Grand Canyon Quest

A summer rain fills the Grand Canyon with mist at Grandview Point. The Grandview Trail starts near here and descends 2,600 feet in 3.2 miles to Horseshoe Mesa, then connects to the Tonto Trail that follows the river for 85 miles. However, the Tonto Trail doesn't descend to the inner gorge for another 8 miles.

Two ravens squawk in protest

Of my presence. Having expressed their opinion, they lift off from the ruins of the Moqui Stage Station, perch on the branch of a pine snag and glare down at me with wounded pride, their midnight-black feathers shining in the October sun.

I won't be long, fellows, I tell them. I'm on my way to the Grand Canyon. First I want to see the old station, now little more than a rock depression in the Kaibab National Forest. But it still plays a role in the Canyon story, as do those who chased their dreams into its depths. These include the starryeyed miner who hauled a 600-pound boulder out of the Canyon seeking to get rich. Such men probably thought of themselves as conquerors, but the Canyon conquered them. In those days, even getting to the great gorge required massive effort. Tourists plunked down $20 to board a stagecoach in Flagstaff and ride 70 miles through the ponderosas, enjoy a dusty lunch and work on their backache. With stops along the way, the trip took 12 hours.

But the payoff was getting to the Rim. It is for me, too. At sunset I plan to be 15 miles north at Grandview Point.

Watching the ravens watching me, I'm thinking of how the Canyon scared me the first time I saw it, 26 years ago, and how it will scare me again tonight. I know this because I'm more comfortable walking along a moonlit alley between skyscrapers than peering over a rock ledge to a bottom I'm not convinced is there.

I cannot get used to seeing a long way. I'm a prisoner of the gray eastern city that lives in my soul, my Alcatraz of concrete, steel and sirens.

Even so, I've returned to the Canyon often since 1974. A contradiction, I suppose, but the thrill trumps my fear. I love the way the eons show so manifestly in its rock, the dazzling light that showers out of the sky above it, the gigantic scale and otherworldly colors.

But the Canyon's spell shapes the stories told here and dictates the dreams of the people who live them. I can feel it at Moqui.

In its 1882 to 1900 heyday, this was a busy place. Three times a week, nine-seat Concord coaches rolled across this sagebrush plateau, the driver twirling his whip from the box seat. Reporters said the Concords were so big they looked like streetcars hurtling across the frontier at an unholy speed of 6 mph.

Promoters of the stage line lured some ofAmerica's most influential men, including Los Angeles Times publisher H.G. Otis, and the Western painter Thomas Moran, whose Canyon images became some of the earliest and most admired.

Every writer who dared the exotic venture took up a pen in description: "Our tired horses thrice gave way to fresh ones, and their keepers came out from little shacks to unbuckle the harness and hear the news," wrote poet Harriet Monroe in The Atlantic Monthly magazine. "At last we reach the third relay station [Moqui], and take on six horses instead of four, for the final pull uphill.

"We alight, and run up and down the shaggy little slope, and free our bodies from the long strain."

Standing at the ruins, I wonder if those early passengers got the same sensation I get at Moqui-the scent of something big beyond the trees. The scent of distance.

I THROW UP A POWDER CLOUD driving north along Forest Service Road 301, but can barely keep my eyes on the windshield. Last night at dusk on these same roads, I saw a deer dancing between the trees. Early October is showtime in this forest.

Near Locket Lake off FR 301, I watched a family of nine mule deer tromp playfully through the mud before they noticed me and scattered. But a nose-high barbed-wire fence checked their flight. The first deer measured it for a moment, his big paddle-ears making a V over his head. I wondered what he'd do, certain he couldn't jump that high. But he did. In a silent, swift, fluid, dreamlike motion, he levitated and literally poured himself over the fence. The remaining eight followed in succession. Led by guide Daryl Nez, our little group let out simultaneous gasps of exhilaration, repeated nine times over.

It was like a mirage, and how fitting is that for Canyon country?

So was the life of William Francis Hull. Date of birth unreliable. Date of death in question. Maybe the son of a California gold rusher.

What is known is that Hull, in 1884, led the first recorded tourist trip to the Grand Canyon, and his cabin, built about 1888, still stands near the bottom of a rocky hill off Forest Service Road 307.

I get there in the cool of late afternoon. Hull's cabin, a quarter-mile behind a wire-pole gate, has a gable roof and a broad porch, its pine logs linked at the corners by V notches. Nearby stands a barn of massive, hand-squared logs.

These two impressive structures sit in a pretty meadow rimmed by old-growth, orange-barked ponderosas, a perfect place for picnics or savoring the silken breeze.

Hikers can walk Vishnu Trail, which slices through the forest behind the cabin, climbing almost 400 feet in a mile and a half to the Grandview Lookout Tower.

Those brave enough to ascend 80 feet on its openair steps get a unique view of the Canyon and the Painted Desert to the northeast.

My interest, though, is Hull, who spent years pondering these very same trees. But it was no paradise in his day.

He found little but struggle in his effort to survive. Hull ran a sheep ranch, joined in business with famed Canyon guide John Hance. He also served as a deputy sheriff for Coconino County and finally turned to prospecting. As Flagstaff's Arizona Champion noted in 1891, the big score was always at hand: "Wm. Hull left last Friday for a two-weeks' prospecting tour of the Grand Canyon, where [he] will locate the richest mine in the world."

He might've located some copper ore, but not enough. Shortly after 1900, he dropped from the scene, his whereabouts unknown. Reports

A Hard Splendor

later filtered back from Prescott that he died there, at age 39, in 1904. My guess is that William Hull had absolutely no fear of the Canyon. Maybe he should have.

FROM HULL'S CABIN, I HEAD SOUTH

again, picking up Forest Service Road 302. It runs 16 miles west to State Route 64 at Tusayan, roughly paralleling the bed of an abandoned logging railroad. The area is considered prime for viewing elk, which love to nibble the leaves of the Gambel oaks that line its course. Moreover, early October is rutting season.

I know this from talking to Daryl Nez. In addition to previously doing guide work for Grand Canyon Jeep Tours & Safaris and working as an accountant at a Tusayan lodge, he hires out to ranchers as a free-lance horse whisperer.

Yes. Just like Robert Redford's character in the best-selling book by Nicholas Evans, and the movie of the same title. Only the tall, garrulous Nez prefers to call it psychological horse training.

"I can break any wild horse in 45 minutes," says the 28-year-old Navajo.

I have a policy of never arguing with anyone who can talk to horses.

I park in a shadow opposite a water catchment some 8 miles east of State 64 and sit out on the hood amid the pungent Texas sage. Before long a bull elk crosses the road in front of me and hoofs up a hill behind the catchment.

The animal probably weighs a thousand pounds, has a full rack of antlers and gouges on his beige coat, the likely result of fighting between rutting males. He moves over the landscape slowly, with a gracebeyond his size, stopping at the hilltop. In my binoculars, I zoom on his face, nostrils flexing with each breath, round black eyes fixed on some unknown point. But what strikes me is his expression of perfect pride. Here is something wild, in its own place and thrilling to see.

With sunset coming I head farther east on FR 302. The road curls north, connects with Forest Service Road 310 and quickly bumps into Desert View Drive. The powerful scent of distance has pulled me out of the Kaibab. Two miles west on Desert View is Grandview Point, where, in 1892, a former saloonkeeper staked his future.

Pete Berry was a hard-working adventurer-turer and visionary driven by his enthusiasms. One of them was whiskey, another keeping his word. He once woke up next to a strange woman in a Flagstaff hotel room. When he tried to send her on her way, she waved a marriage certificate in his face.

Their union, which occurred during the wee hours, had slipped his mind. But the paperwork was good enough for Pete. He remained devoted to his beloved Martha for 40 years.

I like him for that story alone. But here's another one.

In February 1893, Berry pulled a rock weighing nearly 600 pounds out of the Canyon. Juggling it up 2,600 feet in 3 miles on Grandview Trail took five men six days. The gigantic specimen, nearly 70 percent pure copper, won first prize at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

In the wake of his amazing discovery, Berry saw visions of a bonanza below the Rim. But his Last Chance Mine never delivered the millions he'd hoped. Neither did his tourism venture, headquartered at his two-story log hotel, which stood on the edge of this cliff at my feet.

Berry sold his property here in 1913, a worn-out man bound for undeserved obscurity. He did, after all, shape the Canyon's future in tourism, and built the still-functioning Grandview Trail.

I'M HIKING IT NOW below a tall sky deco-rated with cotton-ball clouds. As I descend, switching, tilting and plunging toward I don't know what, the air turns cold and rattles past my teeth and shakes my lungs.

The light is so fast-changing-first pale, then exploding with orange, then sinking to husky gray-that it skews my sense of distance, making the Canyon dance in front of my eyes.

The sensation makes me think again of men like Berry and Hull, or anyone who can stare into the heart of this chameleon, this purple trickster, and believe it's conquerable. I don't get it.

But I know I'll have a chance to ponder the matter tonight as I leap over the edge in my dreams, arms out, my face twisted as I sail to glory. AH onto SR 64 to the Canyon. Forest Service Road 302 intersects 64 just south of the McDonald's in Tusayan. Grandview Point is located on Desert View Drive, 9 miles east of its intersection with 64. Desert View Drive heads east a few miles north of the park entrance.

FEES: All private vehicles must pay a $20 entry fee.

LODGING: Grand Canyon National Park Lodges, (928) 638-2631 (same-day reservations) or (888) 297-2757 (advance reservations). Williams-Grand Canyon Chamber of Commerce, toll-free (800) 863-0546.

TRAVEL ADVISORY: FR 302 can be driven in ordinary passenger vehicles. Contact the Tusayan Ranger District, (928) 638-2443, or www.fs.fed. us/r3/kai/conditions, to check road conditions.

Spittin' With the Moon and Catching an Eyeful of Florida Water

PUT TOGETHER MY OFFERING with care and difficulty. Wrapping a pinecone with a large rectangular sheet of paper proved a problem fit for a college geometry class. Still, I had to prepare my gift to the fire, to the stars, to the powers that be on this night of the full moon rising in the Tucson sky.

Tucson night skies have legendary status. Astronomers from around the world set up their telescopes or sit in front of machines in the great white observatories atop surrounding mountains.

They keep their eyes and their hopes turned to whatever might be going on out there.

On this night, I had committed to honor the rising full moon by joining a fire circle. Once a month on the Tuesday closest to the full moon, a group of Tucsonans joins in a fire ceremony. People wishing to attend write down five things they would like to develop in themselves and wrap the list in something burnable. Hence, my pinecone and paper.

Ever in search of a story, I take my pinecone, now tied with a jaunty red cord, and head for the circle to be held behind a church in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains. The question of sacrilege now merges with the familiar lament of "What have you gotten yourself into?"

My qualms seem confirmed when I see a lone man walking near the church buildings, his head covered by the hood of his sweatshirt. Geez, I might well be walking into a coven of strange beings believing in things I have no intention of ever including in my mental repertoire. With the pinecone in one pocket and a canister of pepper spray in the other, I approach the man for directions. He sends me into the desert.

I find the fire site and the small group who will honor the moon. The leader of the ceremony explains the ritual, but I'm focused on the glistening beauty of the city lights below the foothills and miss much of her talk. I do catch that we will start by honoring the four points of the compass. Then she displays the bottle she holds. "Florida Water," she says.

Florida Water? Didn't barbers once use that to gussy up their customers back in the 1900s? I reflect and then turn to face south.

With the leader starts shaking a rattle and calls on the Great Serpent. Standing behind her, I try to write in the dark. She takes a slug of Florida Water. I try to see in the dark. Then, she gives one big, powerful, loud SPIT. I jump 2 feet in the air. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I didn't sign up for spitting. And here it comes. Part of that stream of alcohol-based, Victorian-era, floral-scented Florida Water hits me directly in the right eye. Even with the help of a healthy night breeze, that dollop had to travel backward, over the leader's shoulder, about 4 yards. Good grief, who or what sent that message? I dab at my eye. The others turn west. I pivot quickly.

With all corners of the globe duly honored, with me still blinking, with the fire still blazing, our leader gives us a chant to sing in a language I have never heard. She circles the fire, we stand chanting as the celestial guest of honor reigns pure white in the pitch-black desert sky. Ah, yes, that wind keeps blowing. That wind blows right across our now-raging fire and sends smoke and cinders into my eyes, the good one and the bad.

Our group is growing as faces move to the fire from out of the darkness. One man, a gentle looking soul who may have been spending quite a bit of time in the surrounding desert, seems confused by all the goings-on. Warming his hands by the fire, he smiles as we chant and chant and chant. I gamely try to keep up, but after 45 minutes I am rendered almost mute.

We each kneel to the fire and place our offerings. Mine, I notice in less than New Age modesty, looks quite nice-red bow and all. Behind me, the leader hovers to protect me as I make my offering. I feel, for the first time during this encounter, helpless in the strangeness of the night.

We join hands for our last minutes in the circle. Now, we can ask out loud what we wish of the fire. One of the latecomers, a young man wearing black clothes and skin-piercing ornaments, says in a soft, sweet voice, "I wish we would treat Mother Earth better." Hum. I look at the faces around me, good, pleasant, kind people. My face, on the other hand, surely carries the mark of doubt, along with the soot, a one-eyed squint and a head of hair driven wild by wind. In fact, I look exactly like the strange kind of being I feared might show up for this event.

Al