A WINTER'S WALK

THE SEASON CHANGE came the second week in October. Summer ended as if a cord had been pulled. I had walked to a smooth deck of Esplanade sandstone, near the South Bass Trail, and set a camp near the edge. Sitting there barefoot, I looked up, and summer was over. Damnedest thing. This is how it happens every year. In a matter of days, the sun drops and its light turns low and angular, yawning over the canyons. Shade has a vivid autumnal coolness.

There is a different way of sleeping when fall arrives. It is described in my journal, October 12: “For the last month my world has consisted of naked sleeping, and days of cautiously stepping through narrow canyons. Now the air is sharp. I feel good. My belongings are on the rock to my left. The chill is delicate, the first I've felt since last winter.” This change of season - it's like being handed a new life.

Not many people hike the Grand Canyon in January, but Craig Childs isn't like most people. One January day, not too long ago, he hiked from the South Rim to the Colorado River, a route that's biologically equivalent to walking from the Canadian Rockies to the state of Sonora, Mexico, in less than 10 miles. Along the way, he encountered a driving winter storm, pouring rain and a mysterious, hunched-over hiker covered in plastic garbage bags.

WHAT I AM WITNESSING now is the full weight of winter. It is the second week of January. The passage from autumn to winter rarely has as sharp an edge as summer into autumn. The cold just sets in week after week, the same way summer heat gathers over the weeks until you are carry-ing it on your back. Rocks down in the desert no longer hold the heat of sunlight. Snow buries the rims.

I am coming off the South Rim on the South Kaibab Trail. It may be sunrise, but little light is getting through the storm. Fifteen feet of visibility. Winds burst out of the Canyon, assailing the rim, where I am setting the first tracks of morning. Snowdrift cornices sweep upward, coming to mid-calf, crawling up the walls of Kaibab limestone, where the wind scoops on itself.

I figured it best to use one of the large, maintained trails in this kind of weather. At its narrowest, the trail is several feet wide and hardened by millions of travelers and pack mules. The park officially documents 500 miles of trails. Trail crews maintain only 33 miles of that. But these groomed trails cannot overcome the topography of the Grand Canyon. The switch-backs aim down, like a spiral staircase.

This is one of those demanding storms. It drives snow into my ears and switches its winds from side to side as if scrambling for a foothold. The heaviest part probably is over theNorth Rim right now. There, without snowshoes, I'd be up to my armpits in snowdrifts.

It is a different kind of forest on that rim - a different world. Stands of ponderosa pine, spruce and fir dominate the North Rim, which slopes upward to more than 9,000 feet in places. In these thickets, the heavily branched trees may clutter the view. The 7,000-foot-high South Rim supports mostly well-spaced ponderosa pines, the ground usually dry to the touch and carpeted with pine needles and oak leaves. On the North Rim, the earth has a bit of mulch, where summer's Amanita mushrooms poke up through fallen aspen leaves. The elevation difference is enough to matter: The South Rim gets 16 inches of precipitation a year, while the North Rim gets 27 inches. The Canyon floor gets about 8 inches a year.

Even considering the great differences in elevation and precipitation, the mean low temperatures on both rims may differ by only 3 degrees. It tends to be about 18 degrees here. The North Rim acts like a south-facing window, bringing in sunlight. Coming down from the North Rim forests and onto the exposed Canyon walls, you will notice sunlight's direct impact. There is less shade on the north side. Snow melts quickly under clear skies as the heat draws moisture from the soil. Vegetation becomes sparse, compared to that in the sheltered canyons under the South Rim.

Look at some of the spires and temples inside the Grand Canyon. The South Rim's north-facing slopes grow thick with junipers and piñons, while the North Rim has mostly rock and some scrubby purple sage. The northern slopes, in steady sunlight, tend to be about 20 degrees warmer than those on the south side of the Canyon.

Walking down from the dry South Rim, you will come across window-box habitats, niches of coolness where lush gardens grow. The top of the South Rim itself lacks the Douglas-fir stands common to the North Rim. But in these enclaves below the South Rim, Douglas firs crouch against each other like children playing hide-and-seek, protected from the sun. I've seen healthy ponderosa pines as low as 3,500 feet, which is a flat-out desert elevation. They're tucked under ledges of Tapeats sandstone on the south side. Stand in one of these window boxes and look across. The other side of the Grand Canyon will appear mostly bare.

RIGHT NOW, I can't see much. The trail looks as if it hangs from wires over a gray and endless space. Walking down through Coconino sandstone, I am looking to my left, off the edge, which drops abruptly into nothing. I have to turn my boots sideways on the ice, under the snow, so I can find purchase with the edge of my soles. It is a cold snow, fine and dusty, lacking the doily snowflake edges you would get if it were just 5 or 10 degrees warmer. It whips around easily on the wind. On December 12, 1931, Edwin McKee, who was living at the South Rim, recorded 18 inches of snow for the day. "Early this fall," he wrote, "the Havasupai Indians were very busy gathering piñon nuts. They said there was a long, cold winter ahead. When I asked how they knew, I was told that the abundance of the nut crop gave certain evidence. Even though the weather forecasting of the Havasupais is not based on modern scientific methods, it seems to have been accurate at least on this occasion. The winter has definitely started out as a long, cold one."

This year, the first substantial snowfall arrived at the South Rim the fourth week of October: 3 inches overnight. The next day, it was melted by noon. It has turned out to be a common winter: sunlight ravaging the snow, then storms socking into canyons, spurs of clouds roaming around the inner gorges - lost for days after the storms have gone - warm afternoons on the Tonto Platform, shadows long, and rainstorms lumbering into the desert. Regardless of what larger air masses pass over the Grand Canyon, interior canyons harbor mostly deviant local winds. Because the North and South Rims are heating at vastly different rates, day-time winds drop off the south and rise up the north. In the evening, both rims radiate warmth, sending breezes toward the river. Between day and night, north and south, and the various individual canyons, a sloshing effect is created inside the Grand Canyon. Imagine a tub of water being rocked back and forth, only this is a tub of air, rocked by differential heating. A test station set on the south side found that more than half of the Grand Canyon winds are either rising straight out of the canyons or falling into them. Even with all of this swishing around, winds rarely transport air over the rims and out of the Canyon. The air that is down there stays there. It is visible when pollution drops into the interior. The haze stirs evenly between canyons but cannot escape. These ver-

My vertical columns of air are trapped there

Vertical winds can be felt from low in the canyons, especially early on summer evenings, when threads of air trace the bottoms where water might run. You breathed this same air in the morning beforeit blew to the rim and came back.

In the mid-1930s, an assistant chief ranger named George Collins penned his observations of Canyon winds, which he called "wind rivers of the Grand Canyon." He noticed that the airplanes were lifted when they crossed over the Canyon during the heat of the day.

He wrote: "Apparently, the air rolls and twists in a continuous side play, attendant on the general trend. But in all the mysterious tumult of convection currents, which one would see if the air were visible, the great updraft would no doubt be the most imposing feature. Just as a symphony is built around a central theme, so does our fountain 'carry the air' in the magnificent symphony of inner-Canyon winds."

THE WINDS THIS MORNING are of a different nature. They are winter-storm winds, built of turbulence from a large system dragging itself over the Canyon. Vortices are set up behindcliff faces, great swirling eddies inscribed in the clouds. I stop Now I see the ravens. They rise out of the abyss, taking form where there should be nothing. Two of them look like black shreds of fabric hurled against the storm. They spin up, pausing over my head to take account of this figure standing in the clouds. This close, I can see the curve of their armored toes, tucked under as if holding a marble or a stone. (Damn ravens, coming here without parkas or backpacks or extra food. Swirling through this storm as if it were a playground.) I have to protect my eyes with a hand. The wind takes snow down my neck, against my skin. Once the ravens get a good look at me, they continue up and are absorbed. And I'm standing here alone.

TURN BACK down the trail. Within a couple of minutes, I see someone coming up. He moves slowly, working his boots through the snow. Head down. Shoulders humped forward. He must have started walking from the desert during the night, or slept in the snow, which is not too uncomfortable if a person has the right gear and the proper mind-set. As he approaches, I can see he looks like he's just been rolled from a Dumpster. Plastic garbage bags cover his body. He's torn a hole in the bottom of one in order to breathe and see ahead. The clothes underneath are insufficient. Maybe he's got a sweater and coat. In both hands are walking sticks, their tops splintered as if they were hastily broken for this purpose.

He doesn't notice me until I am about 4 feet away. When he sees my legs in the snow, he inches his head up a notch. His face looks like a result of a trying night. Dull, vacant eyes. He can't hold eye contact. Late 20s, maybe 30s. "Be careful down there," he says, with more of a groan than an actual voice.

Down there. As if he had just climbed out of a monster's stomach - the empty space that gave birth to the ravens. I ask whether he needs help. In the same ponderous tone, with a touch of anger, he says, "That Canyon almost killed me."

As he passes, I turn and ask again, offering food or water. He does not stop, does not ask how far to the rim. In fact, his pace has not altered at all. "I'll make it," he says. I look for a limp or some sign of injury. There seems to be nothing but fatigue. He's close enough to the top that he'll be out within an hour. Like the ravens, he is taken in by the storm above me. Is he delirious? Has he fallen? I imagine him sledding down, arms flailing, and catching a piñon trunk just at the edge of a chasm, snow spraying all around him. His comment about the Canyon made it sound as if it were malevolent down there, as if he had narrowly escaped and the Canyon still had his hair in its teeth.

OI FOLLOW HIS TRACKS. They keep to the trail down to Cedar Ridge, a clearing of hitching posts for mules and three outhouses. The outhouses are sturdy structures with a deck and solid wooden doors. His tracks begin here. I open the middle door and am confronted with a nest. My first thought is that some large animal burrowed here. It looks like a mouse nest on a huge scale. Wood chips, used for the composting toilets, are a foot deep all over the floor. Food wrappers lie unfolded. A bag of bread. A candy bar. A flashlight is propped on the toilet-paper dispenser. He slept here, using the chips as insulation. A locked storage closet joins the back of one of the toilets. Its door hangs off its hinges, ripped from the wall. He had found the plastic bags and wood chips in there,

The rocks do not bear ill will, nor will they offer to save you. The personalities of storms deal with updrafts, moisture content and temperature, not with grudges or malice. A person must learn how to move inside of this place.

as well as the broom handle he'd busted for walking sticks. A box of screws and various small tools he had examined and rejected.

I would later discover that he had hiked to Phantom Ranch, down at the river, with the intention of returning to the rim that night. It was a day hike. Backpackers had tried to talk him into staying. He had refused, mentioning that he needed to catch a plane. He accepted their offerings of a flashlight, bread and candy, setting off for the South Rim in the late afternoon. When he reached the only emergency phone on the trail - at some outhouses 2,000 feet below here he was desperate. Night had come. A storm had set in, bringing rain and wind. He had no idea that it would turn to snow above him. He made a call to the ranger at Phantom Ranch, and he sounded panicked. He wasn't asking for anything, just wanted to hear a human voice, said he had to catch a plane. The ranger patched him through to someone closer, but in the transfer, he dropped the phone and continued up the Canyon. The phone dangled off the hook, draining its solar battery.

He arrived at Cedar Ridge in a blizzard. Ice had formed on his clothing, and he probably was suffering from hypothermia. When he found these outhouses, he found plastic bags and wood chips, enough to keep him alive. If he had not reached Cedar Ridge, I probably would have come across his body below O'Neill Butte, curled in the mud in one of the sheltered alcoves. No one at the Canyon knew his name or ever saw him again. There are only a few trails with outhouses and emergency phones. He was lucky.

The Grand Canyon was not the thing that almost killed him, as he had said. The Canyon is here, with its winds and sunshine at random intervals. There is no pretense. The rocks do not bear ill will, nor will they offer to save you. The personalities of storms deal with updrafts, moisture content and temperature, not with grudges or malice. A person must learn how to move inside of this place. Like the ravens. I close the door and continue into the Canyon.

BENEATH O'NEILL BUTTE, at the rim of the Redwall limestone, snow turns to rain. The Supai mud on top of the Redwall is a sloppy red, spattering on my pants legs. Clothes start coming off, layer by layer. It no longer is freezing. In fact, it is above 35 degrees. This is where the clouds end. They look like a smooth underbelly, one solid mass hovering midway down the Canyon. Below here, everything is visible, all the surrounding canyons and towers poking into the cloud ceiling. But there is no direct sunlight. The green of Bright Angel shale stands out in this rich, wet light. It looks like the color of Army fatigues before they've been washed. The trail takes me to the river, where it must be 50 degrees, and the rain has stopped. Water has simply evaporated into the greater atmosphere. Looking up, I see that the entire world is under the weight of this storm. I can hold my hands up flat to its underside. I am now in a cotton shirt, sleeves rolled. I cross the Colorado River at a black footbridge and stop in the middle. Water sweeps below, greenish but mostly clear this season. Following the water is a current of cold air. It is a coolness that will last well into the spring. The river in April is a checkerboard of temperatures and light breezes. Pockets of warm and cool air drift over the water during the change of seasons. Warm air will float off the sunlit rocks. Cold air is from the river. By July, all of the air will turn hot. But, for now, air over the river feels like the breath of an icebox.

SINCE I GOT OUT OF THE HARD COLD, and especially down at the Redwall where the snow ceased, scents have been rising out of the Canyon: wet plants - blackbrush, brittlebush, broom snakeweed and catclaw acacia. The pungent smell of wet poreleaf bush is strongest near the Vishnu schist. And within 500 feet of the river, the slightly sweet scent of arrowweed comes up.

From rim to river are five biotic communities in the Grand Canyon Hudsonian, Canadian, Transition, Upper Sonoran and Lower Sonoran and each has a different scent in wet weather. Walking through these communities (starting up in the snow and reaching the river by mid-morning) is like walking from the Canadian Rockies to the state of Sonora, Mexico, in less than 10 miles. This explains why the garbage-bag man chose to walk out. He was in the desert when he decided to turn back. How could he have known he was walking into a Canadian blizzard?

During the summer, at least between monsoon storms, the smells are more robust up top and meager in the lower zones marking a time of dormancy in the desert and a time of activity in the forest. The opposite is true this time of year. Plants are frozen in place on the rim, while an entirely different set of species thrives in the mild temperatures at the bottom.

Between these extremes, more than 1,700 separate species of plants have been documented inside the Grand Canyon, which is comparable to the species diversity of the more lush, mountainous parks such as Sequoia or Yosemite. Yet, looking into the Grand Canyon, you will see mostly rock. The plant life appears like nothing but an afterthought, sprinkled conservatively across the few places horizontal enough to support any life at all. The Canyon's miscellany of climates allows for such a flourish of species. Considering the sheer volume of land within the Grand Canyon and the difficulties of surveying each of these canyons, there probably is a fair number of species yet to be documented. The Grand Canyon was not even botanically surveyed until 1938, when botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter journeyed down the river. What they found was a multi-storied treehouse of environments. They cataloged the plants they had seen or discovered, then mentioned that the Canyon walls furnished opportunities for careful study into miniature, isolated climates.

This morning I have walked through half a globe of climates and ecosystems to reach this river. These are places where a disoriented hiker can easily become trapped in heavy snows and places where each day of July exceeds 105 degrees. It is an elaborate landscape, even when looking beyond the shapes of canyons that first catch the eye. AH