"Quarter Pounders from Heaven," or "Will Hike for Food"
Volume II - "Always Be Prepared"
by Dan Rowley, Copyright (C)1998 Dan Rowley - all rights reserved


We begin our story just as our group of intrepid explorers (six strong) has decided that they will, indeed, hike the Grand Canyon. Those among us who hold "real" day jobs manage to agree on a date, and the chase is on. It's still way too early to reserve a campsite, but we all collectively agree to "remember" to register at the earliest possible moment. Conveniently, this moment happens to coincide with New Years Day (or so we thought - but more on that later), so we make plans to fax in our completed application just after midnight New Years Day.

December 31, 1997 - The North Phoenix home of Tom Collins and Dan Rowley

1997 was a good year. An informal poll among friends reveals that despite the occasional hiccup, speed bump, or downer, this year was probably the "best ever" by all accounts. Accordingly, Tom and I decide to buy a bottle of Dom Perignon to mark the occasion (this, it turns out, would be one of more than half a dozen bottles of champagne consumed that night). Miss Manners, in a memo to which I was apparently not a party, dictates that polite and thoughtful guests to New Years Eve parties bring a bottle of champagne. So, to the three bottles (or so) of champagne Tom and I had at the beginning of the evening, we cheerfully added those which accompanied our polite and thoughtful guests as they arrived. I have long since forgotten the total tally, but I do recall that we weren't actually able to finish all of the champagne that night.

Since we had so much champagne to get through, we decided to celebrate "New Years" as it happened in each major time zone - we had enough to open fresh bottles and celebrate at the top of each hour, with the "The Dom," as it was called, reserved for the only "real" New Years Day - the one that occurs at midnight, Mountain Standard Time. Due mainly to the fact that he was less drunk than the rest of us, Todd took it upon himself to download, print, and fill out the campsite registration form. Why we hadn't decided to do this while we were all still sober remains a mystery. Despite several months' advance notice, we failed to actually decide on an itenerary until about 15 minutes to midnight, when we decided on a 3 day loop which would include The South Kaibab Trail, Bright Angel Campground, Bright Angel Trail, and Indian Gardens. This, we know now, is the Grand Canyon equivalent of ordering Value Meal #1 at McDonalds - it is, without a doubt, the most popular itinerary available to a Canyon Hiker. Oops.

We actually did manage to get the application out on time, although there was a moment of panic when the completed application was placed on the countertop for me to sign in a spot already occupied by a puddle of champagne (or beer, or something that smelled vaguely alchoholic). If the fax machine cared that the application was soaked with something vile, it didn't say so - the application was on it's way shortly after midnight. Countless bottles of champagne, several cans of "EZ Cheese," enough summer sausage to feed the Russian Women's swim team for a year, and about two weeks later, we received our back country permit in the mail.

By all indications, we did indeed get the very first back country permit issued in 1998, but we did NOT get our first choice of dates for our itinerary. It turns out that the Department of the Interior defines "four months in advance" differently than than most bipedal upright-walking primate descendants. Whereas we interpreted "the first day of the month four months before the month including the travel dates" to mean "If you travel in April, you can register January 1," it did in fact mean that we could have registered as early as December 1. So much for careful preparation. As is often the case, though, the "revised" dates probably turned out better than our first choice. Our new dates spanned Sunday-Monday-Tuesday instead of Friday-Saturday-Sunday, which, considering the popularity of our itinerary, meant that we would have to deal with smaller crowds than if we had gotten our "first choice" weekend. As it stands, the campgrounds were still completely full and the trails near the top relatively busy, so I can't imagine what it would have been like had we gotten our first choice.

Now that the plans were officially made (and, as the permit sternly reminded us, NOT SUBJECT TO CHANGE), all we had to do was get in shape, and get a little practice hiking with full packs. No problem. We wasted no time on this count - a scant three months or so later (sometime in mid-to-late March) we took our first "practice" full-pack hike to (no giggles, please) Wet Beaver Creek. Two weeks or so later, we took our second (and final) practice hike in the Turkey Creek area of the Chiricahua mountain range. That trip is chronicled in "On bears, knots, and the wetness of water."

Stay tuned for Volume III - The Real Thing.

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