6 Mile Journey

We got up early in order to go to a meeting with one of the Deputy Superintendents of the Grand Canyon National Park. We had the opportunity to better understand the inner working of the park from a larger scale and the issues that the leadership staff of the park face every single day. He described his past work throughout his life from leadership positions within his native tribe all the way to his work on the hill in Washington, D.C. It was interesting to hear his perspective on the work that the National Park Service (NPS) does as he did not originally agree with some of the work that the NPS does, as it has had a complicated and muddy history. We then had the opportunity to ask him personal questions one of which was how the park decides to deal with the parking dilemma, which we had faced all week during our service work. He opened up the dialogue and listened to the solutions that we thought could help alleviate the situation.

After our meeting with the Deputy Superintendent we had the opportunity to visit the Kolb studio. The Kolb brothers were pioneers in taming the Grand Canyon and helping bring in tourists to show how important the preservation of the lands truly are. Once we finished with the studio tour we decided to go for a hike along the Bright Angel Trail into the Grand Canyon. The hike down was absolutely beautiful despite the rugged path and physical difficulty. We ended up hiking down to the 1.5 mile marker and took a break to enjoy the view and give our bodies a rest. Most of the group decided to turn back at this point but Cooper and I decided to continue to trek down to the 3 mile marker, which was absolutely worth it as it gave an expanded view of the valley down below into the canyon. We made it down to the 3 mile marker and then trekked our way back to the top it was a tough climb but once we finished our 6 mile round trip hike we were able to look back and be proud of the journey we completed. To end the long busy day that we had we went out to watch the sun set across the canyon bringing our long day to a close!

– Trevor