The enemy would love to keep you so unprepared that you have to be carried off the battlefield, never to return.

Preparation/Readiness and Peace Are Vitally Important

Mark likes to hike twenty-four miles across the Grand Canyon in one day. Called “rim-to-rim,” he has done it seven times now. Doug has done it with him on two of those occasions.

He tends to get one of two reactions when the topic comes up in conversation. Either…

·      That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

·      That sounds terrible.

·      Why would anyone want to do that?

The other is…

·      Wow.

·      That’s cool.

·      I want to go on that trip!

·      Can you take me with you the next time you go?

And yes, there are more people who adhere to the first belief than the second.

Unfortunately, the people who want to go typically don’t have much of a clue about what it takes to be ready for a hike like this. Some have said, “I know I can make it because my wife and I walk around the block a lot.” It’s hard not to sound like a hiking snob when you ask them how many days a week they go to the gym. Sometimes Mark hears, “Oh, I don’t go to the gym. We walk instead.” He tries to, as diplomatically as possible, help them understand he would never go with them in this lifetime and be responsible for their demise in that amazing paradise. 

It’s hard not to laugh at what some think this hike is like. They think it’s a neat concept and they’re enamored with the romance of it all. But they don’t think through what it really takes to be ready. There are three levels of completion, assuming you do complete it (that’s not assured—ask Doug, we had a couple of adventures on our two trips):

·      Level One is to finish the trip and collapse at the top of the trailhead and say, “That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I’m never doing that again, but I can mark it off my bucket list.”

·      Level Two says, “I will decide after breakfast tomorrow if I’m ever coming back. I might. “

·      Level Three is when you hit the top and put in your phone the date for the next time you plan to come back.

Mark has seen all three levels in his hiking companions, and Level One is not pretty.

There are about 650 people per summer that are extracted from inside the canyon by Park officials. That’s not really because of people doing rim-to-rim. It’s just people from flatlands and cities showing up at a pretty place to hike a little. Mark says, “And, of course, you wouldn't believe what I’ve seen. People walking two or three miles down in the canyon in late August with flip-flops, no food, and no water. I’ve encountered some of these folks in 120-degree heat, and asked those red-faced adventurers, ‘So, how far do you plan to hike?’ As the blood ran from beneath the toes of their flip-flops, most often the answer was that they planned to walk until they got tired, and then they would turn around and walk back up.”

It takes a lot of diplomacy not to roll your eyes as you ask them to think about what they just said. “So, you’re going to walk even further in these conditions, for which you are clearly not prepared, until you are tired … and then expect to get up the four miles you have already hiked down, going up, in this heat while gaining altitude with no food or water and bleeding between your toes?” Yes, it is harder going up than down, except on your knees and ankles, which is worse going down. You wonder how it’s possible for people to be this clueless about what is going to happen to them. This is not what preparedness looks like.

Again, I’m not even talking about people doing rim-to-rim—just regular folks on one- or two-mile hikes that are part of that 650 people per summer that have to get rescued. And, by the way, there are usually about a dozen deaths a year at the Grand Canyon, most of them by people taking that one extra step for the perfect picture, and never getting to see that picture. 

Some are hauled out by mule. Some are extracted by helicopter. That’s a quick $5,000 if you have the foresight to be lifted out during the day. It’s a $20,000 trip if they get you out at night. Think military extraction. Night vision goggles, people repelling down a rope on the side of a major incline as they strap you to the person getting you and lift you into the helicopter. Or it could be more serious, and they must get you on a gurney and lift you to that helicopter before they transport you to a hospital one hundred miles away. You don’t call them for just a blister. Although if you have a blister for twenty-four miles, you may feel like you need an emergency helicopter. Doug and I have seen this helicopter extraction on one of our hikes. That’s how we know about how much it costs.

The enemy would love to keep you so unprepared that you have to be carried off the battlefield, never to return.

One of the best examples of not planning, or being prepared well, was on the normal six-hour van ride going around from the South Rim to the North Rim where we would begin our one-day sojourn the following morning. There is good reason to spend $90 to do this so you can trek Norht to South. If you go from the South Rim to the North Rim, when you finish the trek, you are still three miles from the lodge where there is civilization. If you go North to South, you hit the top of the rim and your cabin is two hundred feet away from the trail head, as is the restaurant, with some more food and, more importantly, seats to sit on after a fourteen-hour day of walking in God’s amazing beauty. Guess which one we pick? 

On one of the van rides, the topic of the hike came up and they discovered I had done the trip five other times. A few of them were going to attempt rim-to-rim in one day, like me, the following day. They inquired what the trip was like. I was trying to be as nice as possible knowing it was too late to get any more prepared than they already were. One group said, “Well, I’ve heard from a friend it’s only a four-hour hike, and we have a flight out tomorrow afternoon.” They were believing a lie. I gently said, “I would reschedule your flight. You won’t even be out of the canyon by your flight time.” They continued to insist that “their friend,” who had never been on the trip, but had “researched it,” was right and it was really a four-hour trip. I said, “Your friend is wrong, but good luck.” They did subsequently plan to leave an hour earlier because of my negative view of their four-hour forecast. I said there would be a “four” in the time the trek takes, but it would be preceded by a “one” … making it a fourteen-hour trip. I just left it at that. They just would not believe me.

After that, the gentleman behind me said, “I heard what you told those people. You make this trip sound hard.” Remember, I was trying to be honest, but with a little grace mixed in so they could at least sleep that evening. I said, “Well, it is.” The look on his face was priceless. He then said, “You make it sound like you need special shoes or something, like tennis shoes or hiking shoes.” I assured him that was true. I could not believe what I was hearing.

The look on his face became a distant stare as he processed what I was saying. He said, “I’m walking with a client and some coworkers, and at the end of the hike we will sign a big contract on the South Rim.” He said that they had sent him some emails about how he should probably workout some to be ready, but he didn’t have time to do that, or even really read the emails. Whoops. It was now fully hitting him what was ahead. He said, “All I brought was a suit and my wing-tipped shoes for the signing.” I’m not sure what my face looked like, but I can only imagine it didn’t inspire confidence in his predicament.

p. 111, "Tiny Armor"

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