October 18, 2007
My dear friends,
I am sitting alone in a busy Flagstaff restaurant enjoying a pint having finished the Havasu Falls trip not three hours ago. I don’t mind eating alone at restaurants as I typically busy myself in reading or writing, except you always get the worst table, next to the kitchen door, where it’s so busy you end up directing waiter traffic (“table 5 is ready, and you forgot to bring 9 their bread basket-don't let it happen again”). From your own waiter, you first get a look of surprise as they see you alone, then of extreme pity. They get a little watery eyed and I know they want to pat my hand and hope they won’t read in the paper the next day about a woman who jumped off a bridge. (“If only I had asked her if everything was okay and offered a hug.”)

I am surrounded by people and their energetic chatter and mirth, and I feel quite alone—but do not be alarmed. This is a typical feeling felt at least once by a solo traveler on trip, but up until now, the lonely meal has always been pre-trip. Whatever trip I’ve been on, I have gotten along with the group and have been able to enjoy their company after it has ended. As you may guess, this is an indication of how Havasu Falls went. The feeling will pass, and I busy myself in writing to you, Team Awesome, about the peculiar group—the extremely peculiar group—on the Havasu Falls trip.

I should preface my description to say that the scenery and falls were absolutely stunning and nothing, not even self absorbed people who live in their own bubble, could put a damper on that. I should also warn you I am a writer and therefore predisposed to observation, and with observation comes unavoidable judgment. And once someone has crossed over to my bad side I don’t hold back in my description. No rose-coloured glasses. I throw those to the ground, stomp on it, stomp on it some more, put it in an envelope, mail it to the person in question with a note that says “HERE YOU GO” and then sit down to write.

It began as the first trip did: me stumbling around in the pitch dark dorm room at 4:30 am, gathering my clothes and suitcase and throwing everything into the hallway of the hostel. I packed in the hall as to not disturb three other dorm mates. At 5:20 I began the cold walk, luggage in tow, down dodgy West Phoenix. I found my pace quicken as I made my way past a mumbling drunk. The FS Store was like a beacon of warmth in the desolate and deserted street, shining brightly and buzzing with activity. I was glad to see Bob’s familiar face and before slipping into the store I said “Good morning” to him just as I had done the previous four mornings. I eyed the other people waiting inside, wondering if they were the ones who I would be spending the next four days with, who would jump into the water with me, who would explore, who would share in the feeling of sweat and dirt. I started chatting with a woman from Eastern Tennessee, and then a woman coincidentally from Hamilton, Ontario, a city an hour southwest of Toronto. But soon I noticed they had large trekking backpacks and realized they were going out on another trip, Coyote Gulch.

There were calls for all the stuff sacks for Havasu Falls which would be carried in by mules. This time around I was confident in what I had packed. I handed my bag to the other guide.
“Wow. That’s light,” he said.
I smiled and looked at the other bulky, hefty sacks already in the bin and thought to myself, “I empathize with the mules.”
The other guide was Brian. You would have liked him. Reminding me of a big teddy bear, tall with kind, gentle blue eyes and backcountry scruffy beard, he seemed to have no cares in the world. But even his patience and laidback demeanor would be tested on this trip.

The first person from our group that I saw was a man dressed head to toe in green camouflage: a t-shirt and cap of forest camouflage and army fatigue shorts. His ridiculous appearance was topped off by a large, grey handle bar moustache neatly twisted at each end. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing.
“Where the hell does he think he’s going??” I thought. The situation reminded me of the tragicomic newspaper photos of the severely under funded Canadian army when they first went into Afghanistan, soldiers in dark forest green marching in a whitewashed desert. At the time I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. His name was Mark and it took me a few seconds to realize there was someone beside him, his wife lurking in his shadow. Nikki was a thin, very toned woman with hungry eyes and a mouth naturally down turned in a dour frown. What I could glean about them from their appearance in those few moments turned out to be quite accurate.
Mark was Yosemite Sam, bow-legged, gun toting, creature obsessed, “you varmint!” caricature come to life right down to the moustache. When he wasn’t talking about some critter they had in New Mexico, he was talking about killing it or death. In fact, the first words as we began our drive to the trailhead were not some pleasantry or question about the trip but the tragic news of a child’s fall in the Canyon.
“Did you hear about the girl that died from a fall in the canyon?”
“Yeah. It’s sad,” Bob said.
“What happened?”
I could hear Bob hesitate.
“It’s not a good way to start off the morning of our trip.”
“We don’t mind.”
“But I don’t want to talk about it now. I can tell you guys later.” He said it firmly, with finality. Nikki nudged Mark and said something to him inaudible to everyone else. She would do this often on the trip. It seemed like she did not have a voice of her own. I tried to make conversation with her but it was painfully unsuccessful. What little I extracted from her was that she was a personal trainer and her cliental was…anyone. Mark was more forthcoming. Presumably when he wasn’t trying to foil and blow up Bugs Bunny and shooting his pistols in the air, he held art workshops on his ranch, a sort of artist’s getaway where people could stay and paint, but he had recently retired.

A couple I had seen earlier in the store now sat behind me, fiddling with their cell phones. I had seen the woman with long blond hair and black streaks talking to the owner about whether she needed a warm hat before giggling, “Hold on, let me get my credit card. Barney!”
Barney turned out to be her husband, a tall and rather large lumbering man, as you would imagine a man named Barney might be. He whipped out a fat wad of a wallet to Gina, and she whipped out that card just as quickly and expertly. As we all waited outside for the van to finish loading Bob pleasantly asked them how they were; they complained they were cold.

Gina’s son Julian sat next to me in the van. He was pale, awkwardly skinny and lanky. He wore glasses. A toque was pushed over his long, curly brown hair. He sat slouched, hands buried in his pockets, lost in the world of his iPod. He looked miserable and surly. I pegged this as 14 year old teenage angst. He didn’t say anything for the first half of the drive except to snap at his mother, who doted on him excessively, or to make sarcastic remarks to Barney, who I later found out was his stepfather.

Even in the darkness of the van, I noticed something strange about Gina’s face. It looked…stretched. She had had so much work done to her face that when she talked or smiled her face didn’t move. Her eyes were so pulled back they looked feline and gave no expression. Her lips were fish lips—puffy and swollen with injections of agar or craft glue or whatever the hell they are injecting these days.

Reaching the trailhead after a three hour drive, it was great to be out in the crisp air looking at the clear blue skies and the beautiful expanse of the canyon below. The rock and the formations looked different from what was at the North or South Rim. I was anxious to get started but everything was quite the circus operation for the family of three. Barney needed to be told what to do by Gina. Barney needed to look confused. Julian needed to be unresponsive and moody. Gina’s long hair (extensions) needed to be braided. She needed help taking off her jacket since her large fake breasts and presumably everything else above the waist that was plastic got in the way. It reminded me of when I was a child dressing a Barbie doll, trying to maneuver the tight outfit over unbendable arms and disproportionately large breasts.

Accompanied by res dogs, we started down the long series of sandy, rocky switchbacks. It was exciting to go down (and easy without heavy packs) as we had to stop and skirt out of the way of the mule trains making their way fearlessly down. They were loaded with everything from our stuff to horse feed to town supplies. I even saw one carrying a box marked ‘Eggs’. The switchbacks ended and the trail crested over a hill, before smoothing out and down.

Mark, aka Yosemite Sam, hustled to the front of the line. He began chatting with Brian. He seemed fascinated by the helicopter that made regular trips from the rim to the town and watched it each time it passed. He talked to the dogs. He talked to Brian some more. Before I knew it Mark had led us off trail into a field of cacti and thorny bushes.
“Bob! Mark’s taking us on a new trail!” Brian called behind him. We had a good laugh about it but as I maneuvered my way unnecessarily around cacti, I learned NEVER to follow Mark. It meant a little effort throughout the whole trip, interrupting my reverie and taking my eyes off the soaring canyon walls and the swirls in the gorgeous red rock to look ahead to ensure I was following the right person: Mark scrambling over rocks to some unknown, perhaps a cliff edge or pit of snakes, or Bob or Brian clearly taking the better route. At that point I pretty much had Mark figured out: He had the alpha dog complex; he needed to be in front and on top. He would probably jockey for leadership, try at power plays with the guides the whole trip. Sadly, I was right.

We took a few short breaks, once for lunch in the shade of the canyon, then once again in the centre of the town of Supai that consisted of a grocery store, post office, café and school. We continued on the trail which ran alongside a creek of the bluest, clearest water giving us a tantalizing hint of what was to come. I approached Julian and engaged him in a conversation about music since I knew that was what he liked. In the van, the only time he emerged from his teenage coma was to declare that he loved music and if he didn’t have his MP3 player on this trip he’d die, speaking in italics as only a teenager can. Our “conversation” actually consisted of me naming a band and him giving me his detailed opinion on them, their albums, his favorite songs and which songs were overrated. It was boring but at least I had got him out of his shell and walking faster, not dragging his feet like he was on a march to a firing squad. I found out he was in community college and wanted to write music reviews.
Wait, I thought. Community college? How old was this kid? Something’s not right. He continued to drone on about some band when I began to hear the growing roar of water. I got excited and could barely stop myself from breaking out into a run.
“…it was on their 2nd album. That song changed my whole life because—”
I broke off from him and went ahead to the edge. I looked over and saw Havasu Falls.

Havasu was majestic. It curled over the red rock and dove into a large pool of calm and clear and effervescent blue, which then lovingly cascaded down into smaller glassy pools. The tangle of mist only seemed to enhance its allure and beauty. It certainly wasn’t the largest waterfall I’ve seen, nor the most commanding or powerful, but it certainly was the most sacred one to experience. I could understand why the Havasupai believed they emerged from its waters, a pristine oasis in a rocky and harsh landscape, a pure liquid jewel set in stone. I would want to born from there.

“Who’s going for a swim with me?” I chirped. The initial polite smiles were wiped away when they realized I was serious.
“The water is cold,” Bob said. I raised my eyebrows and smiled.
Bob and Brian went to set up camp, carrying the gear with a wheelbarrow from where the mules dropped it off to our campsite, a ten minute journey. The group went to sit by the water and I gazed at the falls for a long time. The mist was cool on my skin.
I didn’t bother wasting my energy in encouraging the others to join me in the water. I took off my shoes and went to the right of the falls where the pool was deep and seemed most enchanting.
I dove in. Yes, the water was cold—wonderfully cold; the type of cold that sucks your breath, numbs your skin but makes you feel more than you’ve ever felt before. I was alone in the world, hearing nothing but the pounding of the water and my own pounding heart flourishing and fighting the water pushing life into every pore. In the stillness, I was lifted.
I emerged from the water as ungraceful as a creature of the deep taking steps on land for the very first time, toes squelching in the primordial ooze, and I felt good.

I received funny looks from the rest of the group which I ignored. I told them I was heading to camp and left them to their complicated mobilization operation. I met up with Bob taking the last load of supplies to camp. I was sopping wet and dripping and he gave me a high five. Arriving at camp I was surprised to see the luxury compared to our Rim to Rim. They had already set up the tents—large, spacious two person tents (one all to my special self). We had air pads too, 3 picnic tables, and best of all, the creek and its turquoise waters ran beside the site. It would lull me to sleep each night with lovely chatter which was very welcome that night as dinner conversation was uneventful and dull. I felt tired and drained of energy by this group for some reason I couldn’t explain. I wanted to curl up in my sleeping bag on the comfy air pad and hibernate.

Before falling asleep I reprimanded myself for not being more friendly and outgoing. I should be making an effort to know them, I thought, so I can understand and get along with them better. It wasn’t fair to them if I didn’t show an interest in them. I thought about Julian, thought maybe it wasn’t as simple as teenage angst. He came from a divorced family and perhaps grew close (a little too close) to his mother and was now retaliating. I’m sure there is a normal person underneath, I thought.
Boy was I wrong.

The next morning I woke having slept comfortably without frequent waking for the first time. Though dark in the tent because of the rain fly, I could see it was light out through the small window. I heard voices so I rose. I emerged from the tent refreshed, with a positive outlook on things. I can get along with these people.
The men were up and waiting for coffee so I sat there, patiently listening to Barney relate a story, the subject being the most compelling topic universally known to mankind: the dream. (I am, of course, being sarcastic.)
He dreamed he was stumbling around camp and he accidentally crushed a box full of eggs, so he tried to cover it up and walk away before anyone saw. (Anyone care for a go at Freudian interpretation?) My summary took less than 30 words; his description took 10 minutes. He also told us that Gina had accidentally taken his XL sleeping bag and he slept in her woman’s small. That news made me giddy with glee. My resolution to be nice was already off to a bad start. I needed more coffee, fast. The highlight of that breakfast was, by far, when Mark asked Bob for a mirror so he could wax the ends of his moustache. Bob later confided in me about the monumental nature of that request: He had never been asked for the mirror for the purpose of waxing a moustache. I wish we had hard liquor to celebrate. Just as Mark was responsible for the highlight of breakfast, he was the cause of the lowlight.

Eventually the women came out, Gina wearing dark sunglasses, complaining about her puffy eyes as if anyone really cared. Get to know these people, I repeated to myself. Over breakfast, I nearly choked when I discovered Gina trained people on how to sell plastic surgery for a nation-wide clinic. She was once a salesperson herself and recently got promoted. She loved going to Beverly Hills the most because it was such an easy sell. She also loved going to the Beverly Hills clinic and asking the surgeon “What do I need done?”
“Omigod Cindy, you should have seen my lips a few months ago after the Restylane. Omigod, like Angelina Jolie.” I felt my breakfast eggs rise to my throat. I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of the body mutilation in the guise of plastic surgery. Imagine selling plastic surgery. Imagine viewing the world through those lenses. I wondered if all she saw were flaws, the imperfections of people’s bodies, what she thought should be bigger, smaller, lifted, tucked, pushed, pulled, sucked away, cauterized. I absolutely think there are situations where plastic surgery can be good. Maybe that’s how she viewed all plastic surgery, that she was helping people improve. And who knows how I will feel 30 years from now after giving birth to 12 children. But at that moment, as I sat across from her talking about the work she’s had done, I was never prouder of my body. It had taken me in and out of the Grand Canyon, and it would take me out again at the end of this trip, far, far, FAR away from these people. It was currently making heroic efforts to keep the eggs down. I was loving its quirks: I loved it for all the scratches and scars and bruises on my legs, its persnickety intolerance to dairy, even that single blister on my little toe.
“I had a 97 year old get work done. Get this: she asked me how long it would last. Isn’t that hysterical?” Gina was yukking it up like Joan Rivers.

I’m tempted to write to her now and fake an interest in plastic surgery just to see what she would say. I can see her reply now: “I’d thought you’d never ask! I’m so glad you did because, honey, you need…” I would probably laugh, laugh some more, then take three sleeping pills and cry myself to sleep.

The group lingered after breakfast and chatted while I half listened, growing listless. I drifted off into a daze before being rudely thrust out of it when Mark made a racist joke about Muslims. My heart stopped and I sat frozen, unable to truly believe I had heard what I had indeed heard. When it finally sank in that it really happened, I got up abruptly and walked off in an unknown direction, head spinning, incredulous that oafs like him existed. I had to pace for ten minutes before I could collect myself and return to camp without the risk of unleashing a tirade on Mark. I would take a few steps in the direction of camp and have to turn around because the image of Bob and Brian pulling me off Mark as I tried to claw at his face kept popping up in my head. If that happened, things would have been mighty chilly within the group over the next three days. It was the first of several moments where I kept a stiff upper lip (without the help of collagen). For the guides’ sake, I didn’t say anything or else it would have put them in an awkward situation. I ignored his jokes about Iraqi people, his 18th Century anthropological observations about Mexicans and Hispanics.

There is simple divide with racial humor: people are either laughing with you or laughing at you. When we joked about Canada, we were joking. When Mark made jokes, I always got this creepy feeling he actually believed that Canadians were stupid and lived in igloos. What really gets me is the way he treated the dogs. He would talk on and on about them like they were people. He would address them affectionately. He and Nikki would pooh-pooh over how they thought the horses looked poorly taken care of or overworked, and yet, if you heard how he would talk about Muslims or “the Hispanics in New Mexico”, it was derogatory, like they were animals. I can’t wrap my head around people’s skewed perspective of the world sometimes.

We departed for our hike to Mooney Falls, named after a miner who died trying to climb the falls in an attempt to rescue an injured friend. Immortalization seems but an act of courage/stupidity away. Mooney Falls is taller but thinner than Havasu. A ribbon of water plunges over the red travertine cliff into a turquoise pool. To get down to the bottom, you have to go through a couple of very narrow, steep tunnels, then do a semi-vertical climb down the rock, slippery from the mist, aided by tiny steps or toe holds and some strategic chains, handholds and ladders. Gina went no further than the lookout at the top and Nikki went down the first few steps before turning back. The climb was treacherous and dangerous, and therefore all the more thrilling and fun. I was not concerned about my own ability but the ability of those above me—I wasn’t keen on having this path named after me. In my mind I could see the guidebook blurb:

The bottom of Mooney Falls is reached by Cindy’s Ladder, named after a Canadian who fell to her death in 2007, after an obnoxious man dressed in camouflage slipped. Reportedly, her last words were “You idiot, eh!” There is currently a large petition for her canonization by the Catholic Church. St. Cindy, patron saint of solo travelers stuck in awkward situations.

The climb was very serious and intense. Not much was said except to communicate to the person above good places for them to step. We all made it to the bottom (by our own free will). Looking up at the rock wall, it was quite the feat. Julian certainly thought so.
“There was one point where I started, like, freaking out and then I was like Whoa! But then, then I was okay.”

We poked around. Bob and Brian led us to a small waterfall you could walk behind into a moss covered grotto. It looked like something you find in Hawaii. And some of the travertine formations we hiked past looked like a waterfall had suddenly turned to stone. Sometimes it had solidified around a tree that was no longer there and you could see the bark impressions in the rock, or it had coated branches and formed what looked like coral reef above ground.
We walked into a small canyon which got trickier to progress the further we ventured in. We scrambled over large rocks until finally we came to a section completely blocked by a wall of massive boulders. To pass, we squeezed between two boulders and hoisted ourselves over using a creative combination of shimmying and climbing. By the end I had scrapes on my legs, bumps that I knew would be devilishly purple by morning. On the other side was the dead-end of the canyon, a towering wall with a water mark, like a giant paint stroke in the rock, which my eye followed from the bottom up to the top. I saw where the water would gush forth during flooding. It was a neat little spot and it felt like a secret, like something a child would discover and make into their own special fort.

We sat on the boulders eating snacks. I perched on my own rock, marooned from the others. Actually, it wasn’t completely mine—I shared it with a large grasshopper that I made a silent agreement with to stay on our own individual sides. I was quite happy to sit there in silence, queen of my rock, and enjoy the moment. Then the most remarkable thing happened. Although there was no wind, two green leaves, joined together in a V, blew in from somewhere. I watched it come from afar, swoop over the others without touching them, lift up again, fly across before it came to land gracefully on my lap. Only Bob saw this. It was like nature giving me a kiss.

It is these little private surprises, as silly as it may seem, that fill me with such wonder and joy, these little private moments that keep me hitting the road time and time again. Don’t worry, I’m not going all soft and hippie on you, but when things like that happen, I have to believe there are ways the world communicates with you and it is up to you to pay attention, sit up, take notice and be amazed. I knew it was this difference between the group and I that made the gap unbridgeable. They were too preoccupied: with being first (Mark), their husband (Nikki), their appearance (Gina), the time (Barney), how much life sucked (Julian), the snack bag (all). I wondered if they noticed how the mist felt on their skin, the shooting stars at night, how evenly Bob diced the veggies.

The climb back up Mooney Falls was just as fun and we were able to move much faster. Back at camp I crawled into my tent and tried to relax for a while, listening to music, not thinking about anything or anyone. It did the trick because when I stepped out for lunch, Brian exclaimed, “There’s the smile!”
Had I really been looking that miserable? It was hard not to feel down. Perhaps I was spoiled from being with mid-Westerners for four days (I love you Minnesotans—don’t you ever change!), but when people rub you the wrong way, it’s hard to look past their faults. I found some of the things they did unforgivable. Their manners were terrible. They had this thing with grabbing food and always helped themselves, generously, first. I refuse to compete with vultures. The snack bag was a feeding frenzy. Julian would belch, long and loud, without apology, at the table without a single word of reprimand from Gina until the fifth time. Inside I shook my head in disbelief and felt the same reaction to seeing Mark dressed in full on Rambo-wear: should I be laughing or crying? I found the way Mark talked to his wife particularly appalling. Mark took a patronizing tone with Nikki, like a smarmy father to a child. After dinner one evening, Nikki went to clear his bowl and he said, as if to an eight year old, “Now, did I say I was finished?” He in fact was—I didn’t see him take a third helping, he was just being a certifiable asshole. Another instance was at breakfast. Mark had poured two cups of coffee and was adding creamer to both just as Nikki was joining the table.
“Oh, I don’t want that.”
“Want what?” Mark said.
“I don’t want creamer. There’s milk.”
“Well this is what you are going to get,” in that condescending tone again.
I think it would be very hard to wake up one day and realize your husband or wife was a giant pecker head. I fully acknowledge that four days is a very short time to be judging these people (but undeniably a very, very long time to be traveling with them). I am definitely the last person to be commenting on relationships (I travel alone, remember?). And I’ve traveled enough to see that the best and longest of relationships get seriously tested on vacations. Travelling together is the true test of compatibility. I’ve seen people not speaking after a three hour car ride together. I’ve seen people signing divorce papers as they check out and settle their room service bill. And there may be many reasons why that person loves that pecker head. I just think that it would suck to be spoken to in that way. But I can’t speak for Nikki.
Only Mark can do that.

After lunch, all except Gina and Julian went for another hike which required wet crossings. To cross at the bottom of Havasu Falls, we walked on the lip of the pool, where it cascaded over a drop not more than three feet and flowed into the creek. Bob and Brian took us walking in an incredible narrow canyon. The entire ground was covered with river rock and boulders. It was hard to imagine that whole section could be flooded during the rains. We headed further and further in, and the canyon became narrower. My sense of adventure was ignited. We were going until we could go no more.

“What time does it get dark?” Barney asked.
“Ah…around 6:30,” Brian replied.
There was a pause.
“It’s 5:00,” Barney said.
“Hey asshat! I know where you’re going with this and maybe you should trust the guides. I think they know what they’re doing,” I said. Not really, but I wish I did.
“Shouldn’t we turn back,” Barney said, more as a statement than a question.
“Ahh…why don’t we just see if we can make it to the end of this canyon,” Brian replied. I loved Brian’s replies. They kept me entertained. They were never confrontational (he doesn’t seem to have a confrontational bone in his body). He always maintained his super passive tone of voice (well, all except once, but we’ll get to that later), but sometimes there was a subtle underlying insult and sarcasm that didn’t register on the victim. I delighted in this. Much to Barney’s chagrin we continued on until we found the end. We hung out for a while before heading back, making it to the bottom of Havasu Falls as the sun was setting.
“Are you going swimming?” Bob asked me.
“I’ll go if you go.”
“I’ll go if you go.”
“I’ll go if you go.”
And so it was settled. We both had to go in the water now even though neither of us particularly wanted to, a textbook example of Groupthink, or an example of being plain nuts. We ran and jumped into the cold, cold water. Of course I was happy as a fish to jump in and I screamed with laughter. We were two lunatics who had been in the canyon too long with these people, bent on having a blast and enjoying life.

Dinner was the same. Bob made the mistake of asking Barney why he was called that instead of Bernie, as is usual for Bernard.
“Well,” Barney began. “My uncle Bernard, on my father’s side fought in the war. He entered the war in…” (Ten minutes later) “…there was also a General Bernard Montgomery in the war but that has absolutely nothing to do with why I’m called Barney I’m just throwing that in there because I want to bore Cindy to tears with my painfully longwinded, pointless nattering…” (And still later) “…but my parents have always been quick correct people. They’d say, ‘No, it’s Barney.” Really, I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m complaining or being mean spirited but listening to Barney tell a story made me want to jump up and start eating as many random canyon plants as possible in hopes of a quick death, which I guarantee would have been infinitely more fun. I think my head hit my bowl and I had to quickly wipe rice off my face before anyone saw. My last thoughts before drifting off to sleep that night, with the utmost sincerity: Man, I wish I had brought a bottle of vodka.

There were two hiking options on day three. There was the easier Navajo Falls or a more adventurous and challenging hike to Beaver Falls that required descending Mooney Falls once again and many wet crossings. Thank goodness there were two guides, perfect for dealing with varying degrees of physical ability. Bob took Nikki, Gina and Barney to Navajo while Brian took Mark, Julian and I exploring. We definitely were the odder group, but my plan was to keep enough distance from Mark so I could manage to have some peace. And I was feeling better about Julian since he made it down and up Mooney Falls the previous day. Something like that would boost anyone’s confidence and surely since he opted for this hike, his level of enthusiasm was up. Plus, his healthier diet on the trip compared to what I saw him eating in the van on the morning of day one—Redbull and candy—should have helped his energy levels.

It’s hard to describe Julian to you. Even while Bob and I exchanged glances and tried to suppress our laugh at something bizarre Julian said, I pondered to myself how I would be able to convey to you how slightly off he was. The only way I can try to describe Julian to you is Napoleon Dynamite and Roman Stanescu. If you have seen the off kilter movie Napoleon Dynamite, the reference is self explanatory because Julian is Napoleon Dynamite. If you haven’t, then I’ll refer you to Roman.

Roman was in my grade nine French class, but I’m certain there was a Roman in everyone’s high school class. Roman’s social crime was being uncool—not only not cool like most of us were but anticool, worse than catching the bubonic plague because at least with the plague you die rather than suffer through four years of being a leper. His social faux pas was trying to be funny and failing miserably. At the worst possible moments he would make a joke which would have had a class of ten years olds cracking up but with a classroom full of new high schoolers terrified of committing social suicide, it was met with a long, painfully awkward silence before Madame Currie would usher us back to conjugating verbs. Roman was in his own world. He was known to break out into an air guitar performance in class. God bless Roman and those kids who marched to their own drums. If anything, they drew attention away from your own teenage awkwardness. But to compare Julian to fourteen year old Roman is a big deal since Julian is eighteen. Bob uncovered this and when he told me you could here my “What? No way!” echoing throughout the canyon.

Hiking with Julian was painful, literally and figuratively. He dragged his feet and lagged behind so that we had to walk slowly and stop every few minutes for him to catch up. He whined when we walked through the water. I, of course, loved every minute of the wet crossing. We waded the crystal clear creeks, at times with water levels up to my hips. He made a fuss about getting wet, about how cold it was. I thought if I took the last position and walked behind him it would encourage him to go faster but I only ended up with branches thwacked in my face as Julian let them go without so much as a thought that I was there. Brian looked back once and saw me catch a big cluster of thorny branches and I waved my hands incredulously, sharing my best WTF expression with him. Julian went slower and slower, dragging his feet like a man lost in the desert for four days. I tried not to give any sympathy or attention but at one point he looked as if were going to collapse. I caved.
“Julian, how’s it going?”
“Ugh. I’m tired.”
“What’s the matter?” Brian asked.
“I’m just really tired,” he droned.
“Maybe we should take a break and have a snack,” I volunteered.
Brian took us off the trail way down to the creek at a lovely part where it broke into a set of mini waterfalls. Again, it looked like a tropical oasis. Brian and I went for a swim in the cool water. I waved up at the large REI group, mostly older hikers, walking by and they smiled and waved back. We had passed them earlier at the creek. They were all carefully taking off their hiking shoes and socks and putting on their sandals to cross. I had taken a cue from Brian’s personal anti shoe policy and hiked in sandals as well, and as we passed they were amazed at my bravado. There were bruises and fresh scratches from the branches all over my legs. I got a lot of quizzical stares because of my day pack. I had decorated it with the eight large, fluorescent orange permit tags our group had been issued the day we had arrived. It made my bag very…loud and festive. I also had decorated my bag with a large Ziploc bag that had once contained my first day’s lunch sandwich. Whoever had packed it wrote in bold, black marker “Little Dairy” to clearly mark my lactarded status. I took this on as my Indian name and proudly attached it to my bag. I kept tissues in it just in case I had another nose bleed. Come to think of it, too bad I didn’t get blood all over my shirt and put Datura flowers in my hair and run screaming like a banshee into the bush because then the REI group would have thought I had gone native. To see their expressions would have been positively wild.
We dried off on the rocks and ate snacks. Then the biggest squirrel I’ve ever seen—the Schwarzenegger of squirrels—popped up on the rocks. The size of a gopher, it perched there very still, looking at us with its beady eyes.
“What critter is that?” Yosemite Sam asked. (Oh, here we go.)
“Uh…that’s a Rock Squirrel,” Brian replied.
“We have them in New Mexico too.”
“Yeah, their all over the Southwest.”
Then before I knew it, Mark broke off a piece of his granola bar and tossed it to the squirrel. I couldn’t believe it. The appropriate cliché to describe this is that my jaw hit the floor.
“Are you fucking stupid?” I said (no I didn’t, but I really REALLY wanted to).
Brian, in his calm way, immediately said, “Ah…you don’t want to do that because they become used to humans and lose their survival instincts. It’s not a good thing.”
He was being nice about it but Mark, in a smarmy chuckle, said “Well I’m sorry, for feeding that li’l ol’ piece to him.”
“You giant prick,” I thought. “You just couldn’t fully apologize.”
“That’s okay Mark,” I said sweetly. “It’s a good learning opportunity.”
I sincerely hope that pissed him off.

The desire to feed the animals is one instinct of human stupidity that requires early reprogramming, years of rigorous training and brainwashing. Other instincts of human stupidity that necessitates serious mental readjustment: carving your name in pristine places, taking things from nature as souvenirs/trophies, touching fire, sticking fingers in staplers, squeezing your head in between two posts, gaping your mouth when applying mascara, speaking English louder in a foreign country as if they would understand you better, the desire to poke all gelatinous substances and jamming objects up your nostrils. Maybe his parents didn’t teach him not to feed the animals. Maybe he’s never been to a zoo and therefore never seen the “Do not feed the animals” signs. Maybe he was taught that feeding animals energy bars was a good idea. Maybe his mother didn’t breastfeed him, or maybe his mother breastfed him until he was five. One can only speculate.

We pressed on with our hike. After a few more minutes we were out of the trees and like a curtain pulled back, the canyon floor, covered entirely in canyon grape bushes, was revealed to us. It was like walking through a vineyard but without the orderly, rigid, self-important rows. It was untamed, natural, magical. Wild, unruly vines grabbed at my legs and tugged at my shirt. Things could and probably did lurk in these bushes.
“When are we going to get there?” Julian asked.
“The faster we walk the sooner we’ll get there,” Brian replied.
“But how much further do we have to go?”
Silence.
“Brian, when are we going to get there?”
“You know what Julian, I don’t like that question,” Brian said loudly. “If we walk faster we’ll get there faster. If you walk slower we’ll never get there.”
Julian stumbled over some words, then shut up and picked up his pace. That put him in his place. On that sobering note we hiked on.

The trail was high and the water now ran far below. We walked to the edge. At the bottom was Beaver Falls, a series of step falls which were pretty but not spectacular. We wouldn’t be going down, Brian explained. He would take us to a nicer spot for lunch which would actually be outside the boundaries of the reservation and in Grand Canyon National Park land. Getting there required scrambling up rock walls and ladders (which sometime disappear with the floods…Brian seemed genuinely happy to see they were there), sliding down boulders, swinging on vines, battling apes, those damn dirty apes.

We picnicked in this really lovely spot by the last waterfall of Havasu Creek before it joined the Colorado. On a low, small ledge outcropping from the rock wall, we ate. Then Brian and I climbed up to a high point and took turns jumping into the water. When we headed back, I had a sneaking suspicion Brian took us through more water crossings than necessary and at deeper spots on purpose so Julian could “enjoy” the cold water more. At one point we were simply walking up the creek in the water. It worked out well as both Julian and Mark tripped and fell in. We also passed this very neat spot with a rope swing. It goes without saying that we enjoyed a few rounds. We came across a black and white striped snake on the trail. According to Brian it was non-venomous. It was the largest snake I’ve ever come across while on a hike but I surprised myself as I wasn’t perturbed at all, just excited. I was more freaked by a monstrously large neon green caterpillar, the size of a glue stick. One can only imagine what kind of evil butterfly that would mutate into.

Despite being stuck with Napoleon Dynamite and Yosemite Sam, it had been the most wonderful hike of Havasu. Back at camp, it sounded like the other group enjoyed themselves at Navajo. When they got there and looked down at the falls, they stumbled upon a crazy scene of what looked like a nudist colony—naked men, women and children—all over the falls swimming and basking. It was all there to see. Although I would have enjoyed a good chuckle and would have a good story to tell, I’m glad I went on the other trip. Who knows what I might have done with that canyon fever in the air. I probably would have joined them.

The most disturbing part about talking with the group was how quickly the conversation derailed. We would be having what I thought was a normal conversation when some bizarre fact about someone’s life, a stunningly candid disclosure was seamlessly incorporated in. I would tilt my head to one side and think to myself, “Did she say what I think…nah.” They’d continue to talk, all the while their life story got stranger and stranger and I was left to nod my head and keep a smile plastered on my face and think, “Is anybody else hearing this? Someone please tell me I’m not crazy in thinking this is weird.” It was like watching Maury Povich. You’re watching a show parading bizarre people—anything from a man who is deathly afraid of peaches and cotton balls to a woman who has five men lined up as the possible baby daddy—and these people do apparently exist. So after three days of many did-I-need-to-know-that? revelations, why would final night be any different?

Talking to Gina about her family was opening a can of worms, the kind that give you a jolt as they shoot out everywhere. Politely asking people about their family is a basic enough question. She was the seventh of twelve children, the youngest girl (normal enough). Her mom was still having children at the same time as her older children so there were uncles the same age as nieces and nephews (okay, that happens). Gina became close to her mother as she battled cancer in the last five years of her life. Her mother went to live with Gina and Barney. Gina even quit her job to take care of her. Fifteen months before she died, her mother married a 21 year old man (here Barney adds: “He was black” before Gina shushes him)—okay, a 21 year old black man; her mother was 54. And while Gina was happy her mother was able to find someone to “fulfill her” before she died, this caused a rift with the rest of the family (here Barney adds: “Although he did cry at the funeral”). Originally the man didn’t want a funeral but Barney was able to convince him to have it since the family needed closure (here Gina whispers: “Barney’s such a good man”). Her siblings thought the man poisoned her mother (Gina shakes her head: “That’s just silly,” and at this point, I’m trying hard not to do anything—not to cry, laugh, shake my head, scream, run for the forest to never return.) She has a 28 year old daughter whose father is Hispanic. She was upset her daughter couldn’t get breast augmentation because she’s pregnant. I don’t think I need to point out to you how quickly things go off the deep end over the course of a bowl of rice and stew.
“But I know,” Gina said happily, “If there was plastic surgery in heaven, my mom would be the first one to get a face lift! God bless her.”
Amen.

I couldn’t let my last night in the canyon end like this. I asked Bob if we could do a night hike and to my surprise he said yes. When the group crawled into their tents, we took our flashlights and walked to Havasu Falls. Sitting in the dark, we watched the shadowy movement of the water, listened to the comforting rush of music in the night. We sat there for a long time, sometimes chatting, sometimes in silence as we looked for shooting stars. I tried to think of a wish to make and instantly felt foolish. I didn’t need to wish for anything. When we finally pulled ourselves away, as I said a silent goodbye to the falls, the brightest star of the night streaked across the sky. A perfect finale.

The morning of our hike out we had an early 5:30 start, the first time we had a wake up call. It was still dark as we got ready. We had to have our mule sacks handed in before we were allowed to have coffee or breakfast. We didn’t have to take down camp though. Another group would be down in a couple of days and Brian was only walking with us for a little while before heading back and cleaning up. He was guiding the next trip and would meet the new group at the trailhead.

We set off from camp as the sun rose in the crisp, cool air for it was a long ten mile hike ahead of us. As we passed through Supai the school bell clanged merrily and children ran along the road to get to school. Soon we said our goodbyes to Brian. It was a lonely ten miles for me. Mark bolted ahead with Nikki chasing behind while Bob hung back encouraging Gina, Barney and Julian like he did with me on our Rim to Rim although I doubt they swore under their breath every five steps. We all became so far separated that I couldn’t see anyone in front or behind me. I enjoyed the scenery of the walk but after being forced to live within my own mind for four days (kind of a crazy place, trust me), it was a long hike to make. Eventually we regrouped and snacked before starting the 2,400 ft climb, child’s play after Rim to Rim. I was really excited for it which is absolutely unheard of for me. It’s part of a longstanding tradition that I show nothing but loathing for uphill climbs and I was secretly breaking it. This was the grand finale, the strongest, fittest, healthiest I would be on the entire trip and I wanted to pick a pace that would challenge me and stick to it. Not before long I passed Mark.
“Are you planning on making it first?” He asked
“Oh, shut up you twit. Who gives a shit?” (Sigh) No I didn’t say that but that really would have been the time to let it all out or the perfect opportunity to push him off the cliff.
“I’m not planning on it. I’m picking a challenging pace for myself,” and I left him coughing in my dust.
Going up was still hard even if there were no heavy packs to carry. The switchbacks seemed endless and there was a constant stream of mule trains to avoid. Sometimes I would have to run up the length of the switchback to avoid being trampled. I made it to the top and was quite please with myself but had to sober up for Mark’s appearance. I just knew he would 1) make some smarmy ass comment 2) ask me my age to make himself feel better. As soon as I saw him reach the rim:
1) “Well, aren’t you the queen of the trail.”
2) “How old are you?”
Sometimes my ability to read people frightens me.

The van was still parked where we had left it on Day 1 and Bob was genuinely glad to see no one had siphoned the gas. The contents of the cooler were still ice cold and we sat on the bins and ate sandwiches. On the drive back, I sat in the front seat writing in Bob’s journal while the others slept. I drew funny little cartoons of our Rim to Rim trip, reminisced about Team Awesome. The only thing of note on the drive back was all the tarantulas on the road making the slow, treacherous cross to the other side. Maybe the females were sluttier there. I told Bob to avoid running them over because the poor things just wanted to get laid. He did his best to swerve around them. Julian woke up and was suddenly full of energy and would not shut up. He kept going on and on laughing at his own joke. It was a very long three hour drive back. But suddenly, as I saw how close we were to Flagstaff, I didn’t want it to end. It would mean the end of my trip, the end of waking up with a whole day of adventure and discovery laying before me, the end of sharing a laugh with Bob, the end of my time in the canyon, a place enchanting, mysterious and beautiful. I felt at peace and open and true to myself there. I was heavy in my heart. It was hard to let go.

Before my trip began, I had made reservations at the DuBeau Hostel which was literally across the street from the FS Store. I had even neurotically called to confirm my spot a few days before flying out. When I arrived, there was a sign on the office door stating that they decided to close early for the season and they were moving bookings to their sister hostel, Grand Canyon Hostel, three blocks away. After Havasu dropped off, Bob kindly drove me to GC Hostel because of my luggage. We said our goodbyes and I went in only to be informed they had overbooked and were moving people to DuBeau. I must have looked positively wild when the clerk broke the news—not having showered in four days, having hiked ten miles that morning, having spent four days and a long three hour drive with America’s finest. He quickly offered to drive me back and grabbed the fire extinguisher to douse out the flames coming from my head. Such are the joys of a hostel. I guess that’s what you get for $19.

I’ve been to a few hostels in my day. True, they were all European hostels so perhaps there is a difference, but I’ve stayed at a few with that same laidback, transient, backpacker vibe like the one at Grand Canyon Hostel. However, this one was the most chaotic and in dire need of a reno hostel I’ve ever stayed at. They were really friendly but disorganized. The only thing they were anal about was that you had to gather your linens upon check out and take it to the front desk. One of the clerks, a blond youth with a receding hair line, delivered answers to my very practical questions in the spacy-est manner and yet, he must have repeated the linen rule seven times. It was a bizarre place with bizarre people.

The rooms at GC Hostel were tiny and could barely fit the two bunks and sink it contained. There were two bathrooms on each floor, both of which had a shower and toilet but no sink, which meant you had to wash your hands in either the kitchen or your room, a lovely way to spread germs. The bathroom on the left was spacious, with a large area where you could dress, and a bench and hooks to put stuff on. A large psychedelic portrait of an Indian was painted on the wall. The shower was huge. The bathroom next to it on the right was the size of an outhouse, so tiny you were practically showering over the toilet. There was nowhere you could put things except for a single hook. The shower also didn’t drain properly so one minute into your shower you were ankle deep in water.

The total of two nights I did stay at GC I was always exhausted, coming from the airport or coming off trip, and that made being social a chore. I tried my best to be pleasant. People wanted to talk all the time, especially the girl prancing around the hall wearing large fairy wings.
DuBeau was like a ghost town compared to the hub of activity that was GC. With outdoor entrances to each room, it was likely a converted motel. The rooms were much bigger and contained three bunks (six beds), a private bath and a space heater. Only one other bed in my room looked occupied but she wasn’t there when I arrived or when I returned after dinner. It was noticeably drafty and chilly in the room in spite the space heater.

After a very hot shower, I walked through downtown Flagstaff in the fading light and within four blocks I came upon the residential area which I much preferred. Don’t get me wrong, I love Flagstaff. It has nice stores, warm and inviting unpretentious restaurants, pubs where you can have a beer and watch the game. It has enough Western in it to make you think a few cowboys might mosey on out of the bar at any moment but not too much that you think you’re in Walt Disney’s wild west wet dream. The houses were ordinary and peaceful and reminded me that people lived here; it wasn’t simply a necessary stop to get to the Grand Canyon so people could snap some photos, scratch their ass and get a t-shirt from the gift shop. I walked down the rows of houses for a while in the crisp night air before being unable to ignore my stomach. It has been very demanding ever since the hike, unable to understand why it’s not receiving a snack every half hour. Now at work I walk to the photocopier and have a craving for fruit gums or corn nuts. Grazing has been the hardest habit from the trip to break. The second habit is to expect direction from Bob (“Oh no, what am I supposed to be doing now? Should I be drinking water?) That’s when I sat down at a restaurant and started writing about Havasu Falls.

I returned to the hostel and crashed. I don’t know how long I was down for before I was awakened by a knock at the door that I tried to ignore. The knock became louder. Then pounding. Finally after five minutes of door breaking pounding I hauled myself out of the warm bed into the cold air and threw open the door.
“Hi, I work for the hostel and something seems to be shorting the breaker. The other rooms don’t have electricity. (And this affects me how?) So I’m going to check the wattage of your space heater.”
I rubbed my squinty eyes and without answering waved him through.
“I’m going to have to close this heater because the wattage is too high. That should do it. By the way, there are flames coming out of your head.” (The heater part is true.)

Despite the truly magnificent joys of the hostel, I woke up feeling refreshed and wonderfully excited about the promising day ahead—a whole day to myself to wander, to see what I wanted to see, to explore. I was vaguely aware that my dorm mate had come in while I was asleep and when I flipped over in bed I was slightly alarmed to see her sitting cross-legged on her bed, eyes closed. That woke me up fast. Was she meditating or had she slept like that? I rose. She opened her eyes.
“Good morning,” she said serenely.
She was a middle aged woman with light brown skin and brown hair tied back in a braid. She was dressed in a white tank top and yoga pants. Judging by her slender physique, I pegged her as a vegetarian or vegan. Coincidentally she was from Brampton, a city just west of Toronto, but had spent the last three years working as a midwife in Northern Manitoba in a town called Thompson.

Those who know me know I have little tolerance for weird places. I can’t define what I mean by a weird place for you but the common denominator is that there is no good reason why you should be living there; there is somewhere infinitely better you could be. A weird place could be a town like Bradford, Ontario, the type of place Torontonians suspect folks marry their cousins or have sex with sheep, or it could be an obvious place like Las Vegas. Why oh why would you live in Las Vegas. It doesn’t have to be a city or town, just as long as it gives you a chill down your spine, an involuntary reflex of wrinkling your nose and a furrowed brow, like you’ve just got a whiff of the staffroom fridge. It’s a place you would avoid going to. Walmart Superstore and Radioshack fall into this category. I fully acknowledge that it’s subjective and insulting to people who are content with the choice of where they live but that’s just me.

Thompson, Manitoba is one of those places. Its tourism website calls it "Hub of the North" which really does not make me want to go there. The city is located 830 kilometers north of the international border, and 739 kilometers north of the provincial capital of Winnipeg, nicknamed ‘Winterpeg’.
“Thompson boasts an excellent transportation system of scheduled daily air service, overnight truck delivery, paved roads (gee whiz! Paved roads!), and a railway system that connects Thompson with other communities throughout the province and ends at the arctic port of Churchill.” Churchill, by the way, is the polar bear capital of the world, and yes, there are some people who live there and live with being swiped at by polar bears on the daily but that’s a whole other story for another day kids.
July and August see balmy highs of 68 F before temperatures drop off the cliff again. You may also find it interesting to know that the population of Thompson is 13,256. If that is the case, that means there are more polar bears in Canada than people in Thompson. And if at a population of 13,256 people that makes it Manitoba’s third largest city, you can add the province of Manitoba to the weird list.

After three years in Thompson, she went back to Toronto to tie up some loose ends before hitting the road to crisscross America. She loved Arizona so far because of all the “earth energy” and was very interested in studying herbs (I bet she was). She had just signed up for a Grand Canyon trip through park service. She didn’t have to pay anything but would work ten days removing those pesky Tamarisk trees. I was able to really help her prepare for her trip, giving her advice on what to bring, what to expect. She showed me the second hand backpack she had just picked up and it was the exact same kind I had used. I explained how to pack it, what water capacity she needed, the best place to store bagels, the buoyant, resilient nature of bagels and the importance of naming her backpack. I eyed the various herbs and stack of lemons she had on her bedside table but didn’t feel the need to warn her that all plants in canyon were hallucinogenic and highly poisonous. I’m sure her guide would educate her on that fact, and if not, well…being in the canyon is about self-discovery right?
In retrospect, ten days is a long time to spend in the canyon without the opportunity to shampoo one’s hair or get a good wash in. The weather was only getting cooler and I assume it would be increasingly difficult to convince oneself to rinse in a creek. But I wished her the best and was on my merry way.

I walked ten minutes to Budget to get my car (an Impala, surprisingly powerful and fast), picked up my luggage and drove to GC Hostel to check out. (“Did you remove your linens???”) There were people talking in the lobby about doing the hostel’s canyon tour to the South Rim which included hiking the rim trails for a few hours. I felt sorry for them, sorry they weren’t going in and would probably never see what we saw, never experience its amazing qualities. It was almost painful to hear and made me feel antsy. I got out of there as quickly as possible, before the guy at the front desk had a chance to ask me again if I completed my linen duty.
The first stop on my day of freedom was up San Francisco street to Flagstaff Hospital. Bob had mentioned he did a stained glass piece for its chapel and I was curious to see it. The hospital sat perched on the hill and was small, bright and clean. I wandered the halls until I found the chapel room behind an inconspicuous door. The piece was really lovely to see. There were no windows so a backlight illuminated the pretty mountain scene. Stained glass is an interesting art because of the way you have to think in terms of connected lines and shapes, sort of like a mosaic but technically more difficult. It is nice to see an artwork of someone you know. In a way, it felt like I was visiting an old friend at the hospital.

I stopped at Target where I looked for Corn Nuts (drat! no Corn Nuts), bought a coffee from Starbucks (yes, Starbucks in Target) which I drank two sips of before recalling for the 65th time I hate Starbucks coffee. There has to be some drug in their coffee that makes people forget how much they hate the taste of overpriced roasted tar. The coffee would spend the rest of the day fermenting in the car before being disposed of 143 miles away in Phoenix, which is the best a cup of Starbucks purchased by Cindy can hope for. I said goodbye to Flagstaff, or Flag as I felt I could call it like a local, and hopped onto 89A.

89A, from Sedona to Flag, runs through Oak Creek Canyon and is the corridor for many trailheads. It is also a “Fodor’s Choice” which put me on edge. Guide book picks are usually reliable—they are recommended for a reason—but the recommendation itself is an undeniable curse as well. It becomes overrun and people trample carelessly over the very thing they’ve come to see. You have to contend with fat sun burnt people in ugly shirts making inane comments like, ‘Isn’t it EXQUISITE!” like I remember a woman had screeched when I was in Capri. Or even better, men with their nose in the guidebook simpering to their wives, “Well, it’s nothing like what I thought it’d be.” For the first time in…well, ever, I had no desire to go over the speed limit. Actually, for the first time ever I drove under the limit, which wasn’t a problem because all the traffic was coming in the opposite direction from Sedona; there was no one in front or behind. From Flag, I glided over the smooth hills through the forest in its autumnal glory, morning sunshine filtering through the trees. The foliage was not a dramatic firework display of red, orange and yellow like in Canada, but it was a golden yellow, the precise shade to compliment the Arizona blue skies, the red rock, the grey bark. In other words, it was perfect. In spite of the cool mountain air I drew down the windows, played Etta James’ At Last and soaked it all in.

I stopped at Oak Creek vista, the gateway to the corridor and took a quick look at the forested canyon. I didn’t walk the entire length of the lookout because it was already packed with tourists and people selling souvenirs. I went into the small shack known as the visitor’s centre looking for ideas on what to do. The information man must have been 89 years old, but he was helpful which is always good for a visitor’s centre. He explained that if I wanted to stop and park at any trailhead or lookout I needed a Red Rock Pass. It was $5 and I would get an information newsletter that had a map. Suddenly I had the crazy urge to go for a hike. I had been hiking for the last eight days, was I really going to do another one? I wanted to do it more than ever. The thought of spending the day shopping or “sightseeing” in Sedona made me cringe.
I asked the man if there were any trails near “Indian Gardens”, a sandwich shop Bob had recommended.
“Sterling Pass, just past Manzanita campground, but its strenuous.”
From the Vista I drove south (trying to hit as many tourists wearing Bermuda shirts in the parking lot as possible). The road began to wind down through the canyon and everywhere I turned I saw incredible rock formations, goliaths towering in the sky. Cars kept wavering into the oncoming lane or shoulder as drivers craned their neck every which way. It was also a slow drive. There were about fifteen cars accordioned behind one doing 20 miles per hour, a possible escapee from a retirement home. I couldn’t tell how slow they were going because my speedometer didn’t show kilometers.
Q: What does 20 mph convert to kilometers?
A: Fucking slow.
It was annoying because I couldn’t look at the scenery without the risk of causing a pile up. I was finally able to pull out of the pack at Indian Gardens. It was a picnic stop and convenience store with a gourmet sandwich counter. I hadn’t planned on hiking so I bought a packet of Corn Nuts (the snack of champions) and ordered a Turkey sandwich with avocado to go. As I waited I studied the hiking map. Sterling Pass was W (in the wilderness), S (strenuous), 2.4 miles one way, with an elevation gain of 1,120. I had inadvertently picked one of the hardest hikes there. My wonderful idea didn’t seem so wonderful anymore but I wasn’t worried. I did Rim to Rim! That will be my response to everything for a long while. This Sunday: “I can pedal up this hill without resting. I did Rim to Rim!” “I can eat this slab of cake without getting fat. I did Rim to Rim!” “I don’t need to wash the dishes. I did Rim to Rim!”

I drove on, saw the sign for Manzanita campground but didn’t see a sign for Sterling Pass. According to the map it should have been right there. Before I knew it I was saw the sign for the next trailhead. I stopped, did a U-turn and headed back. Again, I passed Manzanita and there was no sign. Apparently doing a Rim to Rim gives you permission to eat anything you want but doesn’t increase your navigation or finding skills. Going North now I pulled off into the next stop, Slide Rock State Park, and poked around until I found a ranger.
“Just before you hit Manzanita, pull off to the side and park. There’s no sign. There’s a small plaque on the ground at the trailhead.”
The ranger must have read my frustration (I don’t think there were flames coming from my head, just smoke) because he said, “Sterling Pass leads to Vultee Arch which you can also get to on Vultee Arch trail.” He pulled out a photocopy map and highlighted it for me. “For Vultee Arch you have to drive to down to Sedona then go up this road. This road leads to all these trails.”
I took the fact that I couldn’t find the trailhead as a sign that I shouldn’t do Sterling Pass. I took the fact that there wasn’t even parking and a marker as another bad sign. Vultee Arch was rated Easy-Moderate (a good sign). I didn’t even have to do that trail—looking at the map I saw there were tons of them to choose from—but I decided it would be nice to see an arch. Plus, I learned from our Rim to Rim adventure that trail names that suggest pain or death or anything biblical have been named such because it causes pain or death or prayer. Remember Devil’s Corkscrew and Jacob’s Ladder? They have just as appealing ones in Sedona. Wouldn’t you like to hike Devil’s Bridge and Deadman’s Pass? Vultee Arch sounded just fine to me.

I drove through Sedona, a city in the middle of the desert, surrounded by incredible red sandstone formations, a stunning backdrop to your view everywhere you turned. I had heard so much about it from people before my trip and searching on the internet, I had found a lot of boutique hotels, spas, golf courses—very honeymoonish or couples getaway type of things. It was a nice city. There were no tall buildings. The buildings lay low and were of typical Southwest design: smooth outer walls in a palette of desert pastels—sandstone, ochre, tan, stone—with red roof tiles sun-bleached pink. I drove through the Uptown area, a main street lined with shops and galleries done in a very cutesy Western style. There were a lot of people of the species Homo tourbusian walking along this strip. My original plan was to stop in the centre and walk around for a while but seeing the platoons of people I definitely decided against it and opted to move onto the hike, lest I touch elbows with someone and start baring my teeth and growling in retaliation (my reintegration back into society was still tenuous at the time). I’m sure the stores were lovely despite the kitschy-ness I detected but knew if I window shopped I would impulsively buy a $500 pair of cowboy boots, some new age crystal that fixes an ailing love life and cactus jelly.

The gateway to the trailhead was on a dead end road creatively named Forest Road 152. It ran north off 89A so there was no way I could get lost, right? But I soon found myself wondering where the hell I was. A sign said I was on FR 152C. So close yet so far. I wasn’t the only one lost because I found myself at dead end at a gateway to a private golf course. There was a long line of cars to get to the gatehouse where an old man stood outside. One by one the car would stop and I saw the man giving directions to each car, pointing and gesturing. Then the car would turn around and go on their merry way. I pulled up.
“I guess it’s my turn to say I’m lost?” I said.
“Don’t worry, the signage is terrible. Where do you want to go to?”
“Vultee Arch.”
“Go back down this road, make a left. Soon after the equestrian sign there is a dirt road on the left. Vultee Arch is all the way at the end.”
I thanked him profusely and drove around. Looking in my rear view mirror the next car had pulled in and I could see him pointing and gesturing some directions. Poor man. I hope he got paid for more than being a golf course gatekeeper. He was right too. The signage was terrible. I made the left onto the dirt road and saw a small sign in the ditch half covered by bushes. You would think that if a highlight of Sedona was hiking and tourism they would make better signs. Or maybe it’s cheaper to pay Larry (I’ve decided to call him Larry) to give directions. Larry wasn’t kidding either when he said dirt road. It was pitted and rocky. I saw a pink 4x4 filled with tourists leaving and realized this was one of the off-roading trails the Jeep tours used. I had considered doing one of those tours but considered it too expensive. Now it worked out perfectly because who needs a 4x4 when you have a rental car? I rolled down all the windows, blasted ACDC and flew down the road on a very rough ride. It was so much fun it felt sinful.
On the drive I passed a few Jeep tours and only a couple regular cars. I stopped my car whenever I wanted to take pictures. It took me 30 minutes to reach the end of the road to Vultee Arch trailhead which was deserted except for two parked cars. Everything was very quiet. I had no hesitation in changing into my hiking clothes in the open although it crossed my mind that a Jeep full of tourists could zoom by at any moment. (“Hey Earl, look over there! And I thought it would be just a bunch of rocks.”)

The trail was 1.7 miles one way. It was a gradual climb but the ground was sandy, giving my legs an extra work out. Just as the road signage had been an issue, the trails were not marked. All I needed was a painted dot on a tree every once in a while to know I was going the right way and there were none. I would be walking and suddenly the trail would end so I had to retrace my steps back to the fork to go the other way. In spite of the confusion and the nagging fear they would find my body one week later way off the trail half eaten by coyotes, I enjoyed the walk. It followed along a dry streambed in complete wilderness and there were many different plants and flowers. The trees were bare, showing the scars of a fire in 1996, but it was still shady. I couldn’t have asked for better weather or bluer skies.
Eventually I made it to a large outcrop of rock. I scrambled through some scratchy bushes and up its base to find a small plaque commemorating Gerard and Sylvia Vultee who died in a plane crash near the site in 1938. I looked up at the pile of rock and didn’t see the arch. I stood there for a moment before climbing around halfway. Perhaps I had to see it at another angle. Still, I didn’t see the arch. I scrambled down and sat in the shade eating my sandwich and munching on corn nuts (good snack for pondering too), thinking of how I was going to explain to people that I didn’t actually see an arch.
It was a metaphorical arch. The shape of the arch represented the inner journey. First a gradual rise in excitement and anticipation in seeing the arch and then utter disappointment since there was no fucking arch.
A couple appeared and did the exact same thing I did. They read the plaque, looked up, scratched their heads, tried to look at it from a different angle.
“I’m as confused as you,” the woman said.
Finally we saw it. The arch was higher up on an adjacent hill and looked quite small and ordinary. The man said he had read you could go up and walk across it so we searched for a trail that lead to it but didn’t find any. Ah well. At least I had seen it.

My day was drawing to a close. A brisk walk back, more off-roading (my white car looked like it had been dive bombed by red dirt), a goodbye to Sedona, an uneventful drive back to Phoenix. I got jittery when I heard radio reports every five minutes in a panicked voice warning of heavy traffic on 17 South to Phoenix, the exact route I was on, but I laughed when I merely had to slow down for a mile or two. You haven’t experience traffic until you’ve been on the 401 (four-oh-one), officially the busiest highway in North America and one of the busiest in the world. Running right through Toronto, it is pretty much the only corridor that runs west-east, connecting Southwest Ontario to almost Montreal, Quebec, so you can imagine the sheer volume of vehicles: cars, buses, transport trucks. Among its other shining distinctions: it is the widest highway in the world (it reaches 18 lanes at one point), it is the busiest truck route in the world and it hosted the deadliest auto pile up in Canadian history, involving 87 vehicles. It is the shittiest, most chaotic road that brings out the most dangerous and aggressive behaviour in drivers. The only alternate route is a privately owned toll highway that people have to get a loan/sell their non essential organs to afford. Yet Ontarians put up with the 401 as a necessary evil and instead of putting pressure on the government, we remain compliant, grip the steering wheel in fear and frustration, and give especially dangerous sections of the 401 cute nicknames like “Carnage Alley.” Yikes. I didn’t have a plan for Phoenix except maybe to go Scottsdale because I read about nice stores and restaurants there. I looked at the map and went bug eyed. The roads in Phoenix didn’t have names—they were numbered. It was insanity. How could a city function like this? 7th Ave., 7th St…all the way to 191st Ave., 195th Ave. Why?? Can you imagine getting directions?
“To get to 64th Street, you gotta go up 32nd…that’s 32nd Street not Avenue…then make a right at Camelback Road and then turn left at 56th. Wait. No, that ain’t right. What street am I on?” This is actually what the gas station attendant said trying to give me directions. It was a bad sign that she didn’t even know what intersection the station was at.
At least “Carnage Alley” is memorable. Any name would do. People can’t remember 168th St. but they would remember “Gonorrhea Blvd” or “Dry Hump Ave.” I gave up. I saw an outdoor shopping mall and impulsively turned in. It was called Biltmore Fashion Park, an upscale shopping promenade and I was pleasantly surprised. The stores lined a pretty central walkway with a garden and live music at the centre. I treated myself to a slice of Dulce de Leche cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory and ate while watching the band perform. Actually, I watched the children dancing at the front, fearlessly spinning around with their arms spread until they dropped sick and dizzy to the ground. It was the perfect way to end a perfect day.

After I return home from the road I always find my mind wandering back to the place where I’ve just come from. Following the trip denouement, the fresh memories take me away from the spreadsheet on the screen, make me smile as I sit on the subway, make me laugh out loud as I sit in traffic on the 401. Then I have to push it aside or else I would feel melancholy all the time, unable to be happy with where I am. Out of all my trips, I’ve thought about our Rim to Rim the most and for the longest time. Nearly one month has past and I still find myself smiling at the memory of making it to last call at Phantom Ranch like champs or our mascots, the Red Vine girl that thought Bob was “awesome” (her words, not mine) and the other that wasn’t so sure. It was a short trip but I left my heart in the canyon.

If only I could live every day of my life like a morning in the canyon. If only I could relive that moment of waking up, blinking like a child, watching the sun illuminate the canyon and enlighten us on our smallness in this great world. If only I could once again look up and be amazed.