Raven Travels: GRAND CANYON VOLUNTEER

NORTH RIM - 22 JUNE

A little behind in this posting! It was a busy week with lots going on though in a fairly routine week.

A lot of Office Time is spent on the screening process for Artist In Residence selections for 2014 and 2015. Originally it was only going to be for the one year, but we have 212 applicants!! I can get through about 20 applicants in a two to two and a half hour period. The applicants mediums are everything from photography, various painting media, writers, musicians, sculptors, and fabric. It is an interesting process but the numbers this year are over welming.

My programs went well, with good turn outs for them all. During our “weekend” we spent one afternoon going out to the Basin to check on the wildflower display. Not much was blooming. I think it will be better after the monsoon season gets established. I did find a new species for my plant album though.

Friday was a long day for George not because it was the summer solstice. He set out on his PSAR at about 0700 and did not get home until almost 2000. He had two hiker assists that day. The first was assisting a hiker with a serious nose bleed. He followed her up and thought he was done about 1430. He was in the process of checking out when they received a call about a hiker falling 35 feet off the trail, about 2.5 miles down from the trailhead. George and a Ranger headed down to provide aid. They eventually did a mule haul out of the hiker and her pack. The lady was very lucky in that she came out fairly unscathed. San Diego Firefighters who were hiking with Project Athena had provided the initial rescue and aid

Lizard on B.A. Point Trail

as the lady was holding on to a ledge with about a 40 pound pack on her back. I will let George tell his tale of this in more detail.

As a result of the above, I took on his very early morning shift at the V.C. on Saturday so that he could sleep in and rest a bit more. As a result I had two mornings of 0630 starts and two of 0730 starts.

The “super moon” added to long hours for me. I went out the day before full moon to Point Imperial to capture the rise with some daylight. There were a few other photographers out there doing the same thing. We had to wait about 12 minutes after the scheduled arrival for it to clear the haze to the East. The moon was quite impressive in the first hour of it’s rising. One of the things I enjoyed was using the long lens to focus on one small element in the Canyon with sunset light on it before the moonrise.

The weeks fly here, says the RavenMaven.

North Rim Flora -