Work in Progress

We used the headlamps to find our way to the canteen for breakfast. Even though the mules would be doing most of the work, it seem reasonable to fill up with a hearty breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and meat.

Our group saddled up. We lost the party of three, daughter-and-parents, who were spending another night at Phantom Ranch, and gained a party of two, a couple who had spent the previous day hiking. Our mules seemed a little cranky. I wondered if they had hoped we’d be spending a layover day so they could rest up. It was early light by now. The wranglers reversed order, with Dan leading and Bill following, as we went through the oasis, out to the Colorado River, and turned left toward the suspension bridge.

When we got to the Anasazi ruins, Dan said: “Put ‘em in park and I’ll tell you ‘bout these ruins.”

Putting them “in park” meant to drape the reins over the saddle horn, to keep the mules heads high enough so they couldn’t eat.

Dan explained that the history of the area is largely a mystery, but a large number of people carved out a life here, long ago. In front of us were the ancient ruins of their homes, store rooms, fire pits, and a worship area called a kiva.

Later, Hannah described this moment. “As I sat on my mule overlooking the ruins of a kiva, overlooking the Colorado River, and looking up at the walls of the Grand Canyon, I thought: There has to be a God.”

“Take your mules outta park and motivate ‘em on up,” Dan said.

We crossed the bridge, passed through the tunnel, and headed up a different trail than the one we’d come down. This was the Kaibab Trail, quite different than the Bright Angel Trail. This was steeper and exposed to the sun. There was less vegetation. Our mules worked hard. Every 15 minutes or so we’d stop and let them rest. The switchbacks were unrelenting.

I loved the few moments of listening to our mules breathe hard while we surveyed the scene; it was the ultimate luxury. In a few moments it would be time to start them up again. We were in the sun and there was a bit of a wind on our cheeks.

“Take your mules outta park and motivate ‘em on up.”

For the first hour, the vegetation we passed was mainly cactus. This part of the canyon seemed to be a completely different ecosystem from the day before. Everything was dirt and clay and pebbles, very dry. Instead of a sheer drop, the canyon had shoulders here, a long scrambling way down, except where there were vehicle-sized boulders.

Our mules had been laboring for about an hour when we saw bighorn sheep. There were four of them, and they seemed to be as curious about us, as we were about them. They not only stood and watched as we went by, they followed us. Every time we switched back, we could glance over our shoulders and spot them again. Riding on something four-legged and hooved must have made us seem a lot less threatening than if we’d been on foot.

As we ascended, the view became more grand and the canyon walls steeper. The shoulders disappeared and we switchbacked along steep walls, above and below us. At one point we came into open air on both sides and Dan said very drily, “This here is Poison Point. Any idea why it’s called that? Because one drop is all it takes.”

Someone asked him, “How often do people fall in the canyon?”

He answered: “Only once.”

Later I learned this statistic: between 12 and 14 people fall into the canyon every year and 98% of those falls are fatal.

Our mules climbed all morning. At one point they carried us along a ridge. To our left the mountain dropped, and to our right the mountain dropped. To say the view was “spectacular” does not do the experience justice. The view was 360 degrees of spectacular.

Along the way, Dan pointed out some ancient petroglyphs.

After about three hours in the saddle, we arrived at an overlook area. There were pit toilets. This must have been one of the destinations that day hikers shoot for, because there were lots of people taking photos.

We remounted for the last hour of the ride. I was feeling sad that the ride was almost over, and consciously tried to take in every view with my eyes. It almost reminded me of how you open your throat to swallow a lot of cold beer when you’re hot. I was like that with the view, wanting to gulp it down.

After the rest stop, the number of hikers we passed steadily increased. I can only imagine how busy it is in the summer! I felt one part celebrity, and one part dolt for sitting on a mule. Obviously I had taken the easy way out. But mainly I ignored the hikers and concentrated on each creak of the saddle, each glimpse of the vista, each brush of sun and wind.

Phantom Ranch is built at the bottom of the canyon, where the Bright Angel Creek tumbles into the Colorado River. The sparkling water of the Bright Angel is entirely different from the brown churning of the river. There is an oasis at the bottom of the canyon, with enormous trees towering overhead. The yellow leaves of the cottonwoods are especially unexpected. They tint the light into a gold so gorgeous you suspect that Hollywood, or perhaps Disney, is monkeying with nature. We later learned that every tree there had been planted by the person who envisioned the ranch, some 100 years ago. He’d planted fruit trees and cottonwoods. Which meant that we hadn’t been seeing things when we identified a fig tree, and an olive tree, in this most unlikely place.

There were mule deer everywhere, eating or sleeping, or looking at us with sleepy eyes as we rode past. A red fox darted in front of us.

As we dismounted, Bill told me that Dingas and I had carried the mail, so we were the most important part of the whole mule train. However, I think Dingas gets the credit.

We had a few hours to explore and rest. Our cabin was small, and built of natural materials, craftsmen-style. It contained two bunk beds, a small table and one chair, along with a cold-water sink in the corner, and a toilet in it’s own little closet. There was a separate shower house, with hot water. There are a handful of these cabins, along with a dormitory. Right along Bright Angel Creek there’s a tent camping area, which held less than a dozen tents.

The “ranch” itself is one building, a single room containing three long tables and one shelf of gift items.

We hiked a short way along the Bright Angel to the Colorado River, to read the historic markers, and just to explore a bit.

Hannah snapped this picture of me and Doug. What can I say? The Grand Canyon is a romantic place.

When we returned to Phantom Ranch, there was a group of 5 or 6 young men who were wearing hard helmets. I wondered how they had arrived on motorcycle! Then I realized they had come in on raft. They were telling stories of their (already long) journey, and I got the sense that they had just finished smoking some pot. As we chatted with them, another group arrived.

To our surprise, it was the group of Amish folk we’d seen at breakfast at the Bright Angel Lodge. They looked none the worse for the wear. The women had hiked in their solid-colored dresses, with wool sweaters buttoned over, and their white hats, which it seemed to me did not offer sun protection or serve any useful purpose. I overheard them speaking to each other in German. Then the women hurried off to the shower house and returned, carrying dripping bundles of fabric. I realized they had washed the dress they’d worn, and changed into a different one. In a few moments, the dresses were hanging from available branches.

The Grand Canyon is perhaps not only a romantic setting, it is a study in contrasts. Who comes here, and why?

We were assigned to the first seating, at 5:00; it was already quite dark. Supper was a convivial affair, served family-style. We dug into steak, baked potatoes, two vegetables, both canned, along with cold bean salad and corn bread. Dessert was squares of chocolate cake. Wine and beer were available for a bit extra, and we gladly “ponied up,” thinking about the mules that had carried these delicacies in, and which would carry our refuse out!

At the table we had a chance to get a bit acquainted with our fellow riders. The couple was from Los Angeles, Sue Ellen and John. Their grown daughter was from San Francisco, Jesse. Sue Ellen was an anthropologist so we had fun talking about that subject, and about Jesse’s career in physical therapy. Of course we also talked about how we ended up in this canyon on this particular evening.

One of the movies mentioned was “City Slickers,” with Billy Crystal. John laughed at that. He said his mule was named “Norman”, just like in the movie, and he felt like he’d been pleading with him all day. “Please stop eating that, Norman. Please keep walking, will you?”

The lone rider, Dave, was from the Yukon, so he promptly became “Yukon Dave.” He’d been a last minute addition to our ride, and had a wife and four young kids waiting for him up top. I have never met someone who actually lives in the Yukon Territories, and was curious to hear about his job with a placer (gold) mine and as a bush pilot.

There was also a father/son pair at our table, who had hiked in. They were from northern Michigan, and raised turkeys. If you ever have the chance to eat a Dirksen turkey, I’d say go for it. We had a fun conversation, I asked a lot of very specific questions about raising and killing turkeys. Having lived down the road from a “pork producer” in Illinois, I am no longer squeamish to ask such questions.

After supper the four of us walked by the aid of headlamps, listening to Bright Angel Creek. Eventually we found some benches, plunked down, and shut off the lights.

The stars were stupendous. The milky way was a smear of white, and there were too many stars to identify. The air was cold, and we were tired in our bones in that delicious way that says bed is nearby.

In our cabin we wanted to play a round or two of Shanghai before bed. The problem was that there was no way we could all sit at the table in one chair. We tried to sit on the lower bunks and hit our heads. So we rigged up a plank between the two upper bunks, to serve as a sort-of table. We played a couple of hands, until of course the whole thing collapsed with a ridiculous noise. So we played 104-card-pick-up and called it a night.

Mule riding tuckers a person out.

The Bright Angel Trail descends the wall of the Grand Canyon along a series of switchbacks that are chiseled along the stone. For three solid hours our mules zigzagged along, each turn giving us a new and slightly different view of the canyon. The variety of the landscape was amazing.

After the first hour the snow had disappeared in all except the deepest shadows of rock. After the second hour, the vegetation had changed from juniper and cypress to pinyon and sagebrush. After the third hour, the path finally flattened and widened, and we rode into an area called Indian Gardens.

I felt a bit guilty to be able to traverse all this without any effort at all. It was almost like being on a train through a mountain pass, where the scenery out both windows is so beautiful you don’t know which way to turn. What was so amazing about being on the mule was that you could look in every direction, and never once have to look down at your feet. Normally when I hike I spend so much time with my eyes cast down, especially on a path so treacherous. This was absolute luxury for the eyes. In fact, I felt like my eyes drank in so much beauty that they were drunk, as if they had taken in more than they could hold.

Have you heard the expression “like a horse to the stable”? Our daughter Hannah experienced that truth. Her mule sensed the upcoming stop at Indian Garden and made a sudden lunge, at the very same moment that Hannah was attempting to get a drink from her boda bag. She didn’t fall off, but she did shriek in fright.

We pulled our mules up to the wooden rail like true westerners, then went through the process of dismounting. Talk about “sea-legs”! It took a bit of waddling before we could move properly on the ground. We were each handed a box lunch, with strict instructions to keep the contents from the ravens, which were quite aggressive. The boxes contained a string cheese, a beef jerky, a packaged roll, an apple or orange, a box of raisins, a bag of Cheetos, a container of juice.

After our twenty minute break, we saddled up again. Now we were riding through growth as high as our mules heads, and beyond: yucca and scraggly birch trees. After another half-hour or so, we began to drop along the canyon walls again. Along the way, Bill pointed out two abandoned copper mines, which of course made me think about the Oldtimer character in Brighty. We also saw stretching wires that turned out to be the old telegraph system reaching down to Phantom Ranch.

Before long we could hear and see the roiling brown water of the Colorado River. The views along the river were especially breathtaking. The wranglers warned us to keep our eyes open for bighorn sheep, who like these sheer cliffs.

As we wound along the river, but high above it, each turn gave us a new view. The drop here was even more precipitous than it had been anywhere else because it stretched so far.

Eventually we could glimpse two footbridges over the river. Only one of them, the more distant one, is wide enough for the mules. Both bridges are high above the water level, simple suspension bridges made of planks with chest high railings along both sides.

The wranglers said that each piece of both bridges had been carried in on the back of a mule, except for the suspension cable, which had been carried in by more than forty Native Americans.

We arrived at the bridge by 1:30 or so. Just before the bridge, we had to pass through a tunnel, which was just long enough to become pitch black, with no light from either end. The wranglers made sure that our mules were nose to tail, then warned us sternly not to let them stop for any reason, and not to take flash photography. This was the only part of the ride where the wranglers seemed a bit tense. I wondered what kind of things had gone wrong in the past.

Once we were on the bridge, the mules clip-clopped across the wooden planks the same sure way they had clip-clopped along the canyon walls. We wound down off the bridge and passed some ancient Anasazi ruins right along the banks of the Colorado.

We were told to drop our plastic bags in a metal crate. A busy wrangler retrieved them and loaded them into saddlebags. Meanwhile Bill introduced himself as our leader. He reinforced all the previous instructions in a few simple sentences, then handed out the Mule Motivators. We had to remove our gloves to put them on, then practice using them to slap our own legs. Then it was time to saddle up.

The wranglers put Doug on his mule first, an enormous bay-colored mule named Abel. “Like the good brother,” Bill said, “not the murderer Cain.”

Abel was the biggest mule of the bunch, and Doug looked great sitting on him. Next went Hannah, on a beautiful dark brown mule named BB and Clara on a light brown one named Nora.

I was secretly hoping for a brown mule that looked exactly like Brighty (from the book by Marguerite Henry) which I’ve posted about earlier. My mule was the same color as Doug’s, a bay, and she could have used a bath. But I didn’t want to hold that against her. The female wrangler who helped me up said, “Her name is Dingas, and she’s a real sweetie, except she doesn’t get along too well with the other mules. She nips some.”

I thought: Hmmm. So do they match us up by weight or by personality?

I swung into the saddle without too much trouble. The wrangler showed me how to wind my boda bag around the saddle horn and hang it to the left, and wear the Mule Motivator tightened around my right wrist in a particular way. I gripped the saddle with my legs and kept my core straight. Everything felt comfortable. I silently thanked God that I’ve been doing Bodypump for a year.

I was the last one onto my mule, so things were a hurry and a scramble.

We got in line: first was the party of three (the couple and their daughter), then Hannah, Doug, me, Clara, followed by the lone man, Dave, and our second wrangler, Dan.

The trail into the canyon began some ten feet outside the corral, so there was zero get-adjusted time. Before I could even catalog the order of riders in my mind, we were descending into the canyon.

The mules’ breath made little clouds of steam. Their hooves thudded into the snow that packed the trail. The saddle creaked beneath me. Immediately the canyon wall was on my right, and to the left was the yawning chasm that we call “Grand.”

Growing precipitously from the rocks were cedar trees and juniper bushes, each patch of green wearing a little white cap of snow. As we rode we were immediately cut off from the sun, although the sky above us was a saturated blue. The canyon walls around us tinged the air with orange and pink. Nobody said a word as we breathed it all in.

The alarm went off well before dawn. We needed time to fuss with unfamiliar details such as long underwear and cowboy hats. Yes, I said cowboy hats! As a surprise Christmas gift I’d order Australian-style outback hats for each of us from Sheplers. I thought they looked great but was very self-conscious. Plus, I was swimming in straps: the chin strap on the hat, the camera around my neck, the cord holding my sunglasses, and the boda bag.

We met up with our daughters, stowed the luggage in the trunk of our rental car, and went to grab a quick breakfast. Fortunately the restaurant at Bright Angel Lodge was almost empty. Only after we were seated did I notice a large, but very quiet, party of eight young people. The six women wore distinctive white caps, and the two men had beards without mustaches. We quietly speculated about the Amish folks’ plans as we ordered breakfasts of eggs, potatoes, and sausage.

“Mule riding burns 1,000 calories a day, I looked it up,” said Clara.

“And the weigh-in is over,” said Doug, “so let’s eat!”

We were at the stone corral at precisely 7:50. I tried not to notice the icy patches we walked across, or the cold bite of the wind.

The corral was full of mules and wranglers busy saddling them. I could immediately pick out the other mule riders because we stayed outside the corral looking wary: a woman with a lip ring, a sixty-something couple, and a fellow wearing a cowboy hat.

One of the wranglers asked our huddled group: “Have you had the safety talk yet? No? Well then. Gather up.

“First thing you need to know is this: we’ve been riding mules in and outta this canyon for over a hundred years, and we haven’t had a death yet. And we’re not going to have one today either. These mules been down this canyon a bundle of times and they know what to do.”

There was a collective exhaling of breath.

“The way we do this is a few basic safety precautions. So listen up. A mule is a herd animal. That means they like to be together. They like to be nose to tail. So we don’t have any space between animals, you hear? If you get a little space in between you and the next mule, you hurry ‘em up and catch up, okay?

“And how you do that, is you use your Mule Motivator.” The wrangler held up a braided stick, and brought it down across his own shins with a SNAP! “This here is a crop but some people don’t like it when we call it that, it’s not politically correct, so here we call it a Mule Motivator.” SNAP! “You use it to motivate your mule.” SNAP!

I’m rather a pacifist by temperament, but I thought: I won’t have any trouble snapping that mule when he needs it!

“Now, this has happened a time or two. We start going down the canyon and somebody looks out and sees how fur it drops, and gets a little nervous. So if that happens to you, I have a suggestion. You might want to just turn your head and look at the canyon wall. Because that canyon isn’t going anywhere. When you’re ready to turn your head back again, the canyon ‘ll still be there.”

We mule riders grinned at each other.

“Now, a mule is not like you. A mule doesn’t prefer the canyon wall. That’s because a mule is a prey animal, and a predator might jump out at ‘em from the canyon wall. So your mule is gonna want to walk on the outside of the trail, on the very edge of the canyon. Now. That makes a lotta people nervous, and they try to make their mule walk closer to the inside, closer to the wall. All I can say is, Good luck with that.

“So the main thing is keeping ‘em close together, and letting ‘em do their job. They’re amazing animals, they just keep on walking. They can even poop while they walk, but they have to stop piss. So when they do stop to piss, you yell Pit Stop! real loud, and all of us will hold up, so we stay together. You got that? Yell Pit Stop!

“Now, when we do stop, like for a Pit Stop, what you gotta do is swing your mule’s head out over the canyon. There’ll be nothin’ but air under your mule’s head, which makes some folk kinda nervous. But we do that ‘cuz we always want the mule to know where the canyon is. Otherwise, what if something startles it, say movement along the wall, and the mule backs up to get away from it, and whoops, down they go into the canyon. So it’s real important that you swing your mule’s head out over the canyon. You got that? Good.

“Now let’s go into the corral, load up your plastic bags, get you your mule motivators, and get you on a mule.”

Like everything else in the Bright Angel Lodge, the “Mule Desk” was built of rustic timber. It was Christmas Day, and the place was bustling with tourists.

 When I told the clerk we needed to check in for the next day’s mule ride, she replied, “You must be Ruth.” It felt good to know that someone was expecting us.

 People streamed past so constantly that I craned my neck to see where they were headed. With a start, I realized that the lodge was literally on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. That world-famous view was just a stone’s throw from where we stood.

 I was eager to peer into the canyon for the first time. But I was even more eager to finalize the details of our plans. I was frankly nervous. I’d booked this adventure months ago, on a whim, and now it was really happening. The itinerary still sounded like someone else’s fantasy: we were going to ride mules into the Grand Canyon, spend an overnight at Phantom Ranch, then ride the mules back out.

 The clerk pulled out some papers and handed them to us with a flourish. “First things first,” she said. “You each need to sign separately.”

 The papers were waivers, saying that we waived all liability if anything bad happened, including but not limited to: dismemberment or death, or trauma of any sort, including emotional trauma. The waiver applied even if the wranglers, or our mules, did something wrong or foolish.

I was aware that our twenty-something daughters were reading every word so I acted nonchalant. “It just a formality,” I said, signing my name.

“Good,” said the clerk, collecting the waivers. “Now for the rest of the rider requirements. You must be able to speak fluent English. That seems fine enough. You must not be afraid of heights or large animals. By this I mean a debilitating fear.” She paused until we nodded in agreement.

“You must be taller than four foot seven.” She looked us up and down. “You must not be pregnant. You must weigh under 200 pounds with all your gear. We allow 10 to 15 pounds for gear.”

We’d been joking about this on the drive from Las Vegas. “Do you think there’s any fudge room?” During the holiday season, the wording of the question seemed hilarious.

Now we were actually going to be weighed and none of us were laughing.

“Good thing we haven’t eaten Christmas dinner yet,” I whispered to Doug.

The clerk called our names and we obediently took turns stepping onto the scale, trying to ignore the people all around us. The clerk jotted down the results without comment.

Next she handed us each a leather boda bag printed with the words “Grand Canyon Mule Ride,” along with little packages of lemon juice. She gave us complicated directions about how to treat the water bottles with the lemon juice so the water wouldn’t taste like plastic. She also dispensed pieces of string for tying our cameras around our necks.

“Now. People usually wear the same clothes both days. Some people take clean underwear.” She held up see-through plastic bags that didn’t have any closures. “Use these for your overnight things. Just be aware the wranglers like to hand them out by calling out the color of the underwear. I’m just warning you.”

We nodded obediently.

“Now, about your jackets. Don’t let the wranglers tie them to your saddles ‘cuz the mules like to chew on them. OK? That’s why we give you these yellow jackets. Let the mules chew on our jackets, not your nice ones.”

Then she spent some time describing the accommodations at Phantom Ranch. We had been assigned our own cabin, with 2 sets of bunk beds. There would be cold running water. We’d be served a steak dinner at 5:00.

“Any questions? All right then.” She handed bright yellow raincoats across the counter. The jackets had the words Mule Rider printed across the back. Their color and the lettering reminded me of Department of Corrections.

“These are your tickets. Wear them or bring them to the stone corral tomorrow morning. 7:50 AM sharp! They won’t wait for you, so don’t be late!”

We stared at her, taking it all in. “Don’t be late!” she repeated.

“We won’t be,” we said in unison. Then, clenching our bright yellow jackets and plastic bags and boda bags and bits of string, we headed to the canyon rim for our first peak of the grand scene.

It was past 4:00 and the sky was still blue. As we watched, the light that poured across the canyon gradually turned yellow, highlighting some rock walls and sending others into deep shadow.

“See that trail?” Doug pointed to a barely visible line that snaked down the steep canyon walls and crossed the bottom of the canyon.

“There it is! You can see it against the snow,” I said, brightly. My heart was beating hard.

“There’s a lot of snow here,” Clara said.

“And ice,” Hannah said. “It’s cold.”

I took a deep breath, and felt my daughters do the same. “What an adventure!” I said, hoping my heartiness didn’t sound forced.

“They say the trail drops a mile straight down,” Doug said. He rubbed his hands together with glee. “Oh this is gonna be good!”