10 Year Storm

Will all of our hard work in the Canyon be wiped away by an epic 10 year storm? Probably. Four storm systems are converging on the west coast and are set to arrive in Flagstaff tomorrow morning. Our crew pretty much all lives together in a four bedroom house without TV or Internet, so none of us really know what is going on, but if said storm is as ferocious as we're guessing it could be, we will all be flung back into a rough approximation of the prohibition era. You see, in addition to having no modern entertainment, we are also under a no alcohol policy in the house. I don't know how everyone intends to survive this coming hardship, but I imagine there will be some valiant expeditions made into the white void. Rumor has it that the other field crews have been called back early, and we probably won't be able to travel back to the Grand Canyon as intended. Maybe we'll be employed to dig Flagstaff out of the 3-7 feet of snow that are projected? So far there's no sign that this storm even exists, so I'm just hoping it doesn't disappoint after all the hype.

In other news, I spent the last two bluebird days adventuring with the ODC (OutDoor Club) on its maiden trip. We drove 20 minutes to Oak Creek Canyon yesterday and scrambled over the side to some very accessible rock faces. Our fearless leaders set up two top ropes on a 5.7 and 5.9 route, and we spent a couple hours climbing. Two belayed while two climbed and the other enjoyed south facing views of the canyon, complete with soaring red tail hawks and even a bald eagle. Jeff was about three quarters of the way up "little bear" when the bald eagle came by and got the best view of all of us, hanging in his harness. John pioneered "mama bear" and then talked me and Mari up to the top. The crux was a crack with no hand holds. We had to find any narrow spot, shove in a flat hand and then make a fist to wedge it in place. It took me probably 15 minutes to smear and wedge my way up to the easier climbing above and tackle the roof to get to the top. Once the adrenaline of the climb wore off I started to feel the "Gobies" (cuts and scrapes) all over my hands. We drove to some free camping in Coconino National Forest and spent a beautiful clear night sitting around the campfire and sleeping in the ~30 degree nighttime lows at 4000 feet. We had a few hiccups in the execution of day two (today) and lost our climbing enthusiasm after scrambling along some hairy terrain on the approach, but the ODC is in full effect and already planning a snowshoeing expedition. Thanks to Sam and John for guiding. Now we just need the perfect storm to bring it so we can slog through some waist deep snow next week!

8 days in the Grand Canyon...more pictures

Special thanks to Patrick for being diligent about taking pictures while the rest of us saved weight in our daypacks! These are some of my favorites from the tour.

A cloudy first day of work on the red and whites...

Ripping out check steps on the red and whites...

Local flora...

Our group campsite in Bright Angel campground...

Sam and I harvesting rocks on scree slopes...

Taking a break on Mormon flats with the NPS guys and the rock-crusher...

Pretty flora on Mormon Flats (discovered while collecting rocks for South Kaibab)...

Patrick, our photographer...

Looking back down the Bright Angel Trail on the hike out...

8 days in the Grand Canyon

Just got back yesterday from 8 days living at Phantom Ranch and doing trail work on the South Kaibab. We mainly worked on "Rip-Rapping" a section of South Kaibab at the base of the "Red and Whites" (switchbacks through limestone) with the National Parks Service and doing cyclic maintenance from Black Bridge up (digging out water bars, removing rocks, digging out the ditches and putting dirt on the trail). Most of my days started and ended with a 3 mile hike to and from the work site. That combined with carrying rocks up scree slopes for the rip-rappers whipped me into shape pretty fast.


Life fell into a really nice routine...

6am: Wake up, Eat breakfast, prep daypack
7am: 30 minute group stretch on the volleyball court behind the Ranger bunks with NPS and CREC.
7:30-9am: Solo hike out of the inner gorge to the job site.
9-3:00pm: Look for good rocks within a 60 yard radius of the work site and haul them to the NPS guys.
3:00-4:30pm: Hike back to camp with a friend (talk about large rocks that we moved, dinner, how much more painful it is to hike downhill).
4:30-5:30pm: Drop a deuce, spit bath, fill water, change into camp clothes
6-6:30pm: Dinner! (Everyone cooks twice in a group of three, I did frittata and thanksgiving)
8pm (at the latest): Conk out...yes, I was sleeping 10 or 11 hours every night.


My tent came withough poles or stakes, so I ended up using it as a ground sheet and taking residence in a nice covered patio structure (linked picture is our campsite, but not our group). There was a ringtail that would come down every night and steal the food that I left in my daypack, along with a skunk that would trundle around and make itself at home on the ledge right above my face. On the last night I confronted both of them, stealing a ziploc bag full of raisin bran from the ringtail and throwing my moccasin at the skunk, but somehow I don't think my tough love is going to stop them from raiding campsites in the future.


The Grand Canyon is a powerful place, and some of my favorite moments were when I had a chance to just be quiet and reflect on what was around me. Hiking out of the inner gorge at daybreak, eating lunch on a switchback above the Tonto Platform, icing my feet in the Colorado River at the end of a hard day.


Some other notable things that happened:

-On our hike into the gorge on day 1 a woman from another group fell and broke her ankle on the trail about 2 minutes ahead of us. We were the first ones on the scene and two members of our group led the first response. After diagnosing the injury and taking details, Patrick (one of my coworkers and a 10k runner for UC Davis '09) and I were sent back up the trail to contact rangers with the emergency phone at "tip-off". Luckily we ran into the NPS group that was coming down to lead the trail work and they took over the rescue operation from that point, drawing on members of our crew. I headed down the trail with 7 members of our crew to set up camp while 4 people stayed behind to perform a litter carry. They carried the lady about .5 miles down switchbacks in the inner gorge to a flat area where the helicopter (see picture) could lift her out to a waiting ambulance on the rim. She had an amazing positive attitude throughout the whole rescue and was very grateful for our and NPS's help.


-Bighorn sheep sightings, 5 females ran across the trail in front of us on day 4 (Jan 9th) and we walked within 20 yards of a big male on the "red and whites" on day 5.

-On day 5 I went for a swim in the Colorado river and then stood in the river for 15 minutes icing my legs. By the time I got out my teeth were chattering uncontrollaby and it took a good hour to get my body temperature up again. Ultimately, no damage done and my legs felt great the next day.

-On the last night we had a dance party (complete with disco ball) and headlamp volleyball tournament with the NPS crew at their bunk house. Our cyclic crew met a hiker that day who said they had heard about the party and was hiking in with a backpack full of rum and tobacco. I don't think that person showed up, nor were they bringing the supplies for us, but it was nice to know that our revelry wasn't going unnoticed. Our crews aren't allowed to drink alcohol at any point on project, so we danced sober and got excited for partying back in Flagstaff. We lost the volleyball game 18-21 but it was great to hang out with that fun NPS crew after a week working side by side.


No word yet on where I'll be working next week, but there's probably a crew going back to the Grand Canyon and another going to the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego. For the next 6 days I'll just be relaxing around Flagstaff.

Wireless works

Thank goodness for public libraries, probably my favorite public resource and it almost makes all the government cheese worth it. Without wireless in the apartment, it's about a 20-30 minute walk to get hooked up, but I'm glad to be online for free. For the last few days I've spent most of my time talking with my new coworkers and walking the streets of Flagstaff. The city's not very big and I feel like I've got the gist of it after a few days as we've already started to establish our hang out spots (Mia's, Macy's Coffee Shop and the Beaver Street Brewery). My coworkers have very interesting backgrounds and I'm enjoying getting to know them. So far we have Me, Casey, Patrick, Jeff, Alison, Heather and Keith in the house with Mari on the way, Sabine living in her own place and Andrew arriving in a couple of months. Backgrounds range from Peace Corps, Construction, Trail Crew, Hawaii Naturalist, Habitat Restoration, Biology Field Work, UC Davis cross country etc. Our director laid out the entire history of the company today, which is pretty intertwined with his life story as he started it after a lot of soul searching and odd jobs. On Wednesday we'll be heading into the Grand Canyon for 8 days of camping and training. Battery's about to go, I'll be back.

Canyon Dave

Inspired by my friend and amazing writer Tony, I am trying out the blog thing to document my experience working with a trail crew through Americorps. The clock is down to 3 minutes on my frantic 30 minutes of Flagstaff public library internet time, so I'll just say for now that I'll try and contribute photos and text when I can to share this experience with anybody who's interested. I'm hoping to meet a lot of cool people from all over the world and capture some memories for their benefit as well. Ahhh! One minute left. Peace!