The Grandest of All Canyons.

When Mary Lou and Nicole set out on this adventure, they didn't really have a plan, per se. We knew the general directions we wanted to go: South, for warmth, then West, to unfamiliar landscapes, North up the West Coast. Reaching Alaska was in the early itinerary, but after research into costs and dangers of the terrain and realizing we would have already been on the road for eight months. . . we ruled it out. Maybe to the North Western most point in the country, then?

We agreed to each other to take it one day at a time. No timetables, no pressures, no problems. But there were certainly landmarks to hit. Art museums, local food joints, happy hours at the fancy places we couldn't really afford to have a full meal at, nature reserves, and National Parks.

Visiting the Grand Canyon has been on our minds since the moment that we left Pulaski. Whenever anyone asked our planned route, the answer would be, "West along the panhandle, into the Southwest deserts, surely, the Grand Canyon, then to the West Coast and up." Grand Canyon was the only real solid, 'have-to' pin-prick in our minds' map. It was a given.

And finally, it was time. We headed North from Phoenix, towards the Grandest of all Canyons.

As we started our drive, it was getting near the top of the hour, and we searched the sparse radio signals for NPR. We found it higher on the dial than normal, just in time to hear that the very first thing that would be shut down if the government couldn't sign the budget, would be the National Parks. Mary Lou and Nicole looked at each other and said, "Shit."

Really? No. . . what are the odds of that happening, really? In two days time, they could close the Canyon? Surely, it wasn't going to happen. We didn't think much more of it on our day long drive up to Williams, an hour South of the entrance to the canyon. We were losing sunlight, and we wanted to make sure that we had a shower and refilled our tanks before we headed into the hook-up less Canyon. As Mary Lou was paying our overnight fee, she mentioned, half jokingly, that we would be leaving first in the morning, to make sure we saw the Canyon before it shut down. The woman replied, "How did you know about that? I've been telling people all day that they better hurry up there. I remember when they shut it down during Bill Clinton's term. It was shut for three months!"

Well, we were thankful we had two days to see it, before the Saturday midnight deadline. We woke up first thing in the morning and headed into the park. We drove straight to the first look-out point, Mather Point, and walked straight to the edge.

It. . . is. . . Grand.

Beyond our expectations, of course. Our imaginings were so. . . inadequate, as to the sheer size of the Canyon. It stretched for miles and miles and miles. We just stood there, riveted to the panorama, letting our eyes adjust to the grand scale of things. Every minute that we continued to look, our eyes seemed to be able to focus on a spot further away in the distance, or on a spot down, down in the valley in front of us. You could register what you were looking at in that exact moment, the sheer cliffs dropping into the valley, the different geological bands of rock, a corner of the green Colorado River shining in the sunlight, but the mind couldn't seem to integrate that bit into a whole picture. It was at least fifteen. twenty minutes before the feeling that 'we've reached the Grand Canyon', finally kicked in. We had reached the Grand Canyon!

Nicole peered through her circled hand, making a frame around manageable bits of the view, trying to get some perspective. A gentlemen, a tour guide for a private group, standing behind her noticed her do this and shared, "The end of that valley you see straight ahead, that's 13 miles away. The bit of the Colorado you can see, that's 3 miles. It's 3,000 feet down to that last drop off before the river, before the black Vishnu rock. Those pine trees, just to your right, that patch has been growing there since the ice ages. Those trees are 100 feet tall."

Objects in Canyon are bigger than they appear.

We went to the RV camping site in the park, parked the RV, grabbed our maps and caught the next shuttle around the park. We headed to the Western section of the park (Hermits Rest), closed to traffic and open only to the Red Line shuttles. It was chilly, but full-on sunshine, so we didn't mind the wait for the next Red shuttle. We hopped off at every other look-out point along the way, speechless and reverent. At one of the earlier spots, past where the guardrail stopped, there was a beckoning, flat section of rock, that seemed to drop away straight down to God knows where. Nicole wanted to see over the edge. Mary Lou wanted to take her picture doing it. Nicole sat down, and slid on her bottom until she could peer over. It was indeed, straight down. Mary Lou said, "swing your legs over the side," which Nicole slowly did. Smile. Click. Nicole enjoyed the view for a minute more, before feeling the wind nudge her at the back, meekly, but enough to remind her that she did enjoy being alive. She slid slowly back from the edge, stood up and started to walk back up to the bus stop.

On the way up the trail, a man walked briskly by Mother and Daughter and said, "What you just did there was like hanging over the edge of a 60 floor building."
"Yeah," Nicole said, beaming, "It's incredible!"
"We lost a woman down that exact spot last month," the man said with a half smile, turned and walked away.
Wait. . . did we just scolded? I think we did. We just got scolded.
It probably was a pretty stupid thing to do. We stayed behind the guardrails the rest of the time. Well, most of the rest of the time.

By the time we finished the Western side of the Canyon, the sky had turned dark, the temperature had dropped, and we heard the bus drivers radioing to each other that 'the storm' was rolling in faster than expected. We had been watching the weather, knowing that a cold front was pushing through, because Mary Lou really wanted to take a helicopter ride over the canyon. High winds, at the front of inclement weather, had cancelled most of the flights that first day, but the operators said that it should be fine the next morning, perfect for a tour. We had decided not to put the money down, and wait and see what happened.

Well, that storm was closing in faster than predicted, and preparations were starting to be made in the park. By the time we switched buses to head back to our RV, it was starting to snow. Big fluffy snowflakes falling onto the pack mules milling around their barn. Falling softly in the pine trees as we walked through the forest back to our RV. We made ourselves some quick dinner, laid in bed feeling really, really small, but happily so, and fell off to sleep.


The next morning, we awoke to a light dusting of snow in the forest and freezing cold toes. Our propane heat had gone off in the night, maybe because we hadn't run the RV long enough the day before to charge the battery. No matter, we were eager to see the East side of the Canyon, where you could drive to most of the lookouts. We had some coffee and eggs, pulled out our hat and mittens, and headed out. Excited to again experience the awe of our first day, we slowly pulled in to the first, and nearly empty lookout parking lot. We bundled up, stepped out, walked a few feet and saw. . . nothing. Absolutely nothing. Pure white. The storm was in the canyon.

We could see the rocks we were standing on, about 100 feet to the right or left, and about 50 feet down. The clouds were below us, rolling up from the bottom, folding over us, and then falling back into the canyon. Every once and a while, the clouds would dissolve just enough to see the closest butte or monument below, but then close back in, and leave us nothing but ethereal whiteness.

At the next lookout, we met a friendly couple, American, surprisingly, since most of the people we had eavesdropped on over the days had been foreign (Russians, Polish, French, Japanese, Indian, were just a few that we could recognize). The couple laughed at our New York plates and said, "Feel like home?" They showed us a small snowman they had found, and then told us that, as we moved East, it would clear up.

At each lookout, it did become more and more clear, and gradually, we could see farther and farther into the canyon. Even with the wash of light, you could still see the slices of different colored rock and minerals slashing across the cliffs. The Colorado River was still the color of jade, and from this side, you could see sets of rapids. We drove as far East as we could, to the watchtower, and savored every last moment of the view. By the time we got in the RV, to head back to our campsite, the snow had reached us, and it was falling faster and faster. When we reached to the campsite, it was starting to stick to the freezing ground.

We pulled in to our RV spot but remained in the captain's chairs watching the snow fall, and didn't say anything for a while. Mary Lou said what we were both thinking, "If we stay here and it keeps snowing, we won't be able to drive out of here. And, if the heat goes off again, we are screwed. And! if the budget doesn't pass, then they will just come in the morning and kick us out anyway. Maybe we should make a move now, head out of the park."

Nicole concurred, and we started to drive back to Williams, where we were sure there was electricity and propane. We took a moment to jump out and brave the cold and snow to take our picture in front of the Grand Canyon welcome sign. Just a mile or so after the sign, we passed a few stopped cars, hopefully helping the riders of an old Chevy pickup that seemed to have rolled at least once and off the side of the road. Being Upstate New York drivers, we didn't have any problems driving through the snow on the way to Williams, but we were amazed at the number of vehicles that were headed into the park! Maybe it was just regular Saturday traffic, or maybe everyone was trying to get in before it shuts, but we knew they were headed in the wrong direction.

We parked up at the same RV park that we stayed at on the way in, but were too tired to dump our tanks or hook up cable or anything. We just plugged in, turned on the propane and fell asleep. We awoke in the morning to 9 inches of snow on the ground.

Nine inches! We were snowed in. There were only a few other RVs around, but the early risers were outside shoveling off their roofs and a pathway for their wife to walk to the showers. With nowhere to go, and no way to go there, we settled in with some coffee and some good books. But after we saw the tractor plow going around the park, we were reminded that we really needed propane and we definitely had to drain our used water tanks. We shoveled our own little path out of our site and up to the main lodge. They filled our propane and directed us to an open dump site. We pulled out our hose, latched her up and went to pull the valves. Frozen solid. There was no way they were going to open. We looked at each other, "Shit!"

Well, there was nothing we could do, we would just have to leave those dishes in the sink for now, and save our water drainage for the important things like teeth brushing. But, when we got back to our site, we again remained in our captain's chairs, watching out at the horizon, towards the Grand Canyon. It was ominous, dark grey. And the snowfall was clearly not stopping.

Again, Mary Lou spoke first, "It's going to be 22 degrees tonight."
"Is it now?" Nicole said.
"Yup."
The storm clouds on the horizon got darker.
Mary Lou, "All our pipes are going to fully freeze. We should make a move now, to lower altitudes. We're at 7,000 feet! It must be warmer down there."
Nicole, "Down there. . . yes. It must be. But, the pipes are frozen now, and brittle. If we drive, they could break."
The snow fell harder, but still silently.
Mary Lou, "Yeah . . . well, I think we should go."
Nicole, "Okay, let's do it."

Mary Lou drove while Nicole navigated to the highway. The plan was to head West, to Bullhead City, which, on the weather radar, seemed to be a few thousand feet lower in altitude, and about 30 degrees warmer. The first half an hour of driving was pleasant. It was snowing, but the pavement was bare. We listened to a 'This American Life' podcast. Slowly, our visibility became less and less, and Nicole shut off the radio, because full concentration was clearly required. Rounding a corner, and starting down an advertised 6% slope, the pavement was no longer black. Mary Lou knew from the cloudy, slick color that she was in trouble. She was going slow, but she tried to slow down even more. The back end of the RV started to fishtail and she couldn't get any grip. We were in a full sideways slide down the hill. Mary Lou struggled to steer just enough to keep the RV straight and on the road. She managed to point downwards and coax us over to the rumble strip, where we could get a little more grip on the road. Every touch of the brakes sent the backend sliding, so she did her best to just ride the strip.

"Oh My God," Mary muttered.
"You're doing great, Mom."
"Holy shit, Nicole."
"Mom, you've got this. You're doing great. Just keep doing what you are doing. I'm going to go put some boots on, though, just in case."

As Nicole stepped to the back of the RV to get her boots, she looked out the back window to see 4 vehicles, cars and Ford trucks, bunching up wildly in the left lane. It looked as if they had just all seen us, realized that the road wasn't what they though it was, and were trying out their own brakes. One car pulled into the right lane, either thinking he could pass, or realizing he couldn't avoid hitting the car in front, and came close to our back bumper. As the other cars were passing us on the left, a tractor trailer appeared out of the snow, barreling around the curve, and down on us.

"Nicole!" from the front.
"Mom, you can't worry about them. You can't help them. Keep on holding us together."

As if they couldn't see the truck, two of the cars remained in the left lane, with the tractor trailer bearing down on them. One car haphazardly slid itself into our lane, out of the way, but the first truck just stayed in that lane. The tractor trailer was finally trying to slow down, but its back end had a mind of its own.

"It's going to jackknife, Nicole! Oh my God!"
"Mom, you can't do anything about it. Stay on your rumble strip."

By some miracle, everyone stayed on the road. The tractor trailer kept together, and didn't hit the truck in front of it. Everyone carried on down the hill, leaving us to crawl, hazards flashing, as fast as we could without losing control, but not stopping, because we had to get off that hill, so that the same thing didn't happen again.

At the bottom of the hill, we found dry pavement again, which lasted for the rest of the two hour drive. It was still snowing, but we had bare pavement. When it finally stopped snowing, after sunset, we were cresting over the pass to Bullhead City. Looking down, Mary Lou thought we had made a wrong turn, and were in Vegas. The valley was lit up in all different flashing colors. Are we in Vegas? No, this appears to be Laughlin, Nevada, across the river from Bullhead City. We could see at least 12 casinos all in a row. We drove straight to Harrah's, up the hill to the topmost parking lot, overlooking the strip, and we passed out, exhausted.

When we woke up in the morning, we were looking down at casinos and palm trees. Palm trees! We were now at 600 feet, full sunshine and 60 degrees. Were we dreaming? If we were, we were sure as hell going to enjoy it, so we went for champagne, seafood brunch at the Golden Nugget and sunbathing by the pool. None of our pipes had cracked from the freezing and we were alive. We survived the Grand Canyon!


Here are the photos!