**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**
No comments:
Post a Comment