William Cathcart-Rake shares his memories of a half-century of hiking in the Grand Canyon. During that time he spent sixty days and walked five hundred miles below the rim. As he recounts his thoughts and experiences of eighteen separate treks below the rim, he includes many fascinating facts about the Canyon's natural and human history. As the years go by, the author discovers that the Canyon has more to offer than just being a challenging place to hike-it becomes a sanctuary for reflection and renewal. His time in the canyon is more than days below the rim, miles walked, switchbacks negotiated, stream crossings, walking speed, and pounds carried. Conquering the canyon-an impossible and foolish quest-ceased to be a goal. He returned to the canyon because of the effect it had on him, not because of what he could do in it or to it. The canyon allowed him to discover his ability to persevere despite discomfort, afforded an opportunity to learn more about the natural world we live in, and gave him a deeper appreciation of the need to seek the solace afforded by sauntering below the rim.
Sufficiently Robust
Fifty Years of Walking in Grand CanyonBy William Cathcart-RakeiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 William Cathcart-Rake, M.D.
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-4501-2Contents
Acknowledgements..............................................................xiPreface.......................................................................xiiiChapter 1 First Crossing (Rim-to-Rim).........................................1Chapter 2 Havasu..............................................................15Chapter 3 Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim...................................................20Chapter 4 Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim, Again............................................30Chapter 5 Thunder River.......................................................37Chapter 6 A Father and Son Walk...............................................48Chapter 7 Rick Trujillo.......................................................55Chapter 8 Heeding Harvey's Advice.............................................65Chapter 9 Rim-to-Rim in a Day.................................................74Chapter 10 Elizabeth Hikes the Canyon.........................................82Chapter 11 North Kaibab Trail.................................................90Chapter 12 Hermit Creek, Redux................................................96Chapter 13 Return to Thunder River............................................101Chapter 14 A Guy Thing........................................................110Chapter 15 R2R2R#3............................................................118Chapter 16 Old Trail, New Experience..........................................127Chapter 17 Another Amazing Day................................................140Chapter 18 Winter in the Canyon...............................................151Appendix A Grand Ganyon Geology...............................................161Appendix B Thirteen Essentials for Hiking in Grand Canyon.....................162References....................................................................180
Chapter One
First Crossing (Rim-to-Rim)
August 1961
Who can adequately describe the scene?-who can describe the indescribable? In its stupendous ensemble the spectacle is too vast for art. It is indeed almost too much for human thought. You cannot behold it for the first time without a gasp, however blas your emotions have become by globe-trotting. -Fitz-James MacCarthy, "A Rhapsody," Grand Canyon of Arizona, 1909
I was a skinny kid, not at all athletic, content to ride my bike short distances, splash in the community pool, play catch with my brother, and begrudgingly mow our yard with a push lawnmower. I avoided walking long distances and running any distance. Given my lack of physical prowess, I was among the last chosen for a pickup game of baseball and the first cut after basketball tryouts. My father would occasionally take my brother Tim and me to the local golf course on Sunday afternoons. Dad would hit the ball around while his sons walked behind him. Walking the course with Dad was no treat for me. I wanted to ride in an electric cart.
In 1960, shortly after my eleventh birthday, I joined a Boy Scout troop in our sleepy little southern California town of Yorba Linda, the birthplace of Richard M. Nixon. This troop disbanded a year later, and my father encouraged me to continue with Scouts by joining Troop 99, the remaining troop in town. Every summer, Troop 99 spent five to six days hiking in either the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California or the Grand Canyon of Arizona. In August 1961, the troop planned a nearly twenty-five-mile hike across the Grand Canyon. Prior to joining Troop 99, I had not walked more than two miles in one day. What made me think walking nearly twenty-five miles in six days was possible? Was I overly optimistic about my physical abilities, stupid, or just nave? Having neither been to the Grand Canyon nor seen a picture of it, it was a great unknown.
Boys who anticipated making the Grand Canyon trip were required to make at least two conditioning hikes with the troop during the months of June and July. These hikes always started at a building called "The Scout House," a small two-room structure near downtown Yorba Linda, which at the time was a small unincorporated Orange County village nestled amongst orange, lemon, and avocado groves. Yorba Linda's main drag, appropriately named Main Street, was one block long, and all of the town's commercial interests were located here. I can still picture the buildings lining the street: a hardware store, drug store, grocery store, weekly newspaper, five-and-dime, Masonic lodge, barbershop, beauty shop, bank, caf, gift shop, gas station, Chevrolet car dealership, and Quaker church. The only other church in town, a Methodist church, was a block off Main. In the early 1960s there were no bars or liquor stores in town. The two local churches owned the sole liquor license. We had a volunteer fire department, usually called out to fight brush fires in the surrounding hills. Supposedly, a county sheriff patrolled the streets, although I never saw one. The town's children attended Yorba Linda Elementary School for kindergarten through eighth grade. After completing eighth grade we were bussed to high school in the neighboring community of Fullerton. Yorba Linda was the quintessential great place in which to be a kid.
A half dozen other boys and I made the two mandatory hikes, each time walking about five miles with packs on our backs, camping for the night, and hiking back the next day. Our routes led us beside and through the avocado and citrus groves and barley fields surrounding town. Rows of eucalyptus trees protected the fruit trees from high winds, their leaves emitting a characteristic fragrance that I will always associate with my boyhood home. The hikes in Yorba Linda were tough for me because they involved more walking than I had ever done, and an accursed pack had to be carried as well. Fortunately, these treks did not involve steep climbs or walking in extreme heat, and I discovered that I could walk five miles in one day.
Years later, I realized the training hikes did little to prepare me physically for a Grand Canyon hike. I suspect the scoutmaster determined which boys had the physical maturity and mental toughness to take on a bigger challenge. Somehow I managed to pass the test. One final preparation for the hike started two weeks prior to our departure. We had to repeatedly paint our feet with tincture of benzoin, supposedly to toughen the skin for the long walk. The stinky liquid only stained my feet brown.
Shortly after midnight one Saturday in August 1961, we started the journey from Southern California to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, stopping for breakfast in Las Vegas, Nevada, and lunch at Zion National Park in southern Utah. My parents, my younger brother Tim, and my younger sisters, Marilyn and Jenny, accompanied nine hikers. Besides me, the Scouts were Kenny Quinn, Les Decker, Tom Dollarhide, Wendell Iwatsuru, and Torrey Webb. Our three leaders included Bob Ackerman, Jack McDavid, and Stan (last name long forgotten). A couple of Scouts rode with my family in our old Ford station wagon, while the remainder shared space with backpacks and other camping supplies in the back of a stock truck driven by the scoutmaster, undeniably an unsafe and uncomfortable mode of transportation.
Fitz-James MacCarthy, John Muir, and others have attempted to describe the nearly...
