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- Jan 23, 2011
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Hey Everyone,
I know I haven't been on the forums too much lately, but I wanted to put this thread up real quick because I had a very unique experience in the Grand Canyon on a road trip that y'all might find interesting. My fiance's brother was getting married in Tennessee, and we're in Oregon, so we choose to drive out there instead of fly because it's way more fun.
On the way back we stopped at the Grand Canyon because it's awesome and stuff. Cameron is already quite fit, and I am working on becoming more fit, so we do a fair amount of hiking and such, so we knew we wanted to hike around in the canyon if we could. There are a few different trails, and we found one that went all of the way down into the canyon to a sweet suspension walking bridge across the river. One of our least favorite things while exploring nature is other people, so a tough hike = less people = good. The trail we choose had three stops at fairly equidistant points down the trail. There were difficulties listed next to each stop if you were to hike down to that stop and back. The first point was listed as difficult, the second as very difficult, and the third as very difficult or strenuous, I can't remember. There were several signs, indications in the brochures and rangers telling us that hiking down all of the way to the river and back in one day was not advised, and could cause serious injury.
So we drank a ton of water, packed 6 water bottles, 2 gatorade bottles, jerky, almonds, jicama, and some basic survival gear (knives, fire making stuff etc.) into a pack and got on the shuttle to the trail (3.5 miles away, this detail becomes important...) It was a bright, hot day in Arizona, and pleasantly windy to keep us cool. I'd just like to state that I am a total noob when it comes to the desert. I had no experience in the desert before this point, as I am blessed to be nestled in the beautiful Willamette Valley of Oregon. All survival skills for the desert I have merely read about or seen on survival shows. But I'm not totally retarded, so I was comfortable to do a reasonable hike in the desert, it's not like we weren't the only people out there.
Anywho, we set off at noon to do this hike. (hottest part of the day - not so good) It was hot!! But fun, and the Grand Canyon is beautiful.
Cameron enjoying the view. See that little bit of trail in the right corner? we went further than that...
Cool desert plants!
Me at the third stop - you can just glimpse the river here. So as we were hiking down this far I started to get a little nudge in my instinct that this was far enough. I was hot, and we didn't have as much fluid left as I was comfortable with. Less than half of the water was left. I was also pretty tired, and knew that I needed most of my energy to get back UP the trail, so I wanted to turn around.
It was probably in the upper 90's as far as temperature goes, but the wind was drying the sweat off of us as fast as we could make it. We rested in the shade at the third stop for an hour, because we wanted to recharge and plus there wasn't anyone down there so it was really awesome to view the canyon uninterrupted. Cameron kept talking about how he thought he could make it to the river and back, which was initially a joke - but after we rested he felt really good and wanted to go. He was really excited, and I was totally not okay with the idea, but I didn't put my foot down. I was really upset - but he thought he could do it. (the thing is, he can but the water situation was NOT good) So..... he went.
My companion while I waited. No other humans passed by.
Taking pics to keep busy
Now, this is probably one of the more stupid moments in our lives and that's why I'm sharing it. Not because I'm proud, but I just want to let people know how quickly situations can change. We're both reasonable smart people, but as he went jogging down the trail in the desert with one poweraide bottle in hand, I just got this overwhelming "this is not okay we might not make it" feeling.
I drink almost 2 gallons of water a day just myself on a regular day, and I was thirsty at this point. But there were only 2.5 water bottles of water left, so I sucked it up and sat in the shade. We estimated he would be back in an hour and a half. (it's amazing how dreadful your thoughts can be in that timespan) I was trying not to think of the worst that would happen, but everything in my brain was "Airyca - figure out a couple of survival options because you're gonna need em!".
My initial plan was, that if he didn't come back in 2 to 2.5 hours I was gonna hike back and call for help. I HATED that option, but I wasn't going to hike any further with that much water left, because it was nothing compared to what I needed, let alone both of us. As I was pacing in my sliver of shade trying not to totally freak out, I found something that totally changed the day.
Emergency water.
one gallon of water.
Now I had options. Cameron was at the 2 hour mark now. I needed to do something. Now that I had a gallon of water, I new I was going to survive, but I still didn't have a clue as to how he was doing. I decided he had 10 more minutes, and then I was going to hike down with the gallon of water, find him, try and get to the river, and set up camp. I knew making a fire would draw attention to help if we needed it, or at least keep us warm through the night until we could hike up in the morning.
Thank goodness - just a couple of minutes later I saw Cameron coming down the trail. From where I was at, I could see really far down the hill so we couldn't shout to hear each other clearly, but I could see him. This was positive. Too bad he was stumbling around a lot, and wasn't wearing his shirt (the hill was shaded by this time) and he kept sitting down at every switch back. So - Yay! he's alive! Dang it! Fears and worries confirmed!! (turns out it was well over 100 degrees deeper in the canyon)
I walked slowly down the trail - it's important not to panic - and met him as he was coming towards me. He had heat exhaustion really bad, said sorry a whole bunch and plopped down on the trail again. After we got one water bottle of water in him I told him about the water - and gave him two options - hike out or stay. He has almost died and was in the hospital for several days from dehydration before in NYC during the blackout, so he knew his limits. We decided to hike out, but it was going to be slow and painful. (which is exactly what happened.)
Here is his video that he made while in the desert.
[video=youtube;GUSwE0ImhX4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUSwE0ImhX4[/video]
The only thing that I wish was recorded was how bad off he was when he got to me... but in those moments you don't think about stuff like that. The video making was kind of an attempt at morale boosting.
how close he made it to the river, you can see the bridge there at the bottom.
We had a long important chat about how things went down during our rest breaks up the canyon. Definitely some relationship building moments. The hike up the canyon was agonizingly long, but we still took it slow, tried not to waste energy. By the time we'd reached the top it was dark, and the last shuttle had come and gone well over an hour ago. Fortunately, there was a water faucet that was drinking water, so we had our fair share of that. I called the dispatch line for the rangers that was listed on the ammo can we found the water in and asked for help. A taxi could come get us, but it was 45 min out, which would have been fine, except the temperature had plummeted and we were super cold. So we walked back to the visitors center. That 3.5 mile walk was icing on the horrible cake of horribleness. All we could do is just force our feet to move, and curse at everything. (at least he finds that therapeutic lol)
We made it back to the car, now only an hour and a half to our glorious oasis of a motel. I drove as long as I could, and Cameron ate and drank. When I was ready to collapse, he took over. We did see several elk, a fox, and a jackrabbit which was super awesome, but I was so tired I don't think I appreciated them in the moment at all. Obviously we made it back to the hotel, recovered well and didn't need any sort of medical attention and such. It was a crazy trip.
hiking out, so much uphill...
Anywho, there ya go! sorry I typed so much, but this is recorded for posterity now! Before anyone gets down on Cameron for ditching me - the situation was complicated and while he made a terrible decision, many sincere apologies have been made on both his and my part, and everything is okay. We do not make these types of mistakes on a regular basis, and we've learned a lot from this situation too.
I learned how quickly you can loose water. I drank so much after we got back, and quite a bit really during this whole thing, but only peed a cup or so out during those 12 hours. I learned to put my foot down when I've got so many red flags up in my mind. I learned we aren't invincible. I learned that in a span of 30 min, a situation can go from okay to NOT okay.
The rest of our trip was lovely - we covered over 6,300 miles of ground in 2 weeks. Good times! Check out my blog if you're interested and/or want to see pics of happy things
My blog post about our trip
tdlr: bring a thousand gallons of water with you to the desert.
I know I haven't been on the forums too much lately, but I wanted to put this thread up real quick because I had a very unique experience in the Grand Canyon on a road trip that y'all might find interesting. My fiance's brother was getting married in Tennessee, and we're in Oregon, so we choose to drive out there instead of fly because it's way more fun.
On the way back we stopped at the Grand Canyon because it's awesome and stuff. Cameron is already quite fit, and I am working on becoming more fit, so we do a fair amount of hiking and such, so we knew we wanted to hike around in the canyon if we could. There are a few different trails, and we found one that went all of the way down into the canyon to a sweet suspension walking bridge across the river. One of our least favorite things while exploring nature is other people, so a tough hike = less people = good. The trail we choose had three stops at fairly equidistant points down the trail. There were difficulties listed next to each stop if you were to hike down to that stop and back. The first point was listed as difficult, the second as very difficult, and the third as very difficult or strenuous, I can't remember. There were several signs, indications in the brochures and rangers telling us that hiking down all of the way to the river and back in one day was not advised, and could cause serious injury.
So we drank a ton of water, packed 6 water bottles, 2 gatorade bottles, jerky, almonds, jicama, and some basic survival gear (knives, fire making stuff etc.) into a pack and got on the shuttle to the trail (3.5 miles away, this detail becomes important...) It was a bright, hot day in Arizona, and pleasantly windy to keep us cool. I'd just like to state that I am a total noob when it comes to the desert. I had no experience in the desert before this point, as I am blessed to be nestled in the beautiful Willamette Valley of Oregon. All survival skills for the desert I have merely read about or seen on survival shows. But I'm not totally retarded, so I was comfortable to do a reasonable hike in the desert, it's not like we weren't the only people out there.
Anywho, we set off at noon to do this hike. (hottest part of the day - not so good) It was hot!! But fun, and the Grand Canyon is beautiful.
Cameron enjoying the view. See that little bit of trail in the right corner? we went further than that...
Cool desert plants!
Me at the third stop - you can just glimpse the river here. So as we were hiking down this far I started to get a little nudge in my instinct that this was far enough. I was hot, and we didn't have as much fluid left as I was comfortable with. Less than half of the water was left. I was also pretty tired, and knew that I needed most of my energy to get back UP the trail, so I wanted to turn around.
It was probably in the upper 90's as far as temperature goes, but the wind was drying the sweat off of us as fast as we could make it. We rested in the shade at the third stop for an hour, because we wanted to recharge and plus there wasn't anyone down there so it was really awesome to view the canyon uninterrupted. Cameron kept talking about how he thought he could make it to the river and back, which was initially a joke - but after we rested he felt really good and wanted to go. He was really excited, and I was totally not okay with the idea, but I didn't put my foot down. I was really upset - but he thought he could do it. (the thing is, he can but the water situation was NOT good) So..... he went.
My companion while I waited. No other humans passed by.
Taking pics to keep busy
Now, this is probably one of the more stupid moments in our lives and that's why I'm sharing it. Not because I'm proud, but I just want to let people know how quickly situations can change. We're both reasonable smart people, but as he went jogging down the trail in the desert with one poweraide bottle in hand, I just got this overwhelming "this is not okay we might not make it" feeling.
I drink almost 2 gallons of water a day just myself on a regular day, and I was thirsty at this point. But there were only 2.5 water bottles of water left, so I sucked it up and sat in the shade. We estimated he would be back in an hour and a half. (it's amazing how dreadful your thoughts can be in that timespan) I was trying not to think of the worst that would happen, but everything in my brain was "Airyca - figure out a couple of survival options because you're gonna need em!".
My initial plan was, that if he didn't come back in 2 to 2.5 hours I was gonna hike back and call for help. I HATED that option, but I wasn't going to hike any further with that much water left, because it was nothing compared to what I needed, let alone both of us. As I was pacing in my sliver of shade trying not to totally freak out, I found something that totally changed the day.
Emergency water.
one gallon of water.
Now I had options. Cameron was at the 2 hour mark now. I needed to do something. Now that I had a gallon of water, I new I was going to survive, but I still didn't have a clue as to how he was doing. I decided he had 10 more minutes, and then I was going to hike down with the gallon of water, find him, try and get to the river, and set up camp. I knew making a fire would draw attention to help if we needed it, or at least keep us warm through the night until we could hike up in the morning.
Thank goodness - just a couple of minutes later I saw Cameron coming down the trail. From where I was at, I could see really far down the hill so we couldn't shout to hear each other clearly, but I could see him. This was positive. Too bad he was stumbling around a lot, and wasn't wearing his shirt (the hill was shaded by this time) and he kept sitting down at every switch back. So - Yay! he's alive! Dang it! Fears and worries confirmed!! (turns out it was well over 100 degrees deeper in the canyon)
I walked slowly down the trail - it's important not to panic - and met him as he was coming towards me. He had heat exhaustion really bad, said sorry a whole bunch and plopped down on the trail again. After we got one water bottle of water in him I told him about the water - and gave him two options - hike out or stay. He has almost died and was in the hospital for several days from dehydration before in NYC during the blackout, so he knew his limits. We decided to hike out, but it was going to be slow and painful. (which is exactly what happened.)
Here is his video that he made while in the desert.
[video=youtube;GUSwE0ImhX4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUSwE0ImhX4[/video]
The only thing that I wish was recorded was how bad off he was when he got to me... but in those moments you don't think about stuff like that. The video making was kind of an attempt at morale boosting.
how close he made it to the river, you can see the bridge there at the bottom.
We had a long important chat about how things went down during our rest breaks up the canyon. Definitely some relationship building moments. The hike up the canyon was agonizingly long, but we still took it slow, tried not to waste energy. By the time we'd reached the top it was dark, and the last shuttle had come and gone well over an hour ago. Fortunately, there was a water faucet that was drinking water, so we had our fair share of that. I called the dispatch line for the rangers that was listed on the ammo can we found the water in and asked for help. A taxi could come get us, but it was 45 min out, which would have been fine, except the temperature had plummeted and we were super cold. So we walked back to the visitors center. That 3.5 mile walk was icing on the horrible cake of horribleness. All we could do is just force our feet to move, and curse at everything. (at least he finds that therapeutic lol)
We made it back to the car, now only an hour and a half to our glorious oasis of a motel. I drove as long as I could, and Cameron ate and drank. When I was ready to collapse, he took over. We did see several elk, a fox, and a jackrabbit which was super awesome, but I was so tired I don't think I appreciated them in the moment at all. Obviously we made it back to the hotel, recovered well and didn't need any sort of medical attention and such. It was a crazy trip.
hiking out, so much uphill...
Anywho, there ya go! sorry I typed so much, but this is recorded for posterity now! Before anyone gets down on Cameron for ditching me - the situation was complicated and while he made a terrible decision, many sincere apologies have been made on both his and my part, and everything is okay. We do not make these types of mistakes on a regular basis, and we've learned a lot from this situation too.
I learned how quickly you can loose water. I drank so much after we got back, and quite a bit really during this whole thing, but only peed a cup or so out during those 12 hours. I learned to put my foot down when I've got so many red flags up in my mind. I learned we aren't invincible. I learned that in a span of 30 min, a situation can go from okay to NOT okay.
The rest of our trip was lovely - we covered over 6,300 miles of ground in 2 weeks. Good times! Check out my blog if you're interested and/or want to see pics of happy things
My blog post about our trip
tdlr: bring a thousand gallons of water with you to the desert.
