Why Do We Do This?

My brother-in-law describes vacations with my family as the McConkie School of Survival. He came up with this term shortly after marrying my sister when my family decided to take a trip to the Grand Canyon. During the few days we were down at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon my brother-in-law was subjected to a nine mile hike along the rim on a Sunday. The next day was a 17 mile hike to Ribbon Falls in the canyon and then back to the rim. In total 26 miles of hiking in two days in a place where temperatures in the shade can reach into the hundreds. 

Ribbon Falls

As my brother-in-law can attest to this first hike is only one of many crazy hikes that my family has done. While I was in middle school my family went camping in the Teton National Park and planned on doing an eight mile hike. After nearly seventeen miles we found ourselves finishing our hike. I've been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon three times with my family. One time was at a place called Toroweap which is basically a near vertical mile and a half trail from the bottom of the canyon to the top. Hiking Toroweap is so dangerous that the National Parks Service discourages people from hiking this trail. The other two times were rim-to-rim-to-rim hikes each of which my family accomplished in two separate four day periods.

So this President's Day's weekend when my mom and dad asked me to accompany them to Bryce Canyon National Park I figured that there would be sometime type of hike involved. Little did I know that my dad hadn't decided where we would go hiking in the canyon. At the Visitor's Center to the park my dad asked a Parks' Employee about hiking. The employee's answer wasn't to tell us what type of hikes to enjoy, but that we should buy $25 crampons to place on the bottom of our hiking boots. My dad wasn't very happy with this response and wasn't willing to shell out $75 on three sets of crampons that we would use only once. So instead he decided to go on his hike without the crampons.

After spending the night in a cabin in Tropic, Utah the three of us (my dad, my mom, and I) arrived at the rim of the canyon to begin our hike into an area known as Fairyland. As we started down the trail into the Bryce Canyon Amphitheater we quickly found that crampons wouldn't have been very good for hiking. Temperatures in the high 40's and low 50's had melted the ice and snow in the canyon and we found ourselves trudging through mostly slush. Other than getting my shoes extremely wet I didn't mind this slush too much as it made for a fun way to descend from the rim.

My Dad in the Grand Canyon.

When the trail finally leveled out we found ourselves winding through the distinctive hoodoos that make Bryce Canyon so famous. As we walked through the hoodoos we found ourselves slogging through clay that stuck to the bottom of our boots in two inch thick increments. This provided wonderful resistance training and made us cheer up a little bit whenever we encountered snow because the snow allowed us to get all the clay off of our feet. Eventually after several hours we found ourselves ascending back up to the rim. Once on the rim we thought that our hike would be easy as we would be on a well traveled trail that would make our journey easier.

We quickly found that our wishes of an easy trip along the rim back to our car wouldn't come true. The trail that we found was a set of cross country ski tracks, a pair of snowshoes, and a few footprints that led through snow over a foot deep. Because it was a shorter distance to follow this trail than going back the way we had come my family set off along this path. I did my best to try and stay on top of the snow, but found myself often sinking up to my knees in snow as I would break the hardened crust of the snow. All of this made our hike difficult and it was only made worse when we realized that the trail we were following wandered aimlessly through the woods and wasn't even connected to the trail that ran along the rim. Eventually we found our way back to the real trail and arrived back at our car. 

The hike made the annals of the McConkie School of Survival with a distance of nine miles and a time of almost six hours. It left us feeling exhausted and for the rest of the day we didn't do anything except for watch TV.

Despite experiences like this hike in Bryce Canyon and so many others that have left me tired and battered I still love hiking. I often find myself looking at distant mountain tops and wondering what it would be like at the summit. Several hours later I often find myself at the top of these mountains looking down at where I came from, thinking to myself, "Boy am I tired, but isn't the view even better than I imagined!" That's the reason why my family and I subject ourselves to these hikes is so we can see all the amazing things that we would miss if we didn't go.

The McConkie School of Survival.