Scat; it's not just for fun anymore

Hitchhiking out of Zion was more interesting than we had originally expected. As we were packing to go, three very "keen" park rangers had a guy pulled over on the side of the road beside us and in handcuffs for a good 45min. As we were taking the shuttle to the park exit, we saw them still there. Then, just as we had started to thumb for rides, one of those rangers sped past us trying to pull over an SUV who had no room on the shoulder to stop. When the SUV finally reached a pull-out, the ranger, trying to be cool, spun into an empty space beside him - except that it wasn't a parking spot and he ended up stranded high and dry on top of a very large square red boulder. It was noisy and dusty and we found it thoroughly hilarious, but this left us trying to hitchhike beside seven park rangers attempting to rescue their beached patrol car. Understandably, not many people were willing to stop for us right in front of them.

Over an hour later we eventually did get a ride (after turning down a ride from a nice Asian guy who tried to put his teenaged daughters in the trunk so that he could fit us in). We had decided to try to get to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, but later that day we got a ride with some cool Californians and their dogs who were going to the north rim so we decided to go there with them.





Still having the idea in the back of our minds that it would be interesting to hike across from the north rim to the south rim, we went to the backcountry office the next day and were able to get permits to do it. Woohoo!! We shipped some excess luggage to the south rim (including pottery and books), bought some Kraft Dinner and Reese's Pieces cups, and were ready to go.

It was an incredible hike. The trail down from the north rim was very steep, with good views and a ranger station at the bottom with iced lemonade. Can't get much better than that. We spent the first night at Cottonwood campground, which was very quiet and had a nice stream to bathe in. From camp, we watched the helicopter recovery mission of some guy who'd fallen 300 ft from the upper rim.




At the very bottom of the canyon, next to the Colorado river, is Phantom Ranch - a place where fat lazy people ride to on mules to spend the night in cabins. We camped next to it in the Bright Angel campground and had the extreme good fortune to be there while they had two breaks in the water pipeline, so the ranch had to be evacuated and we were left to ourselves since we had water purification drops. Score!!! We took a rest day down there, and since it was 118 degreed Fahrenheit (about 48 C), we spent four whole hours amusing ourselves by sitting in Bright Angel creek. One of the pipeline breaks was right beside our watery hangout, so we got to watch as helicopters dangling generators and welding supplies dropped them off to workers 30 or 40 feet from where we were sitting (and right against the base of a cliff). The helicopters were so close that they sprayed dirt and water and leaves into our eyes, but it was super cool. Not something you see every day!





The hike out turned out to be a lot easier than we had been expecting it to be. After hiking down, our calves were super sore and stiff for days, but going back uphill didn't do that to us. We started at 5:30am to try to beat the heat and it was a bit of a cloudy day so the heat never was a problem. We practically ran up the side of the cliff - it was pretty funny. Especially Alana, since she was carrying the big backpack which looked huge but was probably only about 15 or 20kg. So many people commented on how such a small person shouldn't be carrying such a large backpack. I started to develop a guilt complex, even though I was carrying my share of the weight distributed between two smaller bags on front and back.



The south rim, unlike the north rim where we barely saw anyone, was packed with tourists. They were annoying, but funny. There were a lot of Europeans there who assumed that we couldn't understand what they were saying. Two of the best examples:

(spoken by a French man to his family of young children) "I almost climbed up Mount Everest! We can't let those girls beat us! Hurry up!"

(spoken by a German to his young son who was whining) "You see those two girls with the huge backpacks? They have problems, not YOU!"

Anyway, it was awesome. We did the climb in 4.5 hours, and even got to see a rattlesnake up close at the bottom around 6am. Finally, the first rattlesnake we saw after 4 weeks in the desert!! Such a beautiful animal.


We'd heard that it wasn't legal to hitchhike in National Parks in Arizona and that they arrested a lot of people, so we decided to stand around asking people for rides as they left the campground. That's not hitchhiking, is it? Either way, it worked and we met a great family from the Netherlands who were really fun to talk to. Hitching is so much more rewarding than taking the bus! They showed us photos and convinced us that we have to go explore a place called Antelope Canyon, so we're going to drag Ray along with us next week to check it out. =)