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JimC and Generallee vs The Grand Canyon
By admin | October 13, 2008 |
submitted by Generallee
Wow! and Ow!
The trek of all trek’s. Where shall I begin? All y’all know that I am
not the best of writers (I think Idiot #1 Buddah has that one) but
Jim gave me the privilege of telling the story so here I go…
I had 3 goals with this whole quest of mine… 1) meet Jim Campbell
2)raise awareness and funds for charity and 3)complete the “Death
March”. Whether I did all of them, you have to keep reading.
First things first, Jim arrives PHX from IND 7am on Friday morning.
After some free pepper plant consultation (Thanks Jim) we were off to
the infamous Grand Canyon. Three hours and 20 minutes of peaceful
driving, riding, and talking, wha la! We have arrived. And I think
they mislabeled the Grand Canyon. It should have been more like “Hole
the size of Peachtree City, GA” (keepin it real to my Southern
followers) Canyon. I am sure you get the picture.
As you can see, this thang is huge. And purdy. The colors, the rock
formations, the serenity. One of the 7 wonders of the natural world.
I agree. Why it took 9 years to get up here from PHX, I will never
know. So, we came, we saw, we went back to the hotel about 1 hour
south (much cheaper) and a quick bite and off to early sleep at 8 ish.
Up at 1:30 and we needed some hours of
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s (call out to parker).
1:30 comes around and we are awake, pumped, and pooped. In the car by
2 and at the Canyon entrance at 3. We park, pack up the backpacks,
hike .5 miles to trail head and start the clock at 03:15. (that’s 3:15
am for all y’all non armed forces folk)
Let me paint a picture of what we were looking at… imagine yourself
in a closed closet in Galveston TX, in the middle of the night, 3
hours after a hurricane with no electricity anywhere in 12 miles. Get
the picture? Good. Well, after a quick chilehead handshake and a
“Good Luck” we were off like my prom date’s dress. Next stop, Phantom
Ranch. 5,000 ft elevation drop in 7 miles. No worries right? Ha!
Halfway down the trail and after inhaling bout 2 lbs of blowing dust a
piece, we get passed my 4 athletes who were running down the trail.
Insanity. More Like Dave’s Insanity. Crazy. Onward Ho! Another 3-4
miles down and after avoiding many a many a piles of mule dung (poop
for the lamens) we arrive at the Colorado River and Phantom Ranch.
Base camp for most of the Grand Canyon. Time – 6:15am. Light – about
12% light outside. (see pics, it leads to the best/worst thing of the
whole trip) a quick stop at the water fountain to fill up our
camelback bladders and some caloric intake and we shot out of there
with one thing on our mind… arriving at the North Rim in 6 -7 hours.
With the absence of light at 6:30, we, I mean Jim, directed us onto
the wrong trail. We didn’t know this important fact til bout 6 miles
down this “dead end” of a trail we are on. So what did I do, the smart
Southerner that I am? “I’d keep playing” (for all you Caddyshack
lovers) I leave Jim in the dust thinking I was on the right trail but
instead of the trail going up in elevation it abruptly went down. Not
good. But little did i know, an angel from God was waiting for me down
by the crik (creek for you yankees). Eduardo, a 55ish year old
Oregonian was there to greet me at what ended up being Clear Creek
Campground. I asked the fella (after I had a suspicion I was lost)
“Where am I?” He nicely replied “Clear Creek Campground.” I said,
“How do i get to North Kaibab Trailhead?” He said, “Go back to where
you came from and take a right at Phantom Ranch.” My heart dropped.
Oh yeah, and also at this time, I had no water and it started raining.
But like I said, Eduardo was an angel and he had a carbon filter for
water purification so i could replenish my water supply. A quick
:insertouthousesymbol: and I was off back to Phantom Ranch. 2 hours
later and I catch up with Jim. He still thinks we are on the trail we
had intentions of being on and I had hiked up to top, took a picture
and came back down. Little did he know that we weren’t. After I
filled him in on all the data, we laughed, hugged, in a very manly
kinda way, drank some water, had some trail mix and back to Phantom
Ranch to refuel one more time and get psyched for the last leg of our
quest. By this time we know we weren’t gunna do what we had intentions
on doing but we knew we were going to be hiking b/n 35-40 miles
instead of 47. Eh, at this time, all’s we were thinking ’bout was a hot
shower and a nice bed. So another 2 ish hours on the trail and we
arrived at Phantom Ranch.
We soaked our feet in the 40 ish degree creek, Dr. up Jim’s blister
that he has acquired. Being that it is the size of a 1% bottle from
Danny Cash and the 3oz. Marie Sharp hot sauce bottle I took with me,
it took some time. By this time I was feeling OK, tired but OK. Jim
just was spent. Like free $1′s at a gentleman’s club. Get the
picture. FYI, Jim did not train a bit for this ordeal and he will
tell you that this journey was harder and more miserable than his
World Record holding stair climb. But what are you gunna do? We cant
stay in the Canyon anywhere because we don’t have camping privileges.
So we head up (after a quick picture of the sign Jim misread from
earlier) the last trail we may ever be on in the Grand Canyon. 9
miles up and 5000 ft. Ugh!
The first 2 miles were nice. Maybe 10% slope but tolerable. Then the
climb started. 20% slope for the next 2 miles. Not fun. We both
struggled very much. Not a whole lot of talking. We were in our own
world. In survival mode. Blessed by and obscene amount of mule poop
and piss on this ever so challenging part, we see the light at the end
of the tunnel, Indian Garden. A popular stop 4.5 miles from the top.
We were so relieved but we knew we couldn’t stay long. Nightfall was a
coming and we didn’t want our legs to cramp up any more than they
already were. More water and calories from food and we head out to
what turned out to be the hardest 4.5 miles we have ever encountered.
Plagued by fatigue and a complimentary dose of dehydration, we are off
into the almost darkness. Once again, the first 2 miles were
tolerable, but the last 2.5 were unbearable (shout out to your sauce
Jim) 
Jim leads the pack at a snail-like pace but that is all the
tank had to offer at this point. I could go on and on and on bout the
mental and physical struggles we encountered but I wont. Lets just
say it was the hardest 3 hours that Jim and I had ever encountered in
our life’s. Honest.
So in conclusion, we finished our trek at 20:15. 17 total hours. Me
- 39 miles, Jim – 37 miles. Would we do it again? 99% no. Would we
do a different trek but shorter? Probably. All in all, I will take
the memories to my grave. I met a true humanitarian and American. We
had good times and bad times. We struggled and persevered. I am
grateful for all the well-wishes that the chilehead community sent to
me and Jim I presume does also. Thanks to Blair for the generous 1/1
that was able to raise funds for Jim’s cause/charity and
www.freedomisnotfree.com
Enjoy the pictures y’all. The hot sauce bottle was the only small
plastic one I had but just thinking bout it, it is probably the only
one that has ever had that trek. Thank you admin for letting me tell
my story and God Bless all y’all and I’ll check in next year with my
next adventure.
CLICK HERE to view slideshow full screen.
Related Posts
Topics: Friends, General | 22 Comments »
1st post!
WOW
I went to dinner with them the next night, and they were both walkin a lil’ funny.
When’s the sequel? Brokeback Canyon part II ???
Ok so whats next? 200 mph or a parachute? Nice tale of woe and endurance. I wish I didn’t have to see sweaty feet or crotch shots though.
How hot was it?
‘Bout 50F at the start, ’bout 85F at the bottom, and 40′s at the end. It sleeted on us too for the trip back up
The wrong turn was *all* on me. Turned out to be a good thing though- like Gen’l said, if we had gone ahead up the right trail, we would have been in some serious distress for the hike up. I was truly spent & the Marathon man was wearing down also. He dropped me like a bad habit heading up Clear Creek.
It was a real pleasure to meet him in person- a lot nicer than he comes across on the blogs!
One heck of a pacesetter!
Another really cool thing was having dinner with AJ & Vic & Wendy. Got to visit a bit with another chilehead who gave me a ride from the airport up to Troy’s.
General- again, it was a pleasure to have shared the trail with you. Vic, Wendy, & AJ (and Sheila) amazing how something so simple as a love of chiles can bring us together to form good friendships!
I’m planning another attempt in May if anyone wants to try. I ain’t going out like that
See y’all at FMK!
Way to go guys!!! I would love to do this, May may work for me. Please keep me updated on plans.
Great job guys… truly incredible.
Whew what a trip! Makes me wish I could have
went!
Butch T
The pic of Jim’s foot makes me hurt just lookn’ at it. Nothing but raw meat with a sock stuck to it at the end of the day.
Great job guys!
I’ve seen the Grand Canyon from 30,000 feet and it was the most beautiful natural sight that I’ve ever seen. I would love to visit there someday.
Jim, Troy, great job. My feet hurt just looking at the pics.
Great job guys! Some beautiful pictures. I haven’t been to the Grand Canyon since I was a kid.
Hope the feet are healing well!
Great story. I am planning on snagging my dads new camper and heading that way sometime soon. Dont think I’ll be doing the hike though. I’ll be the fat guy on the mule.
no brokeback for me but May sounds pleasnat. maybe 1/2 the mileage but double the slope.
:evil: 
:clap: 
:heart:
buddah
skydiving when i get a job.
:cry:
Maybe now would be a good time to look for employment with a skydiving school. Free lessons!
Grand Canyon
it only looks like 3″ wide on my computer screen. 
Seriously….killer story guys and even better pictures.:tu:
I’m jealous. :cry:
I would love to experience the Grand Canyon someday. It seems kind of magical. Lake Tahoe is the same way…there’s just something very different about those places.
That’s the way it looked from 30,000 feet!
FFS is in Albuddahquerque, and the Grand Canyon is on the way via car.
We are going to be able to make FFS.
Should’ve said aren’t going to be able to make it.