Return to Phantom Ranch 

You know you’re within a half-mile of Phantom Ranch when the air turns to a very particular smell—granite and sandstone, cottonwood trees, the 40-degree waters of the Colorado River. On my first trip down since I worked there seven years ago, the half-full moon provides enough light to hike without a headlamp, and I remember how the Grand Canyon’s exposed landscape is one of the only places in the world where I feel safe walking alone.

When I was an employee and sent my pack down on mules and carried only a water bottle, I could make it from the South Rim to the ranch in about two hours, taking most of the seven-mile trail at a jog. But today I arrive at the trailhead around sunset, much too late for the mules, and I’m carrying heavy gifts (or bribes?)—two fifths of bourbon and two boxed liters of red wine, as well as an embarrassingly amateur amount of miscellany: a laptop, three