We carefully planned a 52-day camping road trip to the Western United States for more than two years before our scheduled departure on June 22, 2006. There were hundreds of logistical details that we had to see to before we were ready to hitch up our Coleman pop-up trailer to our minivan and hit the road. We were overwhelmed by the number of friends, family members, neighbors, and co-workers who expressed an interest in receiving updates on our adventure, so we established this blog. Thank you for reading and sharing your comments.
 

      - Frank, Sessy, Elliot and Emily



Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Day 20 (Leaving with no regrets!)

Day 20
July 11, 2006
Grand Canyon South Rim, AZ to Page, AZ (152 miles)

No overnight rain!

Frank awoke shortly after 4 AM with a strong feeling that one of life’s great opportunities was slipping him by. He felt compelled to get out of bed and hike the South Kaibab Trail. There was still time! He quickly and quietly filled three 1-liter bottles with fresh water and grabbed a bag of trail mix, two power bars and a digital camera and headed out for the shuttle stop in what would have been pre-dawn blackness except for the light of a full moon.

There were no other hikers in sight when Frank stepped into the canyon at the trailhead at 5 minutes before 5. In the next hour and ten minutes, he walked first to Cedar Ridge and then on to Skeleton Point before turning around. It took him about an hour and 25 minutes to walk out. The 1-way distance to Skeleton Point was approximately 2.75 miles with a descent of about 1,850 feet.

The first ten minutes were spent on switchbacks blasted into a narrow pass just below the rim. After that section, the trail straightened and slowly dropped over the next quarter mile. Then it followed a ridge top for a bit until a series of switchbacks dropped it down to a dry plateau of rolling hills, at the end of which was Skeleton Point.

At one point Frank caught up to a mule train that appeared to be transporting goods of some sort and followed it for about a mile. It was amazing to see how agile these large, powerful animals were given the unsure footing and precipitous drop-offs.

The temperature was a good 10 degrees hotter 1,000 feet down and got hotter the lower Frank went. At the point where he turned around, the Colorado River was visible and could be heard, but it was still a long way down to it.

After breakfast, we folded up the trailer and set out for Page and Lake Powell. The drive across the barren Navajo Reservation on the way to Page was a stark reminder to us of how uncharitable the U.S. Government was to the Native Americans. The land we gave them was so poor that virtually nothing grew on it. There were dozens of roadside stands where Indians were selling jewelry, pottery and rugs to passing tourists like us. We didn’t stop, and we wondered how many visitors do. It must be a hard way to make a living, if it’s a living at all.

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