Susan Billingsley - Grand Canyon River Guides

S u s a n B i l l i n g s l e yHiking. If I was going to look back on anything Idid in Grand Canyon—that was the mostimportant thing to me. The river was fun, it wasgreat, it was fun to be down along the river corridor,because it’s such a different environment than the rest ofthe canyon. But the hiking! You hike all day long, andget down and find this beautiful little seep, or a beautifullittle spring you never heard about, that hardly anybodyhas ever seen, and it is so beautiful. In that wholeimmense nothing down there but dryness, you find thisabsolutely beautiful spot. Those trips, you just can’t beatthat.I was probably fourteen [when I first saw GrandCanyon]. Didn’t even impress me. What a boring place.It was a big hole in the ground, big dip. We were just—family trip. We had just moved down here and, being anobnoxious fourteen-year-old who hadn’t wanted to movehere in the first place, nothing was going to impressme…In college, we had an nau hiking club. My firstGrand Canyon hike was Hermit Trail down to the riverand out. It was a tough one, not ever having hiked likethat before. But that was my first one. And then we justdid everything we could. We did a lot in western GrandCanyon, Milkweed, Matkatamiba, just a lot of thosewestern canyons. We did a lot on the North Rim on thewestern side. We did a lot in Little Colorado, everywhere…Well, Ellen Tibbetts, she hiked with us, George[Billingsley], Jan Jensen, John Wehrman, Caroline Taber,Bruce Mitchell, Jimmy Sears, Sally Lockwood, and SlimWoodruff. We went hiking. We’d meet and showpictures of places we’d gone and then we’d decide wherewe were going to go the next weekend, and then we’dtake off. Lots of times we’d leave Friday night afterclasses, hike down in the dark, get down as far as wecould go, and then we’d be that much closer to whereverwe were hiking. We had an extra five or six hours so wecould get in and get someplace.Steiger: Was that with Dr. Butchart? Was he theadvisor?Billingsley: He wasn’t the advisor when we werethere, because that was about the time he lost a youngguy in the river, and so he didn’t want to do thatanymore. There were a couple of advisors but they neverreally—I think two hikes is all they ever did with us.They just put their names down on the papers so wecould do the hiking, ’cause we had to have a sponsor forthe nau Hiking Club. We did a few things with Dr.Butchart, but he didn’t hike for the same reasons wehiked. We hiked because we loved to get down there, weloved to get down to the river and back, that was prettyimportant to us. We liked to go down there and have agood time, but Dr. Butchart went down there to get fromPoint a to Point b and back again, and there was no funin it at all. You hiked all day long. He would wake up inthe morning, sit up in his bag, eat like a cup of drycereal, get up, and start hiking. That was it. He wouldjust hike all day.We’d go look at his pictures, and he had the worstpictures in the world. He had thousands of pictures andhe’d go, “Come on over and look at slides!” We’d goover there and his wife just hated it. She hated everythingabout the Grand Canyon at that point in his life,and we’d all come in and sit there and look at picturesfor a couple of hours. Never a person in his pictures. Allyou could see were routes up through the Redwall.That’s what he was interested in…Oh, it was okay. It was fun listening to him talk. Heled us into a lot of places to hike, and he gave us aclimbing lesson once, out the back door of the ForestryBuilding. He decided we should climb down into RoyalArch Creek. So he was going to show us how to Jumarup and down. We all got out there behind the ForestryBuilding one evening, (laughs) and he gave us thislesson, but before he got started, he was standing on theoutside of the fire escape that went down, and he wasleaning over it, hooking up his harness, and Jimmy Searswas late and he came out the door, and threw that dooropen and hit Dr. Butchart in the head, and poor Dr.Butchart was [indicates wobbling around]. We were alltrying to grab him, we got him before he went over, andhe just pretended nothing happened. He grabbed aholdand he gave us the lesson, and then as he was comingdown—he always would stay calm. Very slow, quiettalking,he would never get excited, and just before hegot down, the collar on his shirt, because he’d just comefrom class, got caught in the rope, and started twisting.It was choking him. His tie was tight, and it was justtwisting, but he just kept talking, and stayed very calm,“Well this shirt’s just getting a little bit tight, I shouldprobably come on over to this step now.” You know?And we were trying to get him over to the step. (laughs)As a lesson, it was pretty funny, but it worked. We hikedin and we climbed down into Royal Arch Creek.Steiger: Boy, I wonder how many people do yousuppose had been there?Billingsley: At that point? I don’t know.Steiger: I’ve done it from the river a couple times,page 26grand canyon river guides