Grand Canyon - 2011

Grand Canyon

December 2011

This trail journal was done long after the hike, which of itself was rather uneventful.  Rather than skip this trip and miss posting some great pictures, I’ve put together a few thoughts and events from the trip.  The pictures do most of the talking.

At the Tanner Trail trailhead

Tom, Bruce and I snuck in a quick trip to the Grand Canyon between Christmas and New Year's.  The advantage of going at that time of year is the cooler temperatures.  The disadvantage is the short days.  We followed Backpacker magazine's Escalante Route, a five day, 33 mile "blockbuster" rated as the #2 trail in the US in their November 2010 issue.

Crampons

Snowy trail at the top

We started down the Tanner Trail which runs from the South Rim east of the Village a number of miles down to the river.  The top of the canyon had a bit of snow, which we had anticipated, bringing crampons along.  The first day, as expected was downhill.  The Tanner Trail drops 4,500 feet over 8 miles.  Our packs were fairly heavy as we carried water, planning for a dry camp the first night.  Permits for this area are tightly controlled.  We saw only a half dozen other groups the entire way.  One new experience was packing out everything we packed in.  Normally we pack out most of what we packed in, but in this case “everything” included used toilet paper.  Due to the desert environment, decomposition occurs very slowly.  We did come across one privy, but it was rather, er, full.  We chose not to use it.


Panorama descending into the Canyon

First campsite

Making supper the first night (not the best picture of me)

The canyon should be on every backpacker’s life list.  While taking the popular trails (Kaibab, Bright Angel) is a great experience, a remote hike gives you a completely different sense of the vastness of the canyon.  A kayak or raft trip through the park might even be better.  The Escalante Route is virtually unmaintained and tightly controlled by permits.  We followed the little rock cairns religiously as that is really the only way to be able to tell where you are going.  Much of the “trail” is over rock and is indiscernible from the parts that are not trails.  In some cases, we thought we had taken a wrong turn only to see the next cairn at the top of a formidable wall in front of us.  The two main obstacles on the trip are the 30 foot wall along the route by the river that the park service recommends carefully scaling by dropping your pack, climbing the wall and then hoisting your pack up using a rope.  We did it with packs on, but it was challenging.  The other obstacle is a very long rock slide that we had to descend.  The strategy here was to bunch together during the descent so that you do not dislodge rocks onto those below you.  It was rather harrowing, but also very doable.

Typical Cairn.  We put a lot of faith in a couple of rocks

2nd night camp.  Note we stayed away from the river's edge and Bruce and his rat friends.

The River

 

Consulting the map.  A common occurrence.

The second night we camped at the edge of the river.  After setting up camp, we saw some kayakers come by on the river.  After supper, we heard a commotion by Bruce’s tent and discovered a river rat was very interested in his stuff.  Fortunately the rat had made some noise leading to his discovery so we took all our gear and hung it from some of the scrub trees a little ways from the river edge.  Normally we are trying to keep our food safe from bears, not large rodents!

Some of us went right up to the edge of the cliff pictured above.  It was a several hundred foot drop to the river from there.



Typical trail.  Except...

This is actually how the trail looked.  The previous picture was taken holding the camera at an angle.

Bob, Bruce and Tom consulting the map.

On the third day, we met a fellow hiker going our way named Bob, a retired industrial arts teacher from Pennsylvania who was doing most of the same route by himself.  He was a very friendly, talkative guy who reminded us a lot of one of the former members of our hiking group.  We ended up traveling with him for about a day.  We concluded the day by winding our way through a slot canyon, a very scenic and awe-inspiring route.

A very interesting rock formation.  It looks like wet sand, but it is hard rock.

Hiking down the slot canyon.

More Slot canyon.  Would hate to be here during a storm.

3rd Camp

The hike on the fourth day included the two most difficult parts of the trail, more than challenging my acrophobia.  The ascent in the afternoon on the Grandview Trail to the Horseshoe Mesa was brutal.  When you look up, all you see are canyon walls.  It’s not until you walk up the trail that you see how it winds and turns up the switchbacks.  We were able to get some water at a very small spring near the mesa.  The water was fine, but I wouldn’t want to survive on it.  There was some thought that it contained slight radioactivity.  I’m not sure I believe that.  We also passed an old abandoned copper mine.  The miners must have been desperate for copper to mine in this location.

The wall.

Tom climbing the wall.

Bob climbing the wall.



Just another picture of the beauty of the Canyon.

That evening almost turned tragic.  At a minimum, it was embarrassing.  The mesa is filled with scrub bushes and trees.  I got up during the night to do what people sometimes have to do at night.  Since I was just making a quick trip, I didn’t put on many additional clothes even though the night was cold, probably in the 40’s.  I wandered a little ways from where we were camped, but on my way back, I evidently went around the brush the wrong way.  I soon realized that I had gone much further than I should have.  I shone my headlamp around, but could not pick up any sign of the tents.  So there I was standing on the mesa in my underwear suddenly feeling very alone and not quite sure which way to go.  If things had gone bad, I’m sure when they found the body they would have concluded that I was suffering from hypothermia and had stripped down when I started feeling warm!  Fortunately, I started calling out and heard a grunt coming from one direction.  After skirting another area of brush, I found our camp and crawled back in my bag cold, but relieved.



Breakfast of Oatmeal or Ramen Noodles, whichever you prefer!

The end of the journey.

The final morning found us just a short distance from the top.  We switched back to crampons to handle the snow and were out in a few short hours.  We were welcomed by groups of tourists who seemed pained by the cold as they walked from their cars to the edge of Grandview Point.  I think it is humorous that they went along their way thinking they had experienced the Canyon!

The trip was a necessary pilgrimage.  I would recommend doing it in the late fall or early spring as it would be warmer and you would have more daylight.  It is quite remote except for the helicopters and small planes flying sight-seers over the canyon.