My wife and I have been wanting to hike the Grand Canyon for years. Amy’s been doing all the research for the trip, and she wants to hike down to the bottom, stay a night at the Phantom Ranch, then hike up to the opposite rim the next day. Her ideal plan would be to then hike back down on another trail, stay another night at Phantom Ranch, then go back up to our starting point on yet another trail.
We thought we had at least half of that plan in place. We haven’t ever been lucky enough to win the lottery for Phantom Ranch reservations, but we did snag a cancellation for the end of September. We were going to hike down, stay the night, then go up the other side, and catch a shuttle back to our vehicle.
But then the rains came. A few weeks ago, the Grand Canyon got all the rain it usually gets all summer long in one giant rainstorm. It was devastating. It took out bridges down in the canyon, disrupted water sources, including those on the Phantom Ranch, and it killed more than a few people. It came out of nowhere, with very little warning.
Much of the canyon is now closed for the rest of the year, and rightly so. I believe they’ve found all the people who were missing, and many of those people were found healthy. But some weren’t as lucky. My heart aches for those people and their families.
So we won’t get to go to the Grand Canyon this year. That’s OK. I’ll just rearrange my vacation time and use it to go hunting here in Wyoming instead. I can catch the last few days of the deer and elk archery season, and maybe fill up my freezer for the winter.
Maybe we can go to the Grand Canyon next year, before hunting season.
