There are three times a day when you can count on action in the backcountry office. One is when we open at 8 a.m. People are anxious to go down the trail immediately. One is at 1 p.m. when we get back from lunch. It’s a time when people who’ve come by during the lunch hour gather around waiting for us to come back so they can get their permits. And lastly between 4 and 5 p.m. just before we close. These are the people looking for a camping spot that night.

The 8 a.m. people usually think that they can get a permit and start down the trail. The backcountry office doesn’t open until 8 which is usually too late to be starting a hike – that is if your hike is starting in May through September – which is mostly when the NR backcountry office is open. Plus those times when it is OK to start after 8 a.m. only the SR office is open to the public. Or, sometimes, like in October, we have no same day permits. Of course now in July, we are loaded with opportunities, but it is way to hot to start hiking at 8 a.m. Not that we don’t have people who just don’t listen. It’s usually nice and cool on the North Rim at 8 a.m. or even 9. But people soon learn that it’s not so nice a couple thousand feet lower in elevation. Today at closing a guy came by and mentioned to the people I’d just sold a permit to for tomorrow that he had encountered some people I’d worked with yesterday who were on their way down at 7 a.m. They were at the bridge about 2700 feet down and wishing they had started at 5 a.m.

Then of course there are the 1 p.m. people. These are the folks who are looking for same day permits and for whom a same day permit might make sense. If they are willing to wait until we get some shade on the trail, typically at 2-3 p.m., they can get a good hike to Cottonwood. Some times we have a couple of strange people coming in at 1 p.m. For example, we had some people come in at one that expected to get to Phantom ranch for a 5 p.m. steak supper. They didn’t believe me when I told them it was a 14 mile hike. “No,” they said, “it’s only 7.5 miles.” Like I don’t know how far it is to the bottom from the North Rim.

Finally, there are the 4-5 p.m. people looking to get a camping spot for the night. Usually, the campground is full by that time and they send them to me for a backcountry permit. Most people don’t realize that you can camp in the backcountry of the North Rim itself. We have sites in the forest and on the rim inside the park. The big boss on the South Rim encourages us to sell these permits when permits in the bottom are not available. But who comes to the North Rim to camp on top? Most backpackers want to go into the Canyon. If a person is looking for a campsite late in the afternoon, they usually want to camp near their car, according to the NR district ranger. That means they are going to be camping illegally if we sell them one of our forest sites. However, if we encourage them to go into the forest outside the park, they can get a campsite right by their car and not too far from the main road into the park. They can usually get to the trailhead to begin their hike as fast as or faster than if they camped in the park itself – unless of course, they camped in our developed campground.

But there is an alternative for them. If they haven’t gotten a campground and we have spots, they can hike down to Cottonwood. Sometimes it makes a difference for those who really want to go to the bottom. Especially now when it is so hot, I don’t want to sell a campsite at the bottom for backpackers. It is just that selling one night at Cottonwood isn’t very good either. People who want to go to the bottom may still hike there and get sick. So if I have some same day cottonwood permits, I will sell two nights starting that night. Some guys came in today and I sold them a two night permit starting then. They could well get there after dark, but the hike itself would be safe because it is much cooler at 5 p.m. then in the middle of the day.

You really can’t mess up on the North Kaibab trail. Nothing is as wide and smoothed as that trail. You do need a flashlight because you could trip over waterbars and rocks, but it’s a cool time to be hiking in the Canyon in July.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 22nd, 2005 at 10:04 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.