Grand Canyon, AZ

Author: By John Cunningham, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, April 27, 1997

Page: M1

Section: Travel

``There it is,'' he said, showing us a tiny but ferocious-looking insect with jaws that seemed to make up half of its body.

It was a ``doodlebug,'' otherwise known as an ant lion, a devourer of other insects.

Within the vastness of the Grand Canyon, we could easily have missed the small, cone-shaped pits dug by the ant lions, which wait hidden below for other insects to tumble in. But we were with Larry Stevens, guide and instructor for 10 of us through the Grand Canyon Field Institute.

The massive erosional features of the canyon are a scenic treat, but we were learning to notice the smaller things, too: the tiny fish in a quiet stretch of stream, the pack rat disappearing into the brush, the skunk that patrolled our campsite. We also found out a bit of the human history of the canyon area.

Stevens, who currently consults and teaches, formerly was the Grand Canyon National Park ecologist and has been traveling through and studying in the canyon over a period of 25 years. He made the backpack from the North Rim to the South Rim much more than just a tough hike.

The hike rim-to-rim is one my wife and I have wanted to do for years. But a Park Service permit is required to backpack down into the canyon. There is a lot of competition for these permits and we had been unable in several tries to get one to go rim to rim.

Last winter on a cross-country ski vacation on the North Rim, we came across a catalog for the Grand Canyon Field Institute. Listed were dozens of adventuresome and educational trips, ranging from easy day hikes to multiday backpacks on unmaintained trails.

The nonprofit institute operates in conjunction with the National Park Service. John Frazier, its director, describes its leaders as ``educators as well as guides.''

We signed up for Ecology of the Grand Canyon, a four-day trip that included a three-day backpack rim to rim. The institute obtains the necessary permits and makes other arrangements. The backpack -- three days of which were spent below the rim -- was on maintained trails, and we stayed overnight at campgrounds maintained by the National Park Service. There was safe drinking water at each campground.

We met one October morning at the historic Kolb Studio, perched on the edge of the South Rim. The building was the home and studio of the Kolb brothers -- known for their canyon photography -- from 1904 to 1976. It was then closed, but has been reopened and is being restored by the Grand Canyon Association, a volunteer group that works with the park service on educational projects. The studio is only a few feet away from the edge and has a stunning view of the canyon.

A get-acquainted session and check of equipment came before we left. Four of us were from the East Coast, Maryland and Massachusetts, three from Canada, two from California, and one from Wisconsin. Ages ranged from the 30s to 50s. Occupations included teacher, doctor, and office manager.

Larry helped us eliminate some items from our packs, but the need to carry tents, sleeping bags, food, water, and fuel for camp stoves had most of the group groaning about the weight.

John, a Wisconsin participant who was on his first ``serious'' backpack after taking up a walking regime to improve his health, carried the most, at 50 pounds. And he was cheerful about it. He also turned out to be the fastest hiker, on the heels of the trip leader most of the time.

Part of the trip's price included a van ride to the North Rim. The average distance across the canyon if one could go directly is 10 miles, according to the Park Service, but the drive around is more than 200 miles. Hiking down and across the most direct route on maintained trails is approximately 24 miles.

The first day we traveled by van to Lipan Point, where we got a quick geology lecture.

The top of the South Rim consists of limestone about 250 million years old. This is the youngest layer, meaning just about everything deposited in the last quarter million years has been eroded away.

Time is one of the concepts of the canyon that take some getting used to. The layers of rock down to the river are of increasing age, the bottom consisting of pre-Cambrian rocks more than 2 billion years old.

The Colorado River is the great shaper of the canyon. The elevation of the Colorado Plateau, a huge section of the Earth's crust, began millions of years ago, and the sediment-laden river began scouring a path through it.

Geologists read the Grand Canyon like a book of time. Its exposed layers are mostly horizontal, and differences in composition and often in color indicate the end of one time period and the beginning of another.

The North Rim is about 1,000 feet higher than the South Rim and is on the Kaibab Plateau. The top layer is limestone laid down before the age of dinosaurs. If you look into the canyon, you will see another plateau below, the nearly flat Tonto Platform atop Bright Angel shale, which is cut by the Colorado River.

Our trip the first day continued on to Lees Ferry, a historic location on the Colorado River. John D. Lee set up a ferry service at the crossing in 1872 and took pioneers and wagons across.

However, Lee was on the run, wanted in connection with an 1857 attack on a wagon train called the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He eventually was recognized and went before a firing squad in 1877. A ferry service ran until 1928, when a bridge opened.

We hiked about a mile up a slope from which we could look down on the river and the area across. The path the pioneers took down to the river was cut into rock ledges and seemed uninviting. Lees Ferry now is a historic site. One can camp there or launch a boat for fishing.

Our first campsite was down a dirt road in the national forest before we entered the park itself. We cleared an area of ponderosa pine cones so we could pitch our tents. By that time, the sun had set, and a quarter moon seemed unnaturally bright.

After we ate, we chatted a while and turned in about 9 p.m. Early nights were a routine we pretty much followed the rest of the trip.

At 2 a.m., strange, raucous sounds interrupted our sleep. Coyotes were calling some miles away.

It was a sign -- a welcome one -- that despite our van nearby, and the highway a mile or so away, we had entered upon something apart from our usual experience, that we were touching a bit of the wildness that once prevailed in the West.

After a stop at a store the next morning for a few last-minute supplies, we drove down Jacob Lake Road to the North Rim. The North Rim gets more precipitation than the south and is heavily forested, with pine, white fir and Douglas fir, spruce and aspen interrupted periodically by large meadows.

In one of these meadows, a golden eagle fed on a deer carcass while a dozen ravens walked nearby, waiting for their chance to get a morsel.

Finally we shouldered our packs at the top of the North Kaibab trail and started down numerous switchbacks.

At some points, the trail blasted into the rock ahead seemed awfully narrow, and the drop to the left was precipitous, but the pathway was adequate, and looking straight ahead seemed to help in tight spots. I followed a rule of skiing -- ``Don't stare where you don't want to go.''

Desert climate prevails in the lower canyon, but much of the trail we traveled for three days was near water -- Roaring Springs and Clear Creek. The South Rim's water supply comes from this area, pumped across the canyon and up.

After about 8 miles in 5 hours we stopped at Cottowood Campground, a beautiful site. We had expected something more primitive -- but there was drinking water, a rushing stream, and very clean, but not flush, toilets in a wood building. We then relaxed and soaked our feet in the cold water of the creek.

It was a mild night, mild enough to tie the tent flap back and look up at the stars while falling asleep. Outside, a spotted skunk prowled the grounds, hoping we had dropped some food.

The next morning, we took off for the river, about 7 miles away on a trail with slight ups and downs.

At one point, Larry had us take off our backpacks and follow him into a side canyon to view a cascade called Ribbon Falls.

While scrambling up a series of ledges, we were confronted with the grinning, bleached skull of a deer. Birds were flying around and a butterfly went by. One of the birds seemed to fly right into the falls.

As we got closer, we observed the results of a strange phenomenon. Larry explained that the water cascading down carried minerals that accumulated on a lower ledge and built up successive eggshell-thick layers of travertine. The bulge, several feet thick at the foot of the falls, was covered by thick moss, and the layers had cracked in places, creating openings deep enough for the small, gray birds called American dippers, which fly behind the water, to nest, dry and protected.

Near the spray grow maidenhair fern and monkey flower. Snails, caddis flies and mayflies inhabit the area.

We camped at Bright Angel Campground near the Phantom ranch, a spread where mule trains stop and riders disembark to spend the night in cabins and eat at a dining hall. It seemed a busy place after two days of peaceful hiking. But lemonade with ice can be found there, and that is welcome after the dryness of the canyon.

Two bridges, for hikers and mules, span the Colorado River near the Phantom Ranch area, and we strolled onto one of them, called the Silver Bridge, after we dropped off our gear. Colorado indicates red, but the river was green. Larry explained that the Glen Canyon now traps in Lake Powell much of the silt that gave the river its name. This has changed the shoreline of the river, which counted on new deposits from spring flood, and is changing the habitat, affecting plants and fish.

The river water is not as warm as it once was. There was a release this year to replenish the river water levels, but the dam can release water from the bottom only, and that water is extremely cold -- making the river temperature an estimated 40 degrees.

The last leg of the trip was the one we all had been anxious about. Eight miles, all up, including the wall of the South Rim. But we were lucky. The temperature stayed in the 40s for most of the day, so we did not have to cope with the canyon's sometime-intense heat.

We stopped for lunch at Indian Gardens, where there is a mule corral and another campground. Cottonwood trees planted in the early part of this century by Ralph Cameron, who once charged a toll for using the trail, provide shade and make this a pleasant oasis.

The Anasazi Indians farmed here, as did the Havasupai, according to Park Service literature, taking advantage of the water that seeps though upper rock layers and arises in springs.

We began to encounter day hikers. The trail down is a popular one, but many who are not used to the canyon get fooled along here. It is a temptation for them to go farther down to the river, but then they discover that what was a 5- to 6-hour hike down when they were full of energy is an 8- to 10-hour hike back up a steep trail when they are tired.

We were lucky enough about a mile from the top to see a group of bighorn sheep dancing across the loose rock and ledges.

At the top, we gathered again in Kolb studio, enjoying coffee and gazing out the back window before saying goodbye.

There is something satisfying beyond the sense of physical accomplishment at the end of long hikes. When you can gaze back at the area covered, it is no longer strange to you. It is something you now know closely, and you feel a special kinship with wonders hidden from the casual onlooker.

On the Internet: www.thecanyon.com/fieldinstitute.

The price for our trip was $215 per person. There are some one-day hikes that are cheaper, and the most expensive is a 17-day raft trip that cost $3,250 last season. The institute also runs photographic workshops and women-only trips.

A tip: Don't make a backpack in the Grand Canyon your first hike. The steepness of the terrain combined with the arid climate is extremely stressful, and fatalities are not rare in the canyon, particularly in summer when temperatures can go over 110 degrees. Do not underestimate the amount of water you need to carry and drink. The institute rates its hikes according to difficulty, with 1 the easiest and 5 the hardest. The trip described was a 4.

If you call the Park Service or the institute, they will offer advice on what trips may be appropriate.