It seems that the journey of being a parent shares many features of a hike to the bottom of Grand Canyon. For the first time traveler, there can be days of striking a course through uncharted territories, carefully maneuvering one's way along difficult paths, and plotting tomorrow's trek while taking stock of the breath-taking scene at hand. Throughout this adventure, there are moments of almost divine inspiration when hearts and minds move together in synchrony towards a common goal. Moments, when all planets seem aligned with the stars, to provide illumination and seem to mark the course of a secure and enduring trail.

During late August of 1993, I had the chance to experience one of these moments as my twenty-one-year-old son George and I embarked on a journey down the Bright Angel Trail to the campground at Phantom Ranch. The beauty and grandeur of the Canyon matched my feelings of love and respect for him as we made our way down the trail. Each switchback provided views of such stunning beauty and lessons in history; each turn of the trail allowed us to experience together part of our journey as mother and son.

The first glimpse that the adventure was underway and probably aimed in the right direction was the evening before the descent. What an evening we had, casting our gaze across the great chasm, peering into its depths, and silently watching the sunset from the El Tovar Hotel's veranda. We played cards on the front porch and almost heard the echo of visitors of long ago as they disembarked from the rugged wagon or train trip. Finally, we made our way across the broad lobby and up the creaking stairs half expecting to see Teddy Roosevelt come barreling down the hall.

Before dawn the next morning, we gathered our belongings and made final checks of our packs- George had the tent and I the sleeping bags, we both had ample bottles of water and powdered Gateraid, and probably more than enough food, Our permit was pinned to its rightful place, and I had my treasured Peanut M & M's to celebrate the end of the first day's trek. Equal in importance, we had Thayer's guidebook for the trail. During the previous year, I had read all that I could find on the geology, prehistory and history of the Canyon, determined to not only see the hues and spires as beautiful, but to understand their meaning in time and space. I have always felt that to appreciate is to understand, and no less was due the Canyon.

We took our portable breakfast to the low wall at the rim and sat silently munching our cereal, feeling the last grip of cold from the night's air. We felt an unspoken reverence for the vast scene surrounding us; the profound quiet seemed to reach into each of us, making words trivial and out of place. We lingered and wanted the moment to last, but is soon became apparent that it was time for George and me to make our way to the trail head. By this time, other visitors were gathering about the rim, with cameras steadied to capture the sunrise, and the canyon started another day in people's lives.

George and I made our first steps down into the gorge, and at times the overly-protective mother in me cast sideward glances toward him making sure he approached the trail with caution and care. This was the first point where the journey and my life as a parent crossed trails-that exciting moment seeing one's young adult son negotiating a dangerous and precipitous way, wanting him to do it with independence and autonomy, but at same time keeping at bay the urge to issue directives and cautionary remarks. I had to keep telling myself he was 21 and not 5 years old.

The first several hundred yards were exciting with a certain feel of high adventure between us. We chatted about the steepness of the trail, and wondered when we would meet the first mule-train. We let our gaze shift from the close and comfortable inner wall which we could touch with our left hand, then over to the edge along the sheer cliffs to our right, and finally across the great expanse of the canyon and the river so far, so very far, below.

First we needed to learn to negotiate the trail, to gauge the lengths of our strides, to watch for rocks and logs, to monitor the locking of our knees, to shift the packs as they settled into the journey at hand. These practical things eventually give way to the more emotional. The giddiness and excitement of those first hundred yards gradually led to long moments of silence as we walked and absorbed the grandeur of the shapes, colors, and vistas surrounding us. The emotions included intense respect for the land and its earlier inhabitants, a sense of feeling overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of it all, and being awestruck by the eons through which we walked, much as pilgrims to some revered place. We pulled over to the side of a switchback to cinch our straps and adjust the packs, and paused to have another pilgrim take our picture. Another indication that the journeys of hiker and parent often bring unexpected surprises occured when George reminded me to drink more water.

I pointed out the Coconino layer and its petrified sand-dunes, recounted how the Redwall is rendered its intense coloration by the overlays above it. I explained how the Muav contains fossils of the brachiopods and trilobites which he loved as a young boy when dinosaurs were as important to him as his baseball card collection, and must have contributed to his studying Biochemistry at Indiana University fifteen years later.

We consulted Thayer's book nearly every step of the way: traced the striking evidence of Bright Angel Fault and the dragfolds down some distance, watched for petroglyphs, and wondered if we would be alert enough to actually see the Great Unconformity in the hours to come.

Suddenly, the intellectual weight of it all gave way to his youthful exuberance, and he shifted into high gear. So we both could experience the Canyon for a time each independent of the other we agreed to meet at Three-Mile House-me to slowly make my way as I consulted Thayer, George to test his mettle and push his physical boundaries. This, too, mirrors the journey of parent-on one hand we hope to provide our children with as much rich experience as possible, and imbue them with a respect for understanding and a quest of knowledge, while on the other we must be fully aware that the child must face the world in his own terms and at his own pace. I can help him find the trail, but he has to travel it on his own.

We met up, compared notes (he had never heard so many foreign languages spoken and wondered how you can tell the difference between German and Swedish), and set our sights on Indian Gardens where we planned to get water. Parent-hiker and son both made sure each's water supply was adequate; I offered him one of my Granola bars and he shared one of his cans of chicken with me. Roles became blurred as mother and son watched out for the other, each aware of the physical rigors and dangers which could be masked by the incomparable beauty. "You know, Mom, everytime you pull out Thayer you should guzzle some Gatorade."

At Indian Gardens we stopped to chat with the mules and listen to the cacophony of languages at the water spigot, glad for the shade, and soak our hats and bandanas with cold water. We started on down the trail and agreed the day was beginning to heat up. George rummaged in his backpack and found his other shirt which he dipped in Garden Creek and tied around his head like Lawrence of Arabia.

By now our common language was sprinkled with Kaibab-Toroweap contact, Hermit shale, unconformities, and we agreed to hike out to Plateau Point to see the trilobites trails on the trip out. He hiked on ahead as I searched (in vain) for petroglyphs along Garden Creek and somehow both of us missed the chockstone. Quite some time passed as we journeyed on at our own paces.

I calculated that we had traveled about five miles and were approaching the Zoroaster granite with the view of the Fault, when he came back up the trail toward me with a genuine look of amazement. He pointed in the direction of what lay ahead. "Mom this looks just like another planet,"he said.

I noticed his slower gait and that he kept his eyes cast out over the vast expanse which looked so surreal and desolate. I watched him ahead of me, the journeys crossed trails again and I realized that as a parent my existence is embellished by his sense of wonderment, but this can only be gained by his taking the lead and blazing his own trail.

In a way, seeing him push on into the great unknown along Bright Angel Trail was a watershed experience for me. I realized that our lives had already taken a drastic shift, of which I had only been minimally aware. Now, I had an acute sense that his abilities to traverse his own course were sharp and well-defined; he had a steadiness and stability which will serve him in his adult life. I thought I had prepared myself to see him as independent and separate from me since as his parent I have encouraged him to discover his own strengths and to be appreciative of his accomplishments, and have taken pride in providing him with a sense of being loved. But as I saw his wonderment and steadiness ahead of me, the fact suddenly struck me that he was a young man whom I respected, would like to know even if we weren't related, and would trust in the most difficult of predicaments. The journeys of parent and hiker had crossed trails once again.

The roar of the waters rushing by drowned out the voices, but we motioned to each other to take off our packs and shoes so we could feel the cold water of the mighty Colorado. The sharp painful cold of the river was mismatched with the nearly 120 degree heat, and I was struck how life is made up of such glorious contrasts. Son and his mother as peer, mother with her son as trailblazer.

We went on to have two spectacular days camping along the Colorado River. Then the hike out of the Canyon. Many memories still stand out; seeing the trilobites trails, finding the Indian ruins which Major John Wesley Powell mentioned in his diary on his first trip almost exactly to 124 years earlier to the day. Memories of standing on Silver Bridge feeling the awesome power and strength of the waters below, and being amazed that we hardly sweated at all despite the gallons of water we drank (it just turned into a crusty salt layer on our bodies). and remembering the night sky filled with bats, the stars, and the distant lights of El Tovar.

We both decided that stew never tasted so good, that Gatoraid made a great base for oatmeal, and that M & M's really don't melt- even at 120 degrees! It was wonderful seeing Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter's mark at Phantom Ranch and trying to picture the place with peach trees.

The final trek out was, in some respect, the Canyon's way of reminding us that its beauty belies a dangerous splendor. Trails were crossed and roles blurred as George had to help me out when water intoxication took hold of me. There were many tense moments from Three-Mile House upwards during which we both tested our mettles and put mind over matter. Needless to say, Thayer stayed in my pack and neither of us gave much thought to Wescogame, Manakacha, or Watahomigi. In the end, steadfast faith in ourselves and in each other helped us prevail; neither of us has ever given up, our tenacity is unbeatable, and our physical and psychological endurance is strong.

At noon the following day after we made it back to the Rim, we sat in silence overlooking the Canyon. Scores of people surrounded us as we savored our ice cream cones and sat on the low wall where we had breakfast some days before. While looking down at the crisscrossing trail beneath us George remarked how he was glad we made the hike instead of going by mule, I understood once again how my place in this life as parent and Bright Angel hiker are so similar in time and space. The commitment to knowledge and expression of curiosity, the search for new adventures and experiences, the ability to navigate through unchartered territory. Experiencing oneself both with and separate from a loved one, and being abler to meet a challenge is surely a lesson from which both parents and their children can grow. The trails I am traveling as parent and hiker converge on the same distant point-faith in oneself and trust in each other. This is what the Grand Canyon will always mean to me. I can't wait to hike it again!

Used by permission of the Grand Canyon Pioneers Society.

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