Death in the Family

Regular readers will have noticed that despite the frenetic pace of my adventure, there has been a sag in my blogging activity. Consequently the blog is now rather behind and I will be striving to catch up with myself again over the next week or so.

There has, however, been a recent event that I feel the need to report from outside the lagging chronological sequence of the blog. A very dear family friend died unexpectedly at home one night when his big, kind heart suddenly failed. But don't try to fit this post into the blog sequence, and don't be confused when his ghost arises as a living presence in upcoming posts.

Don Morgan was a kind, generous and gentle man, and a longtime friend of Patricia and her family. He was the kind of friend who helps rearrange the furniture, picks you up at the airport, lends you his car on a moment's notice or insists on sleeping on the couch while house guests take his bed.

The last time I saw Don he told me he was feeling better than he had in ten years. He was happy and relaxed, trying new adventures like canoeing and photography and thinking about buying a motorcycle. It seemed like so many things were just beginning for him that it's easier to believe in the promise of his plans than the reality of his death.

Don is survived by his beloved son Brendon, of whom he was immensely proud, and by the many friends who miss him very much.

Grand Canyon - East

After the trauma of the frozen mule ride, I changed into dry clothes in a public toilet and gingerly drove off, still shivering, with the puff pouring out heat onto my socks. It was still grey and drizzling, but strangely quiet and beautiful. The puff felt like a submarine, like a private bubble filled with the swirling rush of hot air. Outside the armour of the puff the world stood cool and brooding.

One way to gain an appreciation of the enormity of the Grand Canyon is to drive from the North Rim, around to the east and back down to Flagstaff, south of the Grand Canyon. It's a very, very, very long drive. It's such a long drive that I drove into entirely new weather, dry, bright and hot. I slowly thawed out as I marvelled at the scenery by the side of the road.

In most places, this kind of scenery would be a destination in itself. Here it is just what you have to drive past to get to the good stuff.

Grand Canyon - Mule Ride

Despite the overcast day, I was looking forward to my mule ride adventure with Canyon Trail Rides.

We stood around in an icy little huddle. Hunched and shuffling, we did the kind of stupid things you do when your brain is half frozen and half asleep, like trying to blow on your hands even though you're wearing gloves. The wranglers bustled around us, businesslike in the misty chill, cinching girths and fitting bridles. One of the wranglers sorted us onto mules based on our amount of riding experience.

"Have you ridden before?"
"Mules? Never. Horses? A lot."
"A lot?"
"Yes, a lot. At least one, maybe two or three lots."

The wrangler didn't even smile. If my fingers were still responding to messages from my brain they would have crossed in the hope that this woman wasn't going to be our guide.

My mule was a particularly splendid animal, tall and slim framed and evenly coloured, with lovely long furry ears. His name is Mike, and he's a very good mule.

Despite my inability to cross my fingers, my wish came true and the unamused lady wrangler was not our guide. Instead we had the charming, and delightfully humorous guidance of Swanny, a genuine cowboy. He was terrific company and full of little jokes. When I sneezed he asked if I was allergic to mules. When I denied any such allergy Swanny said: "What about cowboys?"

He also shared interesting little tidbits of mule lore. Mules are excellent animals for steep, narrow trails of this sort because they tend to have stronger shoulders than horses. Swanny described mules as having 1.25 horsepower. I knew that a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey, but Swanny gave more details. A mule is the result of breeding a male donkey with a female horse. Mules can come in as many shapes and sizes as the horses they're bred from. In our group we had mules bred from narrow shouldered thoroughbred mares, solid chested quarter horse mares, and Fred below, bred from a stocky draught horse mare.

I asked Swanny if mules were generally bred by artificial insemination. He said that they're usually bred by mating the two animals. I was surprised. "How do you mate a mule with a draught horse?" I asked. "With a stepladder?"

Swanny glanced at the young Australian girl and was suddenly bashful. "Mules are ... can I say ... blessed? That's never a problem."

The mules carried us steadily down into the canyon. The best views came just after we dropped below the tree line. The distinctively coloured rock strata are clearly visible from steep, narrow trail. Swanny turned out to be an amateur geologist as well as a professional mulologist and told us about each new layer as we passed through it.

Swanny stopped us after a while and walked back up the path, tightening our girths. He stumbled, squeezing past on the narrow trail. "Cowboys aren't known for good walking skills."

I laughed. "Pretty well known for good drinking skills though."

Swanny laughed even harder. "Maybe those two are related."

As we rode further into the canyon, the weather became gradually nastier. A light mist of drizzle hardened into a cold, steady rain. Ponchos had been forbidden because of the risk they would frighten the mules. So our jeans gradually soaked us to the skin and chilled us to the bone. By the time we were two thirds of the way to the end of the ride I was shivering uncontrollably. I have seldom been so rain soaked and never been so cold for so long.

We reached our stopping point and prised ourselves painfully off our mules. We'd all stiffened up horribly with the combination of unfamiliar activity and the excruciating cold. We staggered on numb legs up a short trail to huddle in the slight shelter outside the pit toilets. Swanny produced a sack lunch for each of us, with a sandwich, a small bag of chips, a drink and a single serve packet of two mini oreos. Despite the unfortunate atmosphere and my uncontrollable shivering, I ate every crumb.

The rain had thoroughly settled in and I was now truly soaked, even under my waterproof layer. My shirt had wicked up water from my drenched jeans and was almost as wet as my socks, which were filled with water. I had taken off my gloves to eat, and couldn't have pulled them back on even if I could bear the thought of their cold, wet pressure on my skin.

Swanny tossed us all back up onto our mules where we clung miserably as they climbed steadfastly back out of the canyon. Visibility had dropped to almost nothing and we rode up the narrow path through a dense cloud.

As cold and unhappy as we were, it was an interesting view of the canyon that comparatively few people ever get to see. The rock walls flowed with sudden waterfalls. Sometimes the path was cut into the rock face like a tunnel with the outside wall missing. Water ran down on the outside and our mules clip clopped patiently through this cave behind a wall of water.

I had been soaked and chilled to the bone for hours, was shivering violently, couldn't feel my extremities and had a nightmarish headache, but my sense of humour was still intact.

Swanny tried to keep our spirits up with jokes. "I expect to see you all walking normal when you get off."

I could still raise a sort of strangled chuckle. "We'll be walking as well as real cowboys."

When we finally made it back up to the trail head Swanny hauled us bodily off the mules and solemnly presented us with certificates.

We were also allowed to keep our branded water bladders.

They are two of my hardest won and most valued souvenirs.

Grand Canyon - North Rim

Another pre-dawn awakening. The obnoxious hour was so that I could make it from a town in south western Utah to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona before 7 am.

I reluctantly abandoned warm sheets to brave the chilly air and loaded the puff in the strange hush of around 4am. There is something rather nice about a solitary drive in the wee hours. The world looks different when everyone else is wrapped up in their dreams. So I drove through the silent, empty streets in the early morning darkness. The road was wet from overnight rain and the clouds still low enough to reflect the streetlights.

There is no sunrise on a heavily overcast morning. The night just gradually blends into day. So it was this morning. Night blearily found its way into day and the series of small towns were lost in the vast wilderness. On this side of the Grand Canyon the foliage is different. I drove through several miles of heavily wooded National Park before getting anywhere near the canyon itself. Deer grazed in the shadows by the sides of the road and an intermittent drizzle softened the view through the windshield.

The closest available parking spot in the lodge carpark was a long way from the entrance. It was a bitterly cold trot through the half light, although at least the rain seemed to have stopped. I was here in this lonely place at this lonely time for a Mule Ride down into the canyon. The weather did not seem favourable and neither did my first encounter with the woman on reception. A couple of other people booked on my trip had already bailed out because of the rain and the ride would not go ahead with too few participants. I said I was game to ride in the rain and signed a document accepting full responsibility for the possibility that I might die or freeze or get get hurt or scared or rabies or Ebola or whatever. I promised not to wear a poncho or carry anything except my camera and a short rainproof jacket.

I sat by the fire in the lodge and waited. It was warm and quiet, the leather seat was soft and I was very low on sleep. I would like to be one of the those trusting people who can just doze off in a strange chair in a strange room, but I am not. So I sat, wide awake and dead tired in a cozy chair, waiting for other tourists who are more afraid of missing out on the trip than they are of hypothermia.

An older couple wandered up and signed on for the all day ride. Then a girl of about 13 and her father, both Aussies, arrived. I felt suddenly homesick when he responded to warnings about the cold by tucking in his Wallabies jersey and saying "She'll be right, mate."

Five people was, apparently, the magic number. The trip was on. We rattled off in a dusty old van under the somber, heavy sky.

Zion National Park - Riverside Walk

One of the star attractions of Zion National Park is the Riverside Walk.

The park's promo materials give the walk a well deserved rave review: "Beautiful, shaded walk meanders through forested glens, following the path of the Virgin River into a high-walled canyon. Easy, 2 miles/1.5 miles round trip."

That certainly sounds like an obvious stop for a single day visit. The walk is cool and peaceful. On the right, a tall canyon wall sprouts vegetation from the trickle of damp seep springs.

On the left, the Virgin River flows cold and clear over rounded river rocks.

The vegetation even supports a mini freshwater swamp right here in the middle of a desert canyon.

The Riverside Walk ends with a small sandy beach at the bottom of the deep canyon. The walls are so close together that the river fills the entire width of the channel. This is the beginning of The Narrows, a 16 mile mostly wading route, where the Riverside Walk becomes the River In walk.

I was willing, but ill prepared. The water was intensely cold and I had only one pair of shoes about my person. I considered returning to the Cream Puff for backup footwear and a change of trousers, but knew that returning via the park shuttle would take hours off my adventure. Instead, I rolled up my cuffs, tied my shoelaces around my neck and decided to wade on until hypothermia kicked in.

Unfortunately, that didn't take very long. My teetering steps with numb feet on slick river rocks were exhausting work and made me very nervous about the $2500 camera hanging over my shoulder. It can't have been much more than a mile before I gave up and turned back. It was a wise choice. The last few chilly steps back to the Riverside Walk were absolutely the last of which I was capable until I'd thawed out my feet on a sunny rock. It must have been a fairly alarming performance because a passer-by offered to help me balance with a foot on the rock. I declined his kind offer out of sheer humiliation, a humiliation that increased several hours later when we met again and he said to his wife "Look, it's the hopping lady."

My feet screamed vilification at me for the remainder of the day, but I maintain that the view was totally worth it. I was hugely jealous of my better prepared companions who forged on ahead in river shoes, wetsuit stockings or, in the case of an inventive group of German tourists, tall garbage bags fastened around their legs and feet under their shoes.

If you ever go to Zion National Park, and you really must, be prepared; wear waders. You don't have to do the whole 16 miles to get amazing views ... just around the next bend.