Grand Ascent by Jane Ruby

On the trail before sunrise, I point my headlamp at the group member in front of me. Boots crunch and pole tips clunk on the firm pebble-laden creek trail. We hike at a moderate pace to the Silver Bridge that crosses the Colorado River. My muscles appreciate the two layers of clothes I’m wearing

Hiking over four thousand feet and nine miles sounds easy, especially with mule porter service. I carry only food, clothing, and water needed for the journey.

A Winter ascent, poses a few problems:

Phantom Ranch temperature is 28°F, and Rim temperature is forecast to reach only 10°F, so we need to pack extra layers of clothes.

The Rim has six to twelve inches of snow, so our boots need an extra layer of socks and crampons for the last few miles of ascent.

The only source of water is at Indian Gardens—halfway up the Bright Angel Trail. Other water stations are shut down, so we need to manage our water intake.

The night before we leave Phantom Ranch, we organize our packs. I can’t decide what to carry and what to pack for the mule. I lose sleep wondering if I had made the right choices. Finally falling asleep, the 5:30 alarm sounds! I dress, strap on my pack, switch on my headlamp, and carry my duffle bag to the mule-staging area. I stress when handing over my extra granola bars, electrolyte powder, and battery packs. What if an avalanche blocks the trail, and I run out of provisions? I pray my pack jammed with water, energy bars, and Antarctic gear can sustain me.

Crossing to the south bank, we kick through the deep sand of The River Trail. The resistance gets my heart pumping, but I’m used to it. We make good time reaching the River Resthouse. The sky lightens, and although the trail lies in shadows, I pack away my headlamp. The trail to Indian Gardens steepens, but I can maintain a good pace. So glad I had trained for this event!

We cross a few running creeks—pleased with my waterproof boots! At Indian Gardens, my thermometer reports a ten-degree drop, but I feel toasty enough to stop and munch on an energy bar. A hand-written sign on the water spigot urges users to keep it open to prevent freezing. Useful advice—keep moving to avoid freezing and, more importantly, be less of a target for avalanches!

Ascending the next three thousand feet, the canyon hues transform from earthen to glacial. At the Three-Mile Resthouse, my thermometer reads fifteen degrees, yet I don’t feel a need to add extra clothing. Our guide advises us to put on crampons. Greater inclines, deeper snow, and thinner air cause my stride to shorten and my lungs to heave. Got to keep moving!

I feel nature calling at the Mile-and-a-Half Resthouse. Climbing the steep steps to the restroom, I haphazardly drop my poles, backpack and gloves behind me. Inside the stall, I sit on the commode, my bare bottom getting an exhilarating shot of air from underneath! Fear of avalanche and death fall with my bodily fluids into the dark void beneath me. Wish I could sit forever! But an avalanche could happen anytime—and I don’t want to be here when it does!


For the last mile, our group thins out as their paces vary. Being in the “fast” group, I plod through the shin-high snow. Two of my group members—from Flagstaff and having Sherpa lungs—sprint ahead to photograph my momentous first-ever ascent to the Rim. To me it feels more like summiting Mount Everest, my lungs burning and muscles cramping. I suck for water from my water tube, but it is frozen! Seeing my difficulty, the two Sherpas descend, throw off their gloves and massage my water tube. The ice melts, and I am able to re-hydrate. My muscle cramps dissipate!

Reaching the lower tunnel, my new best Sherpa friends ask me to pose for a photo. I decline, not wanting to stop my torrid shuffle. Besides, frozen frothy nostrils can’t be too photogenic. At the upper tunnel—less than half a mile from the Rim—I agree to stop and de-ice my face for a photo.

Fifty yards from the Rim, my Sherpa friends let me and another rookie finish first. I burst for the trailhead sign. A ten-degree breeze hits my face, but doesn’t stop me from smiling. I drop my poles and embrace my fellow rookie. Elated, we cheer each other. We turn to thank our Sherpas, but they’re already loping down the trail to the slower group members—like it’s another day at the office. I have deep respect for these pulmonary protagonists.

The trailhead area is empty except for two Italian tourists. Knowing little English they still sense our victory and offer to take photos with our cell phones and cameras. We linger for a short time, but our tour guide urges us to retrieve our duffle bags at the mule barn. Duffle bags—who needs ‘em?

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2nd Payson Book Festival, Saturday July 23, 2016

Arizona authors can take a day trip to Payson to enjoy the second Payson Book Festival on Saturday, July 23, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at Gila Community College, 201 N. Mud Springs Rd., Payson. A free, family-friendly event, the Payson Book Festival provides an opportunity to meet 70 Arizona authors including Marshall Trimble, Arizona's Official State Historian, and several members of the Arizona Authors' Association.

Visitors can enjoy writer workshops, music, food and door prizes. Kathy Peach also will offer a story time session. Among presenters are Laura Tohe, Navajo Nation Poet Laureate. 2015 - 2016, Roger Naylor, travel and outdoor writer, and historical novelist Marsha Ward.

Sponsored by Arizona Professional Writers and Gila Community College, the event will include writers speaking about their books and the craft of writing, along with several workshops throughout the day. Proceeds will benefit scholarship funds of both organizations. This literacy event is supported by a grant from Arizona Humanities.

For more information, including a list of authors, visit http://ift.tt/1BXwD0v or their Facebook page. 

For questions, call 928-468-9269
or email: info@paysonbookfestival.org.
If anyone wants to volunteer for an hour or two during the event, respond at: info@paysonbookfestival.org.

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Memoir Tips By John Henderson

The seventeenth-century philosopher, John Locke, suggested that the mind of a newborn child is like a tabula rasa, or blank slate. The image proposed that as children are socialized, their personalities form according to the inscriptions of their life experiences on that slate. By his view we are therefore derivatives of those episodes that make us what we are and whom we are progressively becoming.

Unlike Locke, I have long believed that both nurture and nature are significant in forming human personality. Our genetic inheritance is the loaded gun. Our life experiences represent the social force that pulls the trigger. The moving bullet—the direction one’s life takes—is dependent on both ingredients.

My memoir, Inscriptions, will focus on the social moments. The following is a chapter from that book. My hope is that readers contemplating memoir writing might find it useful.

Failure:

For a second, we were both frozen in space. A photo of the scene would have shown him hovering over the stench of the pigsty while reaching out toward me with his left arm, his right arm behind him as if trying to prevent a collision with the terrain below—like a grotesque Tinkertoy man in motion, headed for a baptism. The massive white-trimmed red barn, the gray windmill and blotchy white silo, all stood sentry in anticipation. The blue Missouri sky and a few cirrus clouds hovered above.

His feet were on the verge of leaving the step of the pickup truck between the cab and the bed while the rest of his two hundred forty pound body was leaning back, falling from the step toward the muck covering the barn lot under the truck’s tires.

I was standing in the bed, all one hundred sixty pounds of me. Before he slipped, I was prepared to hand him the bucket of corn kernels destined to produce more of the manure he was headed for. I have no doubt my eyes and mouth were wide open as I watched him sploosh into the sty. It was not a pretty sight as his khaki shirt and pants merged with the dark brown muck. I hadn’t reached out to grab his hand.

He hollered and pigs squealed.

He stood and flung the big pieces of dung from his clothing and then wiped the brownish liquid from his head and the rest of his body. He glared at me for the first and only time I can remember throughout the twenty-nine years I knew him.

My father was pissed. He blurted, “Why didn’t you grab me?” I shook my head, picturing his hulk yanking me from the pickup and then me piling on top of him. I wanted to think I had saved him from injury by my indecisiveness. “Really sorry, Dad … It … happened so fast.” He turned away and headed for the nearby water trough. We were both silent on the eight mile trek back home to the shower. The aroma was overpowering.

I had failed him, at that time, the most important person in my life.

John Henderson was born in Hannibal, Missouri and lived for twenty-three years in Monroe City, Missouri--a town of two thousand residents. He attended William Jewell College, in Liberty, Missouri where he received an AB in sociology. He then served as a sociology teaching assistant at Arizona State University, where he received a M.A.Ed. He did further graduate work in Urban Studies at State University of New York in Brockport, N.Y. He taught sociology and education for thirty-eight years, primarily in the Maricopa Community College District in Phoenix, Arizona. During this period, he served as chairperson of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Division, and was president of the faculty senates at Scottsdale Community College and Paradise Valley Community College. He was twice named an Outstanding Employee at PVCC, in addition to being named an Innovator of the Year. During his classroom tenure he wrote textbook ancillaries for McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Since retiring in 2001, he has written three books including a nonfiction classroom memoir, Attachments: To Those Who Can, and two novels: Silence Is the Killer, about the subject of suicide, and Death in Little Dixie, a mystery involving the urbanization of a rural midwestern community. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona with his wife, Cheryl. Between them, they have four adult children and six grandchildren. Find his books HERE

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Arizona Literary Awards Gala Coming Soon!

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