GSENM-Bryce Canyon

Listen to this reflection by playing the video below or continue down the page to read the full text version.

GSENM: Part 1 of 4

My trip to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) has come and gone. I have returned safely (more on that later) and I had a fantastic experience.

Losing Amy was unimaginable to me two short years ago. Then her cancer diagnosis and her loss only 14 short months later. Amy would not want me to dwell in my grief and sorrow. She would want me to embrace life with joy and love. At one point, she chided me on dwelling in a negative space. She indicated Claire, Morgan, and Carson would need me more than ever. I have found it to be the opposite. I have needed them more than ever. It is a shock to the system when roles are suddenly reversed, and you find yourself more reliant on your children than they are on you.

I began to contemplate how I could possibly heal from the loss of the Love of my Life. I decided if I did not add structure to my life my road forward would be dark. Unfortunately, I no longer felt any passion for my career as a sales professional and knew that if I relied on work, it would just lead to frustration and disappointment.

So, I pulled a Forrest Gump. Instead of running, I would hike. Walking every day would make me physically tired and provide structure for each day. But I still needed a goal. Like my friend Sue, who is walking the Camino de Santiago, I needed something big that I had never done before to give me focus and motivation. Thus, I decided to go on a thru hike with REI Adventures.

From a multitude of offerings, I selected a trip to a part of the country I have never seen before and is truly rugged and remote. The four-day trip to GSENM was a perfect fit for my goal. It consisted of an 18 mile route through the last part of the continental United States to be mapped. The activity level was rated medium/high in terms of difficulty and would challenge me physically. REI later upgraded its categorization to vigorous.

As the trip approached, I felt confident that my training regimen of hiking 42 miles per week with a backpack at 80% of the trip’s anticipated weight would be more than sufficient to prepare me. To a certain degree, I thought I had overtrained.

I arrived in Las Vegas on Wednesday, September 20^th to enjoy a couple of days in Vegas before embarking on the trip. I rode the roller coaster at New York New York in Amy’s honor. It was Amy’s highlight from our previous trip to Vegas for a work conference some twenty years earlier. On a lark, I found a Texas Hold-em tournament at one of the casinos with a $60 buy-in to see how I would fare. I finished 2^nd with a modest payout that put me in a good mood for the start of the trip the next morning.

On Friday, we marshalled at the hotel to meet our guides, Patrick and Dan from REI Adventures. The other backpackers were Kathy and Alex (mother/daughter) and Alice and Richa. We soon set off on the five-hour drive to Bryce Canyon National Park. We would take a warmup three-mile day hike through its distinctive hoodoos, towers and spires that appear as forests of rock. We arrived in the park shortly after lunch. The infamous formations were awe inspiring, even more so after we hiked to the bottom of the canyon and gazed skyward. The unique red rocks were stunningly beautiful and a perfect contrast to the crystal blue sky. Although our detour only lasted a few hours, I highly recommend adding Bryce Canyon to anyone’s bucket list.

That night we camped at nearby Kodachrome Basin State Park. It got dark soon after we arrived, but we were able to setup our tents and get situated while Patrick and Dan made us a delicious dinner. Later we did a gear shakedown and I decided to jettison some optional items from my pack to reduce weight. We lingered around the campfire until the conversations began to lag and we all headed to our tent for the night.

I had a restless night in the tent as I was anxious to get on the trail the next day. I gave up on sleep around 4:00 AM and opted to take in the dark sky of Utah for a couple hours. Overnight, Kathy, after consulting with our guides and discussions with her daughter, decided that the hike would be too much of a physical challenge for her to complete. I appreciated her honest self-assessment as I began to contemplate my own readiness.

As we approached the trailhead, the terrain was formidable. It consisted of desert with rolling rock formations as far as the eye could see. It was apparent that the hike was going to involve constant ascents and descents over the stark rocky landscape. As the oldest remaining hiker, I questioned my own fitness despite my extensive training.

Our guides explained to us that the name Grand Staircase refers to topographic benches and cliffs that step progressively up in elevation from south to north. The risers correspond to the benches, terraces, or plateaus in the staircase. The bottom of the staircase ends at the highest bench of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Essentially from the top of the Monument, geological steps descend into the Grand Canyon. Each of the five steps has been eroded, revealing cliffs of distinctive color. The Grand Canyon has the oldest sedimentary layers and as you move toward Bryce Canyon you see the newest.

We reached the trailhead and I stiffened my resolve to complete the hike. The plan was for Patrick to lead us at a relaxed pace fully loaded with our gear until Dan could drop off the van at the other end of the trail, get a shuttle ride back to the trailhead, and double time to catch up to us on the trail shortly after mid-day.

After a brief photo before the signage of the Boulder Mail Trail, we embarked on our adventure.