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Southwest 2014
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Another Travel Day
Friday, September 19
Friday was - like the day before - fairly relaxed in terms of itinerary. The overall objective was to get fully set-up for the first major outing of our trip: a rim-to-rim backpack traverse of the Grand Canyon. This set-up was essentially comprised of three tasks: gather up those who had not yet arrived at the airport (three of our group had booked separate flights that arrived later), get groceries and necessary camp gear, and - finally - drive to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Caroline, Sandra and Alana were all scheduled to arrive this morning. Our "big van" subgroup was only responsible for picking up Caroline; Chris and Gillian were tasked with picking up Sandra and Alana. We all agreed that we'd all meet up at our campground on the South Rim sometime around dinnertime.

Prior to Caroline's arrival, we completed some grocery shopping, then headed off to the airport. Caroline arrived right on schedule, and we were quickly off to the nearby Henderson REI store to pick up a few last minute items - chief among them being camp fuel.
Guns, Jewelry and More
With the logistics of food, passenger pickup, and camp fuel out of the way, we began our long drive to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Normally this is a five-ish hour drive, and we figured that by leaving around noon, we would be nicely settled in at our campground right around dinnertime.

Meanwhile, while Caroline's flight had arrived right on time, Sandra and Alana's flight was experiencing major problems. Over the wire came a message from Chris: their plane had suffered an engine malfunction, and they had diverted to Denver. No ETA for Las Vegas as of yet. Chris and family would stick around in the Vegas area and wait for them, since the Hatko's rental van was Sandra and Alana's ride to the Grand Canyon. Even if they arrived at our South Rim Campground later, they'd still have time to do a late-evening prep for the next day's backpack start.
courtesy BConnell
 Bypassing the Dam
In no particular rush, we drove out of Las Vegas, through Boulder, and across the new bridge spanning the Colorado just downstream of the Hoover Dam. On the ride down the highway towards Kingman, Arizona, we decided to stop for a break and a bite to eat in the quaint little over-hammed-up town of Chloride.
courtesy JInnes
 Quirky Chloride
Once a camp for a silver mine, Chloride is now a sleepy little spot that attempts to milk the old-west style for all it is worth. A decrepid old gas station, a half-ruined two-room jail, facaded buildings on the town's tiny main strip. Old mining trinkets and old west paraphernalia everywhere. But even with all of this (some of which is indeed genuine), it is a charming little spot.
courtesy JInnes
 Downtown Chloride
We spent a bit of time exploring some of the oldish buildings near the center of town. The old two-room jailhouse seemed like the real deal. Rotting cots, cracked walls, a ruined guard room. A nearby old gas station looked pretty authentic, too, save for the kid-sized railroad track that had been laid in a circle around the property. A sign on the door of the gas station informed us that this was in fact a private residence. Take pictures, it said, but respect the residents' privacy.
courtesy JInnes
Old Gas Station, Chloride
Old pumps
Chloride backstreet
courtesy RHanel
courtesy RHanel
courtesy RHanel
Chloride Jail
Jailhouse cell, Chloride
Cactus fruit
A thickly-decorated restaurant/bar called Digger Dave's appeared to be the hub of the action - the relatively slow-motion action - in Chloride. Inside, we waited as friendly servers cooked up some simple but pretty decent lunch fare. The waiting itself was quite entertaining: every square inch of the interior of Digger Dave's is covered with.... stuff. Old stuff, new stuff (but mostly old stuff), weird stuff, shiny stuff, album covers, windshield wipers, bottles, saws, steering wheels, farm gear. And more.
courtesy BConnell
courtesy JInnes
courtesy JInnes
Digger Dave's
Digger Dave's porch
Old Paraphernalia, Digger Dave's
courtesy RHanel
Inside Digger Dave's
Stars and Stripes, Chloride AZ
After our lunch, the theme of old junk-as-art continued, as we followed advice from the restaurant to visit a place called "Shady Lady's Antiques". Around a few dusty street corners, we found Shady Lady's. A large lot simply crammed to overflowing with every imaginable.... thing... you could find. Most all of it was arranged into some sort of artistic display.
courtesy SDusablon
courtesy JInnes
courtesy RHanel
Shady Lady's Antiques
Art from junk
Structure from Shards
We spent a leisurely hour and a half in Chloride - probably a bit more than we should have - but still, we had plenty of time to make it to the South Rim before dark. We continued on our way, soon turning east on Interstate-40.

Humming along east on Interstate-40, the land gradually began to rise as we started to climb onto the Colorado Plateau - the high desert region into which the Grand Canyon is cut. The low arid scrubland of the Mojave desert gave way to grassy hills and ridges dotted with pine trees.

I was having some sort of discussion with Brian and Roland, who were seated up near the front of the van. Ahead of us, we noticed an unnatural swerve from a small car that was perhaps a hundred yards ahead of us. The swerve took it left, off the road and into the median, where - in a large cloud of dirt, sand, and gravel - it began a series of barrel rolls. We soon lost sight of the car in a billowing brown cloud.
courtesy JInnes
 Rollover Aftermath
Knowing that a serious and potentially life-threatening incident was in progress, we pulled over to the side of the highway and headed into the wide and grassy median. The cloud of dust had already dissipated, and the car - a small gray Nissan Versa - had come to rest on its wheels, facing precisely 180 degrees in the opposite direction to which it had been travelling. A large field of debris was spread all around in the tufts of grass. Some of this debris was car parts, but a lot of it consisted of personal effects: a cooler, a duvet, shoes, water bottles.
courtesy JInnes
 Careful extraction
The car itself was in rough shape. All sides of the car were severely bashed in and crumpled. All of the windows save the front were completely smashed out. The roof - although still in place - had suffered some significant caving in near the front of the car. We were prepared for the worst as we ran up to the wrecked vehicle. The battery hung by a single lead, and a quiet hiss issued from the engine, as some sort of breach allowed the pressure in the hot cooling system to vent off.

The two occupants of the car - a young man and woman - were wearing their seat belts, and were still strapped into the front seats. Much to our relief, both were still conscious and more or less in one piece. Roland quickly reached in and pulled the keys from the ignition, then started an assessment of the situation and some basic first aid.

We began conversing with the occupants, and learned that they were Maggie and Josh, on their way to a camping weekend in nearby Flagstaff. We got this information from Maggie, who was a bit traumatized but lucid. Josh, on the other hand (we learned his name from Maggie), was suffering from memory loss: he couldn't remember his name or what had happened. He had no recollection of the crash.

While Caroline and I physically immobilzed Josh and Maggie head and neck, Roland did a primary and secondary survey of both of them. Soon other vehicles had stopped alongside the highway, and additional people ran up. A couple of off-duty doctors and paramedics were among them, and soon there was a full-scale effort to stabilize the car's injured occupants.
courtesy JInnes
 Cut up Versa
As those more qualified showed up, our need to be directly involved diminished, and soon we drew back and simply watched the proceedings. A couple of local volunteer firefighters had arrived with a generator and a "jaws-of-life" device, and soon the driver's side B-pillar had been cut away to open up a wide opening into which a back-board could be inserted to help extricate Josh, who was clearly suffering from some sort of a head injury. Maggie, who probably had a broken bone or two but who otherwise seemed in good shape, was already out of the vehicle and sitting nearby in the grass.

There was talk of an air-evacuation directly from the crash site, but in the end a regular ambulance took them to a nearby airfield, where [presumably] they were whisked off, possibly to Flagstaff Medical Center.

The emergency now over, it was time to dust ourselves off (and pull the various little desert barbs that had spiked into our feet and lower legs), get back into the van, and continue on. It was now nearing 6pm, and our hope for a pre-dusk arrival at the South Rim were now gone.

We soon received a text message from the Hatko family. They were on their way east on I-40 towards the Grand Canyon. Our slow stop in Chloride and the handling of the car crash scene had allowed them to nearly catch up to us. Unfortunately, they did not have Sandra and Alana on-board with them. Air Canada had refused to let them take their luggage off of their out-of-service plane in Denver, and they had no way to arrive in Las Vegas until late in the evening. They had consulted with the Hatkos and had agreed that they should attempt - somehow - to make their way to the Grand Canyon separately.

We waited for the Hatko van to catch up with us, then proceeded convoy-style to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. By now, full-on night had fallen, and the only non-highway lights we saw as we drove north on the Coconino Plateau on highway 64 were the occasional flashes of lightning, far away somewhere beyond the North Rim.
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[ Return to "The Checklist Edition" Home page | Introduction | Day 1 : South Kaibab to Clear Creek Trail | Day 2 : Clear Creek Tr to Cottonwood Camp | Day 3 : Cottonwood Camp to North Rim | The North Rim | Drive to Zion | Lady Mountain Redux | The Subway | Angel's Landing | Zion in Flood | Valley of Fire | Wind-up and Return | The "Short Report" | GPS Data ]


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