Flagstaff and Beyond

After finishing the last post, I walked out into the commons and the Brits had gone off to bed. I went in the room to grab a beer and everyone was sleeping. So, I went outside, pounded the beer while I had a smoke, and was off to The Joint. When I get back there I discover that the show is over, and there are much less people there. Where did they go? Through the back curtain into the strip bar section. I ask the bartender if they serve alcohol back there, and I receive the desired answer of yes. I slip through the curtain, and right past the bouncer, avoiding the five-dollar cover charge. The back was definitely where the party had moved, and there were enough girls back there to make it like a regular bar that just happened to have strippers dancing in it. I step up to the bar to order a drink, and am pleasantly surprised to find that drinks are of a regular price too, not like the normal cut-throat prices at strip joints. The seats on each side of me were empty, but were quickly filled with a rotation of the working girls that had a free minute to stop by and chat. This goes on for a while, all while I run through a smorgasbord of drinks. I go outside to have a cigarette, and some non-working girl out there strikes up a conversation with me. She asks me if I think she's overweight, because she couldn't trust her friends. I tell her she's not, and she wasn't. Then she says, "Well, would you hook-up with me?" "Yeah... I'd totally fuck you." This response pleases her. We talk for a while more, before I head back in to order another drink. I run into one of the girls at the bar I was talking to before, and I tell her I like her choice in leggings, and the songs she danced to. After that, I walk over to the stage to have a seat next to the girl I was talking to outside. We talk for a while more over drinks. I get up to make a move for one of the strippers, I ask her what she's doing after work, but she says that she's tired and is going to go home and sleep. During this, the non-working girl left. I should've just gone for the non-working girl, because I probably could've left with her. But hey, we've got to live with the decisions we make. This was also a good thing though, because if I did leave with one of them, I would've ended up waking up in some strange bed in Flagstaff around noon, when I needed to leave the Du Beau Hostel with Craig at 7am. On the way back to the Du Beau, I grabbed a burrito from a street vendor. Once there I drink another beer, smoke a cigarette, and then I'm in bed by three-thirty.

7am. Craig is kicking me awake. He's already showered and is ready to roll. I'm still my clothes from the previous night, I don't shower, I don't change, I round up my gear, and we're on the road in five minutes. At the gas station, we fuel up, and I grab some water and coffee. I take four Advil with the water and coffee so I can make a smooth transition from being drunk to being sober while avoiding a hangover. Now we head north through the early morning to reach the Grand Canyon. On the way we try to figure out our game plan, as we had no permit to camp, because you need to reserve them four months in advance. We drop twenty-five bucks on the ranger at the gate, and head into Grand Canyon Village, looking for the backcountry office, so we might luck out and get a permit, because someone may have canceled. Once inside, we find about twelve people before us. Our chances just got smaller. It looked like we were going on the haggard outlaw hike I'd planned. However, this was not the case. While asking the ranger for what's available, she tells us that there are two available spots at Phantom Ranch in the dorms. We jumped right on this opportunity, because these are spots you need to reserve at least six months in advance. So there it was, we were set. We then head over to the general store to procure batteries and liquor, then to the Yavapai Lodge's restaurant to change and eat breakfast. After parking the car, we take the slowest shuttle bus in the world to the South Kaibab trailhead. The South Kaibab trail is essentially an eight-mile long, five thousand feet down staircase to the Phantom Ranch. At the trailhead, I take in first sight of the Grand Canyon. Amazing. Pictures cannot capture it, and words cannot describe it. It is simply one of those things you have to see with your own eyes to comprehend. The massiveness of it is intimidating. After Craig does a quick stretch, we head in. We moved quickly down the trail passing everyone we came across, with no one passing us. About halfway down, we see the Colorado River for the first time, and from our height, it looks like a small stream. By the time we get down to it, we realize that it is massive. After crossing the bridge over it, we walk the final mile to Phantom Ranch, which is a series of cabins at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We walk into the canteen, which is the office, mess hall, and commons area. After checking in, we go to our cabin for a quick catnap. On the way in, we ask someone for the time; we made it down in just under three hours; it normally takes people five, so rest was in order. We sleep for about an hour, and then head up the North Kaibab trail in search of Phantom Creek. After a couple miles, we reach the area known as The Box, where Phantom and Bright Angel Creeks meet each other. There is no trail into it, so we cross Bright Angel Creek and walk along the side or in Phantom Creek. A half mile in, we discover a series of four waterfalls. I go under the lowest one into a cave, and Craig takes pictures. I climbed up to the fourth one, but Craig did not follow, and I went no further, as neither of us was wearing shoes. On the way back to Phantom, we make a plan to get Thai food in Flagstaff the next day when we get out. At Phantom, we eat Powerbars, and stop in the canteen to grab a quick beer. When we finished our beers, we decided to walk over to the Bright Angel Campsite and go up the trail that we were originally going take if we had to go outlaw. We were curious to see how hard the section of cliff was. Basically, the trail is a very steep scramble up the side of a canyon wall. Craig stopped shortly in, and I continued about halfway up the canyon wall. Considering that the trail was just loose golf ball sized rocks, about five inches deep, I realized the way down would be slippery, so I came back down. On the way back to Phantom, we decided we would tackle that one another day. At the ranch, we take showers, and eat. Most of the other guests were eating their pre-purchased, twenty-dollar stew in the Canteen, so we grabbed a bottle of rum, and walked out to the beach on the banks of the Colorado. The sand was as fine as powder, and the rum was good. Eight o'clock was approaching; the time of re-opening at the canteen after dinner. It was there we headed in search of cold beer. We sat in there for a while drinking Tecates and going over the game plan for the next day. During this, we struck up a conversation with the girl working the counter. She told us that the employees were having a Cinco De Mayo party back at the house they all lived in, and invited us. Craig felt it would be irresponsible to go to a party and drink when we had to be up soon for a ten-mile uphill hike; which it was. But fuck it. A house party at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Was I gonna go? Absolutely. So I told the girl I'd meet her in the back of the canteen when she was done with work. In the meantime, I went back to the dorm, grabbed the rum, and talked to a couple of my roommates for a while. When I went back to the canteen, a few of the other employees were in the back too, and we all got acquainted. An interesting lot they were. Girls in multi-colored feathered boas, guys in flowing thin white linen pants. We walked over to the house, and started to drink. I was told not to talk about what goes on in the house, and I guess it's a promise I'm gonna keep. I left the house a few hours later, shitfaced. I walked over to the creek by my dorm, or attempted to walk, and puked. Then I just kind of laid on the side of creek for a while. I got up, barely walked into my dorm, and crashed.

7am. Craig is kicking me awake. He's already showered and is ready to roll. I'm still my clothes from the previous night, I don't shower, I don't change, I round up my gear, and we're on the trail in five minutes. For the way out, we decided to take the Bright Angel trail. It is a ten-mile hike, but we were told it was less steep, and we wanted to see as much of the canyon as we could. The only reason it is less steep, is because there is an almost flat part in the middle, but those are the extra miles, we still needed to ascend five thousand feet. The beginning was a bit shitty for me, as I was hungover, waiting for my Advil and NoDoz to kick in; I was wearing jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and a t-shirt in eighty to ninety degree weather. These factors were certainly not helping. After about a mile I said fuck it and stopped. I got naked right in the middle of the trail and changed into my shorts and t-shirt. After another couple of miles, the drugs were kicking in, and the hangover was working its way out of my body. After ascending a three-mile staircase, we stopped at Indian Gardens to fill up our canteens, and chomp down Powerbars. Soon after we left, we hit the final staircase, which was steeper, and four miles long. In the middle of it, I decided to pace myself, and Craig decided to push it hard until the end. He made it out in four hours total, and I took a little over five, but now he’s sore as hell, and I’m not; I’m glad I paced myself. When we met at the trailhead, we took the shuttle to the car, and we're off to Flagstaff. We took a nice back road, with scenic view of Humphrey’s Peak, and other great scenery. In the center of Flagstaff, we go to the Thai restaurant we had planned on going to, but it was closed for another two hours, so we went three blocks down across the tracks to the other Thai place. After eating so many Powerbars, we housed that food, I even got an appetizer and two meals, decent food too, they actually were able to make it as spicy as I like, which is pretty fucking hot. The original plan had been to stay in Flagstaff that night, but after assessing our lack of funds, the decision to return to Phoenix was made quickly. We left town around four, and were back at Apache by six. Craig and I carried some gear up to my place, and then parted ways. After enjoying my second cigarette of the day, I walked over to Carmen’s, since she had texted me on the way back to ask if I wanted to go out with her that night. We talk about my trip for a bit, and then I ask what it was she wanted to do; she says it’s some band playing at an art gallery in downtown Phoenix. She started to clean her apartment, while I had a hit of weed, and then passed out on her couch until she was done. She had to take a shower and get ready, as did I, so I came back to my place, ate some leftover Thai, and did so. Once I was ready, I walked outside, where I talked to Jim and Emel for a while. Carmen comes by, and we go. We hit the liquor store first, because where we were going didn’t serve it, but you could bring your own in. We split a bottle of vodka, and I get an extra beer. When we get there, we meet her friend and her friend’s boyfriend, and then head in to catch the show. At one point, a guest singer steps in, and does this song where he made fun of the local hipsters, which was amusing to say the least. At the end of the show, we all headed over to Bikini’s lounge on 15th and Roosevelt, which was sort of like an un-official after party for the show. We hang there for a while talking to random people, and drinking about four Red Bull/vodkas. Carmen and I head back to my place where we smoke some bud, and then she has to go, because she needed to be up for work in about three hours. So, I cruise over to Tut’s, and find a good cross section of the regulars hanging out. Liz calls me up, and says she’s at a party in Mesa, and that I can bring some people with me. Derik, Bill, and I hop in the car, planning to go for a short time, and bring some girls back, then come back to Apache, grab some heads from Tut’s and have a thing at my place. When we get there, we move through the party to check out the scene, and then Liz and I go into the bedroom to do some blow. We sat in there for a while doing lines, and I have no idea how much time passed. Shortly after we came out, I drove back to Tut’s with Derik and Bill. By the time we got back, it was closed, and everyone was gone. We walked back over to my place, where Liz came through with some beer. We sat up until dawn drinking and watching CKY videos.