Ribbon Falls to Phantom Ranch.
(Or The Box!)
After the Ribbon Falls junction, you enter a place known as The Box.
The Box is evil.
The Box knows all your weaknesses.
The Box eats souls.
This stretch of the canyon, from Ribbon Falls through The Box, to Phantom Ranch is a long, long, long 5.6 miles. It is also the last leg we would have to walk without a water break.
At the Ribbon Falls junction I asked Antoline how far the next leg was (I was far too lazy to open my pack and dig out my info card). She said 5.6 miles but I heard .6 miles. That my friend, is a massive discrepancy.
The Box is the part of the canyon where the Vishnu Schist, or Vishnu Basement Layer is visible. What this means is that the canyon walls are now essentially comprised of scalding black stones. In addition, the canyon is incredibly narrow, making it incredibly hot. Now, for some reason I had gotten it into my head that The Box was on the south side of Phantom Ranch rather than the north. Antoline kept pointing out the black rocks that began cropping up, and the narrowing walls, asking me if those were the black basement rocks, and I kept trying to deny that we were actually heading into The Box.
We sat down in the shade before the black walls swallowed us to take care of some hot spots on our feet. I did not want blisters this early in the hike. I also turned on my ipod. Around this point, I was also thinking, dang, this is the LONGEST 0.6 miles of MY LIFE. I gathered my wits and stepped out of the shade, toward the looming black walled canyon.
Okay. Now, there are several things I should say about the box, before my disdain for it swallows the rest of the narrative. Lol. First, the box is relatively flat. The descent for this stretch is barely even enough to register. My knees were very grateful. Second, we did most of the hike in the shade because of the time of day. While I was and am grateful for the shade, it was still nearly 100 degrees. And finally, the trail was right along Bright Angel Creek, so in theory, we could have scrambled down and cooled off, and if we ran out of water we could have refilled from the creek if we really, REALLY needed to.
That being said, the box is a narrow canyon of misery. While the rest of the canyon may have been more difficult physically, the box was mentally taxing. It is a twisting labyrinth of suffering. It is riddled with blind corners, and four identical bridges which lead back and forth across Bright Angel Creek. I did not know, while I was hiking through it, that there were four bridges. Perhaps if I had know that, I would have had some sort of sense of progress during this stretch. Instead, it just felt like hours of deja vu.
At this point, I still thought this stretch was less than a mile long. Somewhere around the millionth time I asked Antoline if she was SURE that we had 0.6 miles until Phantom Ranch, I finally heard what she had been saying ALL ALONG.
WE HAVE 5.6 MILES UNTIL PHANTOM RANCH.
DUMBASS.
(The dumbass was implied. By me. Antoline was much too nice to even imply any sort of dumbassery on my part.)
*facepalm*
I marched on in stunned silence until my brain managed to rectify the situation, and my cheerful disposition returned. 5.6 miles is not that far. It was totally do-able. We cheered each other on. The box cackled silently at our optimism.
Can you tell yet, from the pictures, what my issue with the box is? It is blind corner after blind corner. You can only see maybe a hundred yards or so in front of and behind you. Every corner you think is the last, but secretly, there are approximately 40,000 more nearly identical corners left to go. Additionally, gone is the dramatic sense of progress canyon hiking gives you. No longer can you pick a point on the horizon and measure how much elevation you've gained or lost. Instead, you're just walking forward, on mostly flat ground, around corner after corner after corner. Forever.
We passed the broken water line, which park staff was working diligently to fix, and the box continued curving along into infinity.
Echo and the Bunnymen was playing through my headphones. Mocking me.
Nothing ever lasts forever
Nothing ever lasts forever
Nothing ever lasts forever
Nothing ever lasts forever
But the box? I was pretty sure it did in fact, last forever.
By the time I crossed that third bridge, I was in all seriousness, looking around for things I could build a raft out of. Sticks? Logs? Reeds? Bones? Other hikers? I didn't care. The sun was glaring down on me from between the black canyon walls, sticky and menacing. Like the Eye of Sauron it watched all that I did. It chuckled at my suffering.
I crossed the fourth bridge as the cover of No Arizona you added to my playlist came on. Again the ipod mocked me. There most certainly is an Arizona. I most certainly was meandering through the ickiest stretch of it. Antoline had run out of water at this point, and was working her way through her gatorade. My pack was feeling entirely too light.
For miles I had been staring up at the canyon walls, at the corners ahead of us and saying 'surely this one is the last one'. Every corner I was disappointed, but I knew that eventually I would have to be right. One corner would have to be the last one. I looked up again at the corner ahead of me and said, 'surely, this one, this is the last one'. And then something magical happened. It WAS the last one! It really was! And I was free!!
All the joy in the world flooded over me as I reached that sign post. All things were coming up rainbows. Nothing bad could possibly happen to me now. I had survived the box! Victory!
I did a small jig...and then promptly ran out of water.
Luckily the rest of the walk to Phantom Ranch was pretty magical, comparatively. I didn't need to dig out my coconut water, but I could have if I needed to. We made it to Phantom Ranch at 12:50, I have never in all my life been more excited about anything. 14.0 miles down, 10 more to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment