11 October 2015, Sunday

Today is our final day in the canyon. We have about 900 meters (3000 ft) to
climb over 4 ½ miles. Jack tells us to go at our own pace, drink
water, stop to rest, and, above all, don’t forget to look back at the
view as we go. O and I set off about 7:50 am. We are told we only
need to carry one liter of water because there are water refill
stations at 3 miles from the rim and 1 ½ miles from the rim. O and I
each carry an extra half liter, just in case. We make excellent time
up the side of the cliff. From the bottom it is hard to imagine a
trail going up the canyon wall, but once again there is a long series
of switchbacks. I call it “Bright Angel Corkscrew” because, unlike
Devil’s Corkscrew, it is at least shaded in the morning when we are
climbing up it.

We reach the first rest stop easily, rest for ten minutes, refill our water
bottles and we are back on the trail. In a bit over an hour we reach
the second rest stop. A little way before the rest area I hear
whistling from a few switchbacks below. It is Jack signaling to O and
me. He calls out, “Pictographs! Right above where O is standing on
the underside of the boulder.” We look up and there they are! We
would have missed them completely if Jack hadn’t been keeping an eye
on our progress. We tell Mike about it as we catch up with him at the
rest area. He tells us there are more pictographs up above.

We set out on the last mile and a half of our climb. The nearer we get
to the top, the more people we meet. One woman, wearing very
light-weight shoes and carrying no water asks how far it is to the
bottom of the canyon. We warn her off and tell her she would need
plenty of water. I try to keep an eye out for the pictographs. I spy
an old carving of someone’s name into the sandstone of the canyon
wall. I spy some graffiti. (It is a federal offense to deface
anything in the national parks.) I do not see any pictographs and we
are nearing the rim. Suddenly, Jack is beside us telling us where to
find the pictographs. Again he had been watching our progress up the
canyon and knew we would not want to miss them. The pictographs are
the most extensive thus far discovered in the park. The location is
called the Mallory Grotto and the pictographs are plainly visible
from the trail. There are Ancestral Puebloan, Zuni and contemporary
pictographs here. O and I plan to return to this area with binoculars
and a better camera to get a closer look after our hike is completed.

Before we know it, we are at the Bright Angel Trailhead. We gather at the
top and cheer as other members of our party arrive. We return to the
community center for our last debriefing and then head to the Maswik
Lodge cafeteria where we have our final lunch together. What an
amazing trip it has been!  Our brains are stuffed to overflowing with
new information and with the knowledge of how much more there is to
learn about Grand Canyon.

After showers and laundry, O and I return to El Tovar lounge for a light
supper, good beer and a good dessert. Then we wend our way back to
Maswik Lodge under a brilliantly starry sky, past some deer that
cross the sidewalk right in front of us as we walk. We watch them wander off into the
woods.