Notes From the Road: Two Canyons
May 7, 2005. 8:03pm. Red Rock Canyon, NV. Chollo ("choyo") - spiky cactus whose needles have barbs so they're hard to yank out of your skin. Patrick claims they sense your body heat and jump out at you and stick you. Have yet to see it happen; am starting to doubt Patrick's cactus expertise.
Spent the day on the Pine Creek trail scrambling on rocks, avoiding chollos, skinny dipping in a freezing swimming hole and watching climbers. Had lunch at In and Out in Las Vegas, home of the gigantikest In and Out sign in the world, among other overstimulating things.
May 8, 2005. 10:30pm. Grand Canyon, AZ. Arrived late afternoon around 4. First of all I am driving stick now! The drive down from LV was more scenic than expected. Subtle, unlike the Sierras or the mighty Pacific coast, but beautiful nonetheless. The desert is much more diverse than the Saharan stereotypes of sand dunes and camels. Lots of joshua trees, chollos, junipers, even grasslands in the valleys. The mountain ranges are lower and the colors are purples and reds with solid blue skies. Pam joined us last night, and this morning she and I ogled the hottie rock climbers at the next campsite, confirming once again that we need to spend more time at the climbing gym. They should make boys like that more often. Patrick rolled his eyes.
I walked up the hill to the rim and the canyon came into view for the first time. That moment of stunned silence lasted about as long as the gasp that preceded it, and then I think my brain went into denial, and I started thinking I was looking at a movie set or a photo. Very surreal. We did a short hike along the south rim, and down the Bright Angel trail a mile or so. It's only when you drop below the rim a bit that you start to believe what you're seeing again, but looking across the canyon is still a bit hard to buy.
So far the trip has been enjoyable enough and we've had more variety than a solid backpacking trip. We've seen Las Vegas, circled the airport, gone grocery shopping, and Pam took a shower ("I can't believe they're not free!"...until Patrick the experienced camper who has actually stayed at wussie campgrounds with showers explained, "Well, DUH.") I went skinny dipping, got barbed by a chollo (not quite the dramatic pouncing cactus scenario that Patrick predicted), and will emerge having gained more weight than is really comprehensible given that we are supposed to be hiking for miles each day.
It's a quiet night here at the Grand Canyon campground. There's a generator in the next campsite producing white noise but otherwise it's quiet. I always have a hard time finding constellations when there are tons of stars visible as opposed to the Red Rock Canyon sky when I found the big dipper for the first time in years.
The weather has been really clear and cool except for a few spots outside Las Vegas and Hoover City where it was warm. Not exactly what I expected of the desert in May. The Hoover Dam is quite an engineering marvel and even an abstract fuzzy logic thinker like me was impressed. It's visually impressive kind of like a space saucer but not exactly aesthetically pleasing. Lake Mead, however, is really blue and was quite beautiful when we drove past. Pam compared it to Mexico. Oh yeah the sandstone formations at Red Rock Canyon are actually petrified san dunes. Amazing.
This cashier at a 7-11 outside Las Vegas asked if Pam was my daughter or sister because she thought we looked alike. I was like, you mean we look alike or you mean we both have slanty eyes?
Spent the day on the Pine Creek trail scrambling on rocks, avoiding chollos, skinny dipping in a freezing swimming hole and watching climbers. Had lunch at In and Out in Las Vegas, home of the gigantikest In and Out sign in the world, among other overstimulating things.
May 8, 2005. 10:30pm. Grand Canyon, AZ. Arrived late afternoon around 4. First of all I am driving stick now! The drive down from LV was more scenic than expected. Subtle, unlike the Sierras or the mighty Pacific coast, but beautiful nonetheless. The desert is much more diverse than the Saharan stereotypes of sand dunes and camels. Lots of joshua trees, chollos, junipers, even grasslands in the valleys. The mountain ranges are lower and the colors are purples and reds with solid blue skies. Pam joined us last night, and this morning she and I ogled the hottie rock climbers at the next campsite, confirming once again that we need to spend more time at the climbing gym. They should make boys like that more often. Patrick rolled his eyes.
I walked up the hill to the rim and the canyon came into view for the first time. That moment of stunned silence lasted about as long as the gasp that preceded it, and then I think my brain went into denial, and I started thinking I was looking at a movie set or a photo. Very surreal. We did a short hike along the south rim, and down the Bright Angel trail a mile or so. It's only when you drop below the rim a bit that you start to believe what you're seeing again, but looking across the canyon is still a bit hard to buy.
So far the trip has been enjoyable enough and we've had more variety than a solid backpacking trip. We've seen Las Vegas, circled the airport, gone grocery shopping, and Pam took a shower ("I can't believe they're not free!"...until Patrick the experienced camper who has actually stayed at wussie campgrounds with showers explained, "Well, DUH.") I went skinny dipping, got barbed by a chollo (not quite the dramatic pouncing cactus scenario that Patrick predicted), and will emerge having gained more weight than is really comprehensible given that we are supposed to be hiking for miles each day.
It's a quiet night here at the Grand Canyon campground. There's a generator in the next campsite producing white noise but otherwise it's quiet. I always have a hard time finding constellations when there are tons of stars visible as opposed to the Red Rock Canyon sky when I found the big dipper for the first time in years.
The weather has been really clear and cool except for a few spots outside Las Vegas and Hoover City where it was warm. Not exactly what I expected of the desert in May. The Hoover Dam is quite an engineering marvel and even an abstract fuzzy logic thinker like me was impressed. It's visually impressive kind of like a space saucer but not exactly aesthetically pleasing. Lake Mead, however, is really blue and was quite beautiful when we drove past. Pam compared it to Mexico. Oh yeah the sandstone formations at Red Rock Canyon are actually petrified san dunes. Amazing.
This cashier at a 7-11 outside Las Vegas asked if Pam was my daughter or sister because she thought we looked alike. I was like, you mean we look alike or you mean we both have slanty eyes?
posted by Justina at 10:35 PM
1 Comments:
Try googleing Chollo cactus, you'll find info about the "Jumping Cactus" here is an example testimonial. -an unexperienced cactus person
http://www.southernnewmexico.com/Articles/Food/Cactusmemoriesandpricklyp.html
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