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Here the "Big Man" looks over Grand Gulch, just as the artist did, who painted him perhaps 750 or 1,000 years ago.

This was an easy backpacking trip. Only the very short pitch up and down the rim of Grand Gulch gave us a chance to really "test" the merits of our new lightweight internal frame packs.

We had a lot of fun together on this little excursion and there is nothing like sleeping beneath the desert stars in a mile high slickrock canyon, with somebody you love. Fun!

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4. Thursday 21st of April 2011
This was a test run for some new lightweight internal frame backpacks, my wife and I had purchased for this trip. After 40 years of using our comfortable, easy to access, Kelty Tioga external frame backpacks, we decided that for “off trail” canyon hiking, that some new light internal frame backpacks might be better suited (and besides I had a 20% off coupon and my 2010 REI refund dividend burning a hole in my jeans pocket at the time).

So I bought an REI Flash 65 and the Flash 50 for my wife. Not only would these work better for the overhangs encountered with off trail canyon hiking, but they stored in our pickup truck almost flat, when not in use.

To get to right to the point: We both LOVED these new packs. I still think we will use our external frames on most occasions when we are hiking a well established trail and balance and narrow low profile is not a consideration. But when we want to go light and have any plans for off trail backpacking, the new internals are here to stay.

You really need four wheel drive and high clearance to get all the way down to the stock pond trailhead for the Government Trail into Grand Gulch. Our old 1994 Toyota pickup truck with high clearance, low and high range “shift on the fly” four wheel drive, and adequate skid plates underneath, was just the ticket. We ended up parking next to a ranger’s pickup truck.

The Government Trail is easy hiking. It is an old Jeep trail so we could hike side by side for the 2.5 miles or so from the stock pond to the Grand Gulch canyon rim. The next half mile is steep in places and there are a couple of overhangs if you happen to have a high backpack. We had no trouble at all getting on down to the bottom of the Grand Gulch canyon. At a leisurely pace it took us an hour from trailhead to rim and half hour from rim to canyon bottom at Grand Gulch.

We hiked up Grand Gulch and took several “side hikes”, the most fun being to the “Big Man” pictograph panel. The stars of the panel are actually a Big Man (with modest male features) and a Big Woman. So why they don’t call it the Big COUPLE panel, I don’t know. Left over and hard to extinguish male chauvinism I guess.

We met a lot of nice people on this road trip and at the bottom of Grand Gulch we met a fit couple with two energetic young girls, camped near the mouth of Polly Canyon. The wife was preparing camp meals (toasted fajitas), that to us, seemed gourmet and outstanding camp cuisine. The next day the man would turn up as our hero of the road trip as the “Good Samaritan”.

Though the weather was good (nice temperatures and no rain), wind gusts hit pretty hard throughout the afternoon and into the evening. We were lucky that the “nice family” told us about an out of the wind camping location under a big bent cottonwood tree. The camping site was perfect for us.

We slept with the rain fly off of our REI Quarter Dome T-3 tent that night and enjoyed watching the big dipper, shooting stars, and a bright moon through the mesh canopy of the tent that night. We really slept well.

5. Friday 22nd of April 2011
We ate breakfast and watched the morning sun illuminate the sandstone canyon walls around us. The wind was gone and it was a perfect day. We took our time hiking down Grand Gulch and then back up to the rim of the canyon. Here we found a lady lying down under a juniper tree and her husband with a large backpack sitting on the slick rock. During our discussion we were told that she had badly sprained her ankle down in Grand Gulch (her husband didn’t tell us how long ago), but they had obviously made it to the rim together, leaving only the easy 2.5 mile “Jeep” road section to hike to the trailhead.

I asked the husband if they had a vehicle at the trailhead or had they had to park up the road above the four wheel drive section. He said they were at the trailhead. He showed no signs of needing our help so we continued on hiking toward our truck. Along the way we passed three backpackers, heading down government trail, and then along came the “Good Samaritan”, without any pack at all hiking down towards us. To be honest I didn’t recognize him as the father of the two little girls and husband of the good camp cook (the family who had told us about the good camp site). My wife, who is much more observant and attentive than me in social situations, picked right up on it.

Turns out that the lady hiker had hurt her ankle a couple of days ago

The canopy over the terminal at Denver International Airport resembles the circus tents that Cirque du Soleil uses. Here is a photo from inside the terminal.