SO… the Grand Canyon trek is complete…
I wanted so desperately to update the blog as the event unfolded; reveling in the possible opportunity to divulge every nuance and detail, share photos and to provide a ‘field report’ in the truest sense of the journalistic term. That would obviously not be the case.
The trip was, from the get-go, a bit different than i’d accounted-for.

Traveling south and west from Aspen, i made what would be the first of several ‘interesting’ decisions, and would teach me yet more lessons about the nature of ‘unintended consequences’.
The night before; having consulted with both the Road Atlas and Map Quest (and Google Earth, unsuccessfully), i’d concluded that somehow it would be faster to travel south thru Durango and the 4-Corners area en-route to the Grand Canyon… instead of traveling via Freeway thru Grand Junction, Moab, etc.

Not quite being able to come to terms with Colorado having 2 seasons (construction and Winter), i’d stupidly elected to take hwy 133 from Carbondale thru Paonia, heading towards Montrose, then south thru Ouray, Ridgeway, over Red Mountain Pass, Molas Pass, etc. Wow. Construction-season was an understatement. I’d spent the night at home (instead of on the road), gambling on an 8-ish hour drive (not having an actual driving-time sorted even when i’d got into the truck and selected ‘drive’) and left early (0600) in the morning; having no clue what lay in store for me on the road. 2hours of total driving-time delay and i hadn’t even made it out of the state… and all due to road construction. Wow, even on a holiday weekend? Surely they were joking.

Things got even funnier when i’d hit Northern Arizona and found the same to be true there. The road to Tuba City was again littered with ‘construction crewes’. Another 1hr delay in even warmer conditions, and this time in the middle of nowhere… had me a little nervous that i wasn’t going to make our ‘meeting time’ of 1830hrs in the lobby of the Red Feather Lodge. I hate being late, and especially hate being a burden on folks who already have an agenda.

Traffic moved along after a while, and i became a speeder.

GPS-time reflected an arrival time of an hour after i was due, so at my last gas-stop i pulled over and consulted the paper-source (map), and found out that the GPS was trying to send me thru Sedona… i detoured thru the Park (Grand Canyon), hit more construction traffic, but actually made it in almost an hour early. First person to check in at the hotel, and with time to spare. Whew.

Dinner that night… acquainting ourselves with our new friends and partners in a life-changing journey that would impact us all… SO much more than physically.

After dinner, i sweated the details concerning gear and what to hike with. 23miles, close to 12k vertical ft total, and (in our case) 15.5hours of actual hiking, topping out in 101degree heat.
Stupidly, i whittled my pack down to around 45lbs. I’m a photographer. My cameras are my tools.

I got hell for it when Jeff grabbed my backpack the next morning to load up, and i was advised to lose ‘about 1/2 of that weight’. I was already down to 2 bodies, 3 lenses, xtra batteries, food, water, 2 headlamps, 1tac light, 1 marker light, and a beanie. That’s the part that people don’t understand. If you’re there to do a job, you need the tools to do your job. I had to pay a bit of a price to get gear into someplace where i was going to need it. I was a volunteer, sure… but i promised to deliver photos that meant something. I also knew that i had to get in and out w/o being a burden to others, and probably needed some strength to help others should the need arise. The compromise was to leave the tripod behind, and to remove the 50mm 1.2 lense that i adore. I was up for a challenge of using what i brought.

Off we went, into the morning!

Right off the bat, i’d stopped several times to grab some photos of the group as we proceeded down the trail. The initial agenda was to see if i could come up with some ‘blanket coverage’ to see how many angles we could work photos into based on content. The night before, Joe Kita (my roommate and a journalist from Prevention Magazine with whom i was paired) mentioned that the shot-list that they’d come up with was more than distilled, and reflected something rather simple to augment the story that he was assigned to work on. My job was that much easier… although filling in with video that they decided they could use, proved to be that much more difficult due to my election to fore-go the tripod. DOH!

Gear-wise, and dealing with the lack thereof seemed to initially be somewhat of a concern. After about 1hr of heading ‘down’, my concerns shifted to much more real and looming issues related to the survivability and comfort of some of the folks with whom i found myself in the company of. We stopped to fashion some duct-tape anti-chafe measures for a participant’s feet, and had some blister-related issues shortly thereafter. What was initially what i thought to be a gear-inadequacy due to my lack of depth as a ‘photo-journalist’, quickly turned into ‘group-think’ and i shifted from being a photographer into being more of a group-member. I wasn’t just there to document and record… i was there to do my part to ensure that we made it as a whole to the North Rim.

www.projectathena.org is no joke. Robyn Benincasa is truly a world class elite endurance athlete, and hiking in the Grand Canyon is legit. 44miles in 2 days, 24k-odd vertical ft total… is nothing to sneeze at.
I didn’t realize what i’d got myself into going into the trip. I can understand the vertical; living in Aspen and spending loads of time hiking and biking about in the mountains, but being in the desert in the heat is a different sort of exposure. I think some other folks didn’t quite comprehend the level of physical commitment involved in the undertaking either. It ended up probably making the experience all-the-more profound, and i’m happier for it. People were stretched, bonds were formed, and attention shifted from self-serving to group-serving. Everyone pulled together, shared food, shared love, shared encouragement, shared their voices… to sing our way up-hill in the dark during the last 3 challenging hours it took for us to wend our way up the last several thousand vertical ft to the top of the North Rim.

What the Park discourages, we embraced. Across the canyon in 15.5 hours for my group, 12-ish hours for the front group. What an amazing day for everyone.

The group slept quickly, rose at 0400 and began the return journey (of which i wasn’t a part of, due to my butt-cheeks and thighs being compromised due to extreme chafe the day-previous).
I hiked down to bring ice-water and offer pack-assistance for the last several miles of their uphill stretch on the S.Kaibab trail… and was met with high-spirits, camaraderie and some weary but very accomplished smiles and laughter. They did it… what an amazing experience! An unforgettable fundraising event that brought along 3 survivors of it’s own… making me even more proud to say i was a part of something special. EVERYONE involved came away with something learned, a deeper appreciation of self and others (and hopefully nature), and is probably stronger for the experience. Holly said it best when she said – ‘i learned how important other people are, to share your pain as well as your happiness… Accepting help is actually a gift for someone else’. And nobody probably said it better than Jackie Wilson with ‘Your love keeps lifting me higher… ‘. How true it is… !!!

MANY thanks, Project Athena, Robyn and Heather (for getting me involved). I will forever be touched by your love and kindness, and will continue to volunteer my time and resources to help make others dreams come true with you!