Robbie and I pulled into the north rim of the Grand Canyon after dark and slept in the car in the parking lot. The next morning we checked out the signs for the various hikes. One particular poster caught my eye. It read "Never try to hike from the rim to the river and back in one day. Many who tried suffered serious illness or death." This of course referred to the 45 km hike down the canyon to the little Colorado river and back (climbing down an altitude of about 5000 feet and then back up). This sounded like a good challenge. We set off knowing that we probably couldn't do it but would go until time allowed for getting back to the car before dark.

We set out at a rapid pace into the canyon and made it to the river at about noon (so 4 hours of hiking down). The good thing about making it to the end was the fact that we had no choice but to walk all the way back. The hard part was that the way back was uphill and under the scorching sun.

We set out at a pretty good pace and got within a couple miles of the top - absolutely destroyed. By this point it was a mind battle. It was starting to hit dusk already (the hike back took more than double the first time). Every part of me wanted to fall down and die. That is when the hallucinations started. Probably triggered by lack of water and food (and 12 hours of constant hiking). I never waivered far enough to fall off the cliff but there was a couple times where I could have. The process sounds easy enough - take 20 steps, sit down and take a breather, then get up and do it again - but after 2 hours of this it turned into 5 steps, lay down and gasp for air then push up with all your might to continue (against the wishes of every muscle in the body).

Nearly crawling, we made it to the top just before night. I had planned to break into chearing and several choruses of "we are the champions". It just didn't matter though - I just wanted to die. We wobbled over to a restaurant and downed a huge greasy pizza. That hit the spot and it was time to sleep in the car and see what could be conquered the next day.

Lets get one thing clear. I had never up to this day hit anything with a car. I am usually very alert with quick reactions. This day was a little different. Just before the border into North Dakota from Saskatchewan a group of grouse run by and BOOM. Of course the inhumane thing to do would be leave them all over the road and let them suffer and die. I quickly stopped the car and we got up and collected a half decent sized grouse and put it in the trunk (to save for later??).

Anyway, we get to the border and everything is fine until "open the trunk please...click....um, what is with the bird in your trunk?" They ended up giving us no trouble except the border guard said no meat accross the border without a hunting permit. They took the bird. So we are on our way. Five minutes later, BOOM. Another grouse. This one was bigger and juicy and it wasn't getting confiscated. I pulled over the car and whipped out the coleman stove. The grouse relinquished a fair sized portion of meat and with potatoes and spices it made for the perfect lunch. So we are on our way.

Eventually it got dark. Now, I have never seen so many animals on the road before. I was swerving for racoons, rabbits, skunk, and foxes all trip. This particular night there was deer everywhere. They would pretend to jump out in front of the car but then just stand in the ditch. This happened for a couple hours until BOOM. Left side of the car sideswipes a bambi. Seriously, picture the cutest little baby dear. It was destroyed instantly by the hit. It was quick though - I drove back to get some pictures of the kill and it was already out cold. Then the worst hit of all.

Several hours later a something comes out of nowhere and connects with the tire. I turned the car around to see what it was - a bunny. Problem was that I only ran over half of it - It could only pull itself along by it's front paws. Everything else was broken as it looked up at the car with his big teary eyes. I did the only humane thing possible. I backed up a couple hundred yards and floored it. A quick hit put the bunny out of its suffering. Now the rest of the trip was ok and emotionally stable. I didn't ever mean to kill anything but it was just one of those days, ok!!

Doug and I decided in the new year holidays we would do a little snowshoeing expedition in the British Colombia Rockies. We had gone to Yoho National Park in the summer before but never in the winter. This would be a whole new experience. Our style always includes arriving at a place late in the night, sleeping in the car and setting off the next morning. It just so happened that we got all our gear and made it out to the mountain base around Lake O'Hara area in time to hike in (if we were fast).

So we set out trudging through the amazingly deep snow. We hiked for 10 kilometers which took us a couple of hours and made it to this shack just as it got dark. We had nothing but sleeping bags so we decided to camp out in the food shed. Otherwise there was just a big open eating area with just a roof over it. Inside the food shed there were shelves which weren't comfortable but it was the best we could do.

The next morning we set out and snowshoed up hills and mountain sides, found frozen waterfalls and enjoyed the amazing scenery around Lake O'Hara. By the evening we were itching for some hot food. This is where 2 engineering minds needed to be combined for maximum output.

We had a couple packages of oriental noodles and there were fire stoves back in that eating hut I mentioned. Here is what we eventually found to cook our dinner: We found some elbow pipe near some abandon shacks (probably abandoned for the winter hehe). After cleaning it out we melted snow in the elbow pipes and then boiled the water. We poured the water into our Nalgene bottles and then put the noodles in. This kind of innovation went on all night as we fried peanuts from our trail mix on the hot stove and had some good man to man talk.

-steve-