I fell asleep excited for the morning.
Mama Bear found the perfect spot. We maneuvered the 4Runner and backed up so we had about ten feet between the back of the car and the edge of the canyon with the tent pointed outward. This put us right where we would want to be to see the sunrise in the morning without even getting out of the tent. What canyon? Well, the Grand if you must know.
If you’re like most people, you probably just glazed over imagining hordes of people and jockeying for space. Incessant noise, regulations, altered views, rangers stopping by to make sure you have the appropriate whatever. Full stop. Nope. Outside of the flock of dust suckers raging their way out of this particular peninsula in the sky, we had seen 3 other vehicles during our drive and two of those were unoccupied. We were entirely alone. No noise outside of the cicada clicking their wings in the Junipers, a little breeze and the occasional ukulele playing from Kenny. We were camped right on the end of this point and there was no one else around.
How did we get here? Well, that’s a bit of a story that Uncle Knuckler is about to layout for you.
Is this Overlanding or Car Camping?
I grew up camping.
This consisted of loading all 5 kids and 2 parents into a single cab ’72 Chevy pickup with a slide-in camper. We then headed to the hills. This often was what we called simply “The Sand,” and what most people now refer to as the Coral Pink Sand Dunes. That old Chevy was an incredibly capable rig even with the camper pulling it side to side and the washboards rattling the cupboards loose. It also helped that Papa Brinkerhoff spent a good chunk of his life off pavement and has a knack for getting through rough conditions.
These forays rarely had a singular purpose. Often they were hunting trips returning to the places my dad had hunted for as long as he can remember or heading to get firewood for the coming year or picking pine nuts so we could have a family snack during hunting season. All of those things were considered “vacations” regardless of the amount of work we were putting in, but we also headed out on more traditional vacations camping on the beach at Lone Rock or spending a weekend in the sand riding three wheelers.
I first heard the word overlanding only a couple of years ago. I’m not one who is plugged into nor cares much about trends so there’s a very good chance that this is what car camping has always been called and I’m just late to the game. This is also where I get hung up, on the semantics.
A quick search will get you a plethora of definitions, but from what I gather overlanding is new and special because it combines offroading and camping. One definition called it “distinct” due to that fusion. Ok.
If I take a step back from my cynical self, yea, I can see why we need a new phrase. Most folks going camping are rolling into a paved campground with assigned sites, paying their fee and flopping into a pre-made flat spot to pass the night. And let’s be honest, there is an insane number of people doing this. Several new campgrounds have popped up just in SG in the past couple of years and they are always full.
Grand Canyon or Bust
John hatched a plan.
It was simple. Load up the Runners and high tail it out of town. There was a promise of a place I had not seen, a lack of other people and bitchin’ views. Works for me.
We all met at the bottom of River Road which is a kind of portal into a lost place I like to refer to as NoZona. The sun had begun to dip on the horizon as we aired down and headed up the dugway. Our first destination, no idea, just wherever we can camp within the next hour or so to enjoy the stars and not sleeping in our beds at home. JT led the charge and found us an acceptable little spot tucked between a couple of knolls and surrounded by Junipers that we called home for a night.
The temperatures dropped overnight and the next morning found us lounging, sipping coffee and waiting for the sun to hit us.
Once on the move, we continued south. The road we followed went from good to worse to you don’t want to bring your sedan here, but I’m sure someone has bad. It was all good. We wandered down canyons, across valleys that felt like they went forever. All the time bouncing, jarring and sliding through the terrain. John always leading and always leaving us behind.
Part of our excursion took us over a piece of the route KB and I had biked few years ago (linked above). It was interesting to add to the mental map of how that loop sits within the greater scheme of NoZona and how much stuff there still is to be explored. Those inner questions of “what is down that road” or “just around that bend into that canyon” arose. Some were answered and others were left for our curious selves to sort out another time.
The Mount Dellenbaugh Disaster
A point of interest along our way was Mount Dellenbaugh.
Frederick S Dellenbaugh wrote A Canyon Voyage which was his first-hand account of the 2nd Powell expedition exploring the Colorado and its tributaries. Said book was my companion on my float through the Grand Canyon a few years ago. The peak we were passing by was named for him during the Powell Expedition’s exploration of the area we call the Arizona Strip (NoZona). Having read his account, I had a piqued interest in seeing the top of said mount and connecting with the past. It was also another slice of mental map connection to see where the expedition had gone and put that into the other places I had been.
Most folks venturing to the top are there for the inscription. During the 1st Powell Expedition, not the one Dellenbaugh was on, there were three men who bailed right before they were out of the canyon. They surprisingly made it up on to the plateau and to the top of Mount Dellenbaugh, most likely to survey the surrounding land. One of the men was named William Dunn and he happened to scratch his name into a rock with the date on this particular knoll.
The parking lot sits under a stand of Ponderosa Pines and while it was warm, the start of the trail was shaded and cool. We had all three dogs with us and headed out thinking this would be a quick jaunt to the top and back. The trail quickly left the Ponderosas and we were exposed to the sun and things got hot. The trail pitches up and pretty soon it was obvious that we were ill-prepared, but that has never stopped us before and it wasn’t going to stop us this time. We continued on using the little bit of water we had for the dogs and eventually made it to the top, took some photos and then headed back.
The 3-mile walk was a bit too much for our old lady Moco. Mama Bear and I took turns carrying her back to the car. She couldn’t move normally for about a week after.
During the hike, I couldn’t stop thinking about Dunn. To stand on top of this small rock and be where we know his last known spot was. The only thing that is concrete about his last days are that he made it out of the canyon and to that peak.
And then, over a hundred years later, we were there to see it.
To the Rim
After about 100 miles of bumpy roads, we made it to the rim of the canyon. Except for the group of dust suckers headed out, the peninsula was void of people. We made our way to the end of the road, found the bitchin’ campsite described above and then sat, watched the sunset, and listened to Kenny play the uke.
I’m still not 100% sure I understand this overlanding thing. It still just registers as camping in my brain, but I’m certainly willing to give it another go to see if I can figure it out. If it continues to work out the way it did on this trip, I think I’ve found another hobby.
Embrace chaos. Seek discomfort.
