When We Almost Died at the Grand Canyon (Part II)

Being the overly ambitious young men that we are, we decided to hike down to the very bottom of the canyon. And of course, being the smart college graduates that we are, we decided to start our hike very early the next morning. It was 5.30 am when we left our tent. On the very beginning of the trail, we saw a huge-ass warning sign. It had a big picture of a tough, Rambo-look alike guy who could probably kick all our asses at once, even in his sleep. To the best of my memory, the sign says something like this (not an exact quote):

(Next to the picture of the tough guy) WARNING: Think you’re a tough guy? He did too. But last year we had to rescue 1,667 guys that looked like him by helicopter from the canyon. It could potentially be dangerous to hike down to the bottom of the canyon. If you decide to do so, please obey the following restrictions:

1. DO NOT, in any case, attempt to hike down the canyon and make your way back in one day. Instead make your way down, and camp at the Indian’s Garden campsite near the bottom before continuing your journey up.
2. DO NOT attempt the hike when the sun is up. Continue your hike only before the sun rises in the morning or after the sun sets in the afternoon.
3. Drink A LOT of water, even though you are not thirsty.
4. DO NOT swim on the river in the bottom of the canyon.

Failure to abide to these restrictions can be dangerous and even fatal. Signed: Grand Canyon Park Rangers.

A very strong warning indeed. Most people would probably go and heed the warnings. But not us. Back then, I was young, stupid, and lacked the capacity for common sense reasoning. What choice did I have? I ended up breaking every single one of the restrictions above.

I was not anywhere near the tip-top conditions of the Iron man triathlons specimens, but even I can say the hike down was relatively easy. We got to the very bottom of the grand canyon in about 4 hours time. My bloated ego started to make me think that the Park Rangers were just bunch of pansies. Either that or they were just trying to scare us to make them look “cool” (That was stupid, I know). So much for the so-called “dangers” and “fatal” warnings. Hmpff. Bunch of sissies. Right. Fate would soon force-feed me those words later that day. The rangers were NOT screwing around with the said warning. I am glad that I am still alive today. This experience had made me a better person.

(We were barbaric, I know...)

Much to my surprise, we found a very big river on the bottom of the canyon. It was a very hot summer day. The water was very cool. I can feel the sun burning my skin. I looked at the sun. I touched the water. It felt very tempting. I looked around. The water was now up to my knees. It felt so good. I imagined how great it would be to submerge my body in the cool water. I remembered the warning against swimming in the river. I hesitated. I looked at my buddies. Bastards. They were already swimming. I then proceeded to throw all cautions into the wind and joined them. It was AWESOME. The feeling of cool water touching my mildly sun-burned body was electrifying. Nothing dangerous seemed to happened in the river. I was even more certain now that the rangers were sissies. Later, of course, I found out that the river sometimes have strong under-currents that have been known to drown unsuspecting visitors.

We spent about two hours alternating between swimming, fighting off squirrels that tried to steal our lunch donuts and taking pictures. Feeling satisfied, we decided to hike back up at a little before noon. And this was when my suffering began. Well, for starters, it was now so very, very, HOT. I did not realize this when I was still in the river. Had we ate a can of beans, the heat is probably enough to ignite our gasses and turn us into human time bombs. It was also very dry. Everywhere I saw, there were only sands, dirt, rocks, hills, shrubs and cactus. It then suddenly occurred to me why Grand Canyon is classified as a sub-dessert.

To be continued….