The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 3

It is always a joy passing the Vermillion Cliffs and climbing up from the arid desert of the Arizona Strip up into the Kaibab National Forest. The trees start off scrubby--not unlike the cedar/mountain juniper that so dominate the Texas Hill Country--before growing into majestic pines. A short way past Jacob Lake, the forest suddenly turned stark and black. A fire had raged through here recently. The trees were all severely burned, but the ground was green and lush, leading us to conclude that the fire had occurred in the fall. There were no young tree sprouts, so it couldn't have happened much earlier. Whether it was a prescribed burn or a wildfire I haven't been able to determine.

A few miles after that sobering scene, as we climbed higher onto the Kanab Plateau, we saw flashes of white amongst the trees. It took us a little bit to realize what we were seeing: Snow! We pulled over and had ourselves a good, old-fashioned snowball fight. Which consisted mostly of "Hold still, Daddy, so we can pelt you!" The air was crisp, but we didn't give it much thought. Cue ominous music.

You see, we'd planned to camp out on the North Rim, and made our reservations accordingly. The kids wanted to go camping, and hey, what better place than among the pine and aspen trees of the Grand Canyon? A few weeks earlier, a journalism prof from Texas State had done the same thing, and gotten snowed on. He warned me: Dress warm and be prepared for cold. When The Wife and I had done the Grand Canyon for our honeymoon almost exactly 15 years earlier, cold wasn't a concern. Temperatures hit highs in the mid-80s and lows in the mid-50s. Pretty much perfect. So, being the wary type, I took the cold warnings to heart and went to Weather.com, where I searched for the North Rim forecast, and was rewarded with the following prediction: 86F for the highs, 54F for the lows. The Wife, being a wise sort, didn't trust me with so complex a task and checked herself. Her forecast for the North Rim matched mine. Perfect weather was on tap. Yay!

Yet when we pulled into the campground and checked in at the ranger station, perfect weather wasn't anywhere to be found. Sure, the sky was clear and bright, but for a sunny mid-afternoon, we were hoping for something just a little more comfortable than 41F. The fact that the midday high was already lower than our promised overnight low set off just a few warning bells. We checked with the rangers. Yes, the highs for that day and the next were in the low 40s. The lows were in the 20s. I was flummoxed. I'd checked, damnit! I wasn't some rube too dumb to prepare--I'd prepared and done my homework, but now I was being told I studied for the wrong subject! Could I have possibly gotten the South Rim forecast by mistake? No, they had that posted as well, and it was only a few degrees warmer. Then I saw it: The forecast for Phantom Ranch, which was a high of 85F and a low of 56F. Weather.com, in their infinite wisdom, had posted for the North Rim the actual forecast for Phantom Ranch, a campground at the very bottom of the Grand Canyon, where perhaps only one-half of one percent of park visitors ever visit! Thanks a lot, Weather.com asswipes.

All the cabins were long sold out. The nearest hotel room was 200 miles away. We were tired of traveling, and still picking grit out of our teeth from the sandstorm the day before. Even though we had only a warm-weather tent (with plenty of ventilation to keep it from getting too hot!) we had good sleeping bags and extra blankets. We'd tough it out... after we went by the North Rim Lodge to buy hoodies and sweatshirts to supplement our t-shirts and shorts. The North Rim Lodge is gorgeous. It offers sweeping views of the canyon, and its rustic style make it easy to believe Teddy Roosevelt made it his second home, even though the current lodge wasn't built for more than a decade after Teddy last visited the park. Feeling optimistic despite the obvious malice of the National Lampoon scriptwriters, The Wife and I decided we'd take the kids on a short, easy hike. Bright Angel Point is an easy trek with spectacular vistas and sheer drops. It's a very scenic rocky peninsula which starts from the lodge, is paved the entire way and is just a little longer than half a mile. Just perfect for a family to experience the Grand Canyon together. Except that 50 yards into the hike, Monkey Girl and Fairy Girl started squabbling. "You go first." "No, you!" "Hey, I was sitting there!" "Stop pushing!" "Mom, she kicked me!" And it got worse with every step, both of them focused solely on tormenting the other. Their outraged screams and shrieks echoed throughout the canyon. And folks, those canyon walls echo a lot. The Wife, ashen-faced as the two started a shoving match on an unrailed section of the path with 400-foot drops to either side, announced that we'd come to the end of the hike, and ushered everyone back to the lodge.

Amazingly, the tent went up quickly. Our camp site was filled with aspen, so it was serene and scenic. We built a fire and roasted hot dogs for dinner, with toasted marshmallows for dessert. The girls had stopped fighting quite so bitterly, so it was almost an ideal camping situation, except for the biting cold. As the sun went down, they fled to the tent and went to bed early. I, on the other hand, being plagued with the light pollution of Austin to the north and San Antonio to the south (not to mention New Braunfels and San Marcos in between) was intent on getting some astrophotography of the clear, unblemished Grand Canyon skies.

Unfortunately, I've never practiced shooting star trails or constellations before, since the afore-mentioned light pollution effectively washes out sky shots after just a few seconds at home. So I adjusted my camera settings on the fly, and sat shivering on an outcropping of rock hoping to get something recognizable. I saw two shooting stars, several airplanes and a half-dozen satellites fly by overhead. I also learned that ISO 1600 creates an incredible amount of noise in exposures 20-30 seconds long. It got so cold, and I was so tired, that I threw in the towel after little more than an hour and went to bed, planning another crack at it the next night.

There would be no "next night." My sleeping bag, which was borrowed, turned out to be too small for me to zip up. My right arm rested outside the bag, going numb. If I pulled it in, that exposed my back and my core temperature dropped so that I began shivering, teeth chattering, the whole nine yards. The Wife and kids, I point out, had the extra blankets, so while chilly, they weren't all that uncomfortable (except for The Wife, who compulsively checked the children every 15 minutes all night long to make sure they weren't suffering hypothermia). In the morning, stiff with cold, bleary-eyed and punchy from lack of sleep, I announced "We are not doing this again." I got no arguments. We struck camp and drove out that morning. No Point Imperial. No Angel's Window. No Walhalla Overlook and ruins. Instead, we were off to spend an extra day in Las Vegas, possibly my least-favorite city on Earth.

And no, we didn't stop for more snowball fights on the way out.

A full gallery of road trip photos can be found here.
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 1
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 2
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 3
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 4
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 5
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 6
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 7
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 8

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