Note to the Reader
When I planned this book (as you will learn later) I had a grand fantasy that the account would be so compelling and well written that I might get it published and use the proceeds to put Viannah through college.
My approach was to write from the inside out, doing the critical central chapters just days after the events described and working out to the “before” and “after” material from notes later. Each chapter was proofread twice, once right after it was written and a second time where I re-read the whole work as a book to try to remove redundant references, clarify descriptions and adjust it all for flow.
Now it is five years after the first proofreading. Viannah will shortly be a senior in High School. I am just completing the second proofreading.
This is not a gripping novel. It is not a can’t-put-down action adventure, at least not uniformly. Parts of it are fun and engaging to read, particularly those middle chapters about the hike itself, but not nearly all, particularly not those critical early chapters that might grab some random buyer’s attention.
As you will see, however, what you are about to read is not really intended or crafted that way. I have not had the skill and the material hasn’t lent itself to a quick-read quick-thrill narrative. Rather you are reading my excerpted, edited and expanded journal. When something in the story line makes me think of something else, I backtrack and try to give that background so there will be some chance you could understand what I was thinking and why. This chops up the flow, something that a casual reader would find distracting. What is happening as you read is that you are just listening to me talk. Sometimes it’s focused and cohesive. Sometimes it’s close to stream-of-consciousness. Often I’m too verbose.
Indulge me. I realize as I go through the text one last time that it has been too long for me to make more than just grammar and spelling corrections. I’ve found some sentences, paragraphs and sections that don’t make sense and have fixed them but there are other cases where clarity is needed and I just don’t remember the actual events well enough (or at all) anymore to work on them with integrity. When I found myself making up stuff that I didn’t really know I stopped and said, “Good or bad, smooth or rough, it’s time to be done with this book”. I can’t make substantial changes to what’s already there. I’m not even the same person that wrote these chapters four and five years ago. Viannah certainly isn’t the same person today that she was then! All I can do is clean it up, have a little nostalgia, and put it all to bed. For the original purposes, that we “wouldn’t forget anything that happened,” that will be good enough.
If all you want is the advice, the “lessons learned”, skip right to Chapter 12. The best parts of the narrative are from the trip itself and run from Chapter 5 or 6 through Chapter 9 or 10. These are the ones written earliest when I could still remember what we said, not just where we went or why.
Still, you are only reading my journal. If parts seem tedious or irrelevant, just skip on ahead to the real action. Some of it is dry philosophy, some of it is rationalization, some of it is, indeed, gripping narrative, or at least funny.
So, to the intended audience, Viannah, here it is. You’d be amazed how much you forget as the years pass and you get older. Someday when you’re the age I am now, you may read this from the point of view of a middle aged parent rather than that of a teenage daughter. Anything you gain from that reading, insight into worry and dad’s other neuroses, memories that had escaped, wisdom about parenting, a window into the late 20th century; whatever you gain, that is my gift to you.
For the rest of you, family and friends, this is the story of what we did and why. I’m not claiming to be the best author, parent or spouse in the world or to have invented anything new or to have made a lasting contribution to the art of child rearing; I’m just relating what we did and why we did it. If this helps you in any way, we are pleased. If you see yourself somewhere in the chaos of our lives and these adventures and smile, we smile with you. May your life be as blessed as ours has been.
Courtney Duncan
2002 August 26, La Canada, California
Dedicated to Rob Aanstoos
who said,
“…in all combinations.”
Viannah Walks Across the Grand Canyon
By
Courtney Duncan
Introduction
In June 1997 my twelve-year-old daughter, Viannah, and I backpacked across the Grand Canyon together, the climax event of years of planning "to do something big together." We learned a lot about backpacking but this is not a book about backpacking. We learned some things about the Grand Canyon but this is not a guidebook about the Grand Canyon.
Late on the second day, two thirds of the way through the hike and in a moment of relief from the dread of the following day’s hike out, I was able to reflect on the finiteness of life and its projects. I realized that Viannah was becoming a young woman and that she was already two-thirds of the way through the 18 or so years she would spend at home with us. The ordeals of adolescence and getting ready for her own life were just ahead. I crossed the camp to Bright Angel Creek and watched her sitting at the edge building little rock piles in the stream. Choking back tears at the extreme pains and pleasures of life, which seem so often to come at the same time, I pondered these things while the late afternoon slowly faded, unconscious for a time of the local aches, blisters and heat. She saw me watching, sobbing and came over to rub my back a bit saying, "It's OK dad, it's OK." We talked about life and the things we do and the things that happen and the things that are important. We decided we would write a book about our adventure together so that we could always remember what we did and why we did it, what went right and what went wrong, how we responded, what we said and how we felt. "We want to remember every detail," I said.
That is what this book is about. It is a memoir, an account of our attempt to face one transitional season of life and to make something of it. It is a tale of an experience that we would never have forgotten anyway but which we wanted to be able to refer back to with clarity from later in life. This was a great milestone for each of us and we didn’t want to ever forget those lessons about pain and pleasure, the planning and adventure, the fun and the difficulties or the big time we had while growing, together.
Courtney Duncan, June 21, 1997
Contents
Note
to the Reader
Dedication
Introduction
Contents
1. The
Concept: Doing Something Big Together
2. A Start
3. Some
Training Hikes
4. The
End Game - A Broken Stride
5. The
Week Before, The Drive Out
6. A Day
of Rest at the North Rim
7. The
Hike In
8. Tuesday
at Bright Angel Campground
9. Up at
Four, Hike out by Noon?
10. Back
to Civilization
11. Summer
Weeks After
12. If We
Were Going to Do It Again...
Appendix
A. The Scrapbook
Appendix
B. The Camping List
Appendix
C. Balance Sheet