May 28, 2016 - Forty-five years ago today I was in the bottom of the Grand Canyon with friends.  In my college days at CU in Boulder it was our custom after our last final exam to load into a couple of cars, speed south out of town, and head to the Grand Canyon for a two week trek down and somewhere within.  Our hikes were always meticulously planned and rationed, as they had to be for the arduous desert excursions.  In all, I made five trips to the Colorado River at the bottom of The Canyon.  My love of the desert was forged here, "in fire".  Temperatures sometimes reached 130F.

 

These photos are from my first Grand Canyon trip, hiking from the North Rim of the canyon to Thunder River, Tapeats Creek and Canyon, and Deer Creek Canyon in 1971. 

 

The first photograph is Thunder River, a river exploding out of the cliff side and creating a hanging garden of green as it riots down the face of the cliff into Tapeats Creek.  Thunder River is the only "river" that is a tributary to a creek.

Photo two is the Colorado River at the mouth of Tapeats Creek in the bottom of the canyon.  As I remember, it was a 21 mile hike from the North Rim to this point.  We cooked summer sausage on the blistering hot rocks here for lunch and tried to keep out of the sun as much as possible, which wasn't an easy task.  We drank Tang in those days, like the astronauts.

The last picture is looking down into Deer Creek Canyon before we started our precipitous descent.  The Cottonwood trees in the bottom of the photo were 40-50 feet tall.  There were ancient Indian ruins here, and Deer Creek made a final 200 foot drop as it plunged over the last cliff beside the Colorado River.  We camped a number of days at the bottom of the waterfall in the cool mist of the falls, and explored up Deer Creek from there.  Deer Creek has created a very neat, narrow slot canyon at the head of the falls.

In my journal on this trip I wrote, "This place makes me think of the Navajo chant; 'Beauty in front of me, beauty behind me, beauty all around me.  In beauty I wander.  In beauty I wander.' " 

 

This is a wonderful memory to have.  I enjoyed making this post.