Circling The Drain

Even when flying 500 feet above you, the California Condor is an imposing bird. A member of the new world vulture family, they look like grisly buzzards with 11 foot wingspans. They are a rare bird, once almost extinct. They now ride the thermals high above the American West, perhaps numbering 250 in all. I saw a film once of a group of these birds eating a Javelina carcass. There was ripping and shredding and jostling, it was not a pretty sight.

And that was the image that came to mind the during time we had four or five of these behemoths circling over our hiking party in a remote section of the Grand Canyon. Low on water, tired, overheated and slowing down, we surely looked like a good bet for a banquet. As four of us prepared to make a foray further into the barren wasteland in search of water, I silently wondered if the birds would follow us or just continue to circle the rest of the party.

Apparently the members who remained behind looked tastier, because the birds stayed with them. Off we went to a dry river bed appropriately called "Cremation Creek". What we found, after much examination, were a few small green pools of water. We greedily scooped as much as we could into our bone-dry water bottles and returned to the canyon where we had left the rest of our hiking group.

Seeing that we had found water and would unfortunately probably not die this time, the great birds began to fly in ever-increasing circles until they were gone at last.

So it was that we left the Grand Canyon with a big dose of healthy respect for these giant scavengers of the sky, who were probably by that time stalking a new dehydrated and slowing-down group somewhere in the vast wilderness.