Laura's Pilgrimage

Laura and I were at the pool yesterday, discussing her pilgrimage of faith in Spain last year and her two hikes alone in the Grand Canyon when she was in her early 30s. She is my age but much more of a loner than I am. She told me her amazing stories of endurance, describing hikes that I would have never attempted alone at any age. She is truly the bravest person I know personally.

According to experts, more than half million people have run the Colorado River and more than a million have hiked or camped in the Grand Canyon since its establishment as a National Park in 1919. My question would be, who counted and how?

The Grand Canyon as I’ve seen it with my husband from the South Rim is an otherworldly void of gigantic proportions which caused me to experience vertigo as my eyes could not rest as a point of reference on any rock formation jutting menacingly but also beautifully out of the ground; if you could only suspend the fact that the layers are nothing but impaling and unforgiving sharp rocks with the appearance of delicate lace. Some compared the Grand Canyon to the “dry rock version of the middle of the ocean, an impenetrable void.” No surprise there as the canyon was once under an ocean.

My friend Laura hiked down into the Grand Canyon to the Colorado River alone, spent the night in the camp at the bottom in a tent and then climbed back up to the South Rim the next morning. She carried the two gallons of water, her tent, rations of food, and everything else she would have needed in order to survive and be able to withstand the intense heat in the canyon. How intense was the heat? Upwards of 120-degree Fahrenheit.

The second hike was from one end of the Grand Canyon to the other. She recounted spending the night on a boulder shaped like a couch and watching the most incredible sky filled with stars she has ever experienced. During the day it was rough, always watching where she stepped, watching for unstable rocks, potential rattlesnakes, Challa cacti, and scorpions. She was always on the lookout for water as well.

At one point, she ran into two guys who looked like they were up to no good. As they approached and asked her for small change, she told them she had none and, they would have no place to spend it anyway. Luckily, they turned around and left her alone. She had prepared her hunting knife to deal with them and she was trained in karate.

I am in awe that she had the fortitude, resilience, physical strength, and courage to complete such arduous treks alone through the most unforgiving canyon in the world. I would have never attempted such dangerous hikes in the world’s largest canyon.

Laura completed the Way of St. James, the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition says that the remains of the apostle are buried.

The Rue Saint-Jacques in Paris was an important north-south road in Roman Gaul. If you look down to the pavement, you will see bronze medallions in the shape of scallop shells which mark the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

The pilgrimage of St. James is 500 miles long. It starts in Saint Jean Pied de Port, France, and travels westwards across Spain to Santiago de Compostella in Galicia. Walking pilgrims take 30-35 days to complete the journey. Laura did it in 30 days.

I did not ask Laura how damaged her feet were or the amount of pain and suffering she experienced to complete her pilgrimage in Spain or the two hikes in the Grand Canyon. The resilience of youth and personal strength and determination at an older age when faith drives us are boundless. And Laura exemplifies those characteristics and more.

I met a 51-year-old very athletic woman, Army high-ranking officer, who had hiked the Grand Canyon all the way down to the Colorado River from the South Rim when she was 34 years old, with her then 3year old son and her husband. She carried her son in her backpack while her husband carried the gallons of water needed to survive and food. They hiked down at daybreak and came back up the same day. She remarked that her son, an adult today, still has some memories of that hike.

I am not sure why adults put their children's lives in danger, i.e., infants, toddlers, and elementary school age ones. I understand that some adults are adrenaline junkies, others have a need to challenge themselves against the most desolate and dangerous places Mother Nature has to offer, for bragging rights, but to me, life is more precious than gambling it away to prove that you can do it, you came back alive and now have temporary or permanent injuries to prove it.

But my friend Laura did it for her faith, to be closer to God and that is an amazing reason.

Of the more than six million people who visit the Grand Canyon annually, most of whom only spend 90 minutes inside the park which is a World Heritage Site and one of the most amazing of the World’s Seven Natural Wonders, fly or drive from near and far to this massive void because it is a large area of wilderness unlike anywhere else on the planet. It is not a safe place, but people are overcome with such an adrenaline rush of awe and wonder that it shuts off the rational part of their brains.