Lava Falls
September 9, 2010
Submitted by Pat
Nancy and I returned from our Canyon trip on September 21. Today is November 6. Until today I have not wanted to sit down and push out the words to describe my experience on this trip. Today I am ready to walk down that path and start to explore.
Last summer we attempted this difficult hike – 1.5 miles from rim to river, 2,540 feet down the side of an ancient volcano, no marked path except for occasional cairns, no shade, incredibly steep, loose footing, with some rock climbing thrown in. John Annerino in his guide “Hiking the Grand Canyon” describes this non-trail as “.. an avalanche of a route waiting to throw you to your knees during the descent and to suck the last drop of moisture out of you during the debilitating crawl out. There is little more to say about the viper-plagued route snaking its way through the glass-black lava other than to follow the rock cairns ….” Last summer we didn’t make it to the river – we went left at a cairn instead of right and found ourselves on the other side of the ravine.
One and a half miles – anyone can descend and ascend one and a half miles – I tell myself. We each have day packs full of water, electrolyte tablets, Gatorade, surveyor’s tape, first aid kit and food. We’re ready to go. Approaching the trailhead we immediately notice that the sign and cache of route maps that had been there last summer are gone. Nothing is left to indicate this is a trail at all. With this uncertainty we start down, saying that if all the cairns have been taken down we will turn around before we lose sight of our retreat. Almost immediately we see spray painted white arrows marking the trail – we had read about this “vandalism” when we stopped at the ranger’s station the day before and the sign cautioned hikers to beware of following these marks as they were not accurate. I feel pretty anxious, but not ready to turn around. I need to see more, to know more, before giving up. I need to know it’s too unsafe to keep going.
It’s a beautiful sunny day, warm with a slight breeze. The route is hard to follow so Nancy begins tying orange surveyor’s tape to improve our chances of getting out of there. We decide to keep going. We get all the way to Vulture Valley, about half way, before it becomes easier to follow the painted blazed and remaining cairns.
Vulture Valley gives way to some steep down climbing at the top of a pour off – we put on our gloves since the sharp basalt rock is tearing our skin. We’re out of the normal desert terrain that is filled with tufts of dried grass and barrel cactus, and into the dark basalt of a volcano. I feel OK, still strong physically and mentally present. In hindsight I wonder if I wasn’t a little too present, too tightly wound, because as I approach each obstacle or traverse each difficult loose piece of ground, I feel myself becoming more alert and thus more tense.
We descend the right side of the ravine this time and reach the spot we had reached last summer. It’s hot, the sun is merciless, and it’s getting hotter as we move toward the bottom of the canyon. We check in with each other every so often – How’s it going? How do you feel? We still good to go? I begin to feel the steepness of the descent in my legs – they are starting to tremble and although I don’t realize it at the time, the strain of my tension is sapping me of strength. My physical strength and emotional resolve is oozing out of me with every step we take bringing us closer to the river.
I feel like I’m staying hydrated, but keep losing energy like a slow leak. It’s so small that I can’t find it and have no idea how to repair it. Just a subtle, continuous spilling out of my courage and power. I tell Nancy that I can feel my legs, that they’re getting tired. It’s very hard to say that, and I don’t remember her response. I remember us looking at each other and deciding to keep going – let’s go down to that ridge or clump of rocks. Let’s go down to where the soil turns red. So I do my one-step-at-a-time thing, keeping my eye on the next marker and not looking down at the bottom.
When we’re well into the unknown part of the route I look down and back up and sideways and all I see is dried earth, black rock, and sun. Looking down I see the cool green of the Colorado River rippling below us, so close and yet I know from having read other trip reports that we’re entering the most difficult part of the descent and not going down the right pour-off can mean trying to climb 300 feet up a loose, steep cliff. Danger, danger, danger echoes in my brain.
We stop. I stand there, legs trembling, wanting so badly to keep going and all I can feel is how dangerous that can be for me. The strong, indomitable Pat that started hiking 4 years ago is today a frightened, tearful, shivering soul standing in the broiling heat, looking back up and wondering if I can even make it out. I close my eyes – oh god, this can’t be happening. I know Nancy wanted to get to the river, and so do I. There’s something of a rite of passage about this hike – that I still have it in me to meet the challenge presented by this terrain and my own fear.
Nancy is 20 feet below me when I sit down. Through tears and shame I said, “I’m done.” It take a few minutes for the reality of giving up to sink in for both of us – it’s more real for me than for Nancy, but I know she won’t go on alone and I know that continuing is a risk I’m not willing to take. I could have pushed on – I’m not a mewling idiot barely able to stand or move – I could have continued – and I decide not to risk falling, not to risk putting either of us in danger. I’m too scared and too tired and I’m feeling a little sick to go on.
We turn around with Nancy leading us back up. I really start to feel sick, nauseous, unbalanced, weird. I tell her and she stops and looks at me and at about the same time we both realize that I’m in deeper trouble than I think. For the first time in my hiking life I’m really feeling the heat. I think I’ve been drinking appropriately; I’m still sweating, there’s no tingling or numbness, and my face isn’t flushed or pale, but I feel sick to my stomach and so unbalanced that it scares me even more. Nancy immediately kicks into survival gear and encourages me to keep going, that I can make it, to keep drinking, and begins looking for some shade. At one point she pauses and I can see her shoulders heave, can hear her crying – she’s scared too – I’m in trouble. We we’re in trouble. I put my arms around her and hold on, feeling very connected to my friend. She pulls it together and we continue upward.
We finally find a rocky area that has a foot of shade. She asks me to take off my shirt so she can wet it. Then she sits me down and has me bend over so my head is out of the sun. I eat half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich – slowly – and begin to feel better.
We continue to climb up what we have so laboriously just climbed down. I move slowly for the most part, although occasionally, after a rest, I can almost keep up with her. Every ten or fifteen minutes we rest in any shade we can find. There’s never a doubt in me that I can make it to the top, but it’s a hard, slow slog for me. Nancy is quiet, so am I, both of us disappointed. I want more than anything to get out of the Canyon and feel safe. Seeing the end of the trail is a huge relief to me on the one hand – on the other I am left with the heaviness that my need to turn around, no matter how right that felt, prevented us from reaching the river. In that moment I see my choice as a failure, as weakness, but with some distance from the actual moment I know it wasn’t a failure on my part. I will always feel disappointed that we don’t reach the river and I own a big piece of why we didn’t reach the river, but anything could have happened had we kept going – one or both of us could have fallen, we could have succumbed to heat exhaustion, we could have gotten lost, we could have reached the river and not had the strength to walk out, or we could have reached the river and spent the heat of the day watching rafts run through Lava Falls. We could have died and we could have been full of joy. Anything could have happened had we kept going. Instead, we turn around and we get out of there, under our own power, very much alive.