Bright Angel, bright mule - mule ride down the Grand Canyon's Bright Angel Trail

Sunset, March, 1996 by Peter Fish

Remember," Ron Clayton says, "these mules are going down into the canyon because you want to go there. These mules don't want to go down into the canyon. They've seen it before."

In the corral behind him, 45 mules switch their tails but otherwise pay Clayton little notice. They've heard this line before. We assembled riders, on the other hand, laugh nervously. In 5 minutes we'll saddle up for a trip down Grand Canyon's Bright Angel Trail.

"This is Lori," Jason Lopez says. Lopez is 22, a former bull rider from La Mesa, New Mexico, and one of Ron Clayton's posse of guides. As for Lori, her lustrous brown eyes and pert little topknot lend her the gamine charm of the young Audrey Hepburn, though this effect is diminished by the hairs curling from her nose and her size-18 ears.

Off we go. Lord, Spud, Cricket, and their cargo - a financial planner from Vermont, a teacher from Australia, me. Novice riders all, we utter a collective "Ooosh" as we get our first mule-borne glimpse of the Grand Canyon.

"We got three kinds of rides to the bottom," Jason says, while we retrieve our stomachs. "We got the one-day and the two-day. And we got the express - 45 seconds and two bounces." The mules have heard this one too.

Ask Ron Clayton why mules, not horses, are the canyon's draft animal of choice and he waxes grandiloquent. "Mules got a real solid foot," he says, "and they tend to be herd-bound. Keep in mind, the mule is the first genetically engineered hybrid in history. Mules are mentioned in the Bible. In Second Samuel, the king's sons rode mules."

I keep Lori's Old Testament patrimony in mind as we negotiate the switchbacks called Jacob's Ladder. When nature writer John Burroughs descended this trail in 1909, he lavished praise on his mule: "How cautiously he felt his way with his round little feet, as, with lowered head, he seemed to be scanning the trail critically!" That was one opinion. My opinion is that Lord takes inordinate pleasure in stepping as close to the edge of the chasm as possible, so that each turn poises me above 2 billion years of geology and a mile of empty air.

Ron Clayton is proud of the mules' safety record: no fatalities in a hundred years. Even so, every time Lord teeters at trail's edge, I remember those warnings about mutual funds: past performance is no guarantee of future results. Gradually, though, I come to trust her instincts. Like all of Clayton's mules, she bears the imprimatur of one Mr. Rufus Reese, mule breeder par excellence of Gallatin, Tennessee, and was put through months of training before toting her first passenger.

Down we go, mile by mile, Kaibab limestone giving way to Coconino sandstone giving way to Bright Angel shale. We acquire a rhythm - Jason's jokes, stops for photographs, and then it's back to that clop-clip clop-clip clop-clip clop-clop-clop that serves as leitmotif for Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite, although, to be candid, the mules also make a number of other noises that Grofe did not see fit to include in his composition.

At Plateau Point we climb from our saddles to peer down to the canyon's bottom, 2-billion-year-old vishnu schist so raw it looks as if it has been yanked from the earth's beating heart. The glimpse of geologic infinity is unsettling, and it is good to head back to Indian Gardens, where beneath cottonwoods' dappled shade we eat sandwiches and feed apples to our mules. Lord has not learned to eat with her mouth closed, but she's appreciative.

Ron Clayton sometimes fears the mules' days are numbered. It's not that the rides aren't popular: he averages 10,000 customers a year, and trips are often booked a year in advance. Still, insurance costs have halted pack operations in other parks. The Grand Canyon's management plan includes moving the mules to a new stable 1/2 mile away. Ron Clayton worries that it will never be built, but the Park Service demurs. Says park planner Brad Traver, "We have no intention of getting rid of any mules. We're planning on keeping them in perpetuity."

It is time to head back up Bright Angel Trail. The uphill climb is where the mules really shine. We ride past sweaty struggling backpackers, feeling haughty and a little evil, like aristocrats bearing down on peasants in Bourbon France.

We reach the South Rim. After 8 hours on the trail with not one mishap, there is a contretemps in the corral. One rider in our group pulls off his jacket before dismounting. That spooks his mule, who bucks him neatly into the dirt. The other mules bray and fuss. Jason calms them. The bucked rider dusts himself off. We are awarded trail-ride certificates - diplomas from Mule U. I pat Lord good-bye. She doesn't notice. The mules trot back to their stable; we straggle back to baths and beds. That night, when we close our eyes, the canyon spreads before us, and the clip-clop-clip of hoofbeats soothes us to sleep.