Explorer Blog - Exploring the Grand Canyon

One Hell of a Mile 1

By:D.S.

Recently I complained to my Mother that I had trouble finding people to go on Team Crowbar expeditions. After a hesitant pause she told me:
"J__, you like to suffer. You're never going to find a lot of people who want that the way you do."

Her statement was true, and strangely prophetic. Two days later found Team Crowbar driving into a ferocious lightning storm, straight to the heart of the Grand Canyon. We sought access to a cave purported to exist deep among the creases and folds of those canyon walls.

We calculated the distance from our small encampment to the cave at almost exactly one mile. The number was deceptive; 2-dimensional distance means little when there was almost a mile vertically separating us from the entrance as well.

That night we huddled under our shelter while the rains continued to drive down. Lightning flashed occasionally, illuminating the severe drop-off just yards away from where we sat. Peering over the edge, we could not see the ground, just a thick swirling fog that would soon consume us.

Before sunrise the day began cold and wet. We rappelled deeper and deeper into the narrow gorges. Soon though the sun rose and the temperature began to increase. As the fog burned away we could see that we were surrounded by soaring cliffs. The ropes we had descended on seemed to be as insubsantial as a spider's web.

Waiting for our packs to be lowered from above before my partner rappelled I rested on a ledge. Without warning some object from overhead streaked by me and struck the ledge with an ear splitting crack. In an instant everything was sprayed with a fine mist, and the object went spinning off into the void. Suddenly I realized I had narrowly avoided being struck by a water bottle that had fallen 150 feet. The temperature, still steadily on the rise quickly erased all trace of the misty residue left behind by that deadly missile.

Finally though we approached the area where we believed the cave lay in wait. As we made our way through narrow, twisting canyon passages we came out into an enormous stone amphitheater. Cliff walls, nearly 1000 feet and height stretched in a bowl around us. The canyon through which we had descended ended abruptly, at the edge of the bowl, in a dry waterfall, 800 feet above the ground. The GPS said we were only feet away from the cave, but neglected to describe the vast vertical gulf that separated us. We were defeated. Still the temperature rose.

A further accident led to the loss of yet another water bottle. Now with a single liter of drinkable water between the two of us, we faced the long hard return in the heat of the day.

"Only a mile," I quipped.

We eyed each other a little dazedly. The suffering had only just begun.