The Grand Canyon - Rim to Rim to Rim (R3) Part II
Part II
To see Part I please click here.
Chase Miller was a freshman in college during my junior year. He was kind of a wild western state kid like me, frustrated with the restrictions of academic life and the lifestyle of South Carolina. He backcountry skied, rockclimbed, and just generally knew how to enjoy his life. He lived on first floor and I on the top floor of the same dorm.
The reason we met is even noteworthy. One of my brothers in Nu Delta Chi came to me and said, “There’s this kid on first floor who wears Chacos. I think you’d like him.” (Chacos is a brand of sandals, kind of like Tevas, but with a little bit more of an elitist following.) Kind of a “shoe fits the foot” scenario—I knew he was ‘real’ because of the shoes (or in this case the sandals) that he wore.
After just a few weeks, we were really close friends, and I thought he would make a great partner on a trip of this caliber. I broached the subject with him and immediately he wanted in.
The challenge was making the dreams of two financially strapped kids going to college in South Carolina come together. Chase lived in Utah, I in Arizona. The Grand Canyon lay in the middle.
We began planning with a little more urgency, fitting in a running workout whenever we could adjust our schedules to accommodate it. We wanted to time the run so that we would have the best weather possible. If we went too early in the season, the rims of the Canyon would be snow covered and too cold. If we went too late in the season, the bottom would be dangerously hot. Using tools like the U.S. Navy’s astronomy website and a few weather related sites, we were able to determine sunrise and sunset times, moon phase and rise and set, as well as weather averages. We settled on Memorial Day weekend.
School dismissed for summer break and everything looked good. The date was set, we were physically in decent shape, and we were mentally committed.
Ten days before we were supposed to go, we finalized our meeting time and place. Three days before hand, Chase called and said that he might have to back out, but the next day he called back and said that it was all systems go.
After work on Friday, May 28th, 2004, my family piled into my dad’s work van. His company provided him with a delivery van that we would routinely convert into a sort of staging vehicle for our adventures. We’d put mattresses down on the floor and against one wall for sitting and sleeping and then place crates of gear and coolers with food and drinks in the remaining areas.
We left at 5:00, stopping in Flagstaff for dinner and gas, arriving at the Grand Canyon around 9:00. We got out and stretched our legs, looked around, then settled back into the van to sleep for a while. Chase showed up at 10:30 and parked right next to us in an auxiliary lot just south of the main lodge. We talked for a few minutes, finalized the start time then slept the sleep of the anxious.
Part III coming soon... (Part III is now available here)
To see Part I please click here.
Chase Miller was a freshman in college during my junior year. He was kind of a wild western state kid like me, frustrated with the restrictions of academic life and the lifestyle of South Carolina. He backcountry skied, rockclimbed, and just generally knew how to enjoy his life. He lived on first floor and I on the top floor of the same dorm.
The reason we met is even noteworthy. One of my brothers in Nu Delta Chi came to me and said, “There’s this kid on first floor who wears Chacos. I think you’d like him.” (Chacos is a brand of sandals, kind of like Tevas, but with a little bit more of an elitist following.) Kind of a “shoe fits the foot” scenario—I knew he was ‘real’ because of the shoes (or in this case the sandals) that he wore.
After just a few weeks, we were really close friends, and I thought he would make a great partner on a trip of this caliber. I broached the subject with him and immediately he wanted in.
The challenge was making the dreams of two financially strapped kids going to college in South Carolina come together. Chase lived in Utah, I in Arizona. The Grand Canyon lay in the middle.
We began planning with a little more urgency, fitting in a running workout whenever we could adjust our schedules to accommodate it. We wanted to time the run so that we would have the best weather possible. If we went too early in the season, the rims of the Canyon would be snow covered and too cold. If we went too late in the season, the bottom would be dangerously hot. Using tools like the U.S. Navy’s astronomy website and a few weather related sites, we were able to determine sunrise and sunset times, moon phase and rise and set, as well as weather averages. We settled on Memorial Day weekend.
School dismissed for summer break and everything looked good. The date was set, we were physically in decent shape, and we were mentally committed.
Ten days before we were supposed to go, we finalized our meeting time and place. Three days before hand, Chase called and said that he might have to back out, but the next day he called back and said that it was all systems go.
After work on Friday, May 28th, 2004, my family piled into my dad’s work van. His company provided him with a delivery van that we would routinely convert into a sort of staging vehicle for our adventures. We’d put mattresses down on the floor and against one wall for sitting and sleeping and then place crates of gear and coolers with food and drinks in the remaining areas.
We left at 5:00, stopping in Flagstaff for dinner and gas, arriving at the Grand Canyon around 9:00. We got out and stretched our legs, looked around, then settled back into the van to sleep for a while. Chase showed up at 10:30 and parked right next to us in an auxiliary lot just south of the main lodge. We talked for a few minutes, finalized the start time then slept the sleep of the anxious.
Part III coming soon... (Part III is now available here)
posted by Eddy Zakes at 12:54 PM
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