All Aboard for the Canyon

by Dennis Goza

March 3, 2003

Next McDonald's 46 miles ahead, reads the billboard.

No, you're not driving on a busy freeway. You're taking a leisurely ride through the wilderness on a 1923 passenger train headed toward the Grand Canyon. And in the middle of counting elk that graze a few feet away, spotting a sprinting bobcat, examining the ruts that still remain from the stagecoach route that used to run this way a century ago, and marveling at miles of nature's unspoiled beauty, suddenly the billboard pops up in your face. Just a little reminder that while Americans enjoy getting away from it all, they generally don't want to get TOO far away.

But we do. Kimberly is very gung ho about buying some fancy backpacks and hiking all the way down to the Canyon floor, and spending a couple of nights sleeping on the ground with the tarantulas and scorpions and snakes. If she drags me along, I may volunteer to keep the campfire going all night, or at least a couple of lanterns. But our schedule (not to mention the weather) didn't allow any such primeval trek this year, so instead we thought the train ride might be just the ticket.

Unless you can afford to spend a night in one of the lavishly rustic lodges perched at the Canyon's rim (which I certainly wouldn't object to doing in some future life), this little excursion by rail is not a suitable way to explore this miracle of nature for the first time. With a one-day trip, you have only three hours at your destination---compared to four hours spent on the train. But it's a charming little refresher course for anyone who's already familiar with the Canyon from previous excursions.

I made my first visit there many years ago when I was living in Memphis, and drove out west with some friends. But the first time that I went with Kimberly and Zephyr was ten years ago (1993) after we had just completed our first national tour. We'd had a rather brutal 9 months on the road, and were on our way back to San Francisco in our old motor home that had given us no end of headaches. In fact, we'd just left Holbrook, Arizona after being stranded for a week getting the rear axle replaced, and thus just about eating up what we had left from our tour earnings. We decided we just had to have a little recreational detour, and there was no more inviting or rewarding choice than the Grand Canyon.

The second time we went was three years ago (2000), during the winter. In the daytime, the temperature was rather warm, and so when we hiked down about 2 miles on the trail (and about 7 coming back, it seemed) we actually worked up a sweat. But at night the temperature plummeted into the twenties, and as we were staying in a tent, we found ourselves going to bed much earlier than usual, so we could ensconce ourselves in our cozy sleeping bags. We also forestalled bedtime as much as we could by going to the evening lecture/slideshow programs presented by rangers. I remember one presentation in particular that I really enjoyed, by a ranger who was quite a nature-lover (I suppose they all must be, but he seemed particularly immersed), and he showed some slides he shot some ten years earlier when he had hiked and camped all over the Canyon's floor. One photo showed an artifact from a prehistoric culture that had inhabited the valley, and instead of bringing it back with him to put on display in a museum, he simply left it "on display" where he found it. Ten years later, he returned and it was still untouched.

And that brings us to the relative present. Having already spent several days exploring the Canyon on past trips---and not having more than one day free this time anyway---it was the perfect opportunity to take that train ride we'd been thinking about for years. We'd just come off a few weeks in Florida and a few days in Phoenix, where the weather was extremely mild. And then we came through Flagstaff, where we caught 10 inches of snow. and 20 degree temperatures. We always dread going over the Flagstaff pass on Interstate 40, because it seems that no matter what the time of year, we hit a blizzard in the mountains. One night, visibility was so poor that we had to pull off the interstate and sleep in our vehicle until the next morning. This time, however, we encountered the blizzard in Flagstaff itself, and the drive down the mountain was clear.

But it was no less cold, and the ground no less snow-covered when we reached Williams, 30 miles downhill. Williams, a town of about 3000 at present, is the official Gateway to the Grand Canyon (and I do mean official---that phrase is a registered trademark, but I didn't know how to make the symbol on my keyboard), standing at the intersection of I-40 and Highway 89, which leads north to the Canyon, some 60 miles away. It's one of those classic Route 66 towns touted as having been vibrant hubs once upon a time before the freeway was constructed, thus reshuffling most of the traffic. In many cases, I get the impression that these communities are trying to pull a fast one on us; that in fact, they were podunks BEFORE the bypass, and that the addition of a few decorative antiques, Route 66 commemorative signs, and cheesy gift shops is in fact the most history these places have ever seen. But this is definitely not the case with Williams. Once a booming railroad, timber and ranching outpost, this colorful living ghost town looks, feels and in fact is, genuine. The Red Garter Inn, now a quaint café, seems to have memories oozing out of every nail hole. Incidentally, Williams has the distinction of being the LAST Route 66 town to be jilted by the interstate system---in 1984.

We spent the night at an RV park just outside town, and the next morning when we tried to go to the train station to take our ride (for which we'd already purchased tickets) we found that our wheels spun in the snow and we didn't budge an inch. But as we tried various measures to free ourselves, along came some good Samaritans in a camper to pull us free with a chain.

So we made it to the station in plenty of time. In fact, we were still early enough to witness the Wild West show just outside the station, a costume comedy-cum-gunfight. While I am not a person who generally finds guns glamorous or entertaining---either in real life or on stage or screen---I do find them to be fascinating museum pieces, and this was rather like a living museum. The performers (who, I got the impression, were retired gentlemen---and I know that one of them was, because I heard him say so later on the train) hammed it up as they staged a poker game, an argument, and the obligatory shootout, all executed with spontaneous humor. At one point, a "corpse" found it too uncomfortable to lie in the snow, so he moved his resting place over to the pavement.

Once aboard the train, we soon found ourselves flowing through an enchanting landscape, with hardly a reminder of civilization except for the billboard I mentioned previously. It would have been easy to slip into some sort of trance staring out the window and listening to the clickety-clack of wheel on rail, except for the incessant commentary provided by a well-meaning but mood-spoiling attendant with a microphone. She was quite pleasant, and many of the comments she made were informative (she pointed out, for instance, several species of wildlife and the ruts of the stagecoach wheels) but in many cases we would have been much better served by silence.

But silence seems to be something they never seem to think of providing on these tours. We want to get away from it all, they seem to believe, but at the same time we are so afraid of having the lifeline severed completely that we need constant chatter and clatter to remind us that freeways, Wal-Marts and the Sunday game are never far away. (I am amazed by the number of people I see at campgrounds, sitting in their RV's and watching television.) Just to make absolutely certain that we had absolutely no opportunity to pause and reflect on anything, a strolling cowboy minstrel also made the rounds of each car, taking requests in exchange for tips and providing an appropriate repertoire of rail songs, cowboy songs, and other assorted flavors. The performances were fine, and I certainly wouldn't have objected to hearing this concert for PART of the trip. But what's wrong with using your time with nature to indulge in a little quietude?

Just before the train entered the boundaries of the park, we passed a handful of cabins inhabited by homesteaders. And we learned (this time the commentary was most welcome) that they are all members of the families of squatters who were living there when the area around it became a national monument in 1908 (and then a national park in 1919) . The arrangement is that these folks may keep their homes where they are as long as someone in the family occupies them continuously. If a homestead ever is abandoned, it becomes the property of Uncle Sam and his merry band of tourists. Glancing at these dwellings outfitted with solar panels, cisterns and other trappings to making living in the outback a bit more resourceful, one gets the impression that these escapees from civilization just might be able to bring down a moose with their bare teeth.

With only a short time to spend at the Canyon on this day, we couldn't hike very far. Since the ground was covered with about a foot of snow, we didn't really have appropriate footwear anyway. But we did hike for a short distance down a trail where the snow was well compacted and worn. We noticed in the distance that despite the snow, the mules were still bearing game trekkers to the bottom, down the steep, narrow trails and back up again. Apparently these sure-footed beasties never make a slip. But I don't think I'd want to take my chances. If they're not trudging in the slippery snow, they're trudging in the heat---at which time they walk impossibly close to the edge in order to catch the cool updrafts, which often seem to be the only thing holding them up.

Back up at the top, Zephyr found a bit of excitement he hadn't counted on---a snowball fight by three younger children. He promptly joined it, after borrowing my watertight gloves.

We are very pleased by the designs of the buildings on the Canyon rim, an architectural mode that seems to blend in with the environment. Well, that was the whole idea, after all. Many of the structures here were designed shortly after the turn of the (Twentieth) Century by a female architect, Mary Colter, who pioneered the "organic" style of architecture. I recall also seeing somewhere a sketch that more recent architects made for a proposed ultra-modern hotel that would have been built right into the side of the cliff itself. Thank heavens such a monstrosity died on the drawing board.

Well, all too soon, it was time to reclaim our seats on the train and ride back to the real world. This time, the entertainment featured an amusing "holdup" by the same bandits, somehow all resurrected, who had indulged in the gunfight earlier.

The next day, we were in Las Vegas, where the temperature was in the seventies. And a person wouldn't have to travel 46 miles to find a McDonald's.