Shower Bath Camp
to Sheep Mountain Spring
Day 6 – Thursday, May 12, 2016
8:00 am – 5:00 pm
9 miles
Elevation Gain: 1,200 feet
I expect nothing else. I know exactly what ground we’re covering. Today’s 9-mile hike from Shower Bath to Sheep Mountain Spring is a bear. Long, hot and interminable. There’s no pretending, no relishing in the bliss of not knowing. I stop every so often and take pictures since I have spent most of this trip pulling up the rear and I want some record of the misery…and the beauty. Nancy doesn’t take as many pictures. She says she fell into survival mode almost immediately on the first day we hiked into the Canyon and felt either too tired or too pressured to keep up to take many pictures. Not having time to see, to ooh and aah, to savor and take pictures makes this trip really tough for me.
Today’s footing includes gravel, loose and hard sand, and small boulders – no major obstacles, and, yes, our packs are lighter and we’re actually able to lift our own packs onto our shoulders without assistance from Stefan. My stamina, however, is waning and my exhaustion is waxing. At least my muscles aren’t sore – they have finally healed enough to allow me to hike without that pain. What I feel now is weakness and exhaustion. I also feel the pack weight as a strain on my back and shoulders, which with a properly fitted and packed backpack, should not have happened. But no matter how I adjust it, tightening or loosening the hip belt, the lift straps or the shoulder straps, I feel little relief.
Hiking these kinds of miles in the back country of the Grand Canyon doesn’t feel like the miles I hiked when I trained in the Ossipee Range in New Hampshire last month. These miles are hard, unforgiving and ruthless – especially when the sun is out in full force and there is little breeze. We spend the first few hours of this 9-mile day walking up Kanab Creek, often wading in the water. The coolness of the water feels good, but all the rocks are covered with a slippery dark green scum so stable footing is sketchy.
My overall memory of this day is poor. I remember it as long, hot, plodding, sun, shade, an occasional breeze, stopping every hour to recoup, and tired of eating candy and energy bars. I want real food for lunch…but that would mean carrying it. Such a delicate balance, whatever we bring we have to carry and what can we live without? But substituting energy bars for food, while kind of fun on the first day, grows tasteless and tiresome by the sixth day.
I bring up the rear all day. Watching Nancy ahead of me plodding along, alone inside my thoughts and feelings, I remind myself that each step forward is a step closer to sitting in a chair, sleeping in a bed, and taking a shower.
When we reach the confluence of Kanab Creek and Jump-Up Canyons, Stefan stops to contact the office and verify that no extreme weather is in the area and that it’s safe to continue hiking up Jump-Up toward Sheep Mountain Camp. So often on our breaks I sit in a bit of a stupor, looking around, not really seeing anything, and continually looking to Nancy and inside myself for support and reassurance. Yes, I can do this. Yes, I can make it. And yes, this is not fun.
As we near Sheep Mountain Camp, the terrain begins changing. The changes are hard to describe but I see more sky and feel less enclosed by the canyon walls. We’re getting closer to the rim. We lose Kanab Creek and start walking through a different creek that has a spring close to Sheep Mountain Camp. We’re surrounded by more foliage, bushes, green plants and Cottonwood trees. When we arrive at camp later in the afternoon, Nancy and I drop our stuff and sit, leaning against our packs, utterly exhausted. Eventually we exchange boots for camp shoes and walk up to the spring. Here there are a few pools of cold water running over rocks, heading down the canyon. I ease my sore butt into one of those pools and sit in the water talking with Nancy and resting. It’s hot and there’s still a lot of sun left so we head back to camp, set up our tent in the broiling afternoon sun, change clothes, and sit in a small piece of shade talking and pounding fluids… We talk about how we are each experiencing the rigors of this trip.
No question this adventure has been intense – from sore muscles, various cuts, scrapes, and bruises to weakness and exhaustion, and the myriad of emotions that went along with simply being there – carrying that weight, walking those miles, living very simply, rustically, without the things that we take for granted in everyday life back in civilization. Like sitting in a chair and actually feeling comfortable, rather than always sitting on rocks, shifting from one butt cheek to the other, back and forth, leaning forward, leaning backward, elbows on knees, legs out, legs tucked in close… There is no comfort to be found, not for my body.
I remember we move from one patch of shade to another as we wait for the sun to go down behind the canyon walls. It’s too hot to be anywhere near our tent, too hot to crawl in and lie down for a while. Finally, finally, finally the sun goes down and our camp is cast in shadow, cooling slightly as the sky slowly turns deeper blue on its journey toward night.
Dinner is cold curried chicken salad with cashews and raisins. A new taste for me… I rarely eat curry, and this food is delicious.
Our plan is to get up really early and be on the trail by 5:30 am so that we will beat the mid-day sun as we climb the last steep pitch toward the canyon rim.
As we do every night, Nancy and I share some time talking about the day, about the experience as a whole, and how we feel about anything and everything. I feel very blessed to have someone with me, who knows me, and with whom I can share just about anything, from the most embarrassing to the most sublime.