Day 5: Holy Crap We May Make it Out of the Pothole

So, apologies already for the potential lameness of this post. Bartended last night and then couldn't fall asleep till nearly 5, finally resorting to valerian root capsules, which has left me feeling groggy and weird this morning. I like to blame Rufus for my lack of sleep. He was sleeping right under my head, smacking his gross doggy mouth every minute or so and then whining because he missed his doggie family, which is on its way up the Oregon coast without him.

We woke up before 5 in the a.m. (wow, just about the time I was getting to sleep 2 weeks later!) and broke down camp and got our ass moving, since we were getting a bit low on water. However, we'd been reassured by Parking Lot Hiker that there was potable water in Copper Canyon, only about an hour's hike away. We skedaddled across the Tonto, which was mercifully temperate at 5:30 in the a.m.

I was, this morning, exercising my hiking m.o. for morning survival times. This consisted of pretending to myself that if things got really desperate, Peter could always go down to the river and hail a river rafting trip, which could then radio in a rescue boat for me. This might have to happen if I, say, slipped into a diabetic coma, or broke a leg, or you know, got any whinier.

Rescue boat, recue boat, recue boat, I chanted to myself as we trudged across the Tonto. "I'm sorry this has become such a military march, instead of a hike," Peter said to me. Thank you for not saying "death march," I thought to myself. I really appreciated these small gifts which he bestowed upon me.

Really though, I never thought that this was going to be an easy trip. This was the first time Peter and I had gone backpacking together, and it was definitely jumping in feet first (but off of a 100-foot tall cliff into shark-infested waters). But Peter had, admittedly, underestimated the difficulty of the trip, and both of us were less than thrilled about the water situation.

We got to the end of Copper Canyon within an hour, and Peter dropped pack and disappeared into the canyon to get water. I sat in the shade of a rock and cursed the sun, which was beginning to peek its way out from behind the wall of canyon above us. Damn sun. Still, I was finally allowing myself to appreciate the fucking incredible beauty all around us (though I still said very little about this aloud). See, if I admitted that I was having a great time (even while crying and whining), if I admitted that I was blown away and completely open to the universe, then I would most likely be struck down by the Grand Canyon gods for my insolence. At least, that's what I was pretty sure would happen.

Plus, my feet were really killing me now. The first 20 minutes or so of hiking was the worst, because my feet were the only part of my body that hurt. I relished the time after that first 20 minutes, when I could be distracted by my sweaty back/weird cord of inflamed back tissue/sunscreen in my eyes that distracted me from my feet.

Peter came up about 20 minutes later. I'd been busily praying to God, making deals that again, involved the Unitarian Church, when I heard him come up the canyon.

He didn't have any water. This made my stomach hurt in a pukey way, even though I was over the stomach illness. It made me pukey nervous.

"We knew this might happen," Peter said, logical and calm and heroic and annoying. "So we just need to keep moving. We can get down to the trailhead in a couple hours, and then I can take all the water skins and bottles down to the river, which is only another mile and a half, and fill everything up."

So we kept moving. I mean, it's not like there's any choice in the matter. It's go-time. So we goed.

About half an hour out I realized something felt wrong. My Gandalf stick! I'd left it back at the end of Copper Canyon! My heart contracted and heaved upon itself. I loved my Gandalf stick, and now it was gone. But I sure as hell wasn't going back for it, not when I only had 3 liters of water left.

A few steps later I turned my ankle.

We stopped to wrap it, and Peter gave me ibuprofen, and I freaked out. "Look Peter, I think we have to have a serious conversation about what's going to happen if I can't walk on my ankle anymore. I might need a rescue boat!"

rescue boat rescue boat rescue boat!

Peter smiled patiently at me in this obnoxiously boddhisatva way and said,"We will deal with that possibility if we come to it. But I could carry you out of here at this point if need be."

I glared suspiciously at him, even though it was a rather chivalrous offer. "The guy I used to nanny for broke his back carrying a friend out of Yosemite," I told him.

"I'd know if you were going to break my back," he said. I glared at him again, but my heart wasn't in it. He was so lovely. I totally hearted the hell out of him. He gave me a gross sweaty kiss and we continued on.

A few hours later we made it to down a good 1,000 feet or so of a gross scree field and emerged to find--a series of little pools! I immediately took off some of my clothes and sat in the shade with my feet in one of the pools. Tiny black tadpoles came up and nibbled on my toes. This was the best thing my feet had felt in years. Unfortunately, one of the big blisters on the side of my heel had burst, and sand from the bottom of the pool found its way into the hole in the blister's dead skin and created a little sand pocket in my foot. Gross! But I didn't care. I kept my feet in the water and closed my eyes.

Peter took a load off as well and rested for a few minutes, before trekking down the Colorado to swim and pump water. I wanted to go with him but my damn feet killed. I began to realized that I was beginning to become a decent Canyon hiker, save for the damn feet.

While Peter was gone, I read some, but mostly I watched the pool, which was full of wildlife--squirrels, humminbirds, lizards, finches, tadpoles, and a very cute black-eyed toad twittered and whirred and chattered with me. I loved how the desert kept on defying my expectations.

When Peter returned, we snoozed in the shade with our feet in the water, ate some lunch (we cut open bagels and put greasy cheese on them and made toasted cheese sandwiches on a very hot rock, and rehydrated. Then I rebandaged my feet, taking care to cut the dead skin off the side of the heel, remove all the sand (I was grateful a little tadpole hadn't gotten stuck in there), and put antiseptic on it. I stared warily at my little toe on my right foot; it was sporting a blister--no joke--as big as it was.

I was stoked about hiking uphill again. It was all uphill from here on out. We were only about 3,500 feet away from the 4Runner (though that was also all straight up and zigzagged into miles)! Peter promised that I would get a) a steak; b) Blackjack table time; and c) a new dress once we got to Vegas. This was an exciting motivation. However, as I said, I liked hiking uphill better than down, and we had a pretty gently 1,000 feet to cover this evening. I started out first, pack loaded down with water, staring up into the box canyon, where we'd be camping in that night.

As we got away from the river, the terrain became more lush, which also meant that there was a ton of wildlife teeming around, which made me worry about snakes. I liked lizards, they were adorable, even if Peter claimed they moved like snakes (snake movement, and their lack of legs, creeped me out). And sure enough, a hundred yards later I saw a baby rattlesnake.

It hissed at me and slithered into the middle of the trail.

"Please little snake, go away. I need to get across this path," I implored.

It regarded me with hooded dark eyes and moved a tenth of an inch under a rock. I jumped over it and hurried on.

We actually made hella good time that evening, and we set up camp and got dinner started before it got dark! Wow! Yeah!

Peter saw two scorpions that evening, but we both survived without any stings or latching onto ankles. Very exciting.

And it was beautiful up there that night, the stars and black night sky cut by the even blacker lines of the canyon, rising and falling on either side of us. Peter told me sweet nothings in his sweaty half-sleep and that made me happy. I was, secretly, happy, and I let myself smile a little in the dark, almost certain that the canyon would not drop a boulder onto my face for this lack of proper humility.