Project Athena Grand Canyon hike
Day 1: Everyone makes the 23 miles from South Rim to North Rim
03.10.2009
The whole team were up for breakfast at 4am: all 22 of us including three of the Project Athena founders (Robyn Benincasa, Melissa Cleary, Florence Debout), and 18 fund-raising gods, goddesses and other supporters, and athenaship grant recipient Sandy “Sunshineâ€Â? Kilburg. By the time we'd eaten, got our packs ready, and got shuttled out to the trailhead it was 5:30 am - still dark, and with an icy wind blowing. It was too dark for us to be able to see the signs at the top, warning hikers not to attempt to go all the way down and up in a single day.
We started switchbacking down the canyon walls, and soon there was enough of a glow in the eastern sky that we could start to see the shape of the landscape, cliffs and side canyons becoming clearer with every turn. Suddenly everyone up front was stopped and shushing us. It turns out there was mule wreck just below us, on the next switchback down! I don't know if you've ever seen a mule wreck before... we sure hadn't. A train of mules had been heading down, and somehow got startled and confused, and the ropes between them were all twisted. The handler below told us all to stop and turn off our headlights or he'd never get them sorted out - so we watched from above as he pushed and pulled the frightened and stubborn mules, all huddled sideways on the trail and refusing to move, until he finally got them straightened out and heading down the trail in front of us.
SleepMonsters
