When We Almost Died at the Grand Canyon (Part III - End)

The scorching sun kept sapping every ounces of my strength on the way up. The hike now suddenly seemed endless. And we haven’t even reached the Indian’s Garden. At this point, I started failing to see the light at the end of the tunnel. My body now moved noticeably slower. I even had stopped sweating. And also stopped being thirsty. Very bad signs. As a former campus paramedic, I realize those were the early signs of a heat stroke, something that could very well be fatal. Especially if you are in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, in the middle of the searing heat. I started hating myself.

One corner of Vegas

For the few times in my life, I began regretting my stupidity. I thought to myself that I should have just stayed back at our campground. Maybe then I could have thought of something to say and built up enough guts to talk to the two hot German girls camping next to us. But instead, here I was, getting screwed beyond redemption. We took a rest. I felt sleepy all of a sudden. My body demanded its rest and probably refused to continue further. It was a very common symptoms when you started to suffer from heat stroke and are exhausted. Had I followed the urge to take a little nap, I would not have gotten up by now. I tried drinking, even though I was not thirsty. My throat was too dry. I decided I could not force myself to drink a lot of water.

Dehydrated, we reached a small rest area. The outdoor thermometer showed 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I think it was somewhere near 40 degrees Celsius. Beautiful. It was during the peak of the summer, the worst possible time to hike down the canyon. I did, for a while, seriously consider the idea of spending the US $5,000 to ask for a rescue helicopter. I was going to let the rangers have the pleasure of adding me into their statistics posted on the warning board for the next year. Maybe if we were to split the 5k between the three of us, it wouldn’t be so bad. Either that or risking never making it home. That made the choice easier. The thought of going home in a body bag started to scare me. I decided I was not such a tough guy anymore.

Nevertheless, we decided to continue on foot. We passed several people hiking down, well- equipped with camping gears and sleeping bags. Wise guys, I thought. We should have been like them. After defeating some more temptations to just give up and call it quits, we continued again. Never in my entire life, I felt so desperate, so exhausted and so fu*ked up. By some stroke of miracle, dehydrated and mildly suffering from heat stroke, we finally made it up. I have never ever forced my body to do that much work. Ever. And my body surely did make this point known to me. It was not happy. By the time we made it, my knees were about to give. I literally could not stand up straight for 15 seconds, my legs refused to support me for that long. My whole body was trembling and my face was covered in dust. My feet were covered with blisters. But I was ecstatic. I had just avoided death. I silently thanked God profusely. And then I thanked other minor deities for good measure. It was seven o’clock in the evening. Total hiking time (the pure, hard, work): 11 hours.

My college roommate was in as bad of a shape as I was. The Catman, however, was still doing fine. He still had ample energy to up climb a tree. This was beyond what the two of us could comprehend. Whatever. I suppose being possessed by an Egyptian cat goddess with distemper had its perks. For the next one week, my body constantly ached. I almost thought I had lost control over my legs. And I am pretty sure I had damaged my right knee somewhat.

We still made it to Vegas and spent the night there. And back. I successfully donated my $1.50 to the Vegas gambling industry. The slot machines had earned it. The total for the one week-trip (with a couple of nights spent sleeping in the car to safe money, and lots of meals involving McDonald’s 1 Dollar Menu) was US$226 for each of us. Not bad.

Moral of the story: Simple. If there is any moral to this story, it is not to be stupid like me.

Blazing Redfish