Grand Canyon, Hermit Camp
A backcountry permit is required to camp below the rim in the Grand Canyon. I went to get one at about 11:30 am. The girl I talked to was sceptical; you should start at 9am to go down the Hermit Trail, she said. I said, it's what, eight miles? She said 8.2. I said, about four hours? She said, I don't know how fast you hike. She asked about my hiking experience; when I mentioned the Pacific Crest trail, she seemed to become more receptive.
I had to fill out a form on which I put the Bright Angel Trail, and the date "two decades ago". When she read that out loud, I said "I was in high school." But on the way down, I reflected that high school for me was three decades ago. Have I really become so old? I'm looking at 50 (as I heard Janeane Garofalo say on a recent radio interview).
Of course, a sure sign of old age is reflecting on how old you are...
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The trail down was long and hard. I sprained a knee maybe three-quarters of the way down. I finally made it to Hermit Camp at 5:00 pm, a little before sunset. So, 4 1/2 hours (I started about 12:30 pm). I boiled water, set up my sleeping bag(s), ate, treated some cuts on my feet with antiseptic ointment (I packed shoes but used sandals the entire trip), and went to bed.
It was cold, and my three sleeping bags barely kept me warm. There was a nearly full moon. I spent a lot of time looking up at the clear sky: "the stars shone with extraordinary brilliancy", as Teddy Roosevelt wrote.
In the morning when I got up it was cold; and walking around, my knee hurt. I found some ibuprofen in the first aid kit I'd packed. I prepared breakfast (with hot coffee), then decided to pack up and hike out. I was afraid, cold, and my knee hurt. I had been planning to stay at Hermit Camp two nights, but I decided to bag it.
When I hiked out of the Hermit Creek canyon, the sun hit me, and I warmed up. At the sign for the trail to Hermit Rapids (on the Colorado River), I dropped the pack and headed down. I wanted to see the Vishnu Schist bedrock.
The sun was warm and I continued on past the point where the Vishnu Schist started. I forgot the camera at the pack, but I touched the Great Unconformity and examined it up close. I collected a few small rocks near it.
After 1.3 miles (according to the map), I got to the Colorado River at Hermit Rapids. I washed my feet, drying off in the sun.
On the way down, climbing through billion-year-old schist, Louis Armstrong came to mind. I thought of the song Listen to the Mockingbird with the lines "Now, when I walk down in the valley, in that valley, lonely valley..." I reflected that Louis was tapping into something as elemental as the ancient bedrock surrounding me. I think he knew it; according to Ricky Riccardi's blog, "Listen to the Mockingbird" is the first song Louis chose to listen to on the final night of his life.
Like the forces that formed the Vishnu Schist, Armstrong channeled energy into the production of some kind of primordial swing. It's funny how he gets Gordon Jenkins' orchestra going, playing way beyond their level; at about 2:00 when the chorus starts, Louis can just coast, scatting some relaxed vocals behind those white girls giving the swing all they've got.
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Dream
This morning I awoke from a dream with the image of a fish made of rock, its mouth open. I thought the fish was crying in distress. I was surrounded by Tapeats Sandstone, which was originally deposited at the shore or bottom of a shallow sea, probably during the Cambrian era. So perhaps there were fish swimming in these rocks once (or above in the Permian layers?). Then everything turned to stone, and maybe one was fossilized, and came to me in a dream?
Maybe it was me in a past life? Maybe it was a member of my jati?
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Animals
I've seen and heard several birds. On the way down to Hermit Rapids, two American Dippers (?) followed me for a while. I think they were Dippers because they "danced"; sat on rocks and dipped their legs up and down several times. They had short, sharp chirps. I didn't see them go into the water though, as I've seen Dippers do before.
On the main trail down, I saw two big deer or elk, with big racks of antlers. They looked at me for a minute before prancing off trail, letting me pass.
Again on the main trail, I saw a few small salamanders or lizards scampering across rocks.
At Hermit Camp, I saw one or two mosquitos. Near the camp I saw an ant on the trail.
On the 16th morning, an animal (mouse?) left a cactus leaf (narrow, long) next to the head of the tarp, gnawed on the base end.
There were birds chirping at dawn: double, short chirps.
On the drive out of the park, I saw some elk (?) on the side of the road.
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Question
The Great Unconformity is a gap between rock layers that represents a billion years or so.
At the top of the Grand Canyon, the rocks one walks on are 270 million years old.
Say in a few hundred million years, someone looks at what is now the top layer of rocks, and sees a gap of at least 270 million years. It would be an Unconformity.
But all of human evolution and civilization has occurred during that future Unconformity.
In the billion years of the Great Unconformity, what might have happened?
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Another dream (January 16, 2014)
I was in a large, multi-storied house, on an upper floor. There was a large staircase descending from the middle of the floor. I was on one side of the staircase.
Someone told me, frantically, that a monster, or zombie, or Frankenstein, or zombie robot run amock, was coming!
I started working on something, manipulating materials with my hands, there at the side of the staircase. I was working fast and concentrating hard.
I, the dreamer, did not know what the "I" character in the dream was making.
It was as if the dream was a movie I was watching, but I, the viewer, identified with a character. The character was making something, but I, the viewer (the dreamer), did not know what.
The monster, some kind of large Frankenstein-like robot, waving its arms, its mouth agape, came lumbering along from the direction the top of the stairs faced. He descended the stairs, behind me as I worked on my contraption.
It then became apparent to me (the dreamer, the viewer) that the character representing me in the dream had been making a decoy or diversion to distract the monster.
But it was too late, the monster had already come and gone down the stairs.
I (the character in the dream) grabbed my contraption, which I had just finished, and ran to the head of the stairs the monster was still descending, and threw it down the stairs after him. I may have succeeded in throwing it past him on one side (so it may still have had some effect).
Then I woke up.
Question: the dream appeared to have a director, who knew what the "me" character was preparing, even though I didn't know while dreaming what I was making.
Who was the director?
My first thought on waking was that the director who knew more about what was going to happen in the dream than I, the dreamer, did, was my mother.
