point. As we flopped down for a snack break around 11:30 AM, the full scale of our hike took force. 11 miles sounds pretty doable on paper, but it’s a very different proposition when you’re sitting on the side of a cliff, less than halfway into the Grand Canyon, feeling exhausted. Although we were tired, we could finally see our campsite for that evening—White’s Butte. White’s Butte is a huge plateau reaching out into the Grand Canyon. It was a pretty cool sight; the only problem was that there was absolutely no shade. We had a brief team meeting to discuss our options and wound up deciding to push on to White’s Butte, even though it was the heat of the day.

We set off around noon to begin our descent into the hardest part of the hike. Although we could see White’s Butte, it was still 1000 feet below us, and about 2 miles laterally. We rounded Yuma Point and began our traverse into yet another canyon. We hiked along the rim of this canyon, before finally dropping into the canyon about halfway around. It was an extremely steep descent—we were on a very rough trail. At times, even though we were carrying 23 kg packs, we had to climb down some really steep sections. All in all, it took us around 3 hours just to get down that section. From there, it was a pretty short level hike over to White’s Butte. I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see a campsite before. It was so—well, wonderful after such a long hike.

We set up camp on a roughly flat section of White’s Butte, close to the trail itself. Although this generally runs contrary to LNT (Leave No Trace) principles (you should be far enough off the trail so that other hikers cannot easily see you), Boucher Trail was so quiet and deserted that we felt safe establishing camp only a few hundred feet from the trail. (Plus, there was no vegetation on White’s Butte to shield us from other hikers) As the others set up our tarp/Megamid, I started to cook dinner. (Yes, I was indeed the chef!) Dinner was a pretty simple affair, consisting primarily of Pasta, and a LOT of cheese! It’s incredible how much energy you burn while hiking in the backcountry and the Grand Canyon was no exception! We cleaned up dinner and settled into our sleeping bags pretty early. I was asleep within just a few minutes—I was so tired!

Friday started bright and early. We were up and getting ready to leave by 5 AM. At this point, we needed to start moving pretty early on—our water was starting to run really low. As we started hiking again, only 4 of us were carrying packs—we left a good portion of our gear up at our camp on White’s Butte. The descent off of White’s Butte was very steep. We hiked slowly and carefully—lest one of us slip. We made decent progress—by 8 AM we had hiked down Boucher to the intersection with Tonto Trail. Tonto Trail is a trail that runs along the bottom of the Grand Canyon—connecting all the trails together. Tonto Trail also runs along the Tonto Platform, a flat ledge that runs the length of the Grand Canyon. After reaching the Tonto Platform, we turned onto a trail leading down into the Inner Canyon—the location of the Colorado River!

**End of Part 2 of 3. Link to Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Harry.Lambert2/UWCAlbum02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDKzaGfnMjc2AE&feat=directlink**

"We're actually going to a canyon. I hear it's pretty grand."--Grand Canyon 2010 (Days 41-46) PART ONE

**This is Part One of Three**

Grand is correct. Looking at the Grand Canyon from the rim, it’s hard to get any sort of perspective on quite how immense the Canyon is-- it’s just a 2-D postcard. After 3 days of hiking, I had a much, much better picture on the scale of the canyon…immense just doesn’t justify it. This trip was probably the hardest hiking I have ever done, but the most rewarding. It was personally challenging on a number of levels, from working in a team of leaders, to dealing with chronic hunger. To sum up our trip, I have a few statistics for you to keep in mind as you read this post; we hiked 25 miles (40 km), lost (and gained) 1 mile in altitude, and walked for 35 hours. (Oh, and I took 600 pictures)

One of my better pictures!

Ah, a familiar sight...

                Our trip started early Wednesday morning. At 4 AM, we left UWC bound for the Grand Canyon. I had previously decided not to go to bed the night before (after all, what else do you do on a 12 hour bus ride?), so I was pretty tired as I climbed aboard the bus. The trip to the Canyon was uneventful. We slept…and slept some more. I don’t think I really woke up until we were about an hour and a half from the canyon. Along the way, we picked up our two guides (Sandra and Marc) who helped us from start to finish.

                We arrived at the canyon around 3 PM. Of course, before we went to our campsite (quite a distance from the rim), we parked the buses and took the obligatory walk to visit the rim. The rim was fantastic to see once more, however, it is so difficult to get a firm grip on the scale of the canyon until you actually hike into it. We actually wound up visiting the rim at the spot where the Bright Angel Trail begins/terminates. It was a real déjà-vu moment to see the trail that I hiked with my family two years ago. (It didn’t look any different…) After everyone took a copious amount of photos, we all headed down to Mather Campground. The last time we were in the Grand Canyon, we actually stayed in a hotel. Needless to say, the campground was a bit more basic, although perfectly reasonable for a one night stay.  The evening was filled with food (a cold, though decent dinner) and a lot of last minute preparation and packing. Over dinner, my team (taking Boucher Trail) decided to leave at 3:30 AM. We settled into bed pretty early as a result, and we were all asleep by 8 PM. (On a side not, it’s one of those strange things in the wilderness—because it becomes so difficult to see at night, we usually go to bed as soon as it gets dark.)

                Thursday morning brought a very early wake-up call. Despite the early hour, as soon as the alarm went off at 3:30, we all got up, packed up our stuff, and loaded it in a bus in under 30 minutes. The speed and efficiency with which we accomplished these tasks surprised even our guides! Before I start talking about our hike, allow me to explain a little bit about our route—Boucher Trail. Boucher Trail is the longest single route to the bottom of the Canyon (The Colorado River). The trail branches off of a more heavily used trail, and stretches off into a very separate area of the Canyon not very heavily populated (by people, at least!). 

Unpacking the bus at 4 AM.

                It was a very short bus ride to the trailhead; we arrived not long after 4. We were all a bit bleary-eyed as we unloaded our packs from the bus. As the bus drove away, we were all alone—only a very long hike beckoned. 

The Beginning (and the End!)

**There are three parts to this post, because it was so long...stay tuned for more!**

To see all of my pictures from this trip, follow this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/Harry.Lambert2/UWCAlbum02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDKzaGfnMjc2AE&feat=directlink