The Stars at Night / A Walk in the Park
December 12, 2022
The Grand Canyon
I sat down in my tent at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, listened to the sounds around me, and looked upwards. Through the roof of my tent, I saw hundreds of stars shining brightly in the night sky. The contrast was striking: each star was distinct, each star crisply stood out from the black backdrop. I found it all to be incredible, and I quickly began to realize that I had experienced my first taste of the beauty of the Grand Canyon.
The idea of my dad and me hiking the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim first originated in March 2021, when my dad suggested we go in May of that year. The initial plan consisted of driving both ways and hiking rim-to-rim, for an ambitious total of five days -- two days to drive and hopefully reach early enough in the afternoon to catch a shuttle to the North Rim, one day to hike, and two days to drive back. My internship was about to start in early May, and I was unsure if I could miss three days of work (or two, if we timed it with Memorial Day), so the idea was shelved.
But at the beginning of this past summer, my dad brought up the idea again. It sounded intriguing -- at the very least, it would be a nice change of pace from a busy semester -- so as soon as I sorted out my midterm schedule, we picked a weekend in October and (he) began planning. Thanks to (among other things) having no classes on Friday, we figured out how to noninvasively pack this dense vacation into a weekend.
My training for the hike wasn't unusually strenuous. I only ran about four times between September and October, each around six miles. My main form of exercise throughout the semester was playing pickup basketball at Gregory Gym on campus a couple times per week, and my dad suggested a training target of playing for two to three hours consecutively, which I think I reached. In the mean time, his main form of exercise was the rowing machine.
As our final trial run the weekend before the hike, my dad and I walked from Hardberger Park to Eisenhower Park back to Hardberger Park (twenty miles, five to six hours total) with our equipment on our backs. Although the Grand Canyon would be much steeper, we figured this would at least be a good proxy for the temperature and how much weight we'd have to carry. The walk was quite reasonable, and we felt ready to face the Grand Canyon.
After my Thursday night orchestra rehearsal, we rushed to the airport and flew to Phoenix. The next morning, we drove three hours to Grand Canyon Village to catch a five-hour shuttle to the North Rim, where we pitched our tent, filled water bottles, and completed other preparations for the next day's challenge before going to bed around nine. We woke up on Saturday at four-fifteen, gathered our supplies, packed up our tent, and walked to the North Kaibab Trail trailhead to begin the first of the day's twenty-four miles of hiking.
The Hike
We began our descent into the canyon around five-forty, with headlights to guide us through the darkness, but the six-thirty sunrise quickly took over and lit the trail. Synergistically, while the sunlight facilitated our hike, the walls of the canyon would protect us from the sun's direct heat for the next few hours as we traveled down the North Kaibab Trail towards Phantom Ranch.
Being able to watch the sun rise and set from within the canyon was one of several majestic experiences on the hike. The adjective "Grand" is apt, if not an understatement, but it's difficult to describe the full experience with just words or even pictures (though I'll try with words). Among the highlights are looking up and down at the giant rock structures and their coloration patterns and witnessing the effects of the millions of years of erosion, listening to the winds and the water and the wildlife, and simply looking out, realizing one is engulfed by the canyon for miles in every direction, and admiring the scale of it all. These images and their lasting memories are rich, and they inspire an understanding of connectedness between us and the surrounding nature.
We continued into the canyon, stopping every so often to eat granola bars and other snacks. There were a decent number of people doing the rim-to-rim hike who started around the time we did, and this meant we had a sort of cohort of people we might repeatedly run into along the trail and at rest stops. It was always nice to catch up with someone from an earlier encounter and chat about how our respective hikes were going.
We reached Phantom Ranch before eleven, stopping briefly for more snacks before deciding to power through on the Bright Angel Trail back towards the South Rim. As we reached two and then three, my dad started to slow down. We switched backpacks for a little bit (he was carrying the tent in his pack; I was just carrying a Camelbak) and then I carried both backpacks for a couple miles. Around five, with three miles left, I too began to run out of gas (so I gave him the Camelbak pack back), and it took about forty to fifty minutes per mile (uphill) until we reached the end of the trail.
As we approached the final quarter mile, we began to hear a loud chorus of bells and cheers. Just like my old high school cross-country meets, there was a mass of people, some of them earlier finishers and some simply supportive members of the outdoor community, providing ample moral support to motivate us and fellow rim-to-rim hikers through the final part of the trail. We made it to the top of the Bright Angel Trail at the South Rim at six-fifty. Tired and sore, my dad and I celebrated our accomplishment and called home to confirm our location and completion.
After stretching for a few minutes, we darted to our car and then drove to the Maswik Food Court to grab dinner before it closed at eight. We each ordered a veggie burger and a couple slices of pizza, though I ended up eating my dad's burger in the hotel room. We then reflected on what we had just achieved and then went to bed.
The hike was an enjoyable physical challenge. It was by no means a walk in the park (besides in the literal sense), but it was worthwhile and doable. We both completed the hike in good time, and I didn't think that both of us feeling tired after ten hours of hiking was anything unexpected. It was a fantastic workout, especially considering that we were able to experience one of the most marvelous places in the world in the process. And it was a heathy way to break up the monotony of school and civilization and the constant immersion in technology, noise, and unnatural light. With a little bit more training, I'd love to return and see how fast I could do this hike, or even try out a more difficult challenge (rim-to-rim-to-rim???).
Brunch
Before any of that, we had to return to civilization. On Sunday morning, we packed up and prepared to head back to Phoenix to catch our flight. On our way out of the park, we stopped at El Tovar Dining Room for brunch. As usual, I'll paste my Google review here:
My dad and I shared the El Tovar Pancake Trio (buttermilk, Native American blue cornmeal, and buckwheat), which was served with pine nut butter and prickly pear syrup on the side (pictured). We also shared the Roasted Tomato, Asparagus, Herbed Cheese Omelet. Very tasty meal.
The End of Night
While waiting for a table at El Tovar, we visited the Grand Canyon Conservancy gift store so I could purchase a hoodie or long-sleeve t-shirt. I found a long-sleeve t-shirt that I liked which depicted sunrise and sunset at the Grand Canyon as the yin and yang symbol. Near the checkout line, I came across a book titled The End of Night, by Paul Bogard. The image of the starry sky from Friday night was unusually memorable, and I was captivated by the book's cover and title. I purchased the book and began reading it when I returned home.
The book is about light pollution and its effects on our personal health and wellness, society's collective consciousness of and relationship with darkness, and nature, among other things. I've recently taken more interest in light and noise pollution, and this book was absolutely fascinating. I learned about the Bortle scale, which classifies night skies by darkness, from nine (inner-city, always lit) to one (truly dark, where the Milky Way can cast shadows). I also learned about how engineering and city planning can have a huge impact on light pollution through things like streetlight design and placement.
The problem, as always, is that solving these kinds of issues requires people to be aware of these problems and interested in solving them. Activists like the author and members of organizations like the International Dark-Sky Association are trying to raise public understanding, but it's difficult to counteract widespread inertia. Many people haven't ever encountered the darkest skies at the low end of the Bortle spectrum, so they don't know what they're missing. As the author writes,
... there’s no denying that Bortle has described a level of darkness that for most of human history was common but for the modern Western world has become unreal ...
and
It’s what psychologist Peter Kahn calls “environmental generational amnesia,” a situation where “the problem is that people don’t recognize there’s a problem” because they don’t know any better. In other words, if you have never known a night sky any darker than the one you have now, why would you think anything is wrong?
Perpetual Light
This semester, I've tried to be more conscious about my direct interactions with noise and light pollution. Besides opening the shades in my apartment and turning off lights when I can, I've tried to understand the roles the spaces around me play in contributing to or counteracting these types of pollution.
As a direct example, I've noticed that West Campus, the neighborhood directly adjacent to UT where many students such as myself live, plays a sort of contradictory role with respect to pollution. Sunday mornings, when everyone is still asleep, West Campus is one of the quietest and nicest places to be. Barely any cars drive through, no one is walking on the sidewalk and making loud noises, and you can feel the gentle breeze if you go for a walk or run. On Sunday mornings, West Campus feels very natural (besides the high-rises) and peaceful.
On the other hand, I've gone onto my balcony on weekend nights when it's nominally dark outside, only to be greeted by garage lights, streetlights, lit-up construction equipment, and lit-up hallways and apartment lights in every direction. All of these artificial lights make it impossible to see more than the brightest couple stars, if any. West Campus is in a state of perpetual lightness, and it's easy to imagine this light pollution getting progressively worse.
Conclusion
Astronomer Bob Berman is quoted as saying in Bogard's book that when you're able to see hundreds of stars, "now you’re touching that ancient core, whether it’s collective memories or genetic memories." In addition to hopefully inoculating me against Kahn's amnesia, visiting the Grand Canyon has opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of what we might gain if we choose to understand and appreciate darkness and the night.