Difficult to believe, but the dark chasm below was our destination on that hike to Phantom Ranch. But how to get down to it?
Gotta Get Down To It
Category: South Kaibab Trail
Cirque de Soleil
Some people were born to entertain. This young couple I met on the shuttle van became the basis for the two blithe spirits in the book. They weren’t going to Phantom Ranch, and later in the story, I’d find out why.
Red Green Blue… Orange
It looks dangerous because it is. A sneeze, cough, or innocent stumble can send you rolling ultimately to free-fall. This kind of thing is pervasive on the South Kaibab Trail. The worst thing you can do is become distracted by all the colors. Good luck with that.
Rocks… Rocks… Rocks
Vertigo is not acrophobia, as I found out in THE CANYON CRAWL.
Scarface
We were holding our own against the thirty-somethings above.
South Kaibab Trail below Ooh Aah Point.
The Orange Show
Switchbacks lead to more switchbacks leading to Cedar Ridge which we mistakenly thought was the half-way point of our hike. As you’ll read in the book, I renamed it The Kasbah with good reason.
The Latrine
Tin roof in the distance is the latrine at Cedar Ridge. It took us an hour to switchback our way down.
The Long and Winding Road
NPS employee hiking to work. The zig-zag trail winding around and down in the background takes you to The Plateau where it drops near vertical to The Colorado. The trails change color with a change in mineral content at different layers.
The Timeless Embrace
Life and Death in a timeless embrace — the strangest beauty of all.
Cedar Ridge
The Kasbah
The woman walking away up the trail is a seventy-one year old I met here at Cedar Ridge. “Annie” hiked down to Phantom Ranch that morning and is on her way back to The Trailhead. She was wearing Birkenstock sandals and unfazed by the frigid weather or arduous demands of The Kaibab. It took us five hours just to reach Cedar Ridge. Enough said. Annie is on whom I based the character “Cira” in the novel.
Afternoon Light
On South Kaibab below The Kasbah, on the way to Skeleton Point — the real half way.
Compression
From the South Kaibab between Cedar Ridge and Skeleton Point.
Cañon Del Grande 