Day: January 24, 2008

That night, I gathered about 800 throwing size stones in a pile next to the door of the tent. I also found a stick that by all rights could be called a log. I was ready.

Come 3 A.M., right on schedule, the boys were back in town. I decided to turn on some lights, get out of the tent, talk loudly, etc. I kind of left Alicia alone in the tent. She kind of hates me for it. She describes herself as a “morsel” in conversations hence. Anyway, there was no fear on night #2, or any following night. I was convinced that I could make a big enough fuss to keep them at bay. From there on out, the trip was pretty sweet…

… well, until we were at a nature display in Colorado and saw a stuffed 2 yr old female mountain lion that weighed 180 lbs… Those had been back there in the Grand Canyon too. Only the adult males aren’t just 180 lbs. And they aren’t afraid of people. And they are attracted to noise. Oh well, glad I didn’t die.

Oh, and just for kicks, here is a wall I REALLY wanted to climb. It’s not easy to tell the scale, but it’s amazingly tall and awesome.

3:00 A.M.

Alicia (screaming in whispers): Jesse! Jesse! What IS that?! What is that sound?!
Jesse (who had been sleeping): Whahumwhah?
Alicia: Jesse, WAKE UP! What the F@$# is that sound?!

We both listened to what sounded like children giggling. Well, children who had been possessed by Satan, but small demons for sure. There must have been at least 5 different “voices”. I could make them out pretty distinctly, and they were close. It didn’t take us very long to figure out that we were dealing with coyotes. A pack had wandered into our campsite and was raising hell. My instinct was to make a bunch of loud noise. In general, there are very few animals who are attracted to big scary sounds. I had a whistle and a flashlight, but Alicia wouldn’t let me get out of the tent. To her defense, I wasn’t 100% sure they wouldn’t attack me, but I was pretty sure. At one point, I heard what I thought was pawing at the side of the tent, and them some panting. I also heard hooves? I chalked it up to paranoia and delirium. After what seemed like an eternity, it all calmed down. I’m not sure I slept again that night, but I don’t remember much after that until morning.

We talked to other campers the next day, and all the pieces came together. A pack of coyotes did enter the campsite. They were pawing around the tents (I found footprints within inches of my head). Also, they quieted down because a ranger had come through on horseback (hence the hooves) to scare them off.

We wanted a good hike that day. We were tired from being up all night, but wanted to make the most of our time there. We headed down the Bright Angel trail. It’s super steep, and there are resting stations at 1.5 and 3 miles down into the Canyon, and then the next isn’t until like 7 miles (but that’s for people who want to hike down and camp).

We decided to go to the first station at least, and if we had it in us, go to the 3 mile point. The way down was a breeze, so we kept going to the 3 mile stop. Newsflash, hiking downhill is easy. The return… well, not so easy. Picture climbing a set of stairs with legs that are too short as someone shoots you with a jet of boiling water in the face. This is compounded by the fact that horses have used the trail which have left a variety of land mines and frothy pools to avoid stepping in. There is no avoiding the smell, and as you breathe heavily in the hot canyon air, you are suffocated by the smell of rotting organics. Anyway…

At the 1.5 mile station on the way up, there was a park ranger telling people not to continue down past this point. There was a storm coming in and they didn’t want people getting caught in it. I pulled the ranger aside to have a chat with her.

Jesse: So, is it VERY common to have packs of coyotes wandering into your campsite?
Ranger: Pack?! No. They are usually loners, and are pretty skittish. In packs though, they can be like a pack of wolves – pretty brazen.
Jesse: Oh, so what’s the best way to deal with them?
Ranger: Well, this morning at sunrise I was on my bike, and I saw one and started taunting it. You know, like yipping at it and making faces. It started to run at me, but then I just yelled and waved my hands and it got scared and ran away.
Jesse: Soooo, you yell at them?
Ranger: Yeah. Do you have a stick? Get a stick. That should do it. And make a lot of noise. Get some rocks. Ooooh, throw rocks, yeah.

I turned to Alicia and gave her the “I told you so” glance. Indeed, you should get in their face otherwise they’ll take advantage of your hospitality and hang out all night near your tent.

One stop along the way was for some camping in Grand Canyon National Park. Our original idea was to hike down into Havasu Canyon and spend a few days at the falls (look it up, it’s gorgeous). However, the fact that it was monsoon season (deadly flash floods) and a 10 mile hike into the canyon 100+ ºF weather, we decided to camp up on the South rim.

It being our honeymoon, we decided to pick the remotest of camp sites – Desert View. It was a pleasant spot; scraggly brush, warped trees and desert. Exactly what you’d expect the Grand Canyon to be. When we first rolled in, there was a group of ravens the size of midgets who were terrorizing something (or someone?) underneath a picnic table of one of the camp sites. We opted NOT to take that site. We searched around and found one of the most out of the way spots, furthest from the entrance and other folks. We’re not anti-social, but it was our honeymoon, and we wanted to be respectful.

We did some hiking that day and checked out the situation. I had never been to the Grand Canyon before, and when I finally stood in front of it and all its majesty, I couldn’t help but think, “Man, this sure is grand”.

It had been a long day of driving, and we were tired, so we turned in early that night. It was very quiet; very peaceful. I drifted off without a care in the world.

The return journey took probably 1-1.5 hours. Totally brutal. Every steep slope we had climbed on the way up looked entirely more treacherous on the way back down (especially now that if we started slipping, it was a face first dive into DOOM, which is for some reason more scary than rump first, if only because you can see the danger and cannot ignore it).

I’m obviously here to write this story, so we made it back safe and sound. That would be the end of the story in a non-ironic world, but we, at least Alicia and I, do NOT live in that world. When we reached the paved path again (this time it didn’t look so disappointing, even to us naturalists) we gazed upon a sight that we had missed in our eagerness to reach the falls so many hours prior. No more than 30 feet DOWNstream of the waterfall, there was a HUGE gorgeous pool to swim in, which required nothing but a hop over a fallen tree to get to, and provided everything we were looking for. Having just exerted ourselves in the California sun for 2 hours, we jumped in. And let me tell you, I now know joy.