Mr. Write's Page

I wrote the following in November 1999 after a trip to Grand Canyon…

One of the highlights of my vacation to Arizona earlier this month was the trip into Grand Canyon aboard the famous long-eared taxis – the Grand Canyon mules.

I’ve visited the Canyon on muleback several times, because it gets you to Phantom Ranch, down on the floor of the canyon, with fresh legs. If you hike down, the exertion takes a toll, makes it harder to take advantage of the numerous dayhikes down there.

At some point, it occurred to me that four hours atop a mule is better than five hours of walking downhill. My knees and leg muscles told me so.

Anyway, I was given a fine steed named Blackjack, and two mule wranglers herded eight of us dudes down the trail in a more or less orderly fashion.

Blackjack tripped once and fell to his knees, which almost sent me flying over the handlebars, but I managed to hang on.

The rim of Grand Canyon is one vertical mile above the river. To get down there, the mules use Bright Angel Trail, which is 10 miles long. To climb back to the rim, they follow the South Kaibab Trail, which is 7 miles long. If you do the math, you see that the Kaibab Trail is shorter and steeper. It also follows the ridgetops, which means the vistas are spectacular.

Because of the views and the shorter distance, most hikers use the Kaibab Trail to get into the canyon. When going back uphill on the mules, you always pass many more pedestrians on the Kaibab Trail than you would along the Bright Angel.

The hikers have to step to the side of the trail to let the mules pass – no choice there. Usually, people take photos of our slow, dusty procession. The hikers especially like to photograph the mule wranglers, who may hail from Illinois or Delaware, but who nonetheless dress the dress and talk the talk of proper cowboys and cowgirls.

Which gets me to the point of this, which is to tell you about one hiker we encountered on our outbound trip – a man who brought a tear to the eye, and joy to the heart, of everyone on the Kaibab Trail that day.

When we came across this fellow on the trail, he was sitting on a boulder finishing lunch. He was a tallish, wiry guy in his 40s with a fringe of red hair around a bald dome. He was wearing a white dress shirt, boots, short pants and suspenders. He looked to be pleasant by nature and had a huge grin on his face. Clearly, he was enjoying himself.

And why not? The day was bright, clear, calm, probably 75 degrees. He was about two miles down the trail, still fresh, and around the bend came a group of cowboys and city slickers on muleback.

Hans was his name, Hans from Switzerland. We found that out when we all reined in the mules and gathered around to talk to him.

More intriguing still was the oversized custom backpack sitting next to him.

In it, disassembled and tucked into long padded pockets to accommodate the pieces, was a huge, gleaning, majestic Swiss horn.

A Swiss horn. You know – as in the television commercial for cough drops. Reeeeee-cola!

Hans was on the trip of a lifetime. He had dreamed for years of coming to Grand Canyon to play the instrument. To him, it was the ideal setting, for all the right acoustical and aesthetic reasons.

Now he was heading down the trail on his first day – hadn’t even uncorked the horn yet. He had no plans other than to hike, and to play when the spirit moved him.

We traded our pleasantries, and eventually, someone asked the inevitable: would he play for us? Certainly, he told us, but the instrument is designed to be played a healthy distance from the audience. He said we should proceed up the trail while he descended a switchback or two. Then he would play.

Someone in our group said they were hesitant to get too far away, for fear we would be out of earshot. Hans said we would hear him; we would very definitely hear him.

So the mule riders collected themselves, and Hans put his water bottle back in his waistpack, and Sherry, the lead mule wrangler, helped him hoist the Swiss horn onto his back. We went on up the trail, and Hans went on down.

Five minutes later, the music began. We all quickly brought the mules to a stop, because the clattering of hooves on the rocks makes a terrible racket. And we didn’t have to strain at all to hear. The sound came from every direction at a perfect volume, without a hint of echo.

Hans was playing something I didn’t recognize. Whatever it was, the notes were rich and slow and compelling. We knew where Hans would be down the trail, roughly speaking, but the music didn’t seem to come from anywhere. It simply surrounded us.

I sat there aboard Blackjack, listening, and the last notes faded. We riders let out as loud a cheer as we could manage, knowing that Hans likely was too far away to hear, and then continued up the trail. For me, it was the end of the trip, the end of the vacation.

Ten minutes later, the real performance began. By then, we were all lost in our own thoughts: looking down into thin air as the mules negotiated the switchbacks, ducking rock ledges, looking out at the scenery. Then, somewhere far below, Hans began to play again. We quickly stopped and got quiet.

It took me three notes to recognize Amazing Grace.

Every now and then, when you’re lucky, something happens that is so memorable and overwhelming, you remember it vividly and forever. Hans gave me that experience in a two-minute song.

By the time the music ended, I was completely overcome and in tears. Jerry, the assistant mule wrangler, was struggling to maintain his manly composure. For all I know, even Blackjack was blubbering.

But as moving as it was for us dudes and wranglers on the trail that day, I have to believe that Hans was the happiest man in Arizona.