North from Dante's View

But, man, was it warm! One day we stuck a thermometer in the sand, and watched the needle jump up to 140. In the shade, though, it was only 88. And the humidity registered a dry 20 percent. Actually, the heat was much more bearable than Iowa in July. Nevertheless, we all acquired that dehydrated feeling, and consumed water by the quart. (As for feeling dried out, it was in keeping with our food: we brought only dehydrated foods, which have to be cooked in water for quite long periods. It's amazing what good meals you can make from that type of food: chili, cocoa, a punch-like soft drink, pudding, corn bread, gingerbread, pancakes. It may not stack up to steak and French fries in a gourmet's mind, and our mouths soon began watering for malted milks, but it was nourishing and satisfied our hunger if not our appetites.

One of the hidden fears most of us brought along was for the snakes and scorpions we heard populate Arizona. Well, some of us did chance across some scorpions, and developed a strong respect for them; but the only rattler we encountered all the time we were in the canyon was one we met one evening coiled around some brush. We were very impolite; we didn't stick around to get acquainted.

Your chamber of commerce and weatherman must cooperate fully: when we left Des Moines the night of June 4th, a heavy hail storm had just let up, and a gentle rain was starting to fall. It fell off and on much of the night. Next day, we drove under cloudy skies through most of Kansas. We ran into some fog (or low clouds) in southwest Colorado. When we crossed from northwest New Mexico into northeast Arizona, it was raining slightly again. But by the time we reached Kayenta, chugged over 35 miles of road to Betatakin, and camped there that night, we had nothing but clear skies. As a matter of fact, as we peeked out of our sleeping bags, we saw more stars than any of us ever had seen before. It wasn't until we had been in the canyon at least four days that even one cloud appeared, and a brief shower sprinkled a few drops of welcome relief.

Just what were we doing in Nakai? Like the adventurers of old, we were exploring, hoping to find some old Indian ruins. Judging from some of the reports about our trip, one would think we simply decided on the spur of the moment to drive to Arizona without any adequate preparations. Actually, the trip had been planned for a year. It started in the summer of 1952, when three of the group first heard about Nakai and entered it themselves. Right then and there, they visualized the 1953 trip... a challenge to an entire expedition. So the idea was brought back to Des Moines, and began growing.

The boys who were to make the trip, Explorer scouts at least 14 years old, started lining up the money. Each was assessed 80 dollars just for the trip; in addition, most of us spent a like amount purchasing the equipment we might not already have. We began "reading up" on the ancient Anazai Indian culture, learning something of the history of the early Americans who roamed that area many hundreds of years ago. We backgrounded ourselves on Indian pottery, learned to tell a potsherd from an arrowhead. We frowned on anyone who didn't know the Basketweavers from the Developmental Pueblos. We knew Betatakin, where it was, how it looked, who once lived there, before the last of the winter's snows had melted from the Iowa cornfields.

We practiced rapelling down the sides of steep hills; We gave a whirl to cooking dehydrated food; lined up everything we figured would be needed for first-aid equipment. Each of us had at least two physical examinations, and a dentist carefully probed each tooth in each head. (Maybe he figured we were about to bite off more than we could chew?) We nearly bought out the entire supply of one shoe store's special hiking boots, and got to be known on a first-name basis with the local war surplus shops.

It wasn't long until the parents became as excited as the boys: fathers, showing obvious longings they, too, might go, began showing up at our planning sessions; little brothers developed feelings of envy, and many was the mother who said she would be glad to join us as chief cook and bottle washer.

The task of rounding up our food began, arrangements were made for the bus that was to take us, and those in charge spent hours poring over maps and charts. Then came the night of the final equipment shakedown, and, finally, THE night itself!

We all gathered at a school building, moms and dads standing in the background as the final briefings were given. Then, with the blaring of automobile horns, we headed out for Arizona. (In our ears was a scout executive's 11th hour warning: "Do what you're told, don't anyone get hurt or lost, and have a good time." Certainly, no one counted on any unfortunate incident such as was to mar the trip before we even left the canyon.) Other than that it was quite a long trip and the bus was filled to capacity with a flock of eager boys and leaders, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the bus ride. That is, if there's nothing unusual about getting out and walking now and then. Our first experience with finding the bus developing opposition to hills came early the Sundaymorning we crossed into Arizona. We had found ourselves running behind schedule, so rather than head through Albuquerque and Flagstaff, we decided on a short cut . . . a branch highway that swept northwest from south of Santa Fe. We arrived at Ship Rock, New Mexico, and found a gravel road listed on detailed maps (very detailed), and also a sign reading, "Enter at your own risk." Now, this was about 1:30 in the a.m. It was quite hot in the bus, and the road terribly dusty. We rode with the windows closed and handkerchiefs over our mouths, chugging along, no one able to sleep. Suddenly, we rounded a curve and started up a short but sharp incline. Ol' Bess just wouldn't make it. So out we climbed. At least the air outside was cooler, and we enjoyed that, but when the situation repeated itself three more times that night, it became a little tiresome. It was a mighty weary bunch of boys who pulled into Kayenta 118 miles and six hours later. But, as was proved before on the trip, it took only a good breakfast to put the group in running order again. And when we arrived at Betatakin that afternoon, there was no trace of weariness as the boys scampered up and down the trails, marveling at the almost indescribable splendor of the ancient ruins hidden so many years from the White Man's eyes.

That night we had no trouble sleeping; it was cool and clear, and by the time the first fire was glowing the next morning the boys had to break out their jackets: the temperature was only 45 degrees.Then the ride to an Indian hogan where we picked up, and packed up, our eight horses; the hot walk over some three miles of dusty plateau, into a small woods, out onto a vast rock mesa, and then the first glimpse of Nakai.

I doubt that any two of us experienced the same reaction to what each of us saw at that moment: for some it no doubt was disappointing if they had expected something similar to Grand Canyon. Those of us who had visualized a narrow, straight slash in the earth, similar to the Royal Gorge, were surprised; so were those who had expected nothing but a Death Valley-like stretch of flat desert. Probably none of us had counted on seeing what actually lay before us; it was different than anything we ever had seen before, and coming upon it as we did. . . having it stretch like a giant, endless breach in the earth as far as the eye could see, suddenly spread open like a book as we broke through the curtain of trees . . . was breathtaking. We all hurried to drink in the picture with film, to capture the vast feeling of desolation, arrest in the speed of a camera'sshutter the thousands of years of erosion and sun and wind and rain that had produced this quiet giant work of nature.

But still ahead was the job of getting to the bottom of the canyon. It was impossible to go straight down; we had to walk a slight downgrade the length of one mesa, about a mile and a half, then double back the same distance. Even after we reached bottom we still had another two miles to walk to find what was to be our camp. We were in trees, there was little wind, and it was hot. We could feel our backs soaking wet beneath the heavy packs, and our walk was slowed by sheer exhaustion. Right then many of us realized we just weren't in good enough shape to do all we had planned, but we thought a good night's rest might cure a lot of things. Sure enough, next morning nearly everyone started out bright and early on side trips, hoping to make a big "find."

But, the big find wasn't found that day; instead, many of the boys came in late in the afternoon feeling tired, a different kind of tired. Some of us had no appetite, all we wanted to do was drink. We began dreaming of ice cream, root beer, ice water. We didn't realize it right away, but we were enjoying the symptoms of dehydration. We just couldn't get enough liquid in our systems.

As we sat around our campfires our third night in the canyon someone mentioned that "Bud and Phil" hadn't come back from their day's explorations. However, the word passed 'round that Bud and Phil had planned staying out the night in the event they should come across some interesting ruins and couldn't get back by dark. (Whether that advance word really had been given still is questionable.) At any rate, no one evidenced any over-concern; both boys were experienced campers and top scouts, and despite the size of the canyon, we couldn't believe anyone really would be lost if they were in the immediate area. (It wasn't until later we learned how far the boys had walked.) The following day, Thursday, all of us were again back to normal and went our separate exploring ways again. The day proved interesting for us all, with the result we came to camp quite late in the afternoon to start dinner. As we put on a pot of water, one of the other leaders called me aside and said, "Bud and Phil aren't back yet; we'd better organize a search." Needless to say, we cooked and ate that meal in jig-time, checked flashlight batteries, strapped on our first aid kits and rope, and started walking. Our two Indian guides had gone ahead on horseback. We covered about five miles the first hour, even though it soon was pitch dark, And we were now walking over territory none of us had gone over before. My group suddenly came over a hill and spotted a fire off in the west; we headed for it, hoping it would be a clue, and thinking it would be but a short distance. But if distances are deceiving in the daytime down there, they were considerably more so at night. And it seemed we walked many miles to reach the fire. It turned out to be a huge signal fire the Indians had set; there was no sign of the boys. We realized we would have no luck searching further at night, and turned back.

Again, everyone was exhausted; some of us had been hiking most of the day, and it still was quite warm. The return walk took an unbearably long time. And, as always happens when some are more tired than others, we became separated into smaller groups. The bunch I was leading developed more than its share of difficulties: one boy sprained an ankle, another hurt his foot, and a third fell asleep during a rest stop. But we kept walking, and walk-ing, to all appearances resembling Napoleon's army retreat-ing from Moscow! The more we walked the closer we came to camp, we thought. But we had taken a wrong turn in the darkness, turned up the wrong wrong creek bed. Were we lost? While looking for the others who were really lost? It's not a pleasant feeling, and luckily we got back on the right trail shortly.

But even though we were convinced we were on the right path now, we didn't seem to be coming any closer to a familiar landmark we knew was near our camp, and the outline of which we could see against the stars. By now, two of us were half-carrying the boy with the sprained ankle; it was about midnight, and we'd been on the go some 18 hours. What if the others had gone to bed and the fires had gone out? How would we ever find camp? All we could think of was sleep, and water; most of the can-teens long since had gone dry. At last we rounded one more curve and spotted the campfire roaring merrily.

After we limped in and sat around sipping cocoa, two of the boys volunteered to walk the 20-odd miles out of the canyon to the ranger station and report Bud and Phil miss-ing; we leaders reluctantly agreed, in the hope more experi-enced search crews could be organized and on the job by the time the rest of the expedition was ready to leave. For leave we must: our food was running low, and although we hated to pull out while the two boys were missing, we had no other choice. For me it was a particularly tough decision: as a newsman (on vacation, but still a newsman), I had one of the best stories of my career sitting in my lap, a clear scoop; yet I also was responsible for my eight boys and our leadership already had been cut down because two of the top leaders had to stay while the search went on.

We began walking out of the canyon after breakfast. If the trip down tired me, the walk back up was mur-der! The sun showed no mercy, and the air was deathly still. I had expected the hike to be rough, and it was. It took some of us five hours to climb from the bottom of the canyon, our base camp, to the top and walk most of the way to the Indian hogan where we regrouped for the ride to the ranger station. Even after we had all lined up taking turns at a refreshing, cold shower, I still wasn't able to eat anything solid: I just drank water and fruit punch half the night.

Saturday morning, two small planes began buzzing the ranger station: the search was on. Another leader and I drove into Kayenta, ostensibly looking for our overdue bus, but also to check with civil air patrol headquarters. We also decided to bring some "civilized" food back to the boys, and walked into a restaurant to stock up. There was only one woman on duty, and she nearly fainted when we ordered 40 hamburgers. To speed things up, and pacify her, we helped cook. Needless to say, when we delivered the hamburgers, we were acclaimed heroes; acclaimed, that is, between bites.

From that point on, it was a matter of driving back to Des Moines stopping when we could to try learning how the search was going back at the canyon. The boys voluntarily agreed to forego part of their meals in the belief any money we might thereby save could be added to the reward fund we thought might be needed to further the search. And we all were greatly relieved when, during a lunch stop in Texas, we learned the boys had been found alive and none the worse for their experience.

We pulled into Des Moines the following Tuesday morning, to find our welcoming committee had been greatly enlarged: now, in addition to the anxious parents, there was a fairly sizable crew of reporters and photographers on hand. Nakai canyon had made a name for itself!

Now that it's over, I think none of us would trade the expedition for any amount of money. Many of us already are talking of a repeat trip. We like your state; we had a rough time, but a good time. We found you have a lot of good folks.

Thanks for letting us visit you!