Sign Up Form Huddle Kick Off 2008: Fill & Download for Free

In 2008 I hiked the Lava Falls Route from the rim of the Grand Canyon down to the river. This is a remote route, not a trail, with only an occasional cairn to mark the way. It is located near Toroweap Point, which is around River Mile 170. By contrast, the “North Rim” and “South Rim” are around River Mile 90. Toroweap is accessible via a 65 mile dirt road, of which the last 5 miles or so are high clearance only, and 4WD-only if there has been significant rain.There is no cell phone coverage here, and in July, when I visit, there are essentially no people. I had camped at Toroweap for a few days before my hike and saw only one other person during that time. We never spoke, since most people who go to Toroweap in July go for the solitude, and are not interested in socializing. There are no rangers here, except for one who lives permanently at a residence about 7 miles away, and he doesn’t patrol the Lava Falls Route.Lava Falls Rapids is the grand daddy of all rapids in the Grand Canyon, with a drop of 13 feet. It’s the one all of the river rafters are anticipating when they pay two to three thousand dollars for a Grand Canyon rafting trip. The rapids were caused by an ancient lava flow and subsequent erosion that deposited numerous large boulders in the river. And it’s this lava flow that makes it possible to hike down to the river. Other parts of the canyon have cliff walls that are often 400 – 700 feet high, which precludes any type of hiking or even climbing.The Lava Falls Route is the steepest and rockiest descent in the Grand Canyon, with an average grade of 38%. Have you seen those signs on highways that say Steep Grade Ahead, Truckers Use Low Gears? Right. Those grades are usually around 6 – 9%. The really steep ones might be as much as 14%. You don’t really hike the Lava Falls Route, you scramble most of it on all fours. It’s a rocky and dangerous route, with many drop-offs. Summertime temps are well over 100, and there is no shade. It’s almost entirely volcanic rock, which will tear your hands to shreds. Gloves are a must, and in fact you will probably destroy one pair of gloves on the way down, so I had brought a second pair for my return ascent.Over the years quite a few people have died while hiking this route, either from falling or from dehydration/hyponatremia. I was at Toroweap in 2009 when a young man fell to his death. In 2010 two hikers died of dehydration/hyponatremia in separate incidents. The National Park Service has since removed all references to the Lava Falls Route in its literature, and the sign that once marked the beginning of the route has been removed.I’m in pretty good physical condition, and I’m an experienced desert hiker. I prepared thoroughly for the Lava Falls Route. I carried a pack with about a gallon and a half of water, and I took three 2 liter hydration bags with me which I cached on the way down, so that I would have plenty of water on my ascent. I carried a full bag of pretzels and a couple of bags of beef jerky to ensure that I didn’t end up with hyponatremia. And I carried a variety of survival supplies in case anything went wrong. These included extra prescription meds, a signaling mirror, moleskin in case I got blisters, a knife, a lighter, and so on.I began my descent about 5 am and it took me about 2 hours to get to the bottom, in part because I stopped to take so many photos. The route is only about a mile and a half long, but it drops almost 3,000 feet over the course of that distance, and in many instances you’re tightrope walking some pretty precarious ledges. Even at a brisk clip I think it would take at least an hour to descend.When I got to the bottom I decided to explore up and down the Colorado River for a while. I did some boulder scrambling downstream to the Lava Falls rapids and got to see them up close. I also went for a little swim further upstream. When it came time to hike back up I looked for the last cairn I had seen when I reached the bottom. Thinking I had found it, I started hiking back up. After about 2 hours I came to a spot that was impassable: An unscalable cliff in front of me, and dropoffs of several hundred feet on either side.I realized that I must have found the wrong cairn. I descended and started looking again. I soon discovered that there were numerous cairns up and down the river. As it turns out, the sand bar just before the Lava Falls rapids, where the route ends, is a favorite spot for river rafters to camp. They often get there late in the day, spend the night on the sandbar, then take the rapids the next morning.With part of an afternoon to kill, many rafters decide to hike up the Grand Canyon for a short way. To make sure they can find their way back, they mark their way with cairns. So there’s only one set of cairns that go from river to rim, but numerous sets of “false” cairns that lead part of the way up the canyon before reaching dead ends.I had broken one of the cardinal rules of remote hiking, by not paying close attention to my surroundings when I reached the bottom. I had of course noticed the cairn, and I also had noticed a bunch of bright angel shale littering the area near the cairn. And most distinctively, I had noticed that I had emerged next to a couple of massive basalt boulders that formed sort of an arch.Unfortunately, as I now searched for the correct cairn, I realized that there was a bunch of bright angel shale all over this area at the bottom, and there were numerous huge arch-forming basalt boulders all up and down the beach in this area. And I found at least a dozen cairns.Eventually I found a cairn that rang lots of familiarity bells, and decided to give it a try. After about another 2 hours I hit another dead end. By this time it was getting late in the afternoon. Estimated ascent time for the Lava Falls Route is 4 – 6 hours, and so I realized that I was not going to be hiking back out that same day. I descended again and made my way back to the beach on the sandbar.Since I was only planning on a day hike, I had virtually nothing with me for making camp or spending the night. I was wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts, since the daytime temps are quite hot. But night time on the river can easily drop into the 60s. Luckily amongst my survival supplies I had brought one of those ridiculous plastic “space blankets” with me. First and last time I’ve ever used one. But I was certainly glad I had it on this particular occasion.I had only brought some beef jerky and pretzels with me, and I knew I would need them the next day to avoid hyponatremia as I hiked out. So it looked like no dinner for me. At that point, as luck would have it, one of those giant Colorado River rafts with about 15 people came floating by. I waved and the raft pilot checked to make sure I was OK, apparently since it’s not often that they just come upon someone on a sandbar at the bottom of the canyon.I relayed my story in brief fashion and he asked if I had anything to eat. I told him I didn’t and he said I was in luck since it was going to be their last night on the river and they had lots left over. He circled the raft while someone else dug into the food locker and tossed me a bag of Oreos and some other junk food, for which I was grateful. He also tossed me a Budweiser. I typically don’t care much for Budweiser, but this one was cold and it really hit the spot. I waved goodbye to him and the others on the raft and watched them disappear downstream.I had a dinner of Oreos and chips, and started scouting the area for a place to spend the night. About 30 minutes later another smaller raft came down the river. It was about 6 or 7 young women in their 20s and 30s. I called to them and toasted them with the last of my Budweiser. They were at first startled and astounded to see someone at the bottom. They asked me if I was OK and I said yeah, I was just a dumbass who was gonna have to spend the night on the sandbar because I couldn’t find the right fucking cairn. They huddled for a moment and circled their raft back. One of them shouted, “Well, at least maybe this will make it a little better.” Then they all flashed me. “Here’s to boobies!” I shouted as I finished my Budweiser. We all had a good laugh as I watched them disappear downstream.By then the inner canyon was completely in shadows, so I decided it was time to decide on a place to spend the night. I found a nice spot on the beach, back from the river in case the water level rose during the night. I scooped out a body-sized depression in the sand and laid down. The river played a lovely lilting tune as I really relaxed for the first time all day. I had been up since 4 am to get an early start on my descent, and I had spent most of the day hiking and somewhat stressed, so I quickly dozed off. When I woke up a bit later I rolled over so that I was now facing the rocks at the edge of the beach.About 4 feet from me was an approximately 4 foot long speckled rattlesnake, coiled up and sleeping in a hollow in the rocks. It had probably been there the entire time. As a biologist who at that time was doing weekly rattlesnake demonstrations at a park in Tucson, rattlesnakes didn’t concern me. Still it was a bit disconcerting to see one that close to where I was sleeping. I gently poked it with a piece of smooth driftwood to roust it from its location. I didn’t want it there while I slept through the night. It seemed almost as if it understood, and didn’t even rattle as it slithered off towards the edge of the canyon wall.Soon it was dusk, and I lay on the sand watching the stars appear overhead in the narrow slit of canyon rim above me. It was really starting to cool off, so I wrapped myself in my space blanket and tucked myself in for the night.I’m guessing that it was a few hours later, since I didn’t bring any kind of time keeping device with me, that I was awakened by a loud crash of thunder. As lighting flashed I could see that there were no stars overhead. I lay there for a while listening to the thunder and watching the bolts of lightning in the distance. The thunder and lightning began moving closer. Soon I felt the first sprinkles.I jumped up, grabbed my headlamp out of my pack, and started making my way towards the canyon wall to find shelter. Within just a couple of minutes the sky opened up. It was a deluge. I found a couple of those massive basalt boulders that formed a sort of an arch near the canyon wall, and huddled underneath them. Rain water was coursing down the insides of the boulders, but there was a relatively dry spot in the middle of the space between them. It was cold so I huddled up in my space blanket and waited for the rain to stop.It rained all night long. I found out much later that it was in fact the biggest thunderstorm of the summer. The southwestern monsoon usually kicks in sometime in early July, and it was right on schedule. The ground underneath the boulders was covered with football sized rocks, and the space wasn’t really big enough for me to lie down anyway. I put my backpack against the inside of one of the boulders and tried to lean back enough to be able to relax a bit. Rocks were nonetheless poking into my legs and arms and feet and back. It was pitch black, and I was cold and wet and shivering.I slept only intermittently throughout the night. I kept turning on my headlamp to scan the surrounding space, in case any rattlesnakes were coming in to seek shelter. I certainly wouldn’t have blamed them nor would I have been upset with them. But I found this space first, and I wasn’t willing to share it with a rattlesnake who might bite me if I accidentally kicked it.At one point as I was changing positions I felt my hand go through a spider web. I’ve read conflicting reports on this, but it seems to me from many years of experience as a biologist that black widow webs have a different tensile strength and texture than other spider webs. The moment my hand went through it I was convinced that it was a black widow web. I turned on my headlamp.Sure enough I had just dislodged a pretty good sized black widow from its web, and it was now crawling on the rocks and looking a bit disoriented. I don’t mind black widows at all, and in fact I’ve had them crawl on me on several occasions. And their bites, although painful, are usually not serious. But once again I wasn’t willing to share a pitch black space with a black widow that might bite me if I accidentally put my hand down on top of it, especially when I was currently stranded in a place with no way to get out and no phone service. I apologized to it, then crushed it with a rock.Eventually the rain stopped and soon after the sky began to turn to gray. I was aching and exhausted and still wet and cold, but I needed to get out of the canyon, so I got up and prepared to hike out. After a breakfast of Oreos and licorice, I started looking for another promising cairn that would mark my exit.I found one, and started up the canyon. Once again after about 2 hours I hit a dead end. This was incredibly discouraging. It was tempting to start panicking at that stage, but I knew that wouldn’t help. I made my way back down to the bottom. The temp was already over 100. I know because although I had not brought a timepiece, I had brought a thermometer.Fortunately water was not an issue, since the Colorado River was right there. But the river is full of mud and silt, and it’s risky to drink straight from the river due to the possible presence of organisms like giardia and cryptosporidium. I had a water filtration device with me, but the water still needs to sit for some time before being filtered, otherwise it will hopelessly clog the filter. So each time I had to descend, I would filter water from the river and refill the hydration pack in my backpack. But this in itself took over an hour.I took another shot at finding the magic cairn that would lead me out. I found one and started again hiking out of the canyon. And once again I hit a dead end. I was virtually out of pretzels and beef jerky at this point. I was really getting tired, and my blood sugar was probably pretty low. I was shaky and disoriented, probably in part from the low blood sodium as well.Hyponatremia is a condition in which there is not enough sodium in the blood. It results in confusion, nausea, headache, disorientation, weakness, fatigue, loss of coordination, and eventually seizures and coma. It typically occurs due to various medical conditions or medications. But it also happens due to extreme exertion in hot weather. Your body sweats to cool off, and you lose both water and sodium. You can drink water to fix the first problem, but you need to eat salty foods to fix the second one.Exertional hyponatremia first came to public awareness in the 1980s among marathoners. It was precipitated by the co-occurrence of the bottled water craze. Runners were hydrating with bottled water, thinking that it was better because it was “pure.” In fact just the opposite was true. Bottled water lacked electrolytes including sodium. Runners were become disoriented during the race, falling to the sides of the route, vomiting, confused, and seizing.As someone who teaches anatomy and physiology to future doctors and nurses, I’m well aware of the problems associated with hyponatremia. That’s why I had brought an entire bag of pretzels and a couple bags of beef jerky with me. The two together contain virtually everything I knew I would need for the Lava Falls Route: Carbs, protein, fats, and a ton of sodium. But now in the latter half of my second day of what was supposed to be a morning hike, I was in big trouble.There’s always a part of me that considers myself to be a wimp and a quitter. I have an inner voice that is constantly telling me to man up and soldier on. That voice was with me after my second failed attempt on my second day of this adventure, telling me to go back and find another cairn, and take another shot at getting out. And so I did.But whether it was due to reason or cowardice, I quit before finding my next dead end. Or maybe I quit before successfully finding my way out. I’ll never know, because after about another hour of trying to make my way up the side of the canyon, I gave up. I descended back down to the river. I filtered some water. I drank my fill, and finished the rest of my pretzels and beef jerky. I found a bit of shade in a grove of tamarisk, laid down on the beach, and slept.I woke up in late afternoon, realizing that I was going to spend another night on the beach. I actually felt sort of liberated. I skipped stones on the river’s choppy surface, and went for a short swim. As the inner canyon became blanketed once again in shadows, I retrieved my tattered space blanket and made a new bed on the beach. The sand was still pretty damp from the downpour the previous evening, so I had to dig a depression and then fill it with the top inch or so of sand that had dried out all around the area. I was really hungry and my leg muscles ached from all of the eccentric contraction of the previous two days. But overall I felt pretty good.I slept through the night. It was chilly and a little uncomfortable, but at least it didn’t rain. I woke up realizing that I was going to have to swallow my pride, admit that I was a loser, and beg for a ride on a river raft. Assuming one came by, that is …Around mid-morning I saw two rafts coming down the river. I took a deep breath, and approached the river at a spot where there was a decent sandy beach for the raft to dock. I started waving both arms. One of the rafts pulled up alongside the bank. I explained my situation, and said I needed to hitch a ride out of the canyon with them.The raft pilot looked at me and said, “We don’t do that.” I put a bit more emphasis in my voice. I explained hyponatremia, and that I had no source of salt. I said that if I continued trying to climb out, there was a good chance I wouldn’t make it. One of the passengers on the raft said, “Sounds like a personal problem.” I paused, and pondered what to say next. After deep consideration I said, “OK, whose dick do I have to suck to get on this raft?”There was a nervous pause. The raft pilot said, “OK, get on.” He gave me a life preserver to put on, and briefly explained the rules. I paid very close attention, since having just talked my way onto the raft I certainly didn’t want to get kicked off right away. No one said a word to me. I felt like a leper. But at least I was getting out of the canyon.Oddly enough, the best part about getting stranded where I did was that within only a few minutes, we were going over the Lava Falls rapids. The big one. This is what everyone on the rafting trip had been waiting for over the last six days. I think that might be why no one would talk to me. A lot of these people didn’t look as though they spent a lot of time outdoors. They had just put up with almost a week of miserable conditions just to experience what I was experiencing after only a few minutes on the raft.And the Lava Falls Rapids were worth it. It was like the roller coaster at Splash Mountain except this one was “for reals.” Everyone got bounced all over the place, and we were all holding on to keep from getting washed off. We were all soaked by the end.Before too long the rafting trip came to an end, and we beached on the Hualapai side of the river. I wasn’t too sure exactly what was going to happen to me at this point. Once again it seemed as if I had nowhere to go. But the river pilot turned out to be a great guy. He had been hiking and rafting the Grand Canyon for years. He told me about a time when he was lost and out of water and someone found him and gave him food and water and showed him the way. He said all adventurers get into trouble now and then, and that’s why we all help each other out. He was a little nervous because company policy prohibited anyone from getting on the raft unless they were officially part of the trip. But in a rescue situation, you always do what’s right.Within a few moments a helicopter appeared. All of the rafters were being ferried to the Bar 10 Ranch, just up from Whitmore Wash where we had ended the trip. It took multiple trips to get all of the rafters to the ranch, and so I was just one of many who needed a helicopter ride. There was a guy on the beach coordinating the trips who needed to know how much each passenger weighed. When I told him that I was 175 he looked me up and down, then looked me in the eye and gave me a hearty nod of approval. Many of the other people looked like they weighed a fair amount more than I did, but they seemed to be under-reporting their weight, which made scheduling the flights more difficult for him. It was the best I had felt all day.As fate would have it, I shared my helicopter ride with the president of the rafting company. Yep, that’s right. As it turns out he occasionally takes a trip on one of his own expeditions just to see how things are working. That certainly could have explained why my river pilot might have been a bit nervous about letting me on board. He had heard my story from my river pilot, who had made sure to get his OK before I got on the helicopter, and we talked during the time we were in the chopper. He was actually very sympathetic to my plight.He completely understood how I would have had trouble finding the right cairn, and acknowledged that the all of the previous rafters should have been destroying their cairns after coming back down. And he was impressed that I had spent two nights on the sandbar, one of which was during the biggest storm of the season to date. He said that must have been pretty miserable. Somehow I could tell that he was sincere, and not making fun of me. And he said he thought I had made the right decision by not continuing to try to hike out after all of my salt was gone, and instead trying to hitch a ride on one of his rafts. He was clearly another seasoned adventurer who knew how quickly and how badly things can go wrong, and how sometimes it’s necessary to do whatever you need to do to survive.Flying with him was a bit nerve wracking for me. I still felt like a complete loser for getting lost, and I was embarrassed to have him see me in all of my incompetent glory. As a college professor I have this penchant for thinking that everyone always wants me to explain everything to them. When I get nervous, I talk even more. I had been coming to that part of the Grand Canyon since 1969, and I really did know the area pretty well.So as we made our approach to the Bar 10 Ranch I was pointing out the surrounding landmarks, as though as the president of a rafting company he wouldn’t know them. Right. I started blathering about the Mt. Emma lava fields, the Mt. Logan wilderness, Whitmore Point, Andrus and Parashant Canyons, and so on. He chuckled as he looked and nodded. He said that I certainly knew my way around this area. I winced and thought to myself, “Yeah, except for how to find the right cairn at the bottom of the Lava Falls Route.”After we landed he shook my hand and said he enjoyed flying back to the ranch with me. I’m not completely sure, but I think he actually might have meant it. He said he would talk to the owner of the Bar 10 Ranch and they would find a way to get me back. I was still feeling about two inches tall, but I thanked him and managed a weak smile. Shortly thereafter I found myself standing on the porch at the Bar 10 Ranch talking to the ranch owner. During my ride on the raft I had prepared a little speech.I told him that I knew that he was under no obligation to help me in any way, and that I was grateful just for his hospitality in allowing me to land at his ranch. I said that if he would allow me to use his satellite phone, for which I would reimburse him, I could call my wife in Tucson. She could fly to Kanab, Utah, the nearest “large” airport, rent a Jeep in Kanab, and hire a guide to drive her to the Bar 10 and pick me up. In the interim perhaps I could sleep on the patch of grass behind the ranch house.He said that was definitely a possibility. He said that another would be for him to have one of his ranch hands drop me off on Highway 389 on his next trip to St. George, Utah, and then I could hitchhike from there. I said I would be grateful for that. He said the problem with that was that after the torrential rain two days earlier, the roads would be impassable for another day or so. I said no problem, then if I could use his satellite phone I would go ahead and call my wife.He said, “Well, hang on, there’s one other option.” The helicopter pilots who had ferried the rafters to the Bar 10 were going to be returning to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and they were going to be returning empty. He said that it might be possible for one of them to detour on his way back and drop me off right at my truck at the top of the Lava Falls Route.Yeah, that’s right. Here’s someone who doesn’t know me, and who owes me nothing, and he’s willing to find a way to get me out of my predicament in a way that is the most convenient for me. I almost started crying.He said that the problem was that the airspace over the Grand Canyon was completely restricted, to avoid incidents like the tragic airliner accident in 1956 in which all 128 passengers on both planes perished. He said that he would have to get permission from the National Park Service for the helicopter pilot to detour to my truck. I said of course.He left briefly to attend to some other matters, then came back and called me over. He got on the radio and contacted the Park service. The conversation went something like this:“So one of our river rafts found a guy wandering around on a sandbar at the bottom of the Lava Falls Route. He hiked down to the river then got lost and couldn’t find his way back up, so they brought him here. I’m wondering if you can clear one of my helicopter pilots to detour on the way back to the South Rim and drop him off at his truck up on the rim near Toroweap.”<long pause>“Say again …”He repeated what he had said. The guy with the Park Service said:“Um, I’m gonna have to get back to you on this one. It might be a while.”The Bar 10 Ranch owner looked at me and said, “You heard what he said. Now we wait.”I thanked him once again. He said that he was pretty sure they would clear the flight, but there was yet another problem. Helicopters are expensive to fly. They burn a lot of gas. And the helicopter pilot was going to bill him for the flight. I said no problem, I’ll pay for the gas. But it turns out there was a problem with that.It was apparently against the law, and perhaps still is, to charge someone for a rescue from the Grand Canyon, and perhaps even in general, I’m not sure. Otherwise unscrupulous “adventure” companies could book adventure tours, get you lost or in some sort of predicament, and then charge you money to rescue you. So he said he couldn’t legally charge me for the helicopter. But on the other hand, quite understandably, he wasn’t willing to absorb the cost himself.He said, “So you were stranded at the bottom of the canyon for two days, right?” I said, “Yep.” He said, “And you didn’t really have any food, right?” I said, “Yep.” He said that in the mess hall of the ranch there was a sandwich bar where the returning rafters were chowing down. He said, “You’re probably pretty hungry, right?” I said, “Yep.” He said, “Well go ahead and help yourself to the sandwich bar. It’s $200 per sandwich. Get it?” I said, “Got it!”I fixed myself a sandwich and walked outside to an area on the side of the ranch house that had a small table. Inside the rafters were laughing and talking loudly and celebrating and reminiscing about their great adventure, but I just didn’t feel like I was part of that and I didn’t want to be around them. I had probably burned at least about 10,000 calories over the past couple of days, and I was a lot hungrier than I thought. The sandwich was wonderful. After I finished it I just sat there and reflected on all that had happened.A couple of times on the second day while trying to hike out I was so shaky and so weak and so fatigued that I had very nearly fallen to a certain death. On one occasion I slipped and slid down a rocky slope before catching myself with my hands, only to have the rock formation in one of my hands fracture and leave me with my feet literally dangling hundreds of feet above a large mass of rocky boulders. I did a one-handed pullup to get back onto the ledge. I know I could definitely not do a one-handed pullup right now, but I did one that day.I was feeling an incredible mix of emotions. I felt relieved that I had made it, grateful for all the help I had received, foolish for getting into the whole mess in the first place, incompetent for all of the mistakes I had made, and on and on. I must have looked pretty bad, because at that moment a girl of about 13 or 14 walked out of the mess hall and came over to me and said, “Are you doing OK?” I almost started crying.I invited her to sit down and we started chatting. I told her how stupid and incompetent I felt, and how I felt like a coward for giving up on the second day and resigning myself to being rescued. She said she thought I was very brave, and couldn’t even imagine going through what I went through. She was such a sweetheart.She told me that she and her parents and her older sister had done the rafting trip as their last family outing before dropping her sister off at Stanford, where she was matriculating as a freshman. I said wow, what a coincidence, I went to Stanford as an undergraduate as well! She told me that her parents had met at Stanford, and now her older sister was carrying on the tradition. And in just a few years she would be the next one to continue the tradition. I sensed a tinge of sadness or disappointment in her voice. I said, “Do you want to go to Stanford?”She said, “No.” She wanted to go to the University of Hawaii and become a marine biologist. I said wow, what a coincidence, I was a biologist! We talked for a few minutes about biology. About tarantula hawks and axolotls and frigate birds and cuttlefish and polychaete worms and tardigrades and a bunch of other stuff. Her face absolutely lit up while we talked. She was really a smart kid.I said that I was sure that her parents cared about her and had her best interests at heart, and she should definitely listen to them. But that she should also listen to her own heart. And that there might be ways to make it all work out, for example maybe she could go to Stanford as an undergrad and then do her graduate work at the University of Hawaii. She said yeah, maybe. At that point her mother opened the ranch house door and told her that she should come back inside. She got up and started walking back inside. I said “Trust me kiddo, you’re a winner, it’s all gonna work out.” She came back over and gave me a hug. Her mother now shouted her name with some displeasure. Once again she started walking back inside, but looked back at me as she did and smiled.Soon a helicopter showed up again. Not sure exactly where it had been during this time, but it landed once again at the Bar 10 Ranch. This was my ride. I walked back into the ranch house and found the owner in the little gift shop they had. The problem now was that I owed $200 for the sandwich, but I had no money. Remember, this started three days ago with me descending the Lava Falls Route. I only expected to be gone for the morning, and I was hiking a remote part of the Grand Canyon. Not really a time that you would think to carry cash.Fortunately I always carry my wallet, since it has my ID. In case anything ever happens to me that should make it easier to identify my body. I asked him if I could put my sandwich on my VISA card. He said it was no problem. I told him to go ahead and run it for $300. He said, “No, that’s OK, it’s only $200.” I said, “I had an extra pickle. Get it?” He said, “Got it!” I figured I owed him a tremendous debt of gratitude, which I converted into an extra $100.The helicopter pilot and I walked out to the helicopter. I got in and put on my headset. The first thing he said to me was “I have no idea where we’re going.” Fortunately as I indicated earlier I knew that part of the Grand Canyon pretty well. I told him that I would show him how to get there. But there was a stipulation that the Park service had given him for our flight. To make certain that he didn’t interfere with any other air traffic over the canyon, he was to fly below the rim.So we took off from the Bar 10 Ranch and descended into the Grand Canyon. Then we began flying upstream, about 20 feet above the Colorado River. I wish there was some way I could download my memory so that everyone could see what that looked like. It was straight out of an action adventure movie. Except that it was real. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Flying through the Grand Canyon, almost skimming the surface of the water, with the walls of the canyon towering above us on both sides. None of the paid helicopter tours ever get to do this. Ever.After several minutes I spotted Vulcan’s Throne, a 1,000 foot high defunct volcanic cinder cone that marks the approximate beginning of the Lava Falls Route. I pointed to it and said, “This is our exit.” He pulled back on the stick and the helicopter shot upwards almost vertically, until we emerged from the canyon into the bright blue sky above the cinder cone. All that remained was to get me to my truck.He circled the cinder cone to get an idea of where to land. I had parked where two small ridges converged into a V shape on the side of the cone, the actually beginning of the Lava Falls Route. But it was a cramped and confined area, and I didn’t think he could get his helicopter into such a small space. I pointed out my truck, but then suggested that he land on a dry reservoir behind the cone. It was a wide open area that I figured would make for an easy landing.He said, “I think I can do a little bit better than that.” I then realized that I had unknowingly and unintentionally insulted his flying skills. He circled back to where my truck was located. The ridge next to my truck was maybe about 15 feet wide, and his helicopter had a footprint perhaps 10 feet wide. He put his helicopter down smack dab in the middle of that ridge, maybe 30 feet from my truck. It was pretty damn impressive.As I unfastened my seat belt I said, “Thanks for the ride. Let’s do this again next year.” He said, “I don’t think so.” I tipped him $40, which was all of the cash I had in my wallet, then watched him fly away as I walked back to my truck. Thankfully my truck started, and I drove back to my campsite. The previous three days seemed like a crazy dream sequence. It had all started and ended so normally. It was the interim that was so crazy.I spent that night at my campsite, then drove to Kanab the next day. I called my wife to tell her what had happened, but she wasn’t home. She expects that I will be out of cell coverage for many days at a time, so she wouldn’t have expected me to call any earlier. I left her a voicemail telling her that if she got a $2,500 bill from a river rafting company to just go ahead and pay it, and that I would explain later. The president of the rafting company would have been completely within his rights to charge me for the trip, but the bill never came. Maybe he actually meant what he said when told me that he was impressed with how I handled it all. Or maybe he was just prohibited from charging me for the rescue, I don’t know.I’ve recounted this adventure several times as a guest speaker at various hiking clubs in the Tucson area. It’s usually a big hit. People ask me, “What was the most important lesson you learned from this?” I respond: “VISA. Don’t leave home without it.”Postscript: I actually remember the names of all the people who helped me, including the teenage girl who risked family harmony to console me when I really needed it, but I haven’t obtained their permission to repeat their names here. I feel as though I owe them my life, and I respect their privacy. You might guess one of them from the video below. Since he was willing to make the video, I figure it’s OK to link to it. Check out the segment starting at about 2:05.My truck and tent at Whitmore Wash.