“What happened to your boots?”
“Uh, well they were sandals. They fell apart near Phantom Ranch.”
“Where are you heading?”
“I’m hiking across the canyon. Rim to rim.”
He stared at me, without speaking, for what seemed like an eternity.
“What size shoe do you wear?” he finally said.
“Nine.”
“I have a spare pair of boots. You can have them. Let me get them for you,” he turned and began to run toward his house.
“No! No, that’s OK. It’s only six more miles. I’m doing OK.”
“Seriously. They are an old pair. I don’t mind.”
“It’s OK, really.” My pride had me on my feet with my pack on my back before he could convince me to accept help.
I headed out and up. Mankind had done without shoes for millennia. Surely, I could hike a few more miles. I knew accepting the old boots would have been the smarter option. But I was going to achieve this big, unwieldly goal without help—except for a small bottle of chlorine tablets.
Two hours later, I sat panting on the white sand in the middle of the trail. My head hurt from the heat and my feet were leaving bloody marks on the sand. My scabbed-over knees ached from the fall and the backpack had worn raw sores into my shoulders and back. From where I sat, I could see two sun-bleached sleeping bags fifty feet below me. I wanted nothing more than to toss my entire backpack off the side of the canyon, and someone else had clearly had the same idea on this unrelenting ascent.
I tipped my head back to drink the last of the water I’d carried from the pump house. My watch read 2 p.m. and I was two miles from the top. I put the empty bladder back into the pack and got to my feet. Then I stood for a moment with my hands on my thighs until I stopped seeing stars. Finally, I started hiking.
I felt a burst of energy as the top of the climb came into view. When I reached the trailhead fountain, I dropped down beside it and let water flow straight into my mouth and over my face. Then I let it wash the blood and dirt from my feet. With a smile on my face, I hobbled toward the parking lot. I threw the tattered brace into a trash can at 2:45 p.m. Not only had I crossed the Grand Canyon, I had done so barefoot. And, faster than I thought I could. The same rush I’d felt standing a few hours before in the cold water of Ribbon Falls washed over me.
GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA / AUGUST 2001
My dance with Death began as a shuffle across the Tonto Platform into the midsummer sun. My skin no longer produced sweat and I was certain I was going to die. Temperatures here often soar over 110 degrees and I was completely and utterly without water. Over the previous three months, I had gone from neophyte hiker to canyon explorer, but it had been a steep learning curve.
A large boulder cast a small blob of shade and I collapsed into it, my back sliding down the rock until my butt was in the dirt. My legs flopped outward. I was panting. How far was it to Hermit Creek? It seems like I should have been there already . . .
My mind drifted as I stared at the soaring walls of the Grand Canyon. I was not in the main corridor. I was well away from where most people hike and rangers frequently patrol. It was my second overnight trip, and the first one on my own away from the busy Inner Gorge. The weight of my backpack helped cement me to the ground.
“Well God, I guess this is it,” I murmured.
The full moon had already risen just above the red stone walls, its whiteness stark against the cerulean sky. I stared, hardly comprehending what I was looking at. How long had it been since I’d had a drink? Two hours? Three? Maybe more . . . How long have I been sitting here?
“Thank you for giving me something beautiful to look at, at least, before I go.” I closed my eyes, feeling disconnected from my body. I thought about how dehydration kills. It was almost as if I could feel my blood’s viscosity increasing in my veins.
I imagined Death extending his hand to me . . . Do you want to dance?
I opened my eyes again and pulled strength from the beauty of the moon and sky, from the canyon itself. Something deep inside me pushed back against Death’s invitation. I wanted to live.
If I can just make it to the Hermit Creek Junction. It’s only one more mile from there. I can make it one more mile. I have to. I must. I can. I cannot die here. I refuse.
Too dehydrated to even say my mantra aloud, I rolled to my side and pushed myself onto my hands and knees. Slowly, dizzily, I pulled myself to my feet using small knobs in the rock. I leaned against the boulder as I shuffled my feet around it, back onto the westward facing trail. The sun’s intensity felt like a physical blow. I stumbled to a weather-beaten sign on the other side of the boulder. Grabbing hold, I fought to focus my eyes on it long enough to read: Hermit Creek 1 Mile.
I would have cried if I’d had any fluids left to spare. Stumbling and uncoordinated, I made my way straight into the sun—a floundering mess. After an eternity of telling myself to just keep going, I followed the trail down into a side canyon. Below me crystal clear water poured across rocks as it bounced toward the Colorado River. I threw myself into the creek and lay there, face up, letting the water cascade over my body and into my mouth. Death and I may have had our first dance that day—a drunken waltz through the desert heat—but my dance card was not yet full. I would live to dance again.
INDIANA / SEPTEMBER 2001
I stood in the doorway of my advisor’s office. Being back at school in the temperate, green Midwest was a shock after months in the Arizona desert. Dr. Shively was seated at his desk, flipping through what I presumed was the paperwork from my internship. I slipped into his office through the open door.
“Hi.”
“Oh, Heather, hello. Right on time. Please sit down.”
I sank into the leather chair and pulled my folder out of my backpack. I flipped it open and poised a pen over a blank page to take notes. Three internship credits and my ability to graduate in three years, rather than four, hung on his approval of my summer experience.
“I’ve read through everything you submitted. Very interesting choice for a ministry internship. Most students choose churches. Working as a volunteer with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks and holding down a full-time job takes a lot of dedication. How did it go for you overall?”
“It was . . . eye opening. Difficult. I worked forty hours a week and participated in all of the worship as well as the group events. And I took up hiking with my spare time.”
“Not much of that, I suppose.” Dr. Shively smiled.
“No, not really. I didn’t sleep much actually.”
That was an understatement. I cringed inwardly, thinking of the last worship ceremony of the summer, which I’d led. The night before I’d agreed to hike with a friend from rim to river and back, after we got off work at 6 p.m. I’d known it was a bad idea since she was not a hiker, but she was desperate to do it before her summer job ended—and I was always up for an adventure. We’d crawled into our beds at 5 a.m. Three hours later, unshowered and with my shirt on backward, I was standing in front of the crowd gathered for worship on the canyon rim.
“I see. Well, I know your focus has been missions. How did this internship shape your perception of mission work and your interest in that branch of ministry?”
There it was. The million-dollar question I had skirted in my essay. I had hoped I wouldn’t