2025 Grand Canyon Thunder River (VIII): Deer Creek Falls And The Colorado

 This day was something that seldom happens to through hikers:  a day where we did not move camp.  It was also noteworthy for a second thing: we got a "late" start.

Breakfast was oatmeal and coffee (so in other words, like almost every other breakfast I have in real life).

Our total mileage today would end up being a very short (but not light) two miles down Deer Creek to Deer Creek Falls.

Slot canyons are fascinating to me.  The narrowness and the depth are almost hypnotic if you stare into them too long.

A handprint dating at least hundreds of years if not more.  FOTB (Friend Of This Blog) and resident optimist Ed, who visited this place 25 years ago, has an interesting story related to it.

Multiple hands, we were told, represents a family.

Emerging from the Slot Canyon at the Colorado.  From here, we go down.

Deer Creek Falls:

Just after where the falls hit the ground, there is a pool deep enough to fall back and go underwater in.  Names at the moment the Deer Creek Falls Baptism, we all had a go (even, atypically, me).

We spent about four hours along the Colorado River, soaking up the sun and the coolness of the water.  We had high hopes that rafters would float by so we could hit them up for some beer, but sadly we were out of luck.

Looking back to Deer Creek Falls:

This cheeky fellow insisted on hanging out with us for a while:

Plato, the Colorado River, whisky, and no cell service.  This may be peak living.

Lunch was peanut butter and jelly tortillas with Fritos inside.  This may be the most iconic hiking food I know of.

All too soon of course, we had to head back.

After our hike back, we were at leisure for the afternoon a combination of napping, chatting, walking the canyon, and just relaxing.

The amount of layers in what was a 3 foot section of rock was amazing.

For dinner we had rice and bean burritos.  Everything tastes better on the trail.

Bats feeding at sunset:

On Planning For 2026

As longtime readers of this blog may recall, traditionally the month of December is at least partially consumed by the setting of goals for the coming year.

It derives from readings done years and years ago when I had much more of a "succeed in business" drive, where the importance of planning and laying out goals to achieve was emphasized.  And usually I am knee deep in writing and re-writing those goals right now.  

This year, I have done almost nothing in that respect.

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I have to admit that there are two factors that have resulted in this outcome. One of them - a rather biggish one - is given the past two years with multiple changes in locations and jobs, trying to set goals based on things that are effectively immediately outside of my control seems positively ludicrous.  In retrospect, planning for something that requires a location, access to something, particular people, or even blocks of time is completely thrown out the window when a significant life change or three comes one's way (To be completely fair, I now spend my time waiting for the second shoe to drop).

The second factor is a realization that I have a lot of internal work to do.

If I have learned anything over last year from Iaijutsu (both training in Japan as well as at my new dojo), thinking a great deal about humility, writing about Essentialism, being back in the position of a manager (or "People Leader" as the kids now say), and simply being on my own a great deal more than I anticipated this year, it is that a lot of my former goals were very much "doing" related.  Very few of them were "becoming" related.  And while doing is important (and I will still undoubtedly have some of those on the list), it is the becoming that has taken front and center.

The simple fact is that I have a lot to work on internally.  Old habits that have hung on far too long.  Behaviours that were originally created for a particular situation that have outlived the situation.  A great deal of focus on the immediate and not enough on future outcomes based on the immediate. An unwillingness to have hard conversations with myself (or others).  In some cases, a rather unhealthy focus on myself. 

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I will produce a list, of course.  I always produce a list (I have a great love of them).  But I wonder if it will be in the same manner as in years past, having items in five categories (God, Family, Work, Iaijutsu, Ichiryo Gusoku).  Not that those are still not worthy categories - it is just that what I have to work on may not fit into them.

One of the things that has come out of my job recently is the idea that we are significantly changing how we work and the realization that next year will be very different going forward.  I am coming to see that may be true of myself as well.

A Year Of Humility (L): I Am A Poor Wayfaring Stranger

 Thanks to the power of the Interweb, this song crossed my feed on The Tube of You.  The song itself is a 19th Century American song; the arrangement here is done by Jos Slovick for the movie 1917.

I do not know why this song strikes me as a poignant example of the essence of humility.  But it is, and it haunts me.

(Run time:  4:50)

Lyrics:

I am a poor wayfaring stranger

I′m traveling through this world of woe

Yet there is no sickness, toil, nor danger

In that bright land to which I go

I'm going there to see my father

I′m going there, no more to roam

I'm only going over Jordan

I'm only going over home

I know dark clouds will gather ′round me

I know my way is rough and steep

But golden fields lie just before me

Where God′s redeemed shall have their sleep

I'm going home to see my mother

And all my loved ones who′ve gone on

I'm only going over Jordan

I′m only going over home

I'll soon be free from every trial

My body sleeping in the churchyard

I′ll drop the cross of self-denial

And enter on my great reward

I'm going there to see my savior

To sing his praise forever more

I'm only going over Jordan

I′m only going over home

(Source)

December 2025 Ranch Update

 

I might equally title this "November and December 2025 Ranch Update", as it occurs to me that I posted nothing last month.

We had a bit of a set back in the pumphouse by The Cabin.  Usidean Ruadh was having a bit of a faucet problem and so he called The Young Cowboy, who went and took a look at it.  On a whim they checked the pumphouse and found that a fitting had failed and had been flinging water at pressure for perhaps up to two months (the last time Uisdean Ruadh remembers going in was sometime in October, so it could have been up to two months). There was two inches of water on the floor.

They got it shut off and The Young Cowboy very kindly resolved the issue.  That said, we now have a pumphouse with mold on the sheetrock (and into the insulation as the leak went straight into the wall) that will need to be remediated long term - The Young Cowboy sprayed it down with bleach so at least the immediate need is met.

Not exactly the development we were hoping for.

As I had mentioned, our agent had suggested taking the property off the market for the Winter, which sounded reasonable as we had no interest (and things are slow in Winter anyway).  The individuals that had made the low-ball offer came back asking about renting the place for six months.  We had a difference in the nature of the conditions - they wanted the barn cleaned out and the cattle gone within one month of the start of the lease, my expectations (for what they were offering) was the house/garage only.  We have not heard back from them after we countered.

Given all The Cowboy and The Young Cowboy have done for us, a short turn around time a renter seemed not right to me.  Also, for the size of the property, what they were offering seemed a little....low.

My Aunt continues to hang in and do well.  She is between chemo treatments for the holidays.  Her spirits are high, she is fairly mobile, and she is always engaged in the conversations.  Thanks for all of your kind thoughts and prayers.

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If anything, these past few months have convinced me that the decision we came to was the right one.  Trying to regularly keep with a property that is far away is mentally tiring - let alone worrying about what random failures are going to happen.

I look back now and wonder if we just should have cleared the house out and rented it as soon as it was clear my parents were not coming home.  I do not know that I could have done that then, but part of that was a fair amount of sentimentality on my part, sentimentality that was not really driven by giving consideration to the facts on the ground (in this case, the fact that I was likely not going to be able to move there for years yet or even if it were realistic to do so).  I will say that, in general, this is causing me to reconsider a great many things in my life and ask the same question.

I will always have a heart for The Ranch, knowing at the back of my mind that someday, the visits will be very infrequent indeed or even cease entirely.    But there is also a part of me that will be glad to lay this down once and for all.

2025 Grand Canyon Thunder River (VII): Tapeats Creek To Deer Creek

 This morning (Day 3) was an early rise, more just because things get light early - with pancakes for breakfast, which I think are one of my favorite hiking breakfasts.

An interesting hiking note: everywhere else in the Grand Canyon, you are encouraged to "do your business" 100 ft or more from a water source.  Along the Colorado River, you are encouraged to urinate directly into The River (other items are, of course, 100 ft away and in a small hole).  The more you know.

A face made out of stone. Undoubtedly the white rocks which are the eyeballs started by two or more hikers or rafters, possibly drinking, looking across the creek and saying "You know what would make that better?"

Tapeats Creek and the Colorado River meeting:

Looking back up Tapeats Creek:  

For perspective, Monument Point that we were above when we started hiking.

Our hike would take us along the Colorado River, going up and down until we reached Deer Creek.  Almost out the gate, we ran into this fellow.  He was about as long as my arm (which, as it turns out, is a real cubit/18 inches).

Our hike today was mostly along the Colorado River until we took a sharp turn inland and headed to Deer Creek.  When I say "mostly along the Colorado" do not get confused with the idea that this was sandy beach walk; the rocks and boulders below are indicative of the sort of geography we had to hike through as well as the fact that there were points we had to ascend and then descend back to the river.

One of the ascents:

This picture represents one of the two points of the hike where we had to form a human chain to pass our packs down as the descent was simply too steep and risky.  Starting from the tree at the top, we had a daisy chain of folks passing packs down (and people as we scrambled down) to the upright rock at the center of the photo, where they were physically transferred to someone else and then passed down further.  I was stationed just below that upright rock to help steady packs.

My palms are still sweating as I write about it now.

And back down to the Colorado River:

And back up yet again:

In the center of this photo you can sort of see the trail.  They were generally defined, but definitely one needed to pay attention to them.

Hmmm.  A grouping of trees at the bottom of a canyon.  What could that portend?

Welcome to Deer Creek!

This area is called the Deer Creek Patio; it was a great place to rest and eat.

As you can see (and will be more evident later), Deer Creek is a slot canyon, a very narrow canyon cut by a river.

Beyond just the amazing layering of rock here, one has to wonder how the overhang rocks at the top do not just tumble down.

I have lunch labeled as "Mediterranean" with no specifics, other than (obviously) Pita Bread.

Looking up the path out of Deer Creek.  Up there lies (eventually) Surprise Valley.

Another "artsy" photo of the moon.

Dinner was Ramen with chicken, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots.

"Red Light Cactus at Night".  T.B., Mixed Media, 2025.