Altitude and Freight Trains in Flagstaff
It’s stupidly early when I get up and jump in a cab to the bus station in Vegas, so I’m none too coherent, but people seem intent on talking to me. I get a chatty taxi driver, then as I sit on my backpack in the queue, all bleary eyed, the young girl behind me asks a few questions. This opens me up to wierdos (said in the most affectionate way) telling me inappropriate things. The young guy next to me tells me that a) he was kicked off the bus last night because he was too drunk b) he’s epileptic c) he’s going to Flagstaff because there is a warrant out for his arrest but d) even though he got in trouble when young for breaking into schools, he wants to straighten out for his fiancée and baby. Fabulous. I’m worried that now I have a duty of care if he has an epileptic fit on the bus. As we board, there is a problem with his ticket, so I get on stretch out across two seats and close my eyes in the hopes that no-one will want to disturb me to clear the seat and that my epileptic friend will not sit next to me. It works, so I get some sleep, before wierdo number two pipes up. He’s an older guy with a mutton chop moustache, wearing a bandanna. He actually has a lovely friendly face and offers me his McDonalds breakfast before telling me all about his ex-wife and his alcohol problem. I’m relieved when the bus finally pulls into Flagstaff.
Flagstaff is a tiny town at an elevation of 7000 feet, so the air feels thinner here. It’s also more tiring to do regular activities. The other thing Flagstaff is famous for is freight trains – 73 trains a day go through the town. Consequently, the hostel gives away free ear plugs. They also offer a free pick-up from the bus station, in a classic pink Cadillac. The hostel has a nice feel and is fairly quiet.
I’ve had some contact with Flagstaff people on the Couchsurfing forum, so one of them, Barry*, organises to meet me for coffee. He’s an interesting guy – kind of a hippie version of Owen Wilson. He talks like Owen Wilson and has similar facial features. He currently lives in an RV (recreational vehicle – can be anything from a small caravan to a full on live-in bus), which he parks at the university with a parking permit. He has to pretend he just parks it there and lives nearby as it’s not legal to live in the car park. Understandable really. For work, he is a contractor doing emergency assessments after hurricanes. Like I said, interesting. He offers to take me to the Grand Canyon tomorrow if I pay the entrance fee, which I agree to. He also offers to meet me for dinner. He then leaves and another guy, Mike* comes to meet me. Mike the meteorologist is sweet, but unfortunately quite dull. One other couple, Sam* and Mandy*, I organise to meet later.
Barry recommends a Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner and over the mezze platter he offers me the use of his jeep. There’s a catch. The reverse gear doesn’t work, so the car only goes forwards. I decide this is too logistically complex, as I can imagine driving straight into a car park without thinking, then not being able to reverse out. He also says if I meet anyone at the hostel who wants to come to the Grand Canyon, I can invite them.
When I get back to my room, a couple of the girls are there and we chat. One is a young Chinese girl who is working at the Grand Canyon. I offer her a lift back with us the next day. She has come into Flagstaff to buy a new laptop, so guess how I spend the remainder of my evening? Setting up Chin*s laptop. She’s so grateful she wants to give me some of the Chinese gifts she has at the lodge, which I hope I can avoid – I do not need any more things to carry.
Grand Views of the Grand Canyon
Chin and I jump into Barry’s dodgy car and Chin does the Asian thing, immediately falling asleep for the entire journey. I figure I have to stay awake, but I struggle. Larry’s a good conversationalist, though and knows a lot about the area. We drive directly to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, which takes about an hour and a half. As Chin has a staff card, we get in free, so that’s a bonus. I think that’s my karmic reward for the laptop work. We go straight to the general store and grab some breakfast and snack items. Chin leaves us there to go to her dorm and we catch the bus to the start of the rim walk.
The Grand Canyon. Wow. It really is amazing. It is up to 18 miles wide and a few hundred miles long. It’s also at around 7,000 feet again, so when you look out over the rim of the canyon, a combination of awe, altitude and vertigo set in, leaving you light-headed. It’s mostly pink rock, with some deep red, brown and white that give it contrast. It’s a mixture of peaks and troughs, so the shadows add even more colour and every now and then, in the crevices, you can catch a glimpse of the Colorado River. It is this river that over millions of years carved the canyon. We walk along the rim for a few miles. There are natural platforms that are fenced so people can walk right to the edge. There are other parts that are not fenced and people inch as close as they can, but there’s a huge mental leap in getting close to such a huge drop. The rim walk is quite long and every time we look to the right, the view has shifted and it takes your breath away over and over again.
We reach the lodge and Barry decides he hasn’t bought enough snacks to replace lunch, so we jump on the free shuttle bus back to our starting point and buy a roast chicken to supplement our crackers and hummus. We then bus back to the lodge to walk part of the way down the Bright Angel trail that goes into the canyon. The trail goes all the way down to the Colorado River, but it is a minimum two-day walk. Serious hikers camp at the bottom or stay at a small cabin three quarters of the way down. Walking down is easy, but seeing all the sweaty exhausted people walking up the other way reminds us that walking back up is much harder, so we keep it short.
By now, we’re pretty tired and slightly sunburnt, so we head back to Flagstaff, out the east exit, which takes us a longer way through the Navajo Reservation. The Reservation here is massive, running all the way along the east side of the canyon, almost the length of half of Arizona. There are small shanty towns, roadside huts used for selling jewellery and other handmade items, and a whole lot of nothing. We stop at a view point along the way, which is a narrow segment of the Grand Canyon, in dark stone. The landscape here is barren and somehow forlorn.
Back in Flagstaff, Larry drops me off just as Mike calls to see how my day was. He meets me for a quick dinner at the restaurant across from the hostel, after which I crawl into bed. All this mountain air is a knock out.
Why you shouldn't Trust Technology
I get up early to go and pick up my hire car, ready for things to go wrong – the whole procedure so far has been a hassle as a lot of car companies will only accept credit cards for the security deposit and I have a debit card. As I get ready, Sam, my other Flagstaff contact, sends me a message to see if I’d like to meet him for breakfast and then he’ll drop me off to the car agency. He has just finished night shift as a nurse. Looking at him, it is possibly the last profession you would expect – he looks more like a biker, with a bald head hidden under a bandanna and stocky, muscled physique. He’s actually very gentle and slightly alternative. He buys my coffee and suggests I meet with him and Mandy again when I go back to Flagstaff. The best part? I get to ride on the back of his bike to the car place. Cool.
The paperwork goes smoothly and the only minor concern is that no-one knows how to use the GPS I’ve hired, so I have to teach myself. I drive back to the hostel to collect my bags, and I’m off, ready for a 6-7 hour drive. The drive goes through the same Reservation we drove back through yesterday, but then continues on to the Utah border. The scenery is amazing. It seems like the colours change round every bend – from dusty brown dirt to pale green meadows, to bright red cliffs, and then the bright blue of Lake Powell near the border.
Just over the state line there is a Visitor Centre, so I drop in to use their bathroom and see what information I can get. This area is famous for “The Wave”, a hike through a canyon where the walls are marbled and folded in on each other. It sounds great, but they issue permits by lottery, so you have to be at the visitor centre at 9am to get a permit for the next day…if you’re lucky. This is not going to work for me. I'm not much of a hiker anyway.
When I start off again, the GPS tells me to go back the way I came. I figure it has recalculated and come up with a better route, so I follow the instructions. It then tells me to turn off onto a gravel road. I hesitantly comply. It sends me down a dirt road, heading into the grey cliffs. I’m really not sure about this. Then I get to a creek that would require a 4WD to get through. I decide to ignore the GPS and return to the Visitor Centre. The GPS keeps trying to sneakily get me to turn around. It doesn’t say u-turn. It just says “Drive two miles then turn right, and right and right.” I ignore it all the way to Kanab, which means I think I’m going the long way round, but at least I am on proper roads. If you want to imagine the scenery at this point, think of the sets of the old western movies – a lot of them were filmed in this region.
I finally arrive in Escalante, a small town that is the furthest point north that I’ll go on this mini-trip. I'm staying at a place called Escalante Outfitters, which is an outdoor equipment shop that has a café/restaurant attached and a few wooden cabins out the back. The only downside is that it's just a room with a bed and a chair, but the bathroom is nearby, so I'll cope. This is the closest I get to camping – it’s like a campsite, but with a real bed and flush toilets.
I came here because back in Seattle, Sharen showed me pictures and it looked spectacular. I've just realised that whikle it is definitely all that and a bag of chips, it's all about the national parks. I might have to re-work my feelings about hiking.
*All names changed
Comments