a leap into the grand canyon

I stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon two Monday mornings ago. It was 3:15 in the morning and the inside of the canyon was an abyss. We had briefly taken in the expansive views the afternoon prior, so I had an idea of the contours and a sense of the depth, but now it was all invisible but for the nearest walls that towered beside us like shadows, barely illuminated by the almost full moon.

It was just me and my two oldest friends, Chris and Jon, and after a few quiet moments of reckoning we switched on our headlamps and took the first steps of the longest run of our lives into the negative space and the negative sound. Single-file, loose rocks underfoot, switching the switchbacks, trying to ignore the massive drops on one side of the narrow trail. At one point, maybe 20 minutes in and a few thousand feet below the South Rim, I stopped to settle myself and take in the moment. As I looked over at Chris and Jon rounding a corner up ahead, my headlamp cast their running shadows at least a hundred feet tall across the nearest canyon wall.

We’ve been friends for 30 years, but the Grand Canyon run for the three of us, or really any run at all, wasn’t ever a thought until six months ago when the idea was hatched during a rambling Zoom call over a couple of beers. “You know what would be amazing…” one of us said. Another of us doesn’t even remember the conversation. But another of us texted the group a few days later: “That Grand Canyon thing. We should totally do that.” Seven days later we dipped our toes into a 25-week training program and began a 25-week text thread involving thousands of messages: support, humor, life updates, proof of training, pictures of family, high school memories. We never ran a single step together in our training, and it had been years since we had even seen each other, but I have never felt closer to these guys.

Deciding to attempt the rim-to-rim-to-rim roundtrip traverse of the Grand Canyon - from the South Rim all the way to the North Rim and then back down and out to the South Rim - was a leap of faith. It is a legendary single-day route in the ultra-running subculture: 42 or 44 miles total depending on your route. We were not ultra-runners. Chris had never run more than 8 miles in his life.

The term “leap of faith” was first coined by Danish Existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard who recognized that there are important moments in our lives when we face choices for which rational and logical thinking are insufficient, thus requiring faith as the catalyst for decision or action. Running the canyon together seemed immensely illogical given our state of conditioning, the distance between us, the busy-ness of our lives, our lack of experience. But it also, somehow, felt right. So we leapt.

We were down to the Colorado River by 5:00. We had still yet to see another human being; the river rafters camped on the other side of the footbridge were still tucked in. By that point the canyon was gently illuminated by the predawn light: sky gray, river jade, canyon walls and peaks stacking for as far as we could see in all four directions, muted reds and greens. We turned to see a long thin trail behind us, weaving its way back to the south rim and the setting moon. We had come a long way down and the reward was the feeling of feeling so, so tiny: dwarfed by the immeasurable grandeur and humbled by the ineffable beauty.

It had occurred to me weeks ago, in the middle of a long training run and the deep reflection that often accompanies such an activity, that while it was a leap of faith, this Grand Canyon journey was actually also a full expression of all of my core values. I had settled on them five or six years ago on a flight to New York: Love, Beauty, Freedom, Connection, Adventure. And as we stood alone and marveled at our impossible surroundings, I felt each of them all at once.

A lot had happened in the 6 months between the hatching of the idea and the slow descent to the Phantom Ranch cabins just across on the north side of the river that we jogged through quietly so as not to wake the lucky visitors who won the lottery for a night spent at the bottom of the canyon. Jon made a move from one company to another, taking on an enormous role and a heavy dose of travel. Chris wrapped up one court case, a huge victory representing the families of the Sandy Hook victims in a righteous defeat of Alex Jones, and prepared for, tried, and won another case. I stepped away from an operations role in a company I have owned for 20 years to start a coaching company (which I called LEAPP). That was a leap of faith, too, and also an expression of my core values.

There were also birthdays, school dances, tennis tournaments, ski trips, performances, injuries, family members fighting cancer, new pets, the death of a classmate, hangovers, worries about teenage kids, house projects, Covid tests, and hundreds and hundreds of miles. We shared them all on a text thread as long as the path from rim to rim. On most long runs, we called each other to help pass the time and a few miles. Love, Beauty, Freedom, Connection, Adventure.

As we left Phantom Ranch on the Kaibab trail and headed north along the creek, we still had yet to see anyone on the trail. Now the sun was coming up, we had polished off a P, B, and J sandwich and a bag of potato chips, and we crammed 2.5 liters of water into our running vests. No more water stops for another 14 or 18 miles.

I had told the guys that I wanted to spend a few hours in silent meditation during the run, so I took this time to head out in front by a hundred yards or so. I began reciting my running mantra: Peace is Every Step. Each word goes with a foot fall: left, right, left, right. And the last word, step, is tied to an exhale. I fell into rhythm and kept the mantra loop for four or five miles of gradual climbing upstream along the Bright Angel Creek, still gushing with the ice melt of a long, stormy winter.

We crossed over the creek - more like a river this day - four or five times on bridges before eventually rounding a corner to a creek crossing where there was no bridge and no chance that any leap of faith would get us to the other side. We caught our breath and realized immediately that this was as far north as we would get. We’d been warned about this section at the backcountry office yesterday evening. 15 miles into our journey, it was already time to turn around, and it was still only just past 7.

There was some chagrin over the fact that we couldn’t get any closer to the north rim, but our spirits were also lifted by the rising sun, the colors it brought out in the canyon, and especially the gentle downslope that quickened our progress. Chris and I broke into song, him running just a few steps ahead. He started “A long, long time ago…” and I immediately joined with “I can still remember, how the music used to make me smile.” We kept on, through the many verses and choruses. Chris and I used to sing to and from Dunkin’ Donuts in high school back in the mid-90s. Hootie and the Blowfish, Pearl Jam, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Snoop Dogg. We sang on road trips to visit Jon at Franklin and Marshall back in college, and on long drives in Arizona to get beer when Chris was teaching on a Navajo reservation after graduation. We sang Les Miserables, the duet between Javert and Valjean, any chance we got.

Singing while we ran felt like 30 years of friendship compressed inside the familiar bars of an old radio favorite, sung in breathy harmony, voices echoing faintly on the walls, to the rhythm of our shuffling feet, right feet falling on the 2 and the 4 along the rocky path of the canyon floor.

We were back at Phantom Ranch, not quite at the marathon mark, by 9 in the morning, and by now the place was full of action. Hikers gearing up to head back out; the first pack of donkeys coming in with the day’s supplies. For the rest of the trip we’d be pretty constantly around people with the numbers increasing the closer we got to the South Rim. We knew once we crossed back over the river and began to climb the remarkably steep switch backs, 800 vertical feet per mile, that it was going to be a long slog to the finish line. Even though it was not yet 10, the sun was already doing its work as the temperatures climbed past 80 and we neared the 50K mark that we commemorated with a picture that captures our combination of pride, fatigue, and unmasked intimidation over the remaining climb.

The last 6 miles would take us almost 3 hours. By the time we crawled out of the canyon it was early afternoon and the South Rim was teeming with people, making the scene that was so solitary and mystical 11 hours ago, now claustrophobic and commercial. We had a quick hug, posed for a picture and otherwise make a quick exit to the car and a 90 minute drive back to Flagstaff for one more night together.

We sang tunes on the way back and sent proof of life messages to our families. I hobbled into the beer store a few blocks from our house, alarming the cashier with my dusty limbs, sunscreen smeared face, and slow, shaky gait. After showers and burritos we cracked beers to cheers one another, but the festivities were brief. A few sips in and both Chris and Jon were asleep on the couch. It was just past 6 and I sat up alone, finished my beer, watched a few minutes of basketball. Then I called it a night. An early end to a long, memorable, and awesome day. Love, Beauty, Freedom, Connection, Adventure.