December '96 Newsletter

Regular newsletters are therapeutic for us in some respects, since they force us to reflect upon what we've been doing for the past few months. Many of you seem to think that all we do is travel and sometimes it even seems that way to us, especially during the hectic summer months. We haven't been anywhere with a group for a couple of months now but we are still keeping extremely busy. Normally, we spend much of the fall planning our next year's activities and catching up with the Phoenix things that we neglect over the summer. This has been an unusual year for us. There have been no major rental property problems and the apartments were full all year, so we've had more free time than we usually expect to have. We've re-established our training cycle of alternating 15 mile canal bank biking with 4 mile hiking circumnavigations of Squaw Peak, so both of us are in reasonably good shape with no place to go.

Over the past few months, Bob put even more time into further refinements of the Access version of our menu program. He is thinking about purchasing a high performance Pentium PC to replace the 2 year old 486 DX-2. While we love our Mac, the handwriting is on the wall and we are fully committing to Windows computers over the next year. That means he is going to have to get our extensive records off the Mac and into an Access database or an accounting program. That may sound easy, but we've developed many specialized reports over the past 8 years and, of course, we would like to change everything instantaneously. We had been holding off buying a Micron 200 MHz machine until Microsoft Office 97 was bundled with it. Since Microsoft recently announced they are going to give out free upgrades to everyone who purchases Office 95, we expect Santa to be stuffing a new computer and monitor down our chimney shortly.

In late September, we were unexpectedly called to Las Vegas because Bob's mother had been hospitalized after some sort of a black-out episode near one of the downtown casinos. She has always enjoyed the Nevada sports gambling hustle and bustle and has been retired in Vegas for the past 10-15 years. She was unconscious when taken to the hospital by ambulance and remained confused for a couple of days after regaining consciousness. During the episode her purse disappeared so it was a miracle that the hospital was able to track us down within 4-5 hours of her admission as a Jane Doe. After a myriad of tests, the doctors were unable to determine exactly what happened to her. It doesn't appear to have been a stroke and as time passes we are becoming convinced that she may not have been eating either properly or regularly.

After a few days evaluation in the hospital, we moved her to Phoenix and have spent much of the past two months getting her comfortably situated about a block away from us. Fortunately, she is fully recovered now and seems to be doing quite well here. Interestingly enough, with some good detective work on our part and the help of the casino security departments, we were able to locate her purse within a day. It had been turned in at a different casino a couple of blocks away and even more miraculously, nothing was missing. She's resumed her daily routine of walking 4-5 miles and keeping up with the sports world on cable TV. Her physical strength and remarkable good health make us believe that she will be with us for many years to come.

Once word got around that Bob's mom was planning to have Thanksgiving dinner at our house, both of his sons, his daughter-in-law, and our granddaughter, Allison, decided to show up too. It was the first time that four generations of Bob's family had been together since Bob was a baby. It may have been a little family intense for Blue, Kelly & Dennis, and Fink, but the food was great and there were no complaints. It's a challenge cooking for ten and seating a crowd in our apartment. Luckily, the weather was cooperative and we were able to enjoy dinner on the patio. Allison had a great day and kept herself entertained without taking the house apart. She discovered our bowls and plastic utensils early on and graduated to the refrigerator magnets before long. Since we probably won't see her at Christmas, Susan insisted that she open a big present early. We all had fun playing with her foam puzzle blocks. At first, she was more entertained by the wrapping paper and by trying to put it back on the package. Once, we got the bag open and a few puzzle pieces out on the floor, she became quite animated and involved. Susan is enjoying this grandma thing. She's toying with the idea of a kettle drum for Allison's birthday.

Here it is Christmas time again already. In early November, we got our first Christmas letter from some travel friends who are in New Zealand for six weeks playing. The day after Thanksgiving, our first Christmas card arrived from Susan's niece Heidi in Cape Verde, Africa. Susan had mailed one to her just a few days before to make sure it got there on time. This is Heidi's first Christmas away from home and away from snow. We hear from her every few weeks and it seems that she's enjoying teaching English for the Peace Corps. Another of Susan's nieces, Gina, and her husband are coming to visit for a week in April. We're already planning the itinerary. Neither have seen the Grand Canyon yet, so that should be good for a couple of days.

Higher Entrance Fees at Grand Canyon:

A recent article in the Arizona Republic and Gazette discussed the doubling of Grand Canyon entrance and camping fees in 1997 (article included in our snail-mail newsletter). While the NPS appears to have substantially increased the entrance fees, the most significant change appears to be the backcountry permit fees. The $4.00 per person per day fee and the $20.00 per group permit fee will increase the cost of a Grand Canyon seven day backpack by close to $30.00 for each participant. Since the previous cost for this activity was exactly zero, the fee will be much more than doubled.

On our two backpacks in popular areas of the Park this year, we had the impression that many backcountry permits were being issued to individuals who were not turning up. In the spring, we didn't see a soul at a couple of campsites where we had been told to expect a crowd since all the available space was taken. During our four day fall trip, we only saw one couple between the Kaibab Trail and Grandview Point. Under the current system, the NPS has no way of knowing whether backcountry permit holders canceled their plans or actually turned up, so access could be needlessly denied to other hikers. The new fee structure should drastically alter this situation. When fees are collected, people generally turn up. When fees aren't paid, the NPS will be able to reissue the space to other users who are more serious about their hiking plans.

Grand Canyon Beach Building Flows of 1996:

Many of you have asked us whether the 40,000 cubic feet per second flush flow of last spring had a positive impact on the Grand Canyon beaches. We reserved comment until we'd had a chance to look for ourselves. Within weeks of this spring's beach building flow, we hiked to Granite Rapid. It was obvious a lot of sand had been deposited on both the upper and lower beaches. We reported in an earlier newsletter that this had happened but surmised that most of the lower beach sand would quickly return to the river. Not only was this new sand all gone by our August raft trip, the upper beach was again level and little evidence of any high flow activity remained. This was true of most of the popular camping beaches we observed on this trip - little or no impact. The flow left many dome shaped piles of sand, which are not campable, along the river banks; some of these piles were on beaches that were once good camps and now are not. Have you ever tried to sleep on the finest, softest sand pile while sloped at a 30 degree angle? A few camping beaches appear to have increased in size, but a few were stripped of sand and sometimes even riverside vegetation. In our opinion, the flush flow did little to improve the beach situation, it merely changed things around.

Another mentioned goal of the flush flow was the creation of backwater habit for native fish species. Success in this arena is much harder to evaluate since a rafter has little need to keep track of backwaters. We thought we noticed a few new ones behind riverside sand piles but others may have been lost. One negative consequence observed on our August trip seemed to be an increase in bugs, especially black flies and red ants. Some were particularly bothersome on the lower canyon beaches when we were sleeping out in the open. In the past, the Grand Canyon has seldom had flying bug problems, which makes it delightful for outdoors people. If the backwater habitat actually increases one might speculate that the river corridor through Grand Canyon could become very buggy on occasion, more like the upstream Green and Colorado. Fortunately, there are still few mosquitoes and no deer flies to contend with in Grand Canyon. We like it that way.

In our opinion, over the past five years there has been little impact other than the cost to taxpayers of a little under $100,000,000 for the many professional evaluations. These experts got to spend a great deal of time on the river with the public footing the bill. Undoubtedly, we now know more about how the Canyon works but we are still no more capable of making sand bypass the headwaters of a dam-formed lake. Try as they may, it has been, and will always be, impossible to establish a Colorado River environment that will support both cold water exotic and warm water native fish species simultaneously. Fortunately the thousands of user days per year that were committed to these evaluations have now totally ceased and study funding has terminated for the most part. Perhaps the cost associated with this spring's flush flow is the last hurrah for this expensive, ineffective program. Bob always believed the riparian zone of the Grand Canyon river corridor created by benign neglect offered the highest cost-benefit ratio for the public. While it is a compromise, fortunately, it turns out to be a pretty good one.

The river corridor has been totally unnatural since Glen Canyon Dam was built but who in their right mind would want to return to the vegetation-stripped, barren, inhospitable place that previously existed? While many groups and individuals like to rant and rave about the terrible dam and unwanted exotics, we all enjoy being able to boat year-round on dam regulated flows and even the most hard-core revisionists find themselves enjoying the tamarisk's welcome summer shade.

1996 Trip Reports:

Grand Canyon Backpack (11/10/96-11/13/96):

When we walked from the Bright Angel Trail to Hermit Trail last spring, Susan became enthusiastic about connecting a route from the Little Colorado River to Elves Chasm, walking all of the Tonto Trail in the process. Uncertainty about when we would have the time to take on another chunk and the relatively new 4 month open period for permits caused us to be a bit haphazard about setting dates for these hikes. When Bob had to go to the South Rim for what turned out to be the last Colorado River Constituency Panel meeting on November 9, we decided to see if we could pick up a last minute permit to backpack for 3-4 days.

The Saturday morning before the meeting we lined up at 7:00 and waited for the office to open at 8:00 AM. Even being an hour early wasn't enough to be first in line and by the time the office opened there were 10-20 others waiting for permits on what turned out to be a quiet holiday weekend. As usual, the backcountry ranger staff was extremely helpful and we were able to get exactly the permit we wanted. Since hitch-hiking back to our car would be easier at the Grandview Trailhead, we decided to hike the Tonto from Indian Gardens to Cottonwood Canyon. This worked out perfectly, as we only had to wait 10-15 minutes at the trailhead before Susan was able to get a ride back to our truck and return for Bob and the packs.

The only problem we had on the trip was sore feet. The first day from the Bright Angel Lodge to our campsite in Cremation Canyon was a long 10+ miles. Bob's feet were not happy when we stopped and the weight of the water we had to carry to the dry camp in Cremation didn't help the situation. The ranger staff had been pessimistic about the availability of water and advised us to carry two gallons at all times. Of course we didn't, we couldn't, we wouldn't. With our heavy winter pack loads, one gallon of extra weight was nearly enough to bring us to our knees. Other than the Cremation Canyon day, carrying two quarts would have sufficed as there was plenty of running water in Pipe, Boulder, Grapevine, and Cottonwood Canyons.

While walking the Tonto, Susan had the most excitement on the trip. She was closely following Bob when she found herself standing in the middle of the trail on a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. We hadn't given snakes a thought since it was fairly cold, around 60º. Everyone knows they den up in the winter and are never seen by hikers. This fellow apparently hadn't read the guidelines for acceptable snake behavior. Susan jumped off, the frightened snake slithered away, and Bob got to hear how he had walked right over top of it only seconds before. After assuring her that he had pinned bigger ones in the middle of summer when they were more aggressive, we checked out our new friend. He was a foot long and a little bigger than a pencil in diameter, quite small for so late in the season and more like what one would expect in the spring. Perhaps with the drought, he had not done well this year and needed the extra time to feed and grow.

Though the weather was clear every day, it was much cooler than we expected. The low winter sun angle made for short hours of sunlight. Around 6:00 PM, when it got dark, it was time to get into the tent, close the door, and generate some body heat to stay warm while we read with our flashlights. We tend to forget why we don't canyon backpack in the winter. Someone needs to develop a portable TV/VCR combination to keep backpackers from going crazy during those 12-14 hour nights. We're giving up backpacking, rafting, and camping until late next March. We had fun on this trip but it's simply too cold to backpack now. Susan is hoping to find time in the spring to finish up that South Bass to Elves Chasm section of her goal.

Status of Our 1997 Group Plans:

Occasionally a trip we propose and are enthusiastic about isn't of much interest to anyone else. In a few cases, we come up with an idea that interests absolutely nobody. This has happened to us a couple of times in the past and we've eventually had to cancel the trip. We've developed a rule of thumb that if only one or two people contact us about a trip by the time it is 3-4 months away, it should be promptly aborted. Unfortunately we had such a trip in our 1997 plans. We are canceling the Arizona Southern Deserts Van as a group trip for total lack of interest. It is now only four months away and no one committed to join us. R.I.P.

On a more positive note, it is unusual for us to have any trip, except an early spring Grand Canyon raft trip full by Christmas. This year the Lake Powell trip has reached 90% full and will probably be full by the end of the year. We aren't too concerned about having to limit participation because we've done this trip before and will probably do it again. However, the Inca Trail trip is also full and we don't plan to go back to Peru. Since we do most of our exotic foreign trips only once, they sometimes become quite large. An example was our Costa Rica van trip in 1992. We had initially planned a group size of 12, but when all was said and done 18 of us made the trip and we still had to turn two people away. Since we don't feel comfortable taking 20 people on a remote backpack due to the difficulty of orchestrating a central kitchen at high elevation, we have decided to offer a second section starting exactly two weeks later. If this trip is anything like the Costa Rica experience, we recommend signing up quickly as we won't be planning a third section when these two sections are full.

1997 River Trips:

We recently sent an e-mail regarding our '97 rafting plans to everyone with an e-mail address. We also sent our annual snail-mail river letter to those we have rafted with previously or those who have expressed interest on their mailing applications. Other summer plans severely limit what we have time for next year, but we will be doing at least two one-week raft trips. Since these are private trips, a permit may be needed from the regulatory agency to obtain a launch date and it is time for submitting lottery applications. If you would like to be included in our '97 rafting plans, we need your involvement now.

The two trips we have planned are in northern Utah and Idaho. If you didn't receive the information about these trips and are interested, get in touch with us so we can give you the details.

General Trip Information:

We must receive your trip deposit and a completed Q/AR form, for you to be considered for inclusion on one of our trips. If a trip is extremely popular and we must make a decision as to who is on the trip and who is on the waitlist, we will use five criteria. Initial preference will be given to those who have a current mailing application on file, have paid any required trip deposit, and have promptly returned the necessary Q/AR. If this isn't sufficient, we then compare trip deposit dates and lastly Q/AR postmark dates.

We are sending more information to our travel friends using e-mail. If you want to be the first to know what's going on, send us your e-mail address. We'll also continue to communicate unique travel opportunities by special mailings to those who travel with us frequently and who have a mailing application on file.

Best of luck in your 1997 adventures, whatever they are, and wherever they may be. We hope you can join one of our trips so we can spend some time with you next year.