If You're Afraid of Heights You'll Hate the Grand Canyon

I'm not afraid of heights. The kid is not afraid of heights, as you well know. I'll leave it to your brilliant minds, then, to dial down to who among us had a medium-ish panic attack on the rim of the Grand Canyon in the middle of nowhere, scared the absolute snot out of the rest of us, and will never be visiting the Grand Canyon again if I, at least, have anything to do with it. 

Anyway, that mystery, unnamed, soon to traumatize themselves and us individual was still sound asleep early on this morning when I pulled a sweatshirt over my pajamas, stepped barefoot into my sneakers, walked out the door of my cabin, turned right, and found myself on the edge of the Grand Canyon just before sunrise:

In this pre-dawn hour, the fire at the North Rim was very visible:

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket, and after a couple of texts back and forth, the kid also padded out in her pajamas to join me and a few other early-morning souls for sunrise over the Grand Canyon:

I for sure almost missed it behind that ledge to the right. I scooted over a few feet just in time!

The smoke in the canyon was still visible on this morning, but it didn't look like it was filling the entire canyon like it had the day before--at least not yet:

After the sun was fully up, the kid and I sneaked back into our cabin to silently change into our proper clothes and pack everything up--funny how we can make that much of a mess in one night!--and then we brought our peanut butter sandwiches, chips, and cans of coffee outside to have breakfast with this beautiful fellow:

Has anyone ever eaten a peanut butter sandwich in a more beautiful spot?

If you look, you'll be able to see the North Rim wildfire in every photo I take of the Grand Canyon. Here was the fire forecast for the day we visited. There were also several local news teams whose base camp seemed to be the Bright Angel Lodge parking lot, who seemed to be constantly busy filming various reports every time we walked past. The night before, I'd even snarked on a random guy sitting on the wall of the canyon rim, working on his laptop instead of taking in the beautiful view. Why would you go to the trouble of going to the Grand Canyon just to sit in front of it and work, I bitched to my family. Answer: if you're part of the Arizona Channel 5 Storm Team and you've got a report to file!

After breakfast, the kid and I figured out the shuttle system, then took the scenic route via shuttle to the visitor center. I was underwhelmed by the displays, which were good for what you got but I just thought there would be more of them--

--but you know how I feel about a national park passport stamp! This is my first for Arizona!

By the time the kid and I had finished the museum and watched the film, my partner was up and about, and he loaded the car, checked out of Bright Angel Lodge, and took his own scenic shuttle trip to meet up with us so we could continue our shuttle tour of the South Rim.

The trail visible in the photo below is as far as you could travel Bright Angel Trail on this day. The bottom of the canyon was closed to everyone but river rafting groups, and the South Kaibab Trail was closed entirely:

Y'all, I have the gnarliest tan lines on my forehead, because I spent all summer outside with my hat on like this where it did essentially no good at all. Although I guess the top of my head and the back of my neck stayed nice and sun-free?

The Grand Canyon is the best national park for transportation, because all you have to do is park in one of their big parking lots, and shuttles will take you to every single beautiful viewpoint along the South Rim. 

There are also a couple of extra museums to visit along the route. 

The Yavapai Geology Museum is small but very good.

Way back in 2010, I took this picture of my four- and six-year-olds:

Here's me and that once upon a time six-year-old, now two days from her 21st birthday, at the same spot:

It's not close to the edge at all. It's one of my favorite photo spots at the Grand Canyon because it just LOOKS like it's close to the edge!

Another photo of a little girl long ago:

And here she is today:

The kid and I had a lot of fun trying to pick out the Colorado River from our various viewing spots:

I had to use my zoom lens on this one so it's pretty grainy, but how cool is it that you can see this footbridge across the Colorado all the way from the top of the canyon?

The kid and I were freaking out with excitement over this bird that was riding the wind all around over the canyon at this stop. We'd just been to the San Diego Zoo the previous month and had our environmentalist spirits re-radicalized over the story of the California condor, and we were CONVINCED that this was one of them:

I'm sorry to say, though, that this is definitely a turkey vulture. It's evident in the y-shape of the wings and when I overexpose the photo, you can see the turkey vulture's wing coloration.

Oh, well. Wildlife is wildlife!

Here we are confidently and excitedly observing our California condor:

Again, we're not even close to the actual rim. I took my reading of Death in Grand Canyon very seriously!

We'll skip past any and all panic attacks and/or apocalyptic nosebleeds suffered by anyone in our party on this adventure, and frankly I wouldn't mind having them deleted out of my mind entirely because Jesus Christ that freaked me the fuck out--I was half-convinced I was actually dealing with a heart attack, but I didn't have cell service to Google if an apocalyptic nosebleed is a heart attack symptom--and skip straight on down to the last stop on the South Rim shuttle, Hermit's Rest:

The big claim to fame for Hermit's Rest is that there's a small gift shop and cafe there where you can buy popsicles:

Another nice thing about the shuttle is that although it makes a billion stops at scenic sites on the way out to Hermit's Rest, on the way back it only makes a couple, so it's a very convenient way to get back to one's car. 

Back at the car, we cleaned up, made some more peanut butter sandwiches, and hit the road back to Las Vegas. Four hours later, we were checking into the Venetian, with a room that, in my opinion, has the best view on the Strip:

The next three days will be filled with spectacle and delicious food and poolside lounge chairs and all the ridiculousness that Vegas has to offer!

Here's the rest of our trip!

• Day 1: Omega Mart and Driving to the Grand Canyon
• Day 2: Grand Canyon National Park
• Day 3: Vegas Strip, The Sphere, and the Lake of Dreams
• Day 4: Wynn Buffet, Caesar's Palace, Bellagio Fountains, and Cirque du Soleil
• Day 5: Walking Tour of the Strip and a Red-Eye Home!

P.S. Want to know more about my adventures in life, and my looming mid-life crisis? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

I Read Death in Grand Canyon, Because I Needed To Be Told Not To Pick Up a Rattlesnake With My Bare Hands

Photos courtesy of a 2010 trip I took with the kids to the Grand Canyon. There's more than enough to see even when you're standing behind the guardrails and staying on the path!

Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon by Michael P. Ghiglieri
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Y’all know how obsessed I am with my Special Interest of Human Mishaps in National Parks. I like to tackle it through various lenses--missing people, or search and rescue, or the occasional paranormal theorist--but my favorite is this type of book that simply chronicles every single death, of every circumstance, in one specific national park.

While Death in Grand Canyon isn’t nearly as gruesome as Death in Yellowstone (sooooo many people have been boiled down to their bones in Yellowstone! So many people have been devoured by bears!), it’s still pretty gruesome. I now know so much about how to die of dehydration, and ALSO how to die of hyperhydration. Eat salty snacks while you chug your water, Friends!

As I gleefully announced every time my husband walked by while I was reading this book, the main risk factor for dying in Grand Canyon appears to be being male. Men are the ones pranking their poor daughters by pretending to fall off the rim and then slipping and actually doing so (Greg Austin Gingrich). Men are the ones trying to pick up rattlesnakes with their bare hands. Men are the ones ducking under guardrails to go stand on the rim, and when their young sons warn them that they’re not supposed to go past the rail, they respond, “You gotta take some chances in life,” then immediately step onto an unsupported snowbank and fall 350 feet (Richard Pena). And most of all, apparently, men are the ones insisting on peeing over the edge of the canyon, then getting dizzy and falling to their deaths with their dicks out.

And when men aren’t actively getting killed on their own behalf, they’re actively dragging their women into death instead. I am still absolutely fuming about the talented young athlete Margaret Bradley, whose amazing performance at the Boston Marathon and in her collegiate competitions had her planning for the Olympic Trials… after she visited her buddy Ryan in Flagstaff, of course. He was a runner, too, and had planned a fun fifteen-mile training run for them down and back at the Grand Canyon.

It wasn’t even so much that Ryan’s proposed trail was WAY longer than fifteen miles. Or even that they didn’t carry nearly enough water. Or even that when they got tired and dehydrated and Ryan couldn’t continue, they agreed that Bradley would pound on to their destination and send help. That’s all stupid, but every one of those mistakes could have been recovered from. The mistake that couldn’t be recovered from is when Ryan, who’d sheltered in place overnight, was rescued the next morning by a USGS employee who happened by, HE DID NOT TELL HER THAT HE HAD A COMPANION WHO WAS MISSING. Instead, he was like, “Yeah, I’ve got a buddy down at Phantom Ranch. Can you have someone tell her I’m moving the car?” Like, Dude literally just assumed that Margaret, suffering from dehydration and heatstroke, had blithely run all the way to Phantom Ranch and then just… what? Hung out there without breathing a word to anyone about HIM?!?

You guys. This dude hitched a ride with that USGS employee back to Flagstaff, still without breathing a word about his missing companion, and went to bed. Meanwhile, Margaret’s parents are freaking out that she hasn’t checked in with them, they’re calling everyone, they finally get the police to get ahold of Ryan early the next morning, and he finally tells the authorities the actual story so they can get a helicopter out to look for Margaret.

The coroner’s report stated that Margaret had died about 12-24 hours before the helicopter spotted her. If Ryan had told anyone that his running buddy had kept going and he didn’t know where she was, she wouldn’t have died lost and alone from heat stroke.

I swear, y’all, if you’re a man and you want to go to the Grand Canyon, you need to first make sure it’s your turn with the single brain cell that you all share.

Fortunately, or the book might be too depressing even for me, we also learn about plenty of heroes whose quick thinking and compassion save lives. In 2001, when a couple with four children went hiking down the canyon, they didn’t keep track of their kids and the three older kids ranged far ahead of the parents and toddler. The three older kids happened upon a Boy Scout troop whose leader, Jim Furgo, had just made the decision that the troop was going to forgo their fun overnight at the bottom of Hualapai Canyon because of the weather forecast, and when that Boy Scout leader saw three unaccompanied children hiking towards an area he considered unsafe, he roped them in with his troop, and they all hiked a mile to a much wider area. And so when the flash flood came through the canyon with its 20-foot-high wall of water, the parents and toddler died, but Jim Furgo had saved the lives of every child with him.

I framed it for the vista, so you can't tell that they're not sitting anywhere NEAR the edge. Don't sit on the edge of the Grand Canyon! Your brain can't make sense of the perspective and will make you lose your balance or feel faint as you're getting up.

Although the authors can be a bit glib at times, I appreciated their emphasis on what one can learn from these accounts. Listen to the park rangers and heed all warning signs. Bring more than enough water, and enough salty snacks to accompany them. Don’t hike alone, if possible. Ensure that someone outside your party knows where you will be and when you plan to return. Be mindful of local weather. Don’t sit on the edge of the Grand Canyon, because you’ll stumble or get vertigo when you get up and fall. Don’t use the Grand Canyon as your suicide plan, because it’s traumatic for the people who have to pick your meaty bits out of the dirt.

And don’t try to pick up a rattlesnake with your bare hands. Why are people even doing that in the first place?

P.S. View all my reviews.

P.P.S. P.S. Want to know more about my adventures in life, and my looming mid-life crisis? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!