One
day, before I even opened my eyes to start the day, I had the following
thought: "I'm going to get up at dawn and hike in the Grand
Canyon." This rattled in my brain a bit and woke me up.
Rolling out of bed, it was 5:30, and dawn was long past, strolling across the
sky, merrily giving me the rosy finger for standing her up. But getting
up early to hike in the Grand Canyon
sounded close enough for me. So I did that.
At
6am, I started down the Bright Angel Trail, one of the most-hiked trails in the
park. It starts out wide and not that steep, descending through an arch blasted
in the canyon wall to thread the trail through. Inside the arch, you can
see the too-round-for-nature holes they drilled to stick the dynamite in.
Just past the arch, hikers who crane their necks back to look above the trail
can see pictographs painted in reddish brown on the rock surface. Human
figures with arms at right angles, four-legged mammals, something that really
looks like a monkey. All created long before I was born or thought of,
still there despite the 4.3 million people who visit this park each year (same
as the entire population of Louisiana, or Ireland).
The
trail continues snaking down the cliff-face, cutting broad swaths through
surprisingly green country. I was startled to meet tall supple bushes,
lush flowering plants, actual grasses - very different from the stiff and
pointy desert plants that populate most of the Rim country. The trail
follows the rough contours made by the Bright Angel fault, which has cracked
the Canyon perpendicular to its length. The fault provides a throughway
for water and erosion - making possible the trail's descent as well as the
greenery that surrounds it. At times, I could feel the air cooler coming
off the leaves, and it made me think of another miraculous occurrence that
happened the other day here:
It
rained.
Truly,
it did. And I got to stand in it. The first moisture since April,
everyone around here says. I was walking to the library (naturally), when
a pattering sound all around made me stop. The sun was still beating
down, but suddenly the smell of dust and petrichor was strong, and dark
fingerprints were appearing on the flagstones, the log benches near me, and the
sleeves of my shirt. I stood, stunned into stillness, and watched the
spots appear and disappear as they evaporated away almost immediately.
Cottony clouds scudded fast across the sky, alternating dim and bright light,
and I wondered if it was raining anywhere other than on me, right there in that
courtyard. It was wonderful.
But
back to the trail. There were only a few other hikers on the trail that
morning. Most plonking past me downhill as I dawdled to look at the
plants, the rocks, the view, some scat.
The book I have chosen to present for Junior Ranger Storytime is the
literary masterpiece Who Pooped in the
Park? by Gary D. Robson. After
emphasizing to excitedly grossed-out kids and their weary parents just how much
trackers and scientists can learn from all sorts of animal sign, I find myself
fascinated now more than ever with the evidence left by animals who have come
and gone.
The
Grand Canyon is home to a lot of stealthy animals I’ve never seen outside of a
zoo – mountain lions, ringtails – and some, thankfully, that I have. A glimpse of a coyote streaking across
a highway into barren scrub. A
close call with a tiny scorpion in my first weeks working at Montezuma
Castle. Assisting with the tagging
and relocation of a too-friendly rattlesnake. I am always awed and humbled after those kinds of animal
encounters. Something about
looking into the pitch-black eyes of another being, with an intelligence so
different from yours. Magic. But there’s one animal that has always
eluded me in my wilderness travels: the Bighorn Sheep. This was brought home each time I
visited Zion National Park, where visitors enter the park through a road
winding the bottom of a canyon, staring up at steep slopes towering above their
RVs and midsize sedans. There, I
heard many fellow tourists comment on how they had seen a whole dang herd just
that morning, why just up there, didn’t you see them? Nope. Never
did.
So
imagine my surprise when I rounded a switchback on Bright Angel and came face
to face with a beautiful tawny Bighorn Sheep ewe, spiked horns on her head,
just chilling in the middle of the trail.
The European hiker stopped in front of me was clearly anxious to pass
her, and kept inching downhill.
She, in turn, kept shifting her sure feet and looking back at him
warily. I wasn’t eager for my
morning hike to end in bloodshed, so I picked up a handful of rocks and
scattered them at her feet, while making loud sheep-herding noises.* In the Park Service, this is apparently
called “hazing,” and is sometimes used to scare off endangered California
Condors who land too close to astonished tourists, possibly thinking they are
or must shortly be, a tasty carrion meal.
According to my coworkers, the ranger who chases away the condor is
immediately unpopular with everyone in the vicinity wielding a camera, as well
as the condor itself, who may likely crap itself in surprise.** I recently heard, without seeing, a
ranger do this – as many folks crowded the rim all looking in the same direction,
a piercing “Yeeeee-ha!” reverberated off the rocks. The crowd dispersed, then a red-faced ranger passed me, and
at that moment I felt an up-swell of ranger solidarity. You get ‘em, ranger.
The
European hiker turned back to me and nodded a chagrined appreciation, then
continued down the trail. I waited
a bit to let him get ahead, then continued wandering down myself. After not too long, I heard scuffling
from a few meters above the trail and saw three sheep kids and another ewe
hiding in the bushes patiently watching me pass. Then later, another ewe right alongside the trail, so quiet
that I didn’t notice her until I was far too close for comfort, and far closer
than I would ever advise a junior ranger to be. And yes, I was that damn tourist who stopped within
biting/charging/goring distance to take a picture. But I was so eager to memorialize this initial meeting, this
face-to-face introduction to a new species, like an alien meeting her first
astronaut.***
Not
much later, I turned back uphill, and didn’t see any sheep on my hike back,
except their tracks and sign, and my satisfied astonishment at these new canyon
companions, this unexpected lush foliage, this blessed rainshower. I am always learning new things about
this place – improbable, wonderful things. When I least expect it.
*How
do I know sheep-herding noises? May
I please take this opportunity to thank the film The Ten Commandments which I have watched annually since
childhood. If Moses had crossed
the desert to join a group of farmers, I would have been less prepared. Anyway!)
**Or
possibly to cool down its legs.
It’s true. They do
that, since they don't sweat. Science!
***
Except skipping the part where the alien later pops out of the astronaut’s
chest.
