7 October 2015, Wednesday

It rains on and off through the night and it is pretty cold, but O and I
are snug and warm in the tent. We wake at 5:45 am in hopes of packing up and cooking breakfast quickly. We have eaten our cinnamon bun french
toast and are ready to go by 8 am. We’re still the last to be ready.
That’s what happens when we have a big breakfast and everyone else
has instant oatmeal or power shakes. I’m sure we enjoyed our food
more!

We walk along the road to the top of the Kaibab Trail and start down. It
is cool and cloudy at first. Jack points out the variety of plants and the
various layers of the canyon. He has us line up in age order. (O is
not the oldest geezer after all. Another hiker is two years older.)
Then he assigns us each a layer to remember. O is the Toroweap
Formation. I am two layers down, the Hermit Shale. We are supposed to
remember facts about our layers. I, of course, write a little poem:

I
am a hermit, I live alone

Some
call me shale, some call me sandstone.

Coconino’s
above and below is Supai

I
used to be wet, but now I’m more dry

My
color’s deep red and I like to crumble

I
have vegetation in a prolific jumble.

I
have fragile fossils like dragonfly wings,

raindrop
impressions, and fern leaves and things.

I
am a hermit and I live alone

But
you can come visit if Grand Canyon you roam.

As we descend we see impressions of ancient reptile claws. We also see quite a variety
of vegetation: Doug fir, spruce, gambel oak, aspen. As we go lower in
the canyon we see changing vegetation: agave, prickly pear,
cottonwoods.  We see whiptail lizards. I see a black and white
checkered lizard. No one knows what it is. (O thinks it escaped from
a Dr. Seuss book.) At the rim we had seen Kaibab squirrels with their
white tails. There are also the ever-present chipmunks.

When we arrive in camp the first order of business is to place our food bags in ammo boxes to protect them from mice and ringtails. Our packs are hung on a metal frame to
prevent random nibbling. After dinner we sit around the picnic table and
discuss what the people in our group have learned today. I can look at pictures or
movies of the canyon, but walking down into it gives me a sense of
walking through time. We had passed an area earlier today where there
was evidence of ancient peoples having built a pit oven: fire-cracked
stones, fairly uniform sized rocks. gently sloped ground, and very dark soil from the
charcoal mixed in. There are still people in the world today using
the same technique for cooking. Before today’s hike I would never
have recognized these thermal sites. Now I see them everywhere.

While I journal, O has wandered off and reports that it is a great night
for star-gazing. He has already seen a shooting star. I’ll go join
him before turning in for the night.