Grand Canyon moonlight Adventure-Post #8 Grand Canyon South Rim, South Kaibab Trailhead, October 7, 10:30 p.m. Rarin’ to go, we hit the trail like a bunch of excited puppies. I, for one, was anything but rested. But it didn’t matter. Tummies: full. Water: full. Trail food: ample. 1st aid/Foot care/snake bite kit: check. Packs: light. Let’s go!!! A blood red moon in full lunar eclipse graced the sky that night and was, we hoped, going to reveal itself when the complete cloud cover magically lifted. It was dark! There was glow enough from the full moon, even through cloud cover, to see unaided for a little awhile, but soon waist lamps and flashlights went on to help us position our every step on the steeply descending, rough, and loose trail. We hadn’t gone a hundred yards before one of the Canyon’s own subspecies of deer, a mule deer, named for their enormous ears, trotted across our path. We also heard calls of elk nearby. Other large mammals--mountain lions, coyotes, black bear, fox, and others--roam the canyon rim. But, only mountain goats venture into the Canyon. We heard signs of them occasionally for the first couple hours. With or without animals, the Canyon is alive! And I’d never experienced it more so than that quiet night. Within a few minutes, we crossed paths with one young man who looked exhausted but was incommunicado so we just passed on by. He’d be ok; he was near the top. At midnight, we crossed another man also hiking the South Rim. This one, in the dark-night shadows and eerie silence, looked very old. He was well equipped and firm in his response that he was ok, but he looked a little shaky and his eyes weren’t focused. Mostly, he just looked ghostly pale. Imagine our surprise when our next stop, mere minutes away, was called “Skeleton Point.” How strangely ept. Hold on for more on this story, which takes us across the Canyon and back, again—called Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim--through an eagerly anticipated breakfast, and lands us in Michigan at MIT (Michigan Institute of Technology)! Other than those two, every step of the trail through that vast canyon was ours alone until sunrise! Such depths of peace cannot be described, only experienced. Can you imagine??
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 16:43:45 +0000
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