Dr. Tom Myers has worked as a physician on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon since 1990, and he knows all the ways people can get into trouble on a difficult hike. In fact, he co-authored the book Death in Grand Canyon. But that didn’t stop him from completing an epic journey on foot down the canyon’s entire length. His new book is The Grandest Trek.
So you and your son went on this adventure kind of in segments over the course of… how long did it take you?
Seven and half years of trying to fit it in around his school breaks. We started when he was thirteen, he was in middle school, so like spring break and then the shoulder season. We didn’t want to be in there in the summer, I knew enough about the heat and fatal accidents related to that, so that was definitely out of the question. I didn’t want him to suffer, or me suffer, any level of that. So Christmas Break as well. Trying to just, relatively speaking, nickel and dime it, going in and out, and then with these segments link them like a chain until we did a full hike from Lees Ferry to Grand Wash Cliffs in Lake Mead.
Did you have any touch and go moments, where you were thinking, you know, what I am doing down here, this is turning bad?
We did. The first one was pretty early into it. It was Wes and myself and we had a friend hiking with us…. We chose middle of October. It’s cooler generally speaking. The problem was that particular year it had been an extremely dry fall. Really dry, no rain in almost three months, it was negligible. So there wasn’t going to be pothole water available, and where we were going, we knew there were no springs. Unfortunately, we ran out of water….. That was pretty scary, and then a few years later—actually quite a few years later—downstream, Wes got in a situation where he got caught in a flash flood by himself in Kanab Creek. That one—very, very intense and really scary in another way…. But he lived to tell the tale.
Yeah, that sounds terrifying. Given that—I mean, that first experience happened early in the trip—what drove you to keep going?
I think that—well, I knew there was a benefit for Weston, for he and I to have that father-son experience to bond and connect in a really deep and meaningful way…. When that happened, Weston’s reaction when he got out, he says, Dad, I’d like to come back, I want to keep going. So did I…. A lot of it came down to us in the relationship, and my son who was kind of struggling in adolescence at the time. I really felt like, and my wife supported it, but I thought that if he did this, he would feel better about who he was, and help him get through the adolescent years, which are often difficult for so many of us.
To balance the scary parts, can you share a moment where you’re down there and you’re just like, this is so worth it?
The very first night that we did a lengthwise section… Upstream there’s a cliff, an obstacle you have to get pass, and it requires some climbing, a little bit of exposure and stuff, and Wes got by that just fine, but that really had made me nervous for actually a few weeks, certainly the days and hours before, about him getting beyond that. We did, and he was no worse for the wear. As a matter of fact, he was really pretty excited about it. When he fell asleep, I was just looking at him going, god, I can’t believe I’m actually here with my boy, and we’re doing this together. This is so epic, so grand, and the cliff walls were looming, and the shadows were spectacular. I’m like, god, I’m in the grandest place on earth and I’m here with my son doing this, this is amazing. This is worth it, here, right now. This is one of the greatest moments of my life.
That’s beautiful. What made you—when you returned from this epic adventure—what made you want to write a book about it?
The Canyon, I think, is the backdrop to a bigger story. I think the bigger story is using wilderness as a place for emotional healing, and finding self-worth and value in who you are, and part of that is accomplishing something that a lot of people haven’t.
Tom Myers, thank you so much for speaking with me today.
Thanks for having me, Melissa.
Tom Myers will speak about The Grandest Trek at the South Rim for the Grand Canyon Conservancy on Saturday, May 16.
