Jun. 16, 2010

By Lisa Kestenbaum Daily Journal Staff Writer When Art Spaulding commemorated his 50th birthday with a nine-day, off-trail expedition through the High Sierras, he thought it was the hardest thing he had ever done. That changed this month, when Spaulding, managing partner at Cox Castle & Nicholson’s Orange County office, hiked the Grand Canyon, rim to rim. The trek involves several different trails across 25 miles of desert terrain with elevation differences of up to 10,000 feet. Beginning at the South Rim, hikers descend a 4500-foot vertical drop to the Colorado River, where the temperature tops 100 degrees in the summer. From there it is a 6000-foot climb to the top of the North Rim, with the largest gain in elevation during the last few miles. The last leg was the most difficult for Spaulding, who trained by running trails and hiking. His friend who accompanied him on the hike used a Stairmaster to condition, which Spaulding thinks would have better prepared him for the final uphill climb. “We both thought we were in great shape but it beat us up,” he said. The two agreed not to hike the second half, traversing back to the South Rim, the next day. “The thought of getting up and doing it all over again with only six hours rest just didn’t work for us,” Spaulding said. Instead they caught the shuttle and took a more leisurely 10-mile flat-level hike around the rim. When they saw a search and rescue team leave to help a woman who had broken her ankle, Spaulding knew they had made the right choice. “We didn’t want to be a statistic, to get to the bottom and not make it up,” he explained. Back at work, Spaulding is proud to be a different statistic – in 1972 he was the first law clerk Cox Castle ever hired. He has worked continually at the firm for 30 years, specializing in hotel, destination resort, fractional ownership, timeshare and vacation club work. lisa_kestenbaum@dailyjournal.com