MYSTERIES IN GRAND CANYON

Rex Burress

The story of the “Egyptian Cave” alleged to be found in Grand Canyon during 1909 and reported in a Phoenix newspaper, has been revived by the TV program, “Mysteries in Our National Parks.”

It was stated that an explorer by the name of Kincaid was floating down the Colorado River through the park, and saw stains on the cliff-side. He climbed up to an apparently man made cave of colossal proportions inside and found a trove of artifacts with Egyptian characteristics. He sent some to the Smithsonian and they conducted an expedition there, and are said to have hauled away some 40 truckloads of material, something that the museum now denies.

Adding to the mysteriousness of that deep canyon sector was the verified crashing of two jetliners that collided at the nearby junction at the Little Colorado River and the main channel in 1956, killing all 128 passengers. Indian legend has it that a high energy source emanates from that confluence of the canyon. Presently, that region is in a 'forbidden zone' for hikers.

All of that is open to speculation and imagination, but without doubt, the Grand Canyon, and other National Parks, and even local Oroville parks, abound with astounding natural wonders and historical mysteries.

I wonder if the Grand Canyon mysteries were part of my friend Doug Bray's intrigue with the canyon? Doug had moved to Arizona for his health, and became obsessed to walk the trail down to the bottom of the canyon. In spite of physical ailments, he prepared to make the hike, sensing that time was slipping away and he wanted to do one big thing while he could. He had mountaineering experience, having trekked throughout the Sierra with his large negative camera, Sierra Club style.

I had met Doug in Oroville where he had moved from the metropolis seeking relief for a bad back. He was trying to recover strength by carrying a heavy backpack along the river at a time when I was writing “River Watcher,” and soon he was joining my public nature hikes, while he was featuring his camera art under the guise of “Healing River Photography.”

On June 10, 2015, Doug set off for the geological experience of a lifetime. The journey was wrought with mystery from the start. Episodes of time-blanks occurred on the drive up from Phoenix, but finally he was on his way down via a strenuous switchback trail, longer and more physically draining than he had ever imagined. Going down a trail can be rougher on the muscles than going up. At the bottom he found a trailside bench where he ate his sandwiches, but dusk was settling in quickly, and at that depth darkness comes very fast. He hadn't planned to stay overnight at the bottom, thinking what looked like a three-mile trail on the map would be a cinch.

Then in the climb out amid darkness, he discovered his flashlight was missing. He began stumbling around, injuring his leg on rocks, and then using what light was left in his cellphone, until that too, was gone. Doug was alone in the dark with sheer walls dropping off into the abyss.

Then he saw a light in the area, and called out asking if he was on the trail. To his surprise, a very tall black woman, scantily clad, appeared, and offered him directions, but declining his request to walk with her, saying she had to get back to her people. But she gave Doug a headlight with new batteries, and then took a few steps and silently vanished, Doug said.

He found himself turned around and back at the bottom near the bench he had used before, and then he laid down and slept until 3A.M. With his new light, he was able to head back up once more, and this time he witnessed strange lights overhead. They would dart around rapidly, change color, hover, and then drift side by side like something from another world. Doug had a small digital camera, and he snapped dozens of pictures. The light-orbs seemed to hover over him, and stayed around almost until daylight started to emerge.

By this time, Doug was completely exhausted, and barely made it to the top, being helped by a couple men who appeared, encouraging him to take a couple steps and stop. He collapsed at the top, and was whisked by helicopter to a hospital in Flagstaff, where they readjusted his chemical balance and released him. He took a shuttle back to his car, but strange events lingered. His car hood came loose and reared up to block his view, nearly causing him to crash on the way home. Highway Patrol couldn't figure out what caused it.

Doug made it home, and excitedly showed me the pictures a couple weeks later as he was going through Oroville. Make what you will out of it, but being alone in the dark of Grand Canyon is conductive to seeing the unknown...and who knows for sure what drifts around in the chasms where life and death has occurred for ages.

I've never seen any supernatural scenes or flying saucers, but I've had eerie feelings at times when passing over certain places. I give little credence to the presence of ghostly manifestations, other than being scared witless in my childhood farmhouse that had creaky steps to the upstairs room, and the dismal stairs down to the basement dungeon, but nothing ever appeared. Those radio scare programs did it. “Innersantum and the Money's Paw.”

No ghost solidified in the old abandoned VanHorn house that was considered haunted, but even though my friend Donald, Dad, and I, rigged scary scenarios to scare visitor Jackie, and even though I would creep into the interior 'magazine room' to ponder far away places with strange sounding names, nothing ever assailed me. The real ghosts were the skunks I trapped there under the ramshackled house.

I suppose I rather dramatized an experience in the Oakland Joaquin Miller Park canyon once. Years ago, I was resting under the redwoods where Cinderella Creek joined Palo Seco Creek, and even though there was dead calm in the swale, I seemed to sense a presence, and halfway to the top of a redwood, a branch was shaking, as if someone was violently waving it, but not even a breeze stirred.

I don't think that occurrence had any thing to do with mystic poet Joaquin Miller, even though he had once been there and renovated his land, and tapped a spring at the very spot I sat. But what about his graveyard on top of the ridge where his ashes were scattered and where nine people are buried in unmarked graves, including his mother? You could contrive a ghost if you were in that frame of mind. But nature is the great stabilizer and not prone to supernatural runarounds.

John Muir had the opportunities to see spirits when he slept in the Bonaventure Cemetery at Savannah, Georgia for a week when he ran out of money on his thousand mile walk in 1867. But he said it was the best place to camp among stones and trees where superstition reigned and few people ventured.

I have stood on the rim of Grand Canyon and gasped at the splendid scene of spacious chasms and spectacular colors, but it never occurred to me to hike to the bottom, or ride a mule down, or even ride a boat through the gushing gorge. The challenge is more than I can comprehend. There is no doubt that there is indeed room there for exceptional adventures, unfinished stories, physical wonders, spiritual revelations, and plenty of mystery!