The Grand Canyon, Tioga County, Pa.
Posted on 01/03/2024 1:24:58 PM PST by SJackson
Yikes!
As a 90-year old whose primary walking exercise is following the wife from machine to machine at the National Harbor MGM, guess I need to ramp up the frequency of the routine from 3 or 4 times a month...
No problem! Rush’s advice on canned dog food will come into play...
Maybe it’s just me. I have the same reaction to people who sky dive or bungy jump for fun. It reminds me of a line from a really good YA book that I’ve read repeatedly: “Adventures come in big chunks. You can’t just have a little bit of adventure.”
The “big chunks” of adventure are perilously close to us all right now. I’m 12 clicks away from the Lebanon border as the missile flies. Texas cheerleaders are getting murdered in their bath tubs by illegal aliens. Nut cases are shooting up schools, houses of worship and malls. Hordes of barbarians can invade and rape, murder and slaughter peaceful communities. The world is more full of dangerous lunatics than usual.
So why go to the trouble of living so long, just to perform such an unnecessary and life-threatening stunt. So other centenarians will do something just as frivolous, following your sterling example? 16-year-olds wrap their shiny corvettes around trees and die. 92-year-olds should have more sense.
It’s a story...you do not HAVE to read it.
I lived in Flagstaff, AZ for 6.5 years - Jan 1975 to Sept 1981. While attending NAU for my MBA degree and for several years afterwards, I was a flight instructor, charter and corporate pilot.
I had the good/great fortune/special opportunity to fly a number of sight-seeing trips through the Grand Canyon back in the day when flying fixed wing aircraft below the South Rim was allowed. Each trip through the Canyon was special!
Hiking the Canyon, North to South is a huge feat! KUDOS to that gentleman!
I never wanted to hike the Canyon; would rather fly!
ROGER THAT!
Hiking the Canyon is not *life threatening*. It in no way entails the risk that skydiving or bungee jumping does. Those trails are not that dangerous or narrow. I have a slight fear of heights and have hiked the Canyon with no difficulty, and would not be caught dead skydiving or bungee jumping. I don’t like planes and hate step ladders. If it involved heights like that, forget it.
Mules have plenty of room to walk down those trails. They are wide enough and often a gentle enough slope. They zig zag across the slope of the face of the canyon. It’s not a sheer drop.
FWIW, at 92 I’d cut the guy some slack. Anyone in that kind of condition at that age can darned well do whatever they want for fun.
And life threatening? At 92, I would think he’s led a full enough life to earn the right to not worry about it. Heck, at that age, he’s not even sure he’s going to wake up the next morning. The older I get the more aware of my own mortality I become.
I envy you for flying in that gorgeous area.
What do you suggest he do with his time? Would you be happier if he just played bingo or cards?
Write, paint, sculpt, garden, learn an instrument and compose. Something other than “see what I can do”. Actually do something that creates an edifice.
OK. I’ll call off the swat team. It’s not my business. But don’t ask me to be impressed or approve. I’d say that the Canyon has its own weather hazards, but having never been there, I don’t know.
I pray at a table in my synagogue opposite a 94-year-old man who survived the Holocaust, made it to Israel at a young age, and still gets up every morning to give thanks to G-d for that day of life. He’s outlived some of his offspring. He has all sorts of health problems, some of which can be stomach turning to observe, but he is well loved, and is never short of willing hands to help him into and out of his go cart and into and out of his place, etc. They are devoted to him and help him arrange his affairs as well. While the stuff he coughs up into a paper hot cup is appalling, I like him too, and occasionally lend a hand when nobody else is available.
He’s not walking the Grand Canyon, but he strives for as much independence as his disabilities allow him to. It doesn’t make the papers, but his daily struggles impress me more.
Having my share of health issues, yes, that daily struggle can be worse. Hiking the canyon would be easy compared to living everyday life sometimes.
The day my friend and I hiked the canyon, we went out for dinner that night, hardly able to move from soreness, and here it was, near the end of May, and it started SNOWING outside.
So, yes, keeping an eye on the weather there is critical.
Wow, chops to him.
Hubs and I hiked a short distance on the Bright Angel trail when we visited a few years ago. He has muscular dystrophy but hiking poles really helped him. It challenged both of us so we’re impressed by the 92-year-old hiker.
We want to do these sorts of things while Hubs still can.
I’m training every day to be the oldest person who DIDN’T cross the Grand Canyon.
At the time, we had no idea that the Grand Canyon scenic flights would be outlawed. There were reporting points in the Canyon on a common frequency, so we knew who was in the Canyon and where they were. Worked well.
I believe the environmental whackos got the FAA to make Canyon flights illegal because of the noise. Best you can do now is 1000 feet above the south rim.
I generally took my tourists down to 100’ above the river - that is a spectacular view! River runners loved to see us fly over them!
So why post it if—GASP!—E5 might say something you don’t like. If you post to a forum, expect to hear things you disagree with. This might come as a shock to you, but I don’t care if you care what I have to say or not. I’ll say it.
Oh look, aren’t you stunning and brave for crapping all over a 92-year-old who hiked the Grand Canyon and then bragging about how he failed to impress you. Now you try to play like you’re not a jerk, you’re really a hero standing up to someone calling you a jerk? LOL.
If you aren’t impressed by a 92-year-old Grand Canyon hiker,then you don’t have to click on the article about a 92-year-old Grand Canyon hiker. But you think you can do that but should be protected from someone like me telling you to stop being an a-hole? Damn, son.
Oh look, aren’t you stunning and brave for crapping all over a 92-year-old who hiked the Grand Canyon...
I’m telling you my opinion of it. The 92-year-old is going to hike where he hikes. I crapped all over nobody. You’re telling me your opinion. Which you’re entitled to. But in my opinion, your opinion sucks. Nothing “heroic” about that either.
If you aren’t impressed by a 92-year-old Grand Canyon hiker,then you don’t have to click on the article about a 92-year-old Grand Canyon hiker.
But I can and I did, and told you my opinion. If you don’t want to know my opinion, you don’t have to read it.
“But you think you can do that but should be protected from someone like me telling you to stop being an a-hole? Damn, son.”
I don’t need to be protected from anyone on this board, least of all you, who makes all this into some personal matter. G-d is protecting me from Hamas and Hizbollah, and sent the IDF to do that job. This is pure trivial nonsense about an old man whose idea of what to do with his time differs from mine. “Protect” me from you? I don’t GAGS what you have to say about anything. This is first-world nonsense. Grow up, son.
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