While I am sure the sunrise over the canyon would have been as spectacular as it was yesterday we are calling the days spent at the Grand Canyon rest days for a reason. For the first time since records began we rolled out of our tent at 8 pm. While we had a reasonably good night’s sleep the temperature did drop to well before freezing and while we have the gear to be toasty warm the kid next to us was clearly cold by the whimpering coming from his tent.
I had spoken to him earlier and he seemed spaced out, possibly drug-induced. That, together with noticing he carried a big sheath knife on his belt, I thought it not wise to go knocking on his tent at 2 am to make sure he was okay so did our best to sleep until he clearly nodded off himself.
While we were getting ourselves organised for the day our neighbour surfaced too. He didn’t seem to be in a good way. He was clearly cold, but there was something else wrong with him as he mumbled responses to my questions about his welfare and future plans. He clearly didn’t have the gear for such cold weather at this altitude, but didn’t have any ability, let alone plans, to improve the situation for himself. On closing, he asked if I could give him a lift to Utah, but when I told him I was on a cycle, he just shrugged and asked if I could close the zip on his tent as he couldn’t feel his hands. I told him to go over to the restaurant area to get some warmth as he wandered off in that general direction.
We had only paid for two nights at the campground, so I needed to get us booked in for another night before we set off exploring. The campground office was only a short hop, skip and a jump, plus 100m of walking, away from our tent. The same ParkRanger that checked us in two nights ago was sitting in the hot seat this morning again. Based on the look of him, using me as a benchmark, I guess he had been home during that time, slept in a comfortable bed and showered daily since. As I had not done any of those things I can only imagine what he thought when I walked up to the serving hatch, but he still opens it. He was in higher spirits this morning than he had a couple of nights ago and seemed open for a conversation. I raised my concerns about our neighbour, which reconfirmed his experience of him, so agreed to arrange for someone from the park welfare department to find him and see what they could do to help.
Once I had my new tent pass in hand I asked if I could take his photograph. I think I made his day with this request as he immediately jumped up, grabbed his Park Ranger hat and came tumbling out of the campground office door, posing by his serving hatch. Mr Park Ranger confirmed his name as Stephen and admitted that he doesn’t get many requests for a photograph, so was very happy to oblige. A 100m walk, a jump, skip and a hop later I was back at the tent.
The French couple from our first night had already left the campground, but the German chap, Wolfgang, was still there, albeit now packing up himself. While I’m not someone that drools over bikes, I was admiring Wolfgang’s bike when he returned from the toilet block. A 20-year-old bike with Rohloff gears that just reeked of German engineering. If Carlsberg was German and a bike manufacturer 20 years ago, then this is what they probably would have built.
Wolfgang explained that while the bike was bombproof his seat rack had broken without any explosives being involved and was planning on heading into Flagstaff to either get a replacement or find someone to weld his problem one. He was then planning to follow Route 66 to LA. As we were rejoining Route 66 in Williams, we figured out there was every possibility we would be rejoining Route 66 ahead of him, so our paths might cross again as his daily mileage was a little greater than ours, which wouldn’t be too difficult for the younger, fitter and somewhat hairier Wolfgang!
Bearing in mind there are possibly thousands of people in the park, we were surprised to bump into David again, standing at the shuttle bus stop that we were heading to. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he was stalking us, but as he was at the shuttle stop first, maybe he was thinking that of us. We chatted while the bus took us to the Visitor Centre, us to get another bus to take us east along the rim and for David to visit the Visitor Centre itself. As we were both staying at the same campground we parted with an intention of possibly catching up there later on.
I’ll let the photo’s do the talking for the day, but in summary, we got off the shuttle bus at it’s most easterly terminus, then wandered aimlessly back to the Visitor Centre, following the rim path and even taking a detour down into the canyon at one point to get a taster of something else that has been added to our bucket list over the last couple days… Grand Canyon backpacking!
Not far from the Visitor Centre, just after we had been away from the road while visiting a vantage point off the main rim path, a fully loaded tour bike approached us with a chap that we immediately recognised on the saddle. It was none other than David… again! David’s father had seen the weather forecast, specifically the overnight temperatures so had driven from his home in Utah to pick David up and take him to his house. David hadn’t asked for this, but he also didn’t seem too unhappy about it either. It was sad to see David head off with a big smile on his face after all of our encounters over the past couple of days, but I’m sure it’s not the last we will hear of him.
For the second part of the day, we took a shuttle bus west and meandered back to Hopi Point to watch the sunset.
While it was another spectacular sunset, by the time the sun bid the assembled crowd goodnight the temperature was already below freezing, so we were back on a shuttle bus heading to the Market Plaza and another mediocre pizza before darkness started to consume the canyon.
Fed, warm and close to outstaying our welcome, we walked the half a mile back to the bikers and backpackers campground to find we had it to ourselves. There was one newly arrived biker pair close by, but they had opted for a luxury private camp plot at $18 per night a short distance from where the unwashed masses hung out.
We had been told by a Park Ranger earlier in the day that the temperature may drop to zero Fahrenheit (-18oC) overnight, so wearing almost every item of clothing we have with us we squeezed into our sleeping bags and turned off the light.