Hiking Boots
The Uber hike here is called the Rim to Rim. This involves hiking down from one side of the Grand Canyon, spending the night at Phantom Ranch and then hiking back up out again. It is 22 miles of steep walking, and much of the trail is narrow and rocky. As the crow flies, it is only 14 miles, but what with 5,000 some feet of drop and then back up, I imagine you would have to be in pretty good shape. In addition, the actual altitude of the bottom is 2650 feet above sea level, so both rims, especially the north rim 8200’ are pretty high up. Some completely crazy extreme hikers do the whole thing in one day !
Like any National Park, there are lots of other hikes of varying difficulty and length. One called the Bridle Path, the old mule trail when the mules came right up to the lodge, is easy enough for me, and I often walk it back to the trailer instead of taking the employee shuttle.
What struck me was that dressing as though you had just done, or were about to do, the Rim to Rim was the thing. There were new hiking boots everywhere, and shorts with many pockets, and hats and packs and walking sticks and poles. Maybe all this made me feel sort of old and overfed, but I am sure that at least half of these people could not have walked 5 miles at this altitude, let alone the hard trails. But there they all were, REI, Cabellas, and LL Bean to the teeth.
The day trippers off the bus are not dressed like this, of course. They come in with their heads full of Zion or Bryce, scuttle through the lodge to look at the canyon, have a meal, buy postcards and stamps, mail them and then climb back on the bus. Many of them were from overseas, and many fairly well aged. Three times while I was there, people felt short of breath and had the EMT Rangers in, and one night three folks were helicoptered out with altitude sickness.
I watched all this through the metal grill over my Post Office window.
Many people are amused by the heavy metal bars and the rustic wooden sign : North Rim Post Office, 86052. Retired postal workers stop by to sort of check in, wondering what it would be like to work out here. They are amazed by my total lack of modern postal equipment, only a digital postal scale, all the rest is historically accurate for say 1950. Pretty Jurassic. Mostly I sell post card stamps. In my 5 weeks there, I sold nearly 1,000 27 cent postcard stamps, about 1/3 as many overseas post card stamps. I hand canceled at least 150 postcards a day. People often asked me to hand cancel, and would hardly believe that I had no choice. The cancel marking says North Rim CO, standing for Contract Office. That is how a greenhorn like me gets to play postal worker, as this seasonal Post Office is under contract with the concessionaire company that runs the Lodge, the cabins and the restaurants.
My initial nerves over the job gradually faded, although on a busy day it was pretty frantic to get all the paperwork done and the mail ready for the pick up. Way too many details and multitudes of opportunities to get things wrong. The girl I replaced had done it for 2 years and while she was training me, she did everything at light speed, and talking just as fast. I was sure I would never learn it all.
The last day, when my boss at the Fredonia AZ post office came to tally me up and take the important stuff and the stamps and money, I was a bit nervous too. But she was really complimentary and pleased with me, how fast I had learned it and how few mistakes I made. Very gratifying to have learned so many new tricks so fast.
We have really enjoyed our brief stay here, and before we left we filled out applications to return next summer for the whole season. It is partly for the money, but also we like the climate and the isolation. In these uncertain times, it seems smart to have a paying job for a change. Working at the Front Desk and the Post Office are really a better fit for our computer and mental skills, painting all day in the hot sun was hard work.
The end of the season is sort of sudden. On Wed Oct 16, it’s all over. No more rooms, no more food. The ice machines are all turned off, the cabins deep cleaned or stripped out for renovations. We had signs up that the Lodge was closed, but people still came in. Soon it will all be locked up, even the bathrooms and the gift shop, visitors can go out on the edge and look at the canyon, but no other services. The vans are driving the employees off to meet the bus in St. George, and soon only a handful of people will be here. Two couples will spend the whole winter out here, snowbound sometimes. To get to town will be an all day snowmobile ride, then another 40 miles or more in their car or truck.
Not for me, we are off down the road, heading south.
Like any National Park, there are lots of other hikes of varying difficulty and length. One called the Bridle Path, the old mule trail when the mules came right up to the lodge, is easy enough for me, and I often walk it back to the trailer instead of taking the employee shuttle.
What struck me was that dressing as though you had just done, or were about to do, the Rim to Rim was the thing. There were new hiking boots everywhere, and shorts with many pockets, and hats and packs and walking sticks and poles. Maybe all this made me feel sort of old and overfed, but I am sure that at least half of these people could not have walked 5 miles at this altitude, let alone the hard trails. But there they all were, REI, Cabellas, and LL Bean to the teeth.
The day trippers off the bus are not dressed like this, of course. They come in with their heads full of Zion or Bryce, scuttle through the lodge to look at the canyon, have a meal, buy postcards and stamps, mail them and then climb back on the bus. Many of them were from overseas, and many fairly well aged. Three times while I was there, people felt short of breath and had the EMT Rangers in, and one night three folks were helicoptered out with altitude sickness.
I watched all this through the metal grill over my Post Office window.
Many people are amused by the heavy metal bars and the rustic wooden sign : North Rim Post Office, 86052. Retired postal workers stop by to sort of check in, wondering what it would be like to work out here. They are amazed by my total lack of modern postal equipment, only a digital postal scale, all the rest is historically accurate for say 1950. Pretty Jurassic. Mostly I sell post card stamps. In my 5 weeks there, I sold nearly 1,000 27 cent postcard stamps, about 1/3 as many overseas post card stamps. I hand canceled at least 150 postcards a day. People often asked me to hand cancel, and would hardly believe that I had no choice. The cancel marking says North Rim CO, standing for Contract Office. That is how a greenhorn like me gets to play postal worker, as this seasonal Post Office is under contract with the concessionaire company that runs the Lodge, the cabins and the restaurants.
My initial nerves over the job gradually faded, although on a busy day it was pretty frantic to get all the paperwork done and the mail ready for the pick up. Way too many details and multitudes of opportunities to get things wrong. The girl I replaced had done it for 2 years and while she was training me, she did everything at light speed, and talking just as fast. I was sure I would never learn it all.
The last day, when my boss at the Fredonia AZ post office came to tally me up and take the important stuff and the stamps and money, I was a bit nervous too. But she was really complimentary and pleased with me, how fast I had learned it and how few mistakes I made. Very gratifying to have learned so many new tricks so fast.
We have really enjoyed our brief stay here, and before we left we filled out applications to return next summer for the whole season. It is partly for the money, but also we like the climate and the isolation. In these uncertain times, it seems smart to have a paying job for a change. Working at the Front Desk and the Post Office are really a better fit for our computer and mental skills, painting all day in the hot sun was hard work.
The end of the season is sort of sudden. On Wed Oct 16, it’s all over. No more rooms, no more food. The ice machines are all turned off, the cabins deep cleaned or stripped out for renovations. We had signs up that the Lodge was closed, but people still came in. Soon it will all be locked up, even the bathrooms and the gift shop, visitors can go out on the edge and look at the canyon, but no other services. The vans are driving the employees off to meet the bus in St. George, and soon only a handful of people will be here. Two couples will spend the whole winter out here, snowbound sometimes. To get to town will be an all day snowmobile ride, then another 40 miles or more in their car or truck.
Not for me, we are off down the road, heading south.
posted by Thistledown24 at 5:07 PM
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