opening

Things have changed, but that was expected. The Employee Dining Room (EDR) is relatively empty now and it is harder to get a group to hang out because our schedules are different. So, whoever is around becomes your friend.

Saturday and Sunday were my days off so I gathered some people together to go hiking. On Saturday few of us hiked about 2 miles down the Kaibab Trial. This trail is named for the limestone formation that is the top rock layer of the Grand Canyon which formed about 250 million years ago. We hiked to the Supai Tunnel, which is a man made tunnel in rock in order for the trail to continue its 14 miles to the bottom of the canyon at Phantom Ranch.

View from the Coconino Overlook on the Kaibab Trail.

The way down was easy, but we almost immediately started shedding our jackets as it warmed up below the rim. We passed a group of people restoring the trail for the season and many hikers finishing the 22 mile Rim to Rim hike. Saturday was opening day for the North Rim and the people came flocking in.

The Tunnel's shade was welcoming and the rock was cool. We didn't stop for long because Eric and Heather had to be at work by 2:00 pm and it is said to give yourself twice to three times the amount of time that it took to hike down to hike out. It was difficult going up the steep switchbacks and ascending the 1400 foot elevation change. Still not totally acclimated, we stopped every 10 minutes to catch our breath and replenish our fluids and electrolytes. When we emerged, we felt victorious, and it hadn't taken as long as we had expected.

Sunday I rounded up some people to try out another trail. We drove out to Point Imperial (the highest point in Grand Canyon National Park at 8803 feet above sea level) where you can see the Painted Desert in the distance. We hiked about 5 miles round trip on the Ken Patrick Trail, branching off to where it stopped at a point of rock. We had to bushwhack through brambles and scramble down and then back up a steep slope of icy snow.

We stopped to take in the view under a dead tree on the Ken Patrick Tree.
(From left to right: Justin, Miranda, Lisa, Caitlin)

Neither hike was incredibly grueling, and I look forward to more miles which I will start to add every time I go out.

My legs weren't sore until I started working--walking up and down a short flight of stairs every time a table is ready to seat. I worked dinner shifts Monday and Tuesday, and again Today. So far our guests have been agreeable and understand the difficulty of guaranteeing a window table. Monday I was a bit more reserved, nervous about my first real shift, but yesterday I was open and chatty. Neither nights were very busy, so I had the extra time to say hello and hold a small conversation with the friendlier groups. When leaving after eating his meal Monday night a man stopped me and said, "Every time you walked by us and made eye contact, you smiled. It made everything so nice. Thank you."

Arrival

I arrived on the North Rim last Saturday to a blur of commotion and I feel as though it hasn’t stopped. There are about 230 people working at the lodge, all new faces to me, who are holding jobs such as maintenance, housekeeping, gift shop cashier, inventory, front desk, line cook, server, busser, and host (to name just a few). My roommate, Caitlin, is a busser while I will be a host at the Dining Room. We are anticipating the arrival of our third roommate, but we hope it won’t happen.

I stopped at Marble Canyon at Lee's Ferry--the beginning of the
Grand Canyon on my drive to the North Rim.

The Dining Room is relatively small for the number of guests it seats, creating a maze of sharp turns to maneuver. There are six large windows, three of which look across to the South Rim and guests will be begging me for a table next to them. But I will have to say, “I’m sorry but we do not guaranty that you will sit next to the window, but you can see the canyon from every table and we invite you to walk up to take a closer look.” (Something like that.) Or I could say, “If you really want to see the canyon, go for a hike.”

This past week we have gone through health and safety training and have been cleaning and organizing the lodge to get ready for opening day. After six months, a lot of dust had settled and everything seemed to be in hibernation. But tomorrow is opening day, and I think we are ready.

On Monday, the phone lines at the lodge opened for dinner reservations and they have been ringing off the hook. “Thank you for calling the Grand Canyon Lodge North Rim. This is Lindsay speaking. I can I help you?” When we aren’t around to answer the calls, the messages become numerous but there is only one phone from which to check them and the same to make long distant calls. But I don’t mind the tedium, because people are excited to come and really grateful when we return their calls. However, I have already denied people window tables.

Everyone who works here seems to be very nice and generally happy to be here. Already, a group has formed of old and new employees that I am a part of. But it radiates out to include everyone who works here. Most have come for the outdoors and hiking possibilities. I am looking forward to exploring the trails more once I have totally acclimated to the elevation here (about 8300 feet). A few of us hiked to Bright Angel Overlook one evening that winds were gusting up to 51 miles per hour. The view was beautiful, but we were freezing as the sunset and the wind whipped around. Tomorrow is my first day off and a few of us might try to hike a couple miles into the canyon, but not too far, since we still wheeze after walking the mile back from the lodge to the employee housing area.

Last night after dinner a volleyball game got started because the sand court was finally raked and the net installed. We played game after game, rotating teams and players after every win of 21 points. Although my volleys aren’t consistent and my sets are nonexistent, I have a pretty solid underhand serve (so I didn’t feel like I was completely useless… the points off my serves made up for missed volleys). But no one is a pro, so most games were really close. At 10 pm the lights turn off in the court and there are quiet hours from 10 pm to 7 am.

Sitting at "Employee Rock" to watch the sunset on arrival day.

Today at 3 pm Dining Room employees will don their black pants and bowties to be ready for “Shakedown”. Tonight is a run-through with all of the servers and bussers and hosts to see how things are run and how they should go. Employees that do not work in the Kitchen and Dining Room and staff of the NPS were able to make reservations for a free meal tonight. Those of us working will eat in shifts and I am excited to try something on the menu.

I’m nervous but mostly excited for the lodge to open and to start working. Things will change because we won’t all be working and eating at the same times as we have this past week. It’s kind of been like camp for adults, in some weird way where we all work at camp. Tomorrow it might start feeling like a place of work where we happen to live and are surrounded by the great outdoors. I still don’t know exactly what to expect, but so far it’s been good.

Westward

Although I wasn't actually saying goodbye to my dad, my cat or my bird (since I will see them all again), I still had to take a deep breath as my mom and I pulled away from the house last Friday. I am traveling to a place I have never been and will be living and working with people I have never met. Home was comforting and the unknown is not.

Herd of Pronghorn spotted from the car in NM.

This past week I have been roadtripping with my mom, seeing new sights. We drove through Louisiana and our first night we stayed in Wichita Falls, TX where we deliriously fell into our rock hard beds and tossed and turned until we plopped back into the car for another long day on the road. In those two days we drove about 1500 miles--the majority of the ground we needed to cover--and then came the real exploring.

In Albuquerque, NM, we viewed paintings by artists who call New Mexico home, inspired by the desert landscape and the native populations. We wandered around the historic Old Town learning about early settlers who claimed land that wasn't theirs to take. We wandered around Nob Hill where the college kids hang out (and I can no longer call myself a "college kid") and watched an Israeli film at an old artsy theater. We inspected petroglyphs carved into vesilcular basalt by the indigenous population before the conquistadors arrived.

Rock carvings at Petroglyph National Monument

On our way to Flagstaff we spent an afternoon at the Petrified Forest National Park. We stared across the Painted Desert, able to see the San Fransisco Peaks about 120 miles away. But the Petrified wood was amazing, made from trees from the Late Triassic period when the western U.S. was in the tropics. Instead of decaying and forming rich soil and coal and oil, these trees fell in the right conditions so that their wood was replaced with silica--perminialized. Anyway, I love trees and these rocks that once were trees are beautiful.

At Crystal Forest in Petrified Forest National Park

In Flagstaff, AZ we ate delicious breakfasts at a local cafes right next to each other and wandered into the countless outdoor stores on the streets of Old Town. We went to Lowell Observatory, the place where Pluto (and I think Mars) was discovered and looked through a special telescope at the sun. We learned about arid and desert plants at the Arboretum. I could picture myself living in this little mountain town if only it didn't snow about 100 inches a year.

Today we drove to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and it is beautiful. Even using that word, "beautiful", seems to undermine the emotion of that place- one of the 7 natural wonder of the world (and rightly so). I won't get tired of looking over the beautiful vista from the North Rim--I don't think that is possible.

My arrival date is May 8, tomorrow, by 3:00 pm. It takes 5 hours to drive to the North Rim because although in a straight line from point A to point B it may only be about 10 miles, it takes over 220 miles by car to get around the canyon. I'm looking forward to it all, even if I am a bit nervous.

I had a great time with my mom this past week and wish all moms a happy mother's day!