The Grand Canyon.

I was narrating a reverse harem a couple of years ago, and as part of the plot, the main characters (one is a park ranger) hike the Bright Angel Trail, stay at Phantom Ranch, and romance and adventure ensue. As I was reading, I marked how incredibly detailed the descriptions of the canyon and the stages of the hike were. It was so evocative, I immediately wanted to DO this hike myself!

Also, I thought, “either this author is an exceptional researcher, or she’s done this hike!”

I contacted her.

Oh she’d done this hike.

She had hiked down, up the other side of the canyon, back down, and back up again. In a day. She sent pictures.

(She immediately became a personal hero.)

I posted this addition to my bucket list on facebook, in 2020.

When I started to debate whether or not to attend 20 Books to 50K Vegas, sometime in 2021, the turning point for me was a google search to see how far away the Grand Canyon was. Answer: It’s right there! I planned my itinerary, booked a flight, and invited friends to join me.

As it turned out, in the intervening time I wrote my first two books, so I would be attending 20 Books also as an author, I was blindsided by a major health crisis, and no one joined me.

As the days ticked past in a post-surgery recovery that prohibited most movement, let alone conditioning, the Grand Canyon dream seemed very uncertain. I was struggling with pain management, the limited ability to be upright for a whole day, and having barely enough energy to record enough to hit deadlines, not to mention preparing for a conference.

But I continued to “act as if”. Just in case I could. Three days before departure, I got a whisper that it might be possible. I might have the strength. I would decide on the rim. Depending on how I felt, I would only hike as far as I was confident I could come back up. I wore my hiking boots onto the plane. I flew into Vegas at night, rented a car, and drove into Arizona. I parked at the trailhead before dawn in a flurry of activity and slamming car doors and headlamp light (a lot of people hike the Grand Canyon).

I felt good.

31 days after a major surgery, almost two years to the day from posting on facebook, I started down the Bright Angel trail, at 6:45 am. I passed Indian Garden at 8:53 (the decision point). Five more miles? I felt good.

I hiked to the bottom.

I reached the Colorado river at 10:19 and started back up at 10:30. I got back up to the three mile mark at 12:30. That’s where I started to show my weakness - my heart was working hard, I got dizzy when I stopped, and it was just a trudge. Those last three miles up took another two and a quarter hours. I tagged along with another hiker who was moving my pace after having done an even longer down-and-up, and that was incredibly helpful.

I was back in my car exactly 8 hours after departure, having done a 16-mile hike with a vertical mile of elevation, proud, and in disbelief that I managed it. Old me? No problem. Me now — two months unconditioned, one month post-surgery, and mere days able to stay out of bed for a whole day — this defies probability. I am beyond thrilled. It has made my trip. My Fitbit report for the week is amusing.

The next day I hiked a bit in Red Rock Canyon just so that I wouldn’t seize up, returned my rental and checked into the strip for the week-long convention. If I can do one impossible thing, what else might I do?!

All this, because of an author, who wrote a book, and put her real experience into it in a way that was inspiring, and I happened to narrate it!