South Kaibab

I took Charlotte to my happy place. The result was anything but.

Previously on Between Corners: Doug and Charlotte’s relationship deepens unexpectedly — enough that he tells her about Barbara, the girl who once sang to him by a waterfall.

A week after I told Charlotte about Barbara – the prom, the waterfall, the bruise I didn’t know I still had – we decided to get out of town with my Airstream. It was mid-March in Austin. The redbuds were blooming, and the air was warming just enough to make you believe winter was over.

I thought I had the perfect destination: the Grand Canyon.

Why? Because the canyon has been my happy place for 15 years. The shorthand I tell people is that I’d spent my whole life hiking in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Climbed Rainier, and Denali. I had seen some country. Or so I thought.

Then, in 2011, my friend Lyn got a permit for a backcountry canyon trip: Grandview Point to South Kaibab. We flew down to Phoenix, rented a car, checked into a cheap motel, and in the morning took a cab to the trailhead at Grandview Point.

After I had hiked maybe 200 yards down the trail, I stopped. Sat on a rock. And looked around.

I saw rocks burnt red by the sun. Wind-carved towers rising from broken cliffs. Deep gorges falling away into shadow. Broad green plateaus.

The scale was incomprehensible. It was completely different from what one sees from the rim. Now, the canyon was not just deep. It had depth. Scale.

But what really got me was the silence.

Not quiet. Silence. The kind that doesn’t just muffle noise but absorbs it. Swallows it. It makes you realize how much noise you carry in your head all the time.

I sat there for maybe ten minutes.

My friend kept hiking. I didn’t.

Something shifted. At that moment, the canyon became my home ground. My happy place. Where the noise in my head stilled.

I’d been back every year since.

So of course I brought Charlotte there.

Of course I wanted her to see it the way I first did.

Of course I thought this was going to bring us closer.

And of course: That did not happen.

At first, all was well.

Two days on the road. West through the endless flatness of West Texas, then north into New Mexico.

We stopped at a roadside stand in Pie Town. Bought two slices – apple for her, pumpkin for me. Ate them with plastic forks while standing in the parking lot.

Charlotte navigated. I drove. We listened to Emmylou Harris and Neko Case and Sarah Bareilles and talked about nothing important.

Overnight near Gallup. We drank our morning coffee watching the sun hit red rocks.

By late afternoon of the second day, we were there.

Then things got even better. A warm spell for late March – freezing at night, but we were in shirt sleeves by early afternoon.

We spent a day walking around the South Rim village, doing some tourist shopping, grabbing an afternoon beer in the bar at the stately Yavapai Lodge. I bought a copy of my favorite book, “Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon.” She read it that night in the trailer, horrified.

The second afternoon we hiked the Bright Angel Trail. Not far – just a mile or so, enough to get well below the rim.

I was in my element. Blabbing about how the canyon formed. Pointing out the Redwall limestone. The Vishnu schist. The unconformity. “So, this layer is two billion years old,” I said, tapping a rock face. “And this one above it is only 500 million. There’s a billion and a half years just... missing.”

Charlotte nodded. Asked questions. Seemed interested.

Looking back, it was clear she was humoring me.

I had deliberately timed the hike so we would come out in the dark. Once benighted, we donned headlamps. They pooled yellow light on the trail. The Milky Way arched overhead like a garden hose spraying stars.

“God,” she said, looking up. “I’ve never seen so many stars.”

I felt like I’d given her a gift.

That evening, I grilled tenderloin steaks directly on the coals of the campfire. Just meat on embers.

Charlotte watched, skeptical.

“Won’t that ruin them?”

“Nope. Watch.”

I pulled them off after four minutes per side. Brushed off the ash. Sliced one open. It was a perfect medium-rare.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, tasting it.

“Right?”

We ate sitting on the picnic table. Smoke smell in our hair. Then the night in the Airstream. The kind that happens when the world shrinks to two people with one good idea.

Everything was perfect.

I should have known.

On our last morning, we caught a shuttle bus to South Kaibab trail. This is a gem – a series of sharp switchbacks followed by a descending traverse along rocky ledges and pinon pines to a stunning view from aptly named Oo-Ah Point.

Charlotte stopped at Oo-Ah. Hands on hips. Breathing hard.

“I need to rest,” she said.

“You’ll be fine,” I said, a touch sternly. We kept going.

Somewhere above Cedar Ridge – a large flat area with hitching posts for mules and a toilet for people – the sky changed. That sudden desert shift from bright to wounded.

Wind first. Then rain. Cold big drops that smacked into dry dust like hand grenades.

The trail became slick.

Charlotte’s pace slowed.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I’m tired.”

“We’re almost to Cedar Ridge. You can rest there.”

But Cedar Ridge was still half a mile away.

Twenty minutes later, she stopped.

“Douglas. I need to eat something.”

Her voice had an edge.

I reached into my pack.

Nothing.

I’d forgotten the snacks. The Goldfish crackers. The Snickers bars. The Liquid IV packets I always brought. Our basics.

“I don’t have anything,” I said.

She stared at me.

“You’re kidding.”

“I thought I packed…”

“You didn’t?”

She sat on a rock. Put her head in her hands.

“Charlotte, we can make it. We’ll head out now. It’s maybe a mile and a half.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You can. Come on.”

I pulled her up. She swayed.

“Douglas...”

She bonked hard after that. Stumbling. Lightheaded. Miserable.

Her steps got shorter. Uneven.

“Just a little further,” I said.

No answer.

The rain worsened.

Cold. Relentless.

She stumbled again. Caught herself.

I reached for her arm. She pulled away.

Then she tripped. Went down on one knee. Scraped it raw.

I heard her mutter: “So this is your goddamn happy place?”

Here was the rub: I knew better. I’d spent a chunk of the previous two summers working as a volunteer here. My job, in large part, was to make sure people didn’t get into the kind of trouble Charlotte was in right now. And now I was acting like a greenhorn.

We plodded uphill. By the time we clawed our way back to the rim, we were drenched, exhausted, and mad as hell.

We caught a shuttle back to Mather Campground and the Airstream. Neither of us spoke.

Inside, I heated tomato soup on the stove. The only sound was the burner clicking, then hissing to life.

I poured soup into bowls. Set them on the dinette table.

We sat across from each other.

Charlotte winced every time she shifted her weight. Her knee.

I ate. She ate. Neither of us looked up.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally.

She looked at me. Said nothing.

“I should have doubled-checked the pack.”

“Yeah. You should have.”

Her voice was flat. Not angry. Just... done.

She finished her soup. Stood.

“I’m going to bed.”

I made up the dinette bed. She took the Gaucho bed in back.

I lay there in the dark, listening to the wind rattle the Airstream.

I’d wanted to share my happy place with her.

Instead, I’d made her suffer for it.

Then came the worst part. Charlotte had seen something I preferred to keep hidden.

My stubbornness. My tunnel vision. The part of me that tries to turn life into a neat storyline and gets pissed when the characters improvise.

I’d planned this trip like a scene in a movie. We’d hike. She’d love it. We’d have this perfect shared experience. The canyon would work its magic on her the way it did on me.

Except she wasn’t a character in my story. She was a person. With her own needs. Her own limits.

And I’d ignored all of them.

She saw it.

And she didn’t like it. In fact, she hated it.

Truth is, so did I.

In the morning, I woke on the dinette bed. Charlotte was up. I could hear her in the bathroom.

I sat up. Stuffed my sleeping bag into its storage sack, along with my pillow.

She came out, dressed. Poured coffee without looking at me.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning.”

“How’s your knee?”

“Sore.”

She sat on the Gaucho bed. I stayed on the dinette. Six feet apart.

“We don’t have to do anything today,” I said. “We could just rest.”

“I know.”

She looked out the window. The sun was bright.

We had another day at the canyon. I didn’t suggest another hike.

Next: The Conversation.

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