An Ordinary Odyssey

My intention today was just to share a beautiful trip report of my experience backpacking the Grand Canyon. But during the hike, and in sitting down to write this, so many things came bubbling to the surface that feel too important not to share.

Specifically, I was working on writing out what my “why” was for this trip, so I could better share what it meant to me. That’s when I realized my “why” for this trip is the same “why” for basically everything is always the same. It starts with mortality. With the fact that life isn’t promised, and I refuse to wait for “someday.” But it’s also about something I don’t think is acknowledged enough: that we are all multifaceted human beings, and our diverse experiences, interests, and identities don’t contradict each other. They come together in surprising and beautiful ways to shape and support our lives. We shouldn’t have to hide parts of ourselves, limit our dreams, or shrink to fit into someone else’s narrow definition of who we’re allowed to be.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild, precious life?”
— Mary Oliver

A woman in the United States has an average life expectancy of 81 years old. So it’s a good bet that I will have at least another 40-50 years left on this planet. I have no reason to expect otherwise. But life is not promised to us. I might live to be 100 years old. Or, I might die tomorrow on my drive to work, at the age of 35. The only guarantee I have is that one day, I will die. Which is to say, this is my underlining “why” for pretty much all the things I do. Including the subject of this particular post, the Grand Canyon backpacking trip I have been talking people’s ears off about for over a year.

My whole life I’ve longed for adventure. As a little girl watching Animal Planet and National geographic, dreaming of adventuring to far off places and living in the jungles to make my own nature documentaries. As a young adult studying Environmental Education in college, getting addicted to study abroad, and fancying what it would be like to go be a naturalist or park ranger. And now in my 30s, daydreaming at my office job about hiking in all the national parks. I feel like my dreams keep getting smaller and smaller, and I’m allowing myself to put them off until that elusive “someday” when I have the time and money.

That frightens me.

Too many people spend their whole lives working for the freedom they think they’ll have in retirement. They put off all the things they want to do until then. But I know too many people who have tragically died young, from everything from car accidents to cancer. I know too many people who get to that magical retirement and aren’t able to enjoy it because of chronic debilitating health issues. I’m afraid that if I keep shrinking my goals and keep putting them off, I’ll end up as one of those people. I’ll die before getting to experience even a fraction of the things I’ve longed for. Or I’ll live to an old age and look back in regret on a life only half-lived.

So last year, when I was in the middle of day-dreaming, looking at old road trip pictures from a Grand Canyon trip, I decided to just go for it. If I want to backpack across the canyon, I should make it happen right now. There’s no point in putting it off. So, that’s what I did!

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.”
— Martha Graham

But here’s what might surprise you: what actually prepared me for the Grand Canyon wasn’t just the training plan I followed or the miles I logged. It was something people in my hiking community told me I should hide. Something they said made me “unclassy.” Something they couldn’t reconcile with being a serious outdoor athlete.

I’m a pole dancer.

I know what some of you just thought. Maybe you pictured a strip club. Maybe you felt uncomfortable. Maybe you’re already judging whether that statement fits with the image of someone who backpacks the Grand Canyon. And that’s exactly the problem I want to talk about.

I’ve been doing pole dance at a fitness studio for over six years now and posting about my journey with it on social media this whole time on my personal page. I’m not an influencer, a celebrity, an author, a public figure, or anything else. It’s just me and my personal life and my circle of friends, family, and community. I post my authentic self. And I post about a hike I did with a local women’s hiking group one day and a new trick I mastered the next. I didn’t start out with any intention of being a role model or leader in any way. But in some ways, I can see it happening. I started hosting hikes in the groups and people saw me as a leader. I started substituting for my pole instructor when she was ill and then teaching parties. And people saw me as a leader there too. And problems started to arise when people couldn’t mesh these two seemingly polar opposite worlds together.

For two years, a woman I had met in a hiking group followed me on Facebook. For two years she liked and commented on everything I posted, including my pole dance content. She would actively cheer me on, tell me how strong I looked in those poses, how confident I seemed, and how inspiring I was! We’d planned one-on-one hikes together and I was so happy to have a new friend, something that is a real struggle for me.

Then one day, I privately messaged her to have a conversation about something she’d posted that I found inappropriate in our hiking community. Instead of engaging with me, she lashed out. She told me she’d “left me on her page despite all the inappropriate photos/videos I’d posted of myself half naked.” That although pole dancing wasn’t a journey she had “the slightest bit of interest in,” she’d “overlooked it for all the other inspiring impacts it had on me, although unclassy.”

Unclassy.

When I opened that message, I had to drop my shopping basket in the store and go sit in my car to cry. I felt torn open by this. How many more people was I “friends” with who were rooting me on with their likes and comments, but secretly despising me and judging me behind my back? Did I have any friends at all? Was anyone rooting for me?!

Another incident. I posted about the Shakira/Jennifer Lopez Superbowl halftime show in 2020, talking about J. Lo’s pole dance routine and about what pole dance has meant to me after just a short time. A friend from all the way back in high school—someone I found inspiring for her mountain climbing, who worked in a gear store, and seemed to embody the outdoor lifestyle I aspired to—told me pole dance was inappropriate for women. That it wasn’t a sport. That it was anti-feminist. That it promoted the sexualization of women’s bodies, and no way that I dressed it up could ever undo that damage.

I tried to explain to her the power of pole for so many women who do it, especially those who have experienced sexual trauma, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and other forms of body shame. I tried to build a bridge, but she wasn’t interested. She got more forceful and mean about it, and I eventually I had to block her.

I knew she was wrong. I knew it on some instinctually level. I respect all facets of the art of pole, including its roots in sex work. And I believe in its power to change lives and I believe it has lessons to teach us that go outside the studio and help us in other facets of our lives. But I was still new to pole and I didn’t have the words to explain, to her or to myself. It caused me to question. And it caused me to shrink, to be more cautious about how and when I shared that side of myself. For a long time after these two incidents, I completely separated my pole dance content from my hiking content, and I kept it private. I drew a line between these various parts of myself. And I think that is so unfortunate. That line wasn’t just there in my online social media content, it was within my mind. I was a hiker over here and a pole dancer over there. I didn’t see the connections and allow them to feed each other.

These are the voices I carried with me to the rim of the Grand Canyon. But they weren’t the only ones.

I still vividly remember my high school gym classes. I remember it because my gym teacher told me I was a “disappointment.” He’d hoped he was getting another athletic person to go out for sports teams, like my older siblings had done. This began four years of bullying from that teacher and sealed my downward spiral in self-esteem. Whenever I was alone with him, like when I lagged behind the class when running the mile on the track, he’d belittle me. I remember being called so many names by him. Weak. Chubby. Pathetic. (A favorite of his, and one that stuck with me the most). He had me absolutely convinced that I really was a waste of space in the body department. For the next decade, I avoided anything athletic like the plague and made so many self-deprecating jokes about my lack of athleticism.

Even when I started hiking and got really into it, I always felt less capable than every other hiker in the groups I’d joined. The shame and disgust over my body never went away. Until, that is, I took a pole dance class on a complete whim. I was turning 30 and had promised myself I would try more things, be more adventurous. I stumbled on a Black Friday deal for pole and figured the only thing I had to lose was my pride and a couple bucks. For the first time, I was on even footing with everyone else. Pretty much every other newbie struggled at some point with the stuff we were learning. Even the two super fit athletic girls right in front of me struggled with a particular spin. I, of course, was anything but a natural. But for once I was just as good, and just as bad, as everyone else.

And there was no one there judging me. Quite the opposite. My instructors were, and still are, two of the most inspiring, kind, and body confident women I’ve ever known. Through classes at their studio and the amazing community of students they’ve built, I’ve come to respect and admire my own body in ways I never imagined. I didn’t become super skinny and toned. In fact, I’ve gained weight since I started. But unlike any other gym or fitness class I’ve taken, I was never pressured here to do it all perfectly and in a certain way. Here, I was taught to honor my body, to move in ways that felt good, and to find alternative ways of trying something if it felt wrong.

Pole tested and changed so much about me. I learned to look at and treat myself like an athletic person. I grew out of looking at my flaws. When I look at a pole dance photo after class, I barely see the rolls and flabby skin I used to hyper-focus on in photos. Instead, I see my form. I see the way my hand is gripping, whether my shoulders are back and down, if my knees are locked, if those damn toes are pointed. I feel an incredible sense of accomplishment when I master a trick I’ve been working on, knowing I got my body to do something that involved muscle, balance, and flexibility.

I am NOT pathetic in any way, shape, or form. And I say that with real belief for the first time in my life. And here’s the irony that those outdoorsy “friends” didn’t understand: pole dance made me a better hiker.

The balance I have developed on the pole translates directly to navigating uneven terrain on the trail. The strength I build holding myself in impossible positions makes carrying a 30-pound pack feel simple. The flexibility and mobility I gain helps me scramble over big rocks and step down steep descents without injury. The coordination required to execute complex dance sequences prepares me for the complex technical demands of the trail. At my personal trainer, learning to lift weights and do classic weight training exercises for the first time (because lord knows my high school gym teacher taught me nothing), my experiences with pole dance and learning proper and safe pole form has made me so much more body aware. I’m able to pick up safe and effective form much easier and understand the importance of it and how even if it doesn’t matter now, long-term it can be devastating to do wrong.

But even more than the physical benefits, pole gave me the mental and emotional strength to take on the Grand Canyon. Mastering really hard tricks and doing things I never imagined were physically possible for me taught me that my body is capable of far more than I give it credit for. That the gap between “I can’t” and “I did it” is often just fear and practice and the daring to try.

The people who told me I was unclassy, that I was a bad role model, that pole dancing detracted from my credibility in the outdoors—they had no idea that the very thing they wanted me to hide was actually my best asset.

I thought part of my reason for hiking the Grand Canyon to prove them wrong. But really, I was proving to myself that they were wrong about me. And in doing that, I now begin to understand something deeper: that their words were never even about me. They were reflections of their own limitations. Their own prejudice. Their own small-mindedness. Their own discomfort with a woman who refuses to be one thing. Their own need to make the world smaller and more manageable by putting people into neat little boxes.

I am a pole dancer. I am a hiker. I am a backpacker. I am multifaceted, and that doesn’t make me a bad role model. If anything, it makes me a better one. I will no longer compartmentalize who I am to make other people comfortable.

“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
— Maya Angelou

As you may already know, it was a long road to get here. I made my intentions known in September 2024 and that November I started going to a personal training gym. A whole year of sessions working specifically on building my strength and stamina for this hike! It was grueling. There’s over 4,000 feet of elevation gain and loss on this hike. Up to that point, the most I had ever done in one hike was about 1,200 and it was rough to say the least. So this goal was a huge leap! It was an endless slog of 6am week day sessions doing various squats, step ups/downs, lunges, and pulling sleds around. Two hour sessions a week after work on a staircase outside with a loaded pack. Long hilly hikes on Saturdays, usually purposefully doing repeats of big hills. My longest prep hike was 23 miles! I drove out to Colorado and did back-to-back 2,000 foot elevation gain hikes! It was a lot.

During that time, I was also learning about the logistics. Planning a trip in the canyon is way more complicated than just about any other hike besides the famed long-distance through hikes like the Appalachian or Pacific Crest trails. You have to apply for a lottery system permit for your campgrounds, five months in advance. And if you win, it’s only a time-slot to book a permit for that month that you win, not a guarantee of a permit itself! If you are in the back of the pack in time-slots, people ahead of you might have taken everything you are able to do! So you have to be flexible and able to jump quickly. Oh, and the North Rim isn’t open all year, because they get 142 inches of snow on average. Once the snow hits, all services shut down and the only way out is either to turn around and hike in and out of the the canyon a second time, or plan on hiking in the deep snow for 40 miles to get to the nearest town where the roads are plowed and you can park or get picked up!

You also have to plan for inverse hiking. Most of the time, hikers climb up things first and down things last. We start at the base of a mountain and climb to the summit. Coming down is the end of the hike. In the canyon, you go down first. Over 4,000 feet down. THEN you have to be able to climb back out. Down feels easier because of the cardio aspect, but in reality it is very hard on your joints. There’s more force on your joints and it is harder to maintain balance on uneven terrain. Many people in the canyon will breeze quickly down to the rim and not realize how much it took from them until they try to go up and everything hurts and is seizing up. So you have to physically prepare in much different ways.

But you also have to prepare for heat in the daytime and cold at night due to desert conditions. You have to factor in where the pipeline pumps water and how and where creeks are so you can filter if the pipeline is down (a common occurrence). You have to consider the real danger of flash floods. Calculate your sun exposure and where and when the shade will be. You have to consider and plan for avoiding hyponatremia, the opposite of dehydration, where you get a dangerous sodium imbalance from drinking too much water and not enough electrolytes.

It goes on and on! I studied and I planned. I joined Facebook groups for Rim to Rim hiking training. I read books such as “Death in the Grand Canyon” to learn how to keep myself safe. I practiced hiking with different electrolyte powders to see how my stomach would handle them.

Securing my permits for a time of year the weather wouldn’t be unbearably hot (115+°F) or potentially icy and snowy, AND worked with my work schedule was a challenge. I finally won a lottery permit slot for November. I had wanted to do a Rim to Rim in October, stay in the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, and see the famed Ribbon Falls, which was an important place to me for it’s presence in the Zuni creation stories as their birthplace into this world. But it would be closed for winter by then. I pivoted and decided a Rim to River would do, and I’d do a day out to Ribbon Falls and back. I could see the North Rim another time. My time slot was Monday, July 14th. On Sunday, July 13th, I woke up to the news that the Dragon Bravo Wildfire, previously a small bush fire in the national forest on the north rim, had raged out of control and tore through the North Rim village, burning down the lodge, visitor center, water treatment plant, and many other buildings.

It was devastating to the whole Grand Canyon community. My previous post was a poem I wrote about the darkness of that time and what it felt like to me, so I won’t go into too much depth here. But it put all my plans and hard work in jeopardy. The whole inner canyon closed down for many weeks due to the smoke and pollution that settled into the canyon. The north rim was devestated and the entire North Kaibab trail, including Ribbon Falls was closed. The fire burned on for nearly three months before it was fully contained, consuming over 145,000 acres. It jeopardized Roaring Springs, the source for all water within Grand Canyon National Park, which would have closed everything down in the park indefinitely if it had gone up. I had to book my campground that Monday anyway, not knowing if the trip would even be possible. If I didn’t, I’d have to wait several more months to apply for a permit, as I didn’t want to do the hike in the winter.

Since we’re here, you know that it worked out. The fire was put out in September and the trails down to the base of the canyon and my campground were opened too. My plan was set.

November 11th—I would descend on the South Kaibab Trail and hike 7.4 miles down to Bright Angel Campground

November 12th—I would leave my camp up and hike 12 miles round trip on the North Kaibab Trail to Ribbon Falls and back.

November 13th—I would take the Bright Angel Trail back up to the North Rim.

Of course, it wasn’t that easy! With the fire and other delays, the water pipeline replacement project that had been under way was behind schedule. So portions of the Bright Angel Trail were to remain closed. No problem. I’d go back up South Kaibab a ways and then cross the Tonto Plateau trail to meet up with where Bright Angel was open. What’s a few more miles and sun exposure at this point?! Piece of cake!

My trip was set, plane tickets purchased, hotels booked. We were to leave on October 31st for a whirlwind trip culminating in my Nov 11th solo descent below the rim!

Then, October 1st. The government shut down and the national park staff were furloughed. There was so much confusion on what would remain open and for how long. Some operations did remain open, as they were run by or funded by outside entities not the government. But would my campground be open? The trails? I just had to wait and see.

As it drew near, I learned that everything I needed for the trip would be fine. I could still hike and camp! But of course, there was more.

October 28th I received a phone call from the operators of Phantom Ranch that the pipeline project was again experiencing delays and the meals I had booked were to be cancelled. No problem, I’ll recalculate my bag weight and calorie needs, and just pack in all my food.

November 4th, park officials announced that the entirety of the North Kaibab trail down into Phantom Ranch would remain closed. So Ribbon Falls was also out.

What a cluster fuck. Do not pardon my French, I mean it!

Oh fricken well. I was determined to go down into that canyon, one way or another!

And. I. Did.

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”
— Amelia Earhart

So, at last, here’s my trip report!

And what a camp it was! Sites are first come/first serve for permit holders and I was delighted to secure a spot creekside! Bright Angel Creek flows down right past the campground and it lulled me to sleep both nights. As I mentioned, I decided to spend the next day relaxing since I couldn’t go to Ribbon Falls. I could have opted to climb up the Clear Creek trail a ways, but with the fear pressing in on me still about the 4,000 foot climb out the next day, I was worried about pushing too hard. So I hit up the Phantom Ranch Cantina and was pleasantly surprised that the water was on and the infamous lemonades were available for purchase.

It’s kind of surreal to be at the base of the canyon, sitting in an air conditioned room drinking a lemonade. The only way in is by hiking, rafting, or riding a mule. The canyon feels so vast, remote, and rugged. Which it is. And yet, there’s electricity and credit card readers. Oh, and a post office box where you can mail cards which will be carried out by mule! I took my little book I had carefully saved weight in my pack for and grabbed another off the lending shelf, grabbed a 2nd lemmy and some snacks, and parked myself on Boat Beach for almost 5 hours! It was a splendid way to spend the day. I watched many hikers come and go, the mule train cross the Black Bridge, helicopters carrying supplies for the pipeline project, and fish jumping out of the mighty Colorado River. I read my way through the entire borrowed Mary Oliver book and worked my way through three more chapters of Women Who Run With the Wolves which I have been slow reading and reflecting on. Just a perfect, restful day.

That of course spit me out at Havasupai Gardens, which meant from there it was 4.5 miles and straight up 3,060 feet in elevation. The worst part, the part I had been dreading.

And you know what? It was also….easy.

At every turn, I kept thinking it would get harder. The trail definitely got steeper and harder to pick anticipate. You’d see a sheer wall ahead and think there was no way this trail could get to the top. Then you’d round a switch back and go “Oh, I see. There’s a little ledge there it is taking us to.” and it would climb ever higher. But I never truly felt exhaustion. I had imagined that I would need to stop a lot, lay down to rest. I imagined I would be heaving for oxygen. I imagined being dripping in sweat and close to tears with exhaustion. But it never came. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe I was disassociating. Maybe, just maybe, I was just actually prepared and couldn’t recognize that because of my fear and lingering feelings of not being enough.

Getting to the top was anticlimactic. I had heard that it would be, especially on the South Rim. It pops you out right into the village, the most visited area of the national park. It’s literally bubbling with tourists, which I started to notice around Havasupai Gardens. Up until then, I mostly had the trail to myself. A random trail runner would pass me, or a hiker going the opposite direction. But they were few and far between. While over 4.9 million people visit Grand Canyon National Park every year, they estimate that fewer than 5% go hiking below the rim, and fewer than 1% actually make it to the bottom. So even though it is a Bucket List trip for many around the globe, the 2nd most visited national park in the country, and one of the 7 Wonders of the Natural World, it is a very peaceful and quiet hiking experience. That all changes at the top of the Bright Angel Trail. Suddenly you are thrust back into reality. It was jarring and sapped my energy more than anything else on this backpacking trip. It made it hard to think and make decisions, hard to even begin to process everything. It was done, I was finished. I had made this big impossible feeling goal a reality. And I couldn’t process!

I think I’ll be processing this trip for many months, even years, to come. I don’t think I’m done with the Grand Canyon. A friend said that I had “conquered” and that doesn’t feel close to the truth, or even the goal. I don’t think anyone can conquer the canyon. And why would you want to? I don’t go to nature to set myself against it, to subdue it. I go to learn about who I am and to be given the wisdom that only Earth knows. When, and it is when not if, the North Rim is rebuilt and the trail opens, I want to see Ribbon Falls. I want to pop out on the quiet, remote North Rim, where only abut 10% of visitors ever go. I want to get the famous Jacob Lake Inn cookies and gaze upon the Bright the Burro statue, which survived inside the burned down lodge and is being restored. I want to learn what other lessons the Grand Canyon has to teach me.

I don’t know when that will be. And in the meantime, I don’t really know what is next for me. As I said, I am not a conqueror. I don’t have a desire to keep leveling up to bigger and harder challenges just for the sake of it. There are certainly some bigger things I want to do in the future—things like the Machu Picchu trek or Tour du Mont Blanc. These will take time to plan, train, and save money for. And I know I’ll get to them when the time is right. But not next year.

This year, I think I’ll work on my Wisconsin bucket list. I’ll take time to reconnect with hobbies I put aside to make room for training. I’ll meet up more with new and old friends. I’ll keep pole dancing—not just because it makes me a better hiker, but because it makes me more fully myself. I’ll keep refusing to compartmentalize who I am to fit into anyone’s narrow definition of what an “outdoorsy” person should be.

“The wilderness holds answers to questions we have not yet learned to ask.”
— Nancy Newhall