“I’m not kidding. People die because of this. We have to go. Now.” Our guide wasn’t smiling.

Chastened, my friend CJ and I stopped giggling. Yes, it was ridiculous to have hiked halfway down the Grand Canyon in  August with just one bottle of water between us, but the time for laughing would come later . . . if we survived.

The night before, our guide JK had said, “We will have plenty of water.” CJ took this to mean we would have plenty of water without her contribution. Wrong.

CJ announced her lack of water when we reached Cedar Ridge , a lovely plateau on the South Kaibob Trail. Here we had been going to sit and rest and enjoy the view (for which no adjectives suffice) before hiking back up the steep, rocky trail. At first JK and I thought CJ was kidding, but quickly realized that was not the case.

That’s when JK turned deadly serious. “Put on your packs, we’ve got to get out NOW, before the heat gets any worse.” This was JK’s worst nightmare, hiking at noon on a summer day with neophytes who didn’t bring water. But there we all were.

I Could Just Fly and Meet You There

Blessedly, the grueling march out has somewhat faded from my memory. I remember being dizzy. I remember my thigh muscles burning. I remember arguing with JK several times — once when I kept trying to take off my hat because I was sweltering, and she scolded me, and once when I was trying to rest, and she wouldn’t let me. “We’ll rest in the shade up ahead, not here. I’m not stopping and I’m not leaving you here.”

The worst was when she tried to make me eat an energy bar. I remember that switchback in the trail vividly, the burning heat on my back, the acrid smell of dry rock mixed with the dank scent of manure from the pack horses we had just passed.

“You must eat this,” she said, when I told her I was so light-headed I felt like I could fly. She probably thought I was going to leap into the abyss.

“I will die if I eat,” I said. “I will throw up, I really will. I can’t.” She spoke calmly and insistently, as you would to a five-year-old, and somehow persuaded me to eat the dang thing. I did not throw up. I kept walking.

One  Step at a Time

This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge is “Show us what endurance means to you.” For me, endurance means taking one step at a time, whether you are hiking, recovering from an addiction, or journeying through grief or fear or illness. Just one step.

So here you have it. Me, nearing the end of our hike up from Cedar Point:

Endurance

Endurance

 

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