Ron Callihan, a 66-year-old Willow Street man, had recently rebounded from a life-altering bout with rectal cancer. He'd fixed on the idea of the hike as a way to confirm - and celebrate - his recovery. The journey had taken two years, and it marked a low ebb in Callihan's life.
Nine months after he was diagnosed, in November 2005, he recounted, his wife, Ann, died after cancer spread throughout her body. A large portrait of her sits on Callihan's dining-room table. Lying in bed after receiving doses of chemotherapy and
radiation, Callihan said, he didn't think he was ever going to be able to get up and go on. The treatments exhausted him so much that he couldn't work.
But, slowly, he got better and regained the 40 pounds he'd lost.
This past January, he contacted the Wildland Trekking Company, in Flagstaff, Ariz., and reserved a spot on its May 13-17 Rim to Rim hike.
I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do this, Callihan said.
In may, waking up to a spring snow storm, his group marched five miles down the Bright Angel Trail and pitched their tents at Indian Garden Campground, a leafy oasis perched on a massive plateau.
As they hiked to Bright Angel Campground on the Colorado River the next day, he gained new insight into the canyon. It actually looks prettier from the bottom, he said. Callihan's photos show fire-hued rock cliffs and mule deer browsing on desert vegetation. California condors with 11-foot wingspans sailed the azure skies.
The hikers crossed the cold, green Colorado aboard a spidery metal bridge and threw off their 35-pound packs at the campground. The trio mixed with other sojourners, including a ranger who cooled off by diving into the river, formally, with all clothing on, and some archaeologists commuting to a dig via river raft.
Erhart, who is also a writer, world traveler and commentator for National Public Radio, according to the Wildland Trekking Company Web site (www.wildlandtrekking.com), pointed out fauna and flora.
She knew every flower, every bug, every rock, said Callihan, who added that they saw scorpions but none of the Grand's famous sidewinder rattlesnakes.
On her day off she went on a hike, he said of the guide.
A meditative stillness reigned. At night, the dry air was luminescent.
It was almost a full moon, Callihan recalled, and down in the canyon it was like dawn.
After a day's layover at Phantom Ranch, the group tackled the climb to the North Rim via the North Kaibab Trail.
The group stayed the fourth night at the Cottonwood Campground, on Bright Angel Creek, partway up to the North Rim. The next day, with Callihan setting the pace, they polished off the final seven miles in less than six hours.
I'd sooner go uphill than downhill, which is harder for a backpacker to negotiate because of the extra momentum, Callihan said.
At the top, he said, We all shook hands and gave each other high- fives.
Soon, it was time to bid goodbye and return - by vehicle - 4 1/2 hours to the South Rim.
From Phoenix the next day, Callihan flew home to his job as a paperhanger and painter at Willow Valley Retirement Community.
First, though, he phoned his cheering section back home - his daughter, Paula Brewer, of Lancaster, and her children, Rebekah, 11, and Evan, 9.
He was very active and fit before he was diagnosed with cancer, Brewer said.
Seeing her father recover and accomplish the canyon hike has been gratifying, she added.
I'm just proud that he did it.
So, of course, is Callihan, who trained for the challenge by filling a borrowed backpack with 40 pounds of dumbbells and trooping around the Pinnacle Overlook (near Holtwood) and Mount Gretna.
The result: no blisters. No aches. No pains. No problems, either, with the 8,300-foot altitude of the North Rim.
Callihan said he was thrilled by the Western tour, which he deemed worth every cent of the $1,050 trip fee.
We had a great time. I would do it again tomorrow.
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