Who Is This Jeremy Riposte Guy Anyway? | On the Road to Arizona | In Laughlin, Nevada | At the Grand Canyon | Day 3 – Our First Jeremy Sighting | Jeremy's Latest Scam... Or When the Old Is New Again | Into the Canyon | Report from Indian Gardens Camp Ground | Report from Bright Angel Camp Ground | Ghost Hunting at the Bottom of the Canyon | Jeremy's Tour is Missing! | Jeremy Finds the Outcast Earth Team | We Found Jeremy's Camp | Our Last Day – And An Unexpected Find | Update from the Canyon's South Rim

POLARIS: We receive emails and lots of them. Most are friendly inquiries about a particular expedition we conducted or a newly-posted website feature. Sometimes a website visitor wants to share a story about their spooky experience in an old hotel or an abandoned graveyard. A few people send us hate-mail, chiding our belief in “ghosts, fairies, leprechauns, unicorns, etc.” (For the record, collectively we only believe in one of those things... except for Echo, who believes in three of them.) Regardless, no email is more titillating and potentially more upsetting than one that has “A question about Jeremy Riposte?” in the Subject line.

First, a little background since no one has fully explained the connection between Outcast Earth and Jeremy.

It’s 1986 in Tucson, Arizona. I had just graduated from high school and my mother and father announced that they are moving back to Kaua’i to take over running my grandparents’ cinema. We had lived in Arizona from the time I was six and I was excited to return to the island of my birth. Jeremy Riposte was one of the first people I met upon my return, as we shared a college literature class and a penchant for mocking our instructor’s fascination with the sexual imagery in William Faulkner’s Sanctuary. Jeremy was an intriguing person from day one. I have never met anyone so self-confident, so intelligent, and so committed to obtaining whatever he wanted with no regard for others. Now, I’m certainly not going to lump him in with the Bernard Madoffs of the world, but even in those early days Jeremy saw the stupid, the gullible and the trusting as fair game. It might have been P.T. Barnum who said “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but it was Jeremy Riposte who had that motto silk-screened onto T-shirts and sold for $55 a pop. (Before I get emails about it, I know that most historians now think P.T. Barnum didn’t actually say that, but you get my point I hope!)

Jeremy and I remained friends for many years, but it was a strange kind of friendship, one defined more by its boundaries than by its openness. I found you could enjoy Jeremy’s ebullient company as long as you didn’t lend him any money, didn’t reveal any vulnerabilities, and always had your own transportation should circumstances require a quick escape. Jeremy never did anything in my company that I would call overtly illegal, but he was a master at manipulating any situation for his own benefit. He was the guy who would crash a stranger’s wedding reception or confuse a coffee house clerk into giving him back twice as much change as was actually owed. One time, during our college years, Jeremy got us pizza money by pulling merchandise off store shelves and then “returning” it for a refund to the customer service desk of the same store. He was so convincing that the store manager actually apologized to him for the inconvenience.

Years later, when Ash was a little boy and began to have his weird psychic visions, Jeremy became fascinated. He had already obtained several university degrees related to psychology and world mythology, and I think he saw Ash as a kind of laboratory rat running through a paranormal maze. When I first conceived of the Outcast Earth project, it was Jeremy I confided in. That turned out to be a mistake. As with most things, Jeremy immediately saw my idea as being his property too. As the original team began to form (consisting of myself, Ash, Coyote, Rune, Meridian, Anvil and Trespass), Jeremy automatically considered himself the eighth member. When I finally confronted him about his misconception, the friendship ended. I didn’t speak to Jeremy for years after that, although we moved in similar orbits through the paranormal universe. He taught a course on parapsychology at the local community college; self-published a handful of books on world myths and revisionist history; and began a tour business that specialized in “explorations into the unknown.” It was this final venture that brought us back into contact with Jeremy in 2008 [see The Lost Ruins of Kaua’i for details]. It is this tour business that now has us quickly leaving Oregon and heading south to Arizona.

Our unexpected change in plans resulted from the aforementioned email entitled “A question about Jeremy Riposte?” The email was sent by a Michigan woman named Claire, who wrote that her brother and sister-in-law were taking “a very expensive trip to the Grand Canyon to look for Egyptian ruins at the bottom of the canyon.” Flabbergasted by her relatives’ willingness to spend $3000 on such a bizarre excursion, Claire did a Google search on Jeremy and found our website.

“Is this man a con man?” she asked. “I can’t believe any reasonable person would spend this kind of money on something so crazy, but he’s managed to convince my brother [and] his wife that their [sic] going to find king tut’s tomb at the bottom of the canyon!!!!”

[Read Claire’s complete email on our BULLETINS page.]

As bizarre as that sounds, I’m not surprised that Jeremy is attempting something like this. As I mentioned previously, he is a devout proponent of a particularly sensational form of historical revisionism where early humanity was aided by extraterrestrials, supernatural technologies and magical beings. I don’t know how much of this stuff Jeremy actually believes, and how much is just the means to an end. If your business relies on bamboozling people, then subscribing to a belief system that is devoid of logic may have a unique appeal. Regardless, if there’s any person on earth that could convince others that an ancient Egyptian city lies hidden at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, it would be Jeremy Riposte.

So, our team has packed up The Camels and will be traveling the 1,200 miles to the Grand Canyon as fast as road conditions and the Highway Patrol will allow. If Jeremy’s going to unearth something extraordinary, we want to be there. If he’s just scamming people, well, we still want to be there.

RUNE: Our team has found itself in familiar territory as we backtracked hundreds of miles through Oregon and California en route to Arizona. We have [followed] Interstate 5 for most of the trip so far, passing through Grant’s Pass, Redding (not far from where we did our Bigfoot hunt) and Sacramento (where we explored an underground city.) It’s been like passing back through time, and as we drive through these areas I find myself thinking about our past team members who assisted with our expeditions here – Anvil, Trespass and Cipher. It makes me a little sad to think about them, but it also reminds me of the inevitability of change.

Tomorrow we should reach Bakersfield and from there we will head east into Arizona, crossing back through the Mojave Desert and passed many previously visited areas, including Sossaman Acres where we searched in vain for a phantom horse, and where I found unexpected love. I think it will be that leg of the trip, and the memories of Tate, that will be the most difficult. We do not plan to stop – Polaris has assured me that we’ll just “power through” the area and into Arizona.

The memory of Tate is twice saddening for me. First, I was very fond of her and her life was taken away too quickly and without purpose. Second, I still think that it was our relationship that turned Trespass away from Outcast Earth. When he left the team, just six months after Tate’s death, the ‘official reason’ was the discovery that his step-father had survived Hurricane Katrina and had probably killed his mother. He left the team first for Florida, and then returned home to Louisiana. [See "Trespass's Return to the Bayou" for additional information.] We never saw him again, and we have not heard anything from him since June 2008. I found out too late that Trespass had some unrequited feelings for me. Looking back, I guess I should have surmised that but I didn’t, and I’ve always wondered if he felt my relationship with Tate was a slap to his face? I guess I’ll never know, but I still miss his friendship.

ASH: We have put in hell long days driving to Arizona. We don’t really know when Jeremy is supposed to be at the Grand Canyon as the lady who emailed us just said early October. So Dad’s been really pushing things, but it was really nice to stop today in Laughlin and get a hotel room. We are staying in a casino hotel called The Tropicana Express. I’ve never been to a casino before. They always look really exciting and glamourous in the Ocean’s Eleven movies, but I’ve found them kind of gaudy and depressing. Plus they smell too much like cigarette smoke. I'm mean, what the hell! Stop smoking long enough to actually eat your dinner, people! Unless cigarette ash is considered a spice now??

Still, it was kind of nice to sleep in a really big bed with cool, soft sheets for a night. I know we won’t be doing that when we get to the canyon!!! Tomorrow should be a shorter drive to the Grand Canyon. Just about 200 miles.

RUNE: For the first time since arriving at the canyon, Ash spotted Jeremy among the crowd at the Grand Canyon Village. He didn’t see Ash and Ash reported that Jeremy was alone at the time. [Ash] tried to follow him, but lost him in the crowd. Opportunity: denied.

We are still flying blind about Jeremy’s plans. His “paranormal tour business” does not have a website, so there’s no readily accessible information about this particular excursion. After we exposed his “Lost Ruins of Kaua’i” scam last year, he closed up his storefront in Princeville, [Kaua’i] and dropped off the radar. However he’s promoting himself now, he’s doing so quietly. All we know [is] that he’s taking a group of about ten people with him and they paid about $3K a pop for the honor. The trip is supposed to last ten days, but we don’t have a start or ending date. The fact that Ash saw Jeremy in the village means that the trip hasn’t started yet. We may just hold vigil around the Bright Canyon trailhead, which is the most commonly traveled way to the bottom of the canyon from the South Rim, and follow him down once he’s spotted again.

Polaris still believes that the Crystal Creek area is Jeremy’s intended target. When we were looking at the trail map for the Grand Canyon, we noticed that this area is surrounded by geographic features with Egyptian-sounding names. For example, there’s an Isis Temple and a Cheops Pyramid. The rest of the area is literally filled with intriguing and spooky-sounding places, including Phantom Canyon, Phantom Ranch and the Haunted Canyon. Polaris believes that Jeremy will make use of these landmarks to bolster his bizarre claims and entertain his tour members. I agree with this. He’s clever enough to use what already exists as proof for anything he says. In other words, don’t lie unless you have to, just point to what’s known and offer a new interpretation. This is a common practice for hoaxers.

Right now it’s just a waiting game until Jeremy makes his next move.

POLARIS: We have spent our down time at the Grand Canyon doing some research, and I think I have uncovered the impetus for Jeremy Riposte’s strange quest for a hidden Egyptian city at the bottom of the canyon. It all starts in 1909 with an enigmatic newspaper story that appeared in the Phoenix Gazette (now the Arizona Republic). The article claimed that the Smithsonian Institute was spear-heading an expansive archaeological dig in an undisclosed part of the canyon after an underground chamber “of Egyptian design” was discovered. The article lacked essential details and any updates whatsoever... or at least nothing that we could find. Our first reaction was probably the same as yours – the story was a hoax.

But like all great hoaxes, there’s always someone out there who’s willing to insist that the “hoax” is actually a cover-story to hide an uncomfortable truth. Over the years, several historical revisionists have championed the story, accusing the Smithsonian, the federal government and others of a massive conspiracy in order to promote a rigid view of world history. I have written a newsletter entitled The Egyptian City at the Bottom of the Canyon which provides greater detail on the subject.

So how does this tie into Jeremy’s current “tour?” My guess is that Jeremy is using the old Phoenix Gazette story as the basis of this expedition, perhaps even offering it as proof to a cadre of gullible adventure-seekers who thrill to the idea that a lost city is in America’s back yard. This technique would be consistent with his modus operandi. Time will tell I suppose, but at least this discovery may give us some insight into what he’s up to...

MERIDIAN: Jeremy and his tour group was spotted heading down Bright Angel Trail early this morning. We plan to head out tomorrow, staying about a day behind them all the way so we don’t tip our hand. Since it’s highly unlikely that our iPhones and usually internet connections will work once we enter the canyon, we will be offering updates and photographs using the satellite phones. We plan to be in the canyon for anywhere from 10 to 14 days. We have our backcountry hiking permit in hand and all our supplies assembled, so now it’s just summoning our courage to take on what will undoubtedly be the most grueling physical challenge we’ve had so far. I think everyone’s a little nervous about it. We camp out all the time, but we have never been as removed from civilization as we will be on this trip. The Grand Canyon park covers 1.2 million acres. That’s a lot of space to get lost in. Hell, it’s even enough space to hide a lost Egyptian city, ha, ha!

MIST: I am totally having kittens about this hike! The others have told me and Echo that we can bow out if we prefer, but we would feel like such a total wimps if we did. But I admit it, I am not built like someone who hikes the largest canyon in the United States! I’m too tall, a little too heavy, and I stumble more than walk. I’m having all kinds of nervous visions about my pitching headlong over an escarpment... or worse yet, having to be evacuated by helicopter to the amusement of thousands of onlookers. The one thing that makes me feel a little better is that Jeremy’s tour group is made up of mostly middle-agers like me, so I’m thinking that they are probably not going to be moving very fast. Or maybe I HOPE that they won’t. If you never hear from me again, someone take care of Echo and scatter my ashes in Glacier National Park! Thanks!

WEBMASTER’S NOTE: Due to the lack of internet in the Grand Canyon, the team is using satellite phones and similar technology to provide information for their blogs. Their phone reports are transcribed verbatim.

POLARIS: Okay, hi everyone from the kind of bottom of the Grand Canyon! Okay, so I guess it’s safe to say that we are all very, very tired. The [Bright Angel] trail is kind of deceptive at the beginning. We got up at like 6 a.m. to get an early start and the first two hours were really nice. The trail was really wide and not too scary and there were even a couple of cool tunnels. But by the time we reached hour three we were all beginning to feel it in our legs ‘cause we were spending every second putting the brakes on so we wouldn’t go slipping and sliding down the canyon wall. I think Mist is feeling it most. So told us straight up that she’s not an experienced hiker and we’re all just keeping our fingers crossed that Life Flight won’t have to be called during this little jaunt. Ummm, what else? Oh. About Jeremy. We figure we’re about a day behind him which is A-OK with us because we don’t want to be spotted. Sometimes we can catch glimpses of his party on the trail ahead of us. Because of all the switchbacks, it feels like they’re closer than I think they really are. They’re not moving fast, which is a good thing ‘cause neither are we. We think they stayed here [at Indian Gardens] last night and are probably at the Bright Angel campground tonight. We think they will probably move north through the Phantom Ranch area and then cut west toward Crystal Creek and rough it from there. Eventually we’ll have to make contact with him, but I’d prefer to wait until they reach their destination. In the meantime, we will continue to be sneaky. Ummm. I guess that’s it for now. I’m going to have a shitty night’s sleep now. Someone will probably call in tomorrow with another update. So long everyone!

WEBMASTER’S NOTE: Due to the lack of internet in the Grand Canyon, the team is using satellite phones and similar technology to provide information for their blogs. Their phone reports are transcribed verbatim.

MIST: Hello there! This is Mist reporting live from the Grand Canyon, or as I like to call it, my ‘final resting place.’ I’m just kidding, but I’m glad that we’re off the canyon wall, I can tell you that. All those years working Renaissance Faires did not prepare me for Outcast Earth, I can tell you that! Holy fuck am I tired. [Laughs.] And sore. It feels like my legs are on fire. But I won’t spend the whole time on this very expensive call complaining about my poor aching body. [Laughs.] Okay, so, um, we got to the bottom of the canyon and crossed over the Colorado River on this very scary suspension bridge but the view was very cool. Um, on the other side is the camp ground, the Bright Angel camp ground, which is where I’m calling from. Oh, what was that? There was a loud crackling noise. Okay, I hope I don’t loose you. Anyway, we discovered that Jeremy and his gang are actually in this campground. We figured they would have moved out but they are actually camping at the north end of the campground so we’re staying at the south end. Polaris and Ash spotted them, but Jeremy hasn’t spotted us yet. Um, of course he’s not looking for us to be here so we could probably camp right next to them and still go unnoticed. I feel like a spy, but it’s kind of exciting. It’s like stalking, or I mean maybe tracking, a fugitive but this fugitive is like, you know, this guy from Kaua’i with a Master’s degree in mythology or whatever. [Laughs.] I’m going to upload new photos if the connection holds. We’ll be in touch again soon. So long from the Grand Canyon and our great Egyptian quest. [Laughs.]

WEBMASTER’S NOTE: Due to the lack of internet in the Grand Canyon, the team is using satellite phones and similar technology to provide information for their blogs. Their phone reports are transcribed verbatim.

MERIDIAN: Hello, this is Meridian and I’m filing this report from the bottom of the canyon at the Bright Angel camp ground. We have been here for about two days and last night we decided to explore the area around the camp ground by flashlight. We weren’t doing this just to creep ourselves out. We’ve been trying to keep a low profile because Jeremy and his group are still camping at the north end of the camp ground and we didn’t want him to see us. But there’s also a grave we wanted to check out. This is kind of weird because the Park Service doesn’t allow people to really be buried here. This grave, however, was kind of, um, well, special. It, uh, belongs to a man named Rees Griffiths who was, uh, who was a trail foreman here in the early 20’s. Apparently Rees and his men were doing some blasting to make the Kaibab Trail and a boulder fell on him and squished him. He survived for a little while and his last wish was to be buried there so they did it to honor his last request. The grave is more south, toward the river again. It’s a small grave, just really kind of a pile of stones with a brass marker screwed into the cliff near it. We went there after nightfall because there are rumors that hikers see strange lights floating over the grave which people think is Ree’s ghost. By the time we got close to the grave we all began to see a light floating there and everyone gets totally freaked out. [Laughs.] But then we all realized it was other flashlights, probably from other hikers hoping to see a ghost. We toddle on up but when we get really close we suddenly realize that it’s Jeremy and his people. I think Polaris, Rune and I realized it first and we immediately began to pull back into the shadows. Mist is like a fucking cruise director though and she starts chatting everyone up. ‘Course she didn’t know it was them and she’s just being her crazy friendly self. It’s completely dark, so no one can really see anything and Jeremy’s only met Mist a couple of times in Portland, but we’re so afraid he’ll recognize her voice or something. [Laughs.] Um, so, uh, Polaris takes her by the arm and we beat it out of there. It probably seemed totally rude to them, but we think we didn’t break our cover. The downside is we didn’t get to see Rees ghost, if there was one. Oh well. Umm, I guess we’re just gonna continue to wait until Jeremy moves his people out. Can’t believe it’ll be much longer. They still have a long way to go to get to Crystal Canyon. Bye for now!

WEBMASTER’S NOTE: Due to the lack of internet in the Grand Canyon, the team is using satellite phones and similar technology to provide information for their blogs. Their phone reports are transcribed verbatim.

ASH: Okay, there’s not much of an update except to tell everyone that somehow, yesterday, when we were hiking, we lost sight of Jeremy and his tour. We were probably like a mile behind them, and when we came over the top of this hill, they were gone and we couldn’t spot them again. Dad thinks that they had to have gone off-trail, although we’re not sure why. We didn’t want to take the risk of getting lost, so we all decided just to stay on the trail and head to Crystal Creek Canyon like was the plan. We got into the canyon late afternoon yesterday and had barely enough time to put up our tents before the sun was gone. The grounds a lot nicer to sleep on here ‘cause it’s sandy near the creek so I slept a lot better even though my feet are all covered with blisters. Uh, let’s see. What else was I gonna say? Oh, yeah. I guess today we’re gonna walk down the creek and see if we can spot Jeremy and his team again. We don’t think they would have gone anywhere else but to Crystal Creek. They are probably just in a different part of it. That’s it. Talk to you later.

WEBMASTER’S NOTE: Due to the lack of internet in the Grand Canyon, the team is using satellite phones and similar technology to provide information for their blogs. Their phone reports are transcribed verbatim.

ECHO: Hi. This is my first phone call from the Grand Canyon and I don’t know what I’m really supposed to say. What? [Speaks briefly with Mist.] All right. Yesterday we went looking for Jeremy whatever-his-name-is but we didn’t find them. We left our camp where it was and then hiked down the camp – I mean the stream. We saw some other people but none of them seemed to be with his team. Then this morning we’re all in our tents still and someone starts yelling at us. [Mist says something in the background.] Tell them what he said? Oh, okay. So this dude starts yelling, “Outcast Earth, come out, come out, wherever you are!” And it’s Jeremy and all his friends. He totally punked us. Everyone came out of their tents and we’re all sleepy and stuff and he’s bouncing all around like he’s had way too much caffeine. He comes up to Polaris and tells him that if he wanted in on the tour, he should have paid the $1500. Anyway, he’s like overly-friendly and it’s really kind of fake, but he didn’t get pissy or anything. He, uh, just tells all these people that we’re old friends from Hawai’i. The people with him are all very friendly and after they stay a few minutes they walk through our camp and up the canyon more. It was really strange and not anything we expected. We all decided that he must’ve known we were following him and he managed to lose us the other day on the trail. We still don’t know where he’s camping.

WEBMASTER’S NOTE: Due to the lack of internet in the Grand Canyon, the team is using satellite phones and similar technology to provide information for their blogs. Their phone reports are transcribed verbatim.

POLARIS: After Jeremy showed up at our Crystal Creek camp and took a few minutes to rub our noses in his the fact that he’s known we were tailing him all along, he and his tour of suckers all headed north up the creek. So we all got dressed real fast and headed south to find their camp ground. We found it about a mile downstream. Now don’t worry, we didn’t ransack the place or snoop through anyone’s shit, we just wanted to look around the area and see what Jeremy’s up to. The camp looked pretty ordinary, although Meridian and Mist noticed that they had some shovels and excavating equipment with them. They also had a makeshift long table set up with a map on it weighted down with stones. Jeremy had highlighted the Crystal Creek area and there were a few points along it where he had made some notations like “possible cave entrance” and “excavations here.” They don’t have enough gear with them that we think they’re actually digging or anything. It seems more like they are surveying the area and Jeremy has a few places designated to show his team. One of those places is to the north of our camp which is probably why they were walking through our tents so early this morning. We’re going to try to follow their trail tomorrow and see where he took them.

WEBMASTER’S NOTE: Due to the lack of internet in the Grand Canyon, the team is using satellite phones and similar technology to provide information for their blogs. Their phone reports are transcribed verbatim.

POLARIS: We are literally down the to wire today, as we will run out of food and other provisions if we don’t head back out of the canyon by tomorrow morning. The trip’s been utterly beautiful and completely exhausting. The one thing we hoped to accomplish, which, uh, was to unmask Jeremy for the snake oil salesman he is didn’t, uh, turn out exactly as planned. Rune had the opportunity to talk to some of the people on his tour by the river yesterday, and they told her the Jeremy knew what we were up to before we even started down the canyon. That’ll teach us to post everything on the website [laughs]. I guess he actually spotted us in the Bright Angel campground, even before we ran into him and his crew at the grave of Rees [Griffiths]. They [the members of Jeremy’s team] told Rune that from that point forward he and his team were making kind of a game out of messing with us. We found out that they did deliberately run off trail and hide from us before we reached Crystal Creek, made sure they knew where we set up camp, and then set up their own campsite in the dark and as far away from us as they could. Umm, I think Echo put it really well when she said that he’s punked us. We are totally punked. And I think he made his final effort to mess with us yesterday. He and his team came wandering passed our camp and Jeremy made a big effort to boasts about all the “amazing discoveries” they had made, but he wouldn’t give us any details. I think he knew we’d backtrack them and see where they had been which we totally did. We found that they had been working along the creek bed where the creek had been cutting into the rock and earth and had left a bunch of craggy channels. They had obviously been digging in the mud in this area so we started looking around and it was Echo who spotted something of interest in one of these crags. She’s so skinny that she had no problem crawling inside and came out a moment later with a small canopic jar which is the type of jar that the ancient Egyptians used to put the pickled guts of their pharaohs into. This jar was tiny, though, it could fit completely in the palm of your hand and was obviously a knock-off. Echo was thrilled to find it, but for the rest of us it brought up more questions, like if Jeremy planted it there for us to find because he is messing with us, or if he peppered the area with this crap for the entertainment of his tour group. Whatever the reason, it’s not an authentic Egyptian artifact naturally and I’m sure he didn’t mean to even fool us. [Sighs. Long pause.] I’m thinking if I need to say anything else before I get off the phone... Well, just I guess that we will be heading back out of the canyon starting early tomorrow. We hope to be back on the South Rim in three days, but I don’t know how long it will take since we’ll but going uphill this time. No one’s looking forward to that, but I think we’re all glad we came. The canyon is really something everyone should see before they die. I think once we get back to the top, everyone wants to take some time off, maybe drive into Flagstaff and stay there for a little while before we start our wandering again. Talk to you later, guys. Bye.

RUNE: We made it back to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon late afternoon on the 25th. We spent yesterday sleeping. And I mean that literally. All of us slept almost the entire day asleep. I think I got up twice to use the restroom and once to get some water. Other than that, I wasn't even interested in eating. The two weeks we spent in the canyon was exhausting and exhilarating, but it was also disappointing. Looking back, I'm not quite sure what the point was. All of us were so jazzed up about how Jeremy was trying to perpetrate another hoax that it became our all-consuming purpose. Polaris was the worst. I didn't realize exactly how much bad blood there was between these two, or at least that's how Polaris sees it. He was absolutely obsessed with unmasking Jeremy... and then we got down to the bottom of the canyon we found that Jeremy was playing us and his tour group couldn't have been happier with the service he was providing. We still don't know what exactly he was telling them, but at this point I don't think it matters. He's not perpetrating a fraud if everyone with him think's they got their money's worth and then some. I think Polaris just needs to let this go.

And what about that strange little jar that Echo found in the crevasse on the side of the hill? It's definitely designed after an Egyptian canopic jar, although clearly a cheap knock-off. It's tiny, probably just over four inches tall and appears to be made of some kind of colored resin. It represents the hawk-headed god, Qebehsenuef, who was one of the sons of the better-known deity, Horus. Qebehsenuef was used to protect the intestines of the dead after they were removed during the mummification process. This jar is so little, however, it was clearly not meant to hold anything. Why it was in the crevasse is also a puzzle. Our first thought is that Jeremy left it there for us to find as a kind of sarcastic calling card. But Mist thought if Jeremy was behind it, he wouldn't have used something so small and well hidden. We could have walked right passed it, after all. Instead, she suggested that Jeremy provided his tour group with a kind of "Easter egg hunt" and this jar was one of the prizes, just not recovered before they left the area. Who knows. Echo has a nice souvenir, however.

I will send out some additional photos of the jar via Twitter sometime today!

As for our next steps, today we are going to drive into Flagstaff. There's still plenty of things we want to see in northern Arizona and Flagstaff will be the best hub for that. Mist is going to work on some additional items about the Grand Canyon, and I think she's writing a new newsletter as well. All of us want to see Wupatki and Sunset Crater and a number of other places as well. We will then head to southern Arizona before the snows start up here. That leg of the trip will be kind of a homecoming – Polaris used to live in Tucson and that's where our webmasters are based too. We will probably be there through the holidays and into the Spring.