The 1%

Upon hearing the words “Grand Canyon”, 99% of the world’s population pictures an endless wasteland carved by the Colorado River. The lingering 1% sees him or herself looking up to the rim of the National Park. They see the Canyon from the bottom of the abyss surrounded by wildlife and all that nature has to offer. Recently, I joined that outstanding 1%.

My Boy Scout troop had gathered the next group of boys who would make up the next Grand Canyon crew. My friends, who signed up for the trip, were overwhelmed by the intense trainings that we had to go through. Although we didn’t realize it, we were more than ready. On April 9, 2012, we started the long drive to Arizona’s National Park.

â–º  QUARTER FINALIST 2012 TEEN TRAVEL WRITING SCHOLARSHIP

The next morning, we saw the Canyon for the first time. Many of us felt scared about the journey and started to doubt our abilities. We had a short meeting where everyone decided that I should be the trail master because of my steady pace. Then we initiated our excursion down the canyon. The trail was made up of white sand that wedged into the traction of our boots. As we slowly continued to travel down the trail, the white sand started to turn darker and darker until it eventually turned to a burnt red color. The heat was overwhelming and with few shady spots to rest, the outing was extremely disagreeable. Soon enough, we reached our destination; Bright Angel campground. 

We were all extremely relieved when we reached the camp site. It felt so relaxing to finally take off our packs and lay down on the ridged camp site benches. After a satisfying meal, that we had cooked ourselves, we attempted to sleep in the uncomfortable temperature of about 90*F.  

Having been told that the next day would be easy, we woke up late and took our time to get ready. All was well at first until it reached 12:00. It felt like the temperatures reached over 100*F. When we finally found a nice shady spot near a small creek, we agreed to take a lunch break. The temperature was so hot that we decided to eliminate the heat from our system at the stream. The refreshing cool down was enough to carry us all the way up to our next camp site: Indian Garden Campgrounds. The campsite was a site for sore eyes. Our routine at the camp site was the same as the day before. That night was not as hot as the night before and was one of the most relaxing nights of the whole trip.

Taking the day before into consideration, we woke up at 4:00 the next morning and quickly cleared our camp site. I was chosen to be trail leader again and decided to go as fast as we could so we would be able to cover a large amount of the trail before the sun brought in the heat. Our way up was interesting and I learned that I am very good at hiking up hill. Our expedition kept getting harder and at many times, we felt like we couldn’t do it. However, before we knew it, we had reached the rim of the Grand Canyon. We did it! We were so proud of ourselves and were pleasantly surprised that we actually hiked the Grand Canyon.  We made so many memories and were proud that we accomplished something this grand at such a young age. This was a trip that we would never forget. This was the trip where we became the 1%.