There will be more day-by-day type posts to come, with pictures and details about my doings out here. This post, though, is not that sort of post.
The Grand Canyon is pretty unbelievable. I’ve had a good time here, and I’m very glad that I came. And yet, my trip has had its share of frustrations and rough patches, too. Some of them have had nothing to do with the destination, per se, and just arose from general life frustrations (money worries, for example). But also, this place is not, in many ways, an easy one to visit, or to fully explore and enjoy—at this time of year, especially. For starters, GCNP is not like Yellowstone, where you can go geyser-gazing one day, hike with buffalo the next, and explore the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone the day after that, all while being surrounded by mountains, and there will still be tons of other things that you still haven’t seen or done. Here, there’s sort of just one big thing—the canyon. Second, really seeing and exploring that one thing (which is, admittedly, a very big thing) requires overcoming significant logistical problems. One of those problems—which is also a third difficulty pertaining to visiting here in its own right, though again, more so at some times of year than others, presumably—is that it’s just so relentlessly and bakingly hot out here. I have had a tough time keeping food good in my cooler; the ice just melts so quick in the oven-like car, which I am seldom able to park in any significant amount of shade. And of course, there’s also the heat-and-drought-related campfire ban. 🙁 But even aside from these problems, or just general comfort…the rangers out here, and the informational signs and brochures, all counsel avoiding strenuous activity (especially hiking down inside the canyon, where it generally gets hotter the farther down you go) during the heat of the day, from about 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. This makes planning and executing hikes and stuff complicated, at best! More than once, I’ve ended up doing a morning hike of one sort or another, than returning to my campsite for lunch…and then spending the rest of the day just relaxing at the site. It’s hot, so I don’t feel like going and doing much, and then by the time it finally starts to cool down a bit, I’m engrossed in a book and/or starting to think about supper. Plus, as noted, it’s not like I can do one thing in the morning and then go do something really different in the afternoon; it’s kind of all about the canyon! (Not that I’ve gotten “bored” with the canyon; I’ve ramped up the intensity of my canyon hiking over the course of my time here, and still wish I could ramp it up even further—but more about that later.)
On the other hand, as I’ve thought things over during the first phase of my homeward journey, I’ve begun to think that more of my challenges arose from internal sources than I initially realized. Inevitably, I keep comparing this trip to my Yellowstone trip two years ago, as that was my only other “solo” vacation prior to this one. And it strikes me that I’ve felt somewhat less at peace with myself, and with the whole experience of vacationing alone, on this trip than I felt on that one. Prior to the Yellowstone trip, I worried a little about whether it would be depressing and weird to vacation alone, but those worries proved unfounded. This time, though, I think it actually did negatively impact the experience somewhat. I wonder if part of that could be the difference between going back (alone) to a place that I already knew and loved, versus exploring a new place alone. Throughout my time out there, I was very attuned to things like conversations that I heard between others on the hiking trails, as people (often couples) negotiated between themselves about what to do next—go on, turn back, stop to rest, etc. The plus side of vacationing alone, of course, is not having to do this kind of negotiating—never being either held back or urged onward by someone who wants to do more, or less, or just something different altogether, than what you want to do. But along with this comes the down side of having to bear the full brunt of responsibility for those same decisions. Sometimes, when you’re in a new place and not quite sure what you want to do next, it’s nice to have another person with you who might have input on the matter! And maybe, with the benefit of a second head, I would have thought of things that didn’t occur to me, or been motivated to explore at times when, instead, I ended up just hanging out at my campsite? As one example, it occurred to me only as I was leaving at the end of my visit that I could have arranged to watch the sun rise and/or set over the canyon at some point—but my routines didn’t lend themselves to this, and I never thought to alter them. What else didn’t I think of?
I remember being conscious and reflective about the experience of vacationing alone on my Yellowstone trip, too—just in a different way, and one that I didn’t experience as negatively impacting the experience. Of course, besides the known place/new place difference, other circumstances were also different this time. Two years ago, I was separated but not divorced, for starters. And of course, it’s possible that starting this trip with the Morris visit affected my mindset. It’s funny, though, because I’ve also had the feeling, now and then during this trip, that it’s sort of marking the beginning of a new phase of successfully moving on with my post-divorce life—maybe precisely because I went somewhere “new” on my own, or in part because of the Morris visit, or even just because I took the trip at a time when a lot of other things have been coming together for me (happy with my job situation, for example). I dunno. I might just be talking in circles at this point, but this is all stuff that’s been on my mind this week.
Finally, lest I sound overly negative about my trip, I should mention that even though I find myself very much preferring Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, this place does compare favorably to Yellowstone in a couple ways. For one, you don’t spend hours and hours just driving from one part of the park to another! The canyon itself, of course, is huge, but the visitor-services part of the park, up on the rim (campground, visitor centers, stores, scenic viewpoints, lodges, restaurants, etc.) is not. (To clarify, I’m talking about the south rim portion of the park; I have no idea what may lie across the canyon on the north rim. Also, there are actually some more far-flung locales off to the east of the main park area that I didn’t visit, apart from driving past them on my way out at the end.) Moreover, you don’t have to drive around (or worry about parking, or the logistics of transportation from the end of your hike back to your car, etc.) very much at all, if you don’t want to, because the park service offers shuttle buses that run every 10-15 minutes or so, all day long, between all the different locations that you might want to go to! The shuttle bus service is pretty fantastic, really.
Like I said, I’ve enjoyed this trip and I don’t remotely regret my choice of destination. The Grand Canyon was something that I had to see (and hike in!), and part of me still wants to find a way to see and do still more of it at some point in the future (though I don’t know if that will ever happen or not). I’ve focused, in this post, mostly on the challenges, the things that made it not quite the trip that I might have envisioned, the things that left me feeling frustrated or out of sorts at times while I’ve been here. That’s not the whole story, though! Hopefully the rest of what I write about my trip will correct any resulting imbalance. It’s been quite an adventure!