The team here at Arizonaroamer.com returned this week from our annual board of directors meeting at Phantom Ranch, Grand Canyon.  We descended into the gorge via the Bright Angel Trail around 8 a.m. last Wednesday and rose to the rim two nights later along the South Kaibab's rough-rock spine.  It was beautiful at Bright Angel Campground, as usual.  We were sitting on the hot beach by the river when a group of river-runners came in to shore, and we got a long look at a female big-horn sheep having a drink and a chomp at Bright Angel Creek.  I wish I were there right now.

This was the first year we took my nieces along, two skinny blonds, nine and seven.  We all nursed a case of low-level anxiety starting out, not knowing how the girls would take to the distance and the technicalities of the steep, rocky trail.  They took to it like a couple of canyon-bred mules to the pack train.  By the end of the hike I was sore and a little cranky while they were skipping and pretending to be camels trudging through the soft sand near the river.   There were absolutely no problems whatsoever, but then these girls have been hiking trails around Prescott, Arizona, at about a mile high, since they were tots.  Still, I think that even with a modicum of training any healthy, outdoorsy kid their age could manage the 15-mile round-trip, as long they get at least a full day of rest at the ranch before heading back.  We're hoping that one way to ensure the survival of the American wilderness is to make people who love it. 

An interesting side note on the trip:  We rented two rooms at Grand Canyon National Park's Maswick Lodge, at about $150 a piece, the night before we entered the canyon.  A member of our party decided that he wanted to camp on the rim instead of being cooped up in a generic hotel room; so he rented a space at Grand Canyon's Mather Campground for $18 a night.  My brother and I went over to the campground after dinner to say hello and were immediately struck jealous.  The air was crisp and the campfire high. We sat and talked about the future, as people will do around the fire, as the thick darkness loomed just beyond our glowing space.

When we went back to our room we learned that a ball of hair the size of a golf ball had been found in our mother's bed.  It might have been the campfire still in my eyes, but it looked to me like it had teeth.  I love Grand Canyon National Park, and I would not hesitate to recommend a stay at any of the park's several hotels, but this was a bit disturbing.  It all turned out to our advantage in the end, however.  The hotel charged us only about $100 for both rooms as an apology.