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Epic Grand Canyon Hike: Thirst and Threats in the Godscape (Part 3) | National Geographic


3m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Laughs, or iPhone moving out there. Oh, it looks like a swimming pool from here. Ooh, I don't know if there's water. It makes you a little stressed, to say the least. When we started this walk across Grand Canyon from 500 miles to the east of here, a friend told us we'd learn the difference between what we want and what we need.

As Kevin and I marched into western Grand Canyon, we stepped back. We passed through the speaker passageway into what some describe as the gods' food, a place very few visit. Day 45 of our walking, no precipitation in sight even though it's mid-February, and we are back in full desert.

[Music]

Western Grand Canyon is incredibly remote, and amen, and then some. Water is extremely scarce; that scarcity reminded us daily. The park and all the development projects surrounding its landscape share this major, often overlooked obstacle: limited water. Finding water when you're far from the river, sometimes 3,000 feet above it, isn't easy.

We read upended on very thin, very unpredictable potholes of rainwater. Pretty nice to syringes, that's like a swimming pool. Just don't fall in there, because there's no bottom in that thing, at least that I can see from here. They were the key to our survival.

Water challenged us day by day. Thanks to an inter-confessional, I was constantly amazed by the liquid silence that seemed to blanket us down here. "Is there any water?" "No, you're right." "You will clean her underwear without them." "I'm right now, it's just huge."

"Okay, hi yourself!" "No, get the hell out of me!"

After hiking some 12 to 15 miles a day for over a month,

[Music]

some days hiking over 20 miles to reach water, let's just say the bodies bowed. Let's hope your feet ain't really hurt; somebody's falling apart like I'm nice. We sauna, okay?

58th day on the trail. Whatever it may have been, the brushy ax, scratchiest longest day. Wow, a time. Lulu, Kevin might have even become the cat grouchy, climbing Obi-Wan Kenobi style to get to Wilderness hoo-ha. And my, look where we've come from! Yeah, look where he comes from.

Nowhere encounters with cactus didn't help. "What are you selling to the broker?" "And I gotta lose weight lumps!" "Yeah, okay, let's put him away." "Fish?" "Oh, shake her!" "I can fight literally made my cap on them!"

Woohoo! I got you!

I got your physical challenges aside. Careful, we discovered a solitude and stillness that was experienced nowhere else. As we approached the end of the park and our walk, we discovered and heard the different Grand Canyon. A tourist room has followed the success of the recent skywalk development on the Hualapai reservation on the southwest corner of the park.

Over a decade ago, the FAA granted approval to fly and land helicopters below the rim, what is now called Helicopter Alley, located on the border of the national park. It is now one of the busiest heliports in the world, and the way of industrialized high-volume tourism coming to the National Park.

The acceleration of this kind of activity has been incredible. Economic enterprise of these tribal nations is important for them. You know, they basically starved for 100 years. Now they have something.

[Music]

The helicopters are a mess. You know, there's this constant air traffic, and it affects the wildlife. You know, we're a hunting tribe, propagate forward.

15 years the dreams capture, and we've really done what we set out to do with Teddy Roosevelt. Set out to let mainly the rest of the world come fly over Grand Canyon National Park, and in, you know, negate the laws that we created to protect these places.

When we started this cloth, we had no idea what we'd gotten into, nor how far under kitchen it would be. Our sixty-day, over 650-mile hiking immersion is not about being on a list; it's about understanding a shared resource found jewel of our National Park System.

Well, it was a journey to find a line to one of the seven natural wonders of the world, which means man must result requests understand what might change or be lost. Image rocket fuel, we don't find a balance in growing development pressures, resource extraction, and the sublime beauty that defines this iconic landscape.

How we decide to use and experience our last wild places will dictate what the future of this place looks like.

[Music]

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