I've wanted to check out the upper part of Baja California for a long time now, and finally pulled myself away from the cold winter for a little sun and warmth. I left Thursday after work, drove to Mesquite, then the next day drove down to the K58 campground just off the highway to Ensenada. The trip was pretty uneventful. The weather was great, and I pulled into camp just as the sun was setting.
The Tijuana border crossing was a zoo. I'm glad I learned some driving skills in France cause they came in handy for changing lanes in crazy traffic. It smelled, and I'm just glad I didn't get lost, and that it was still light out. I don't ever want to go through there again, and I don't think I need to worry about wanting to.
I had high hopes for Ensenada, and I've heard from other people that it's a great place, but it's just not what I was expecting. The coast is extraordinary, no doubt. I really don't have pics because the sun was rising and would've made just one big sun spot when I was going from camp to Ensenada, so it was pointless to try. Pulling into town you don't realize that theres this massive city on the other side of the hill there. I followed the signs to get to the tourist district and just found some dumpy looking clubs. I drove around for an hour looking for somewhere to eat, but was out of luck, even in the tourist district, fortunately I found a really, really nice Carls Jr, so I went there. It's probably one of the single best buildings in Ensenada, and it's not even in the same league of the American Carls Jr locations because they're all pretty generic and typical suburbia fast food, but the Carls Jr in Ensenada was beautifully designed, and totally out of place with the rundown surroundings, and I think they should all be like that.
I saw signs for a Super Walmart in town so I spent a while looking for that so I could go there to get some prescription meds without a prescription. I love the ability to load up on the meds you need without having to consult anyone. I chose Walmart because I had forgotten my spanish/english dictionary and figured somebody around there would speak English if I needed to ask any questions because nobody there speaks English that I found. The Super Walmart there was nicer than the one I go to here in the US but hardly anybody was shopping there. Across the street is a Costco, and Home Depot, so any gringos living there would feel right at home.
I didn't want to stick around Ensenada, it just wasn't what I was looking for. I found the road to San Felipe and hit the highway. There was a cop on the side of the road outisde of town who turned his lights on when I flew by, but since the road is narrow, and full of sharp curves, with very few places to pull over and I had about 10 cars behind me I guess he figured it wasn't worth it if he wanted to get me. Not surprisingly there were a lot of shrines to people who died along that road. Families had painted boulders to look like shrines. Somebody had some fun painting a rock that looked like an alligator already to really look like an alligator, and if I could've pulled over I totally would've taken a pic of it.
Halfway to San Felipe the landscape changes from lots of curves to flat out open desert with straight roads with mountains jutting up above the landscape a couple miles in each direction. The junction to highway 5 that leads to San Felipe comes up pretty quick. Here you can see the Sea of Cortez straight ahead, through a landscape of white sand and desert foliage.
San Felipe has a completely different vibe. It's much more of a laid back place with a distinct Mexican beach town feel to it, and hardly any traffic. There's a very large American presence there that's only going to grow as people buy up more of the land and build retirement and vacation houses there. It's really a fantastic area. The weather was in the high 60's during the day, and got pretty cold at night, but nothing like it was back home. The beach along the malecon is lined with fishing boats, and the sand is deep and soft, but unfortunately that beach is kind of trashed. It could really use one of those sand groomers they use in the states to clear out trash like needles, broken glass and stuff.
The sea along the coast here is very shallow, and when the low tide comes, the shoreline disappears into the horizon a half mile out, and since it's so shallow the water doesn't look very clear.
After wandering around the mercado I left town to explore one of the beach camps I passed on the way in and settled on Pete's Camp. I pretty much spent the rest of the next two days there with a brief trip into town to buy some stuff. It was just so nice and peaceful there on the beach, and the beach was pretty clean for being a campground. Almost everybody there had RV's and trailers loaded with ATV's and dirt bikes. That area is huge for that kind of stuff. South of San Felipe there are roads to other towns and hot springs, but a lot of people just ride their toys down there. Even into and around town, it's pretty cool.
The people I camped next to took pity on me since I was down there alone, which was cool cause they knew a lot about the area and even bought some property down here so they took me back beyond the security gate to check everything out, and while these are just desert lots surrounded by tall desert plants and you can't see much while on the ground, when you get up onto a rooftop patio, everything opens up and all around you is just a beautiful 360° panorama of mountains and sea just everywhere.
Two days in San Felipe just wasn't enough, and I didn't want to leave. And right now I just want to go back and stay there. It just reminded me of what life was like before it was consumed with high levels of stress and responsibility. Before I used to be able to take off on a trip, be it road, backpacking or mountain biking, and when I came back I'd be ready for months more of dealing with everything, but it's not like that anymore.
On the trip back I got stuck on a near empty tank of gas in a long line of cars trying to get through the border. When I finally got up there I got flagged for a full inspection...again. Third border crossing in a row that's happened. I'm tempted to cross it again just to see if we can make it a fourth or a fifth. Unfortunately, I must confess I have now contributed to the illegal alien population in the US. You see, while they were preoccupied with determining if I was a drug smuggler or a nice ordinary guy, someone ran through the line of cars, past all the checkpoints and guards and into the US, and if they weren't busy with such a suspicious guy like myself, they probably would've stopped the runner. It's unfortunate, I know, but for some reason I continue to be a very suspicious individual to the border patrol. Since I'm definitely going back, I'm going to find out if three times in a row is a coincidence or not. I'm guessing the ratio of cars inspected is about 1:500 at that border crossing while I was there. The other time I would say it was about 1:80, and the first time about 1:35. I'm horrible at statistics, but looking at the odds, and having it happen three times in a row shouldn't happen, and the only commonality between any of those crossings was myself. Different cars, different crossings, and circumstances.
View photos from this trip
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
The Stair Machine from Hell aka Tapeats Creek to Deer Creek Loop via the Bill Hall Trail
This one wasn't even on my list, but it was on the North Rim, and since the season to do those trails was closing, I figured why not. So it was another midnight run down to Arizona, looking for deer through the Kaibab forest, and sneaking in to Grand Canyon NP by moonlight. Everything was closed down except for the backcountry office so I could get permits. The campground was open, and free, unless all the sites are full. That was cool. Tried to use my hammock, but the trees are just too big for the webbing I've been using, so I need to buy longer webbing. Fortunately I slept in my truck, and brought my 0° sleeping bag cause it got down to 14°.
I didn't exactly get the permits I was looking for, but that's okay because nothing at that point was going to go according to plan. It was something I wanted to do in 3 days, and that is doable, but you've got to be able to move through some pretty gnarly terrain to make it happen. The first problem was getting to the trailhead. The directions were pretty bad, the author of the directions wrote it in paragraph format, and had a couple sections where he's telling you to take one road, and in the next sentence telling you not to take a road. So I ended up at the Jumpup Nail Trail before loading up the GPS to find out just where I was at and where I wanted to be. I wasn't even on the Trails Illustrated Map from National Geographic. So that ate up much needed daylight. Finally getting to the trailhead sometime in the early afternoon I was able to get started.
The weather on top was awesome during the day, and the weather down below was supposed to be even better.
Trip reports I read online and in the guide book I was using made the Bill Hall Trail out to be a pretty bad section of trail, but compared to the rest of the trail I'd be backpacking on this trip, it was certainly on par, so it didn't seem quite as bad. There's plenty of steep angles, slippery footing, and really big rocks to get down, one minor down climb, and then a gazillion switchbacks until it mellows out and meanders through some forest onto the slickrock esplanade.
The Esplanade is one long chain of cairns with a couple well traveled trails through some sandy areas high with old cryptobiotic soil on each side. After a good walk through that you come upon the Red Wall section where you're scrambling down big chunks of rock on the edge of a cliff that was formed after a mega-landslide caused some new terra forming in the area. There are many switchbacks and a couple really good places for shade.
After a seemingly endless trek I got close to the bottom and met the first backpackers I'd see on the trail that day. These guys had little experience backpacking and had done the same loop I was doing. They on the other hand had massive packs on, and were in sad shape at this point. They thought they'd have a great trip if they brought wine, beer, waders, cigars, pounds of cheese, and who knows what else. They were kind of bragging about it too. They were short on water, and were going to have to drink out of the potholes on the Esplanade. I just felt sorry for them. They shouldn't have been out on this trail and hadn't even done a backpacking trip through the corridor where there's drinkable water from spouts left and right, and rangers galore if they got in trouble. They said their packs were well over 60 pounds, and I'd guess even more when they started out.
So I had little time left, and only made it to the rim of Thunder Canyon before the sun was going down. I needed to pick up some water to rehydrate with and cook with and use for the next day, so I ventured down into Thunder Canyon to get some water from the massive spring. I never thought that access to the spring would be halfway down the next section, or that it would be as rough as everything else, but water is needed, so in the fading light I worked my way down who knows how many feet to fetch some water. When I got to the falls, I had huge bats flying straight at my face and swooping away at the last second when they came into the light of my headlamp. Nothing like seeing a bat that close in the wild. The trip back up was pure hell cause I didn't get all the calories I needed that day to function like I wanted to, so there were frequent stops. It was pitch black, and I thought at one point that I had made it out, when in fact I was only a 1/3 of the way up on a section of trail just like the one on top. That was a major bummer. Eventually I made it out, setup camp, ate, and slept to the sound of Thunder Falls in the background.
There were supposed to be a ton of tarantulas on this trip, and there were certainly a ton of tarantula web floating around in the air that had detached from the bushes, and plenty of web on the bushes, but I didn't see a single one. I heard them yipping the last night when I wasn't around water to drown out their noise, but I'm disappointed I didn't get to see any.
Next day was very interesting. After dropping back down past Thunder Falls and into Tapeats Canyon, which was shown to be fairly flat and gradually drop down to the Colorado River, it actually undulates up over bands of cliff along the creek and back down, crossing steep areas with cliff exposure on narrow trails. It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't great either. The last section has you climbing up a gradual slope until you're high above the Colorado River, and then you go over and drop down into a steep gully to switchback your way all the way back down.
I had got some Aquamira for this trip, but the night before when I was treating the water I came to find out that one of the two bottles needed to make the solution work was basically empty, so from here on out it was drinking untreated water. I'm not too worried about it. There's a high turnover rate for the water, and it has a short distance to travel before getting to the Colorado with minimal animal contact, so I guess we'll see if I'm completely miserably sick next week, or just fine.
After that, it's a rough section on the banks of the Colorado. These aren't really beaches here, just boulder fields, with a climb up and over a cliff band, and a semi-technical drop back to river level. Then it's a steep climb way up above the river, maybe 400 feet, and then the trail flattens out and curves with the terrain in and out of small drainages until there's a short, steep climb up and over a pass into Deer Creek Canyon. The guys we met at the Red Wall with the wine said it took them 9 hours to do the traverse section, when it only took around 3 hours with plenty of breaks along the way.
Night was falling as I got into the Deer Creek camp sites, so I ended up staying with some guys I met at the trailhead the previous day who were doing the loop in the opposite direction, and taking 5 days to do it. That night was spent right next to Deer Creek, and the ground was pretty damp. The cold picked up and the temps dropped close to freezing - and this was at the lowest elevation of the trip! It should've only got down to 55, but I think the proximity to the water, and the large area of cold air that the Deer Creek Canyons drain, must've done something.
Next day it was up to the Deer Creek Spring, and back into Surprise Valley. I was expecting that section of trail to gradually slope upwards, but I should've realized it wouldn't be that easy since this whole trip had been one slow, technical section of trail after another. It's pretty much like everything else. Stair stepping up huge rocks, at times close to two feet high, usually around 16" though, and along narrow trails etched into steep slopes above cliffs.
The Red Wall section went surprisingly fast. I don't know why. It being day 3 and having just climbed up from Deer Creek, and doing another big climb under clear blue and overly sunny skies I should've probably been more tired, but all I could do was just keep trudging along. It was certainly much easier going up this stuff than down.
After doing a short stretch on the Esplanade I camped and spread everything out to dry a bit for about 30 minutes before the sun set. Off in the East a fire was eating up a mountain sending tons of smoke up into the horizon. As the sky darkened the light from the flames took over that ridgeline, and were simply massive. I think these were the mountains that divide Arizona and Nevada along the Colorado River over there. The flames must've been several hundred feet high to see them all the way from where I was at.
Last day was the Bill Hall Trail. It went pretty quickly as well. I was tired, but not exhausted when I reached the top. Then the clouds that had come in that morning started to drizzle, and I was out of there. This time I got home around 9:30, which is one of my better re-entry times to civilization.
If there were just a little more daylight, and an earlier start on the first day, this would've easily been a 3 day trip.
View photos from this trip
I didn't exactly get the permits I was looking for, but that's okay because nothing at that point was going to go according to plan. It was something I wanted to do in 3 days, and that is doable, but you've got to be able to move through some pretty gnarly terrain to make it happen. The first problem was getting to the trailhead. The directions were pretty bad, the author of the directions wrote it in paragraph format, and had a couple sections where he's telling you to take one road, and in the next sentence telling you not to take a road. So I ended up at the Jumpup Nail Trail before loading up the GPS to find out just where I was at and where I wanted to be. I wasn't even on the Trails Illustrated Map from National Geographic. So that ate up much needed daylight. Finally getting to the trailhead sometime in the early afternoon I was able to get started.
The weather on top was awesome during the day, and the weather down below was supposed to be even better.
Trip reports I read online and in the guide book I was using made the Bill Hall Trail out to be a pretty bad section of trail, but compared to the rest of the trail I'd be backpacking on this trip, it was certainly on par, so it didn't seem quite as bad. There's plenty of steep angles, slippery footing, and really big rocks to get down, one minor down climb, and then a gazillion switchbacks until it mellows out and meanders through some forest onto the slickrock esplanade.
The Esplanade is one long chain of cairns with a couple well traveled trails through some sandy areas high with old cryptobiotic soil on each side. After a good walk through that you come upon the Red Wall section where you're scrambling down big chunks of rock on the edge of a cliff that was formed after a mega-landslide caused some new terra forming in the area. There are many switchbacks and a couple really good places for shade.
After a seemingly endless trek I got close to the bottom and met the first backpackers I'd see on the trail that day. These guys had little experience backpacking and had done the same loop I was doing. They on the other hand had massive packs on, and were in sad shape at this point. They thought they'd have a great trip if they brought wine, beer, waders, cigars, pounds of cheese, and who knows what else. They were kind of bragging about it too. They were short on water, and were going to have to drink out of the potholes on the Esplanade. I just felt sorry for them. They shouldn't have been out on this trail and hadn't even done a backpacking trip through the corridor where there's drinkable water from spouts left and right, and rangers galore if they got in trouble. They said their packs were well over 60 pounds, and I'd guess even more when they started out.
So I had little time left, and only made it to the rim of Thunder Canyon before the sun was going down. I needed to pick up some water to rehydrate with and cook with and use for the next day, so I ventured down into Thunder Canyon to get some water from the massive spring. I never thought that access to the spring would be halfway down the next section, or that it would be as rough as everything else, but water is needed, so in the fading light I worked my way down who knows how many feet to fetch some water. When I got to the falls, I had huge bats flying straight at my face and swooping away at the last second when they came into the light of my headlamp. Nothing like seeing a bat that close in the wild. The trip back up was pure hell cause I didn't get all the calories I needed that day to function like I wanted to, so there were frequent stops. It was pitch black, and I thought at one point that I had made it out, when in fact I was only a 1/3 of the way up on a section of trail just like the one on top. That was a major bummer. Eventually I made it out, setup camp, ate, and slept to the sound of Thunder Falls in the background.
There were supposed to be a ton of tarantulas on this trip, and there were certainly a ton of tarantula web floating around in the air that had detached from the bushes, and plenty of web on the bushes, but I didn't see a single one. I heard them yipping the last night when I wasn't around water to drown out their noise, but I'm disappointed I didn't get to see any.
Next day was very interesting. After dropping back down past Thunder Falls and into Tapeats Canyon, which was shown to be fairly flat and gradually drop down to the Colorado River, it actually undulates up over bands of cliff along the creek and back down, crossing steep areas with cliff exposure on narrow trails. It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't great either. The last section has you climbing up a gradual slope until you're high above the Colorado River, and then you go over and drop down into a steep gully to switchback your way all the way back down.
I had got some Aquamira for this trip, but the night before when I was treating the water I came to find out that one of the two bottles needed to make the solution work was basically empty, so from here on out it was drinking untreated water. I'm not too worried about it. There's a high turnover rate for the water, and it has a short distance to travel before getting to the Colorado with minimal animal contact, so I guess we'll see if I'm completely miserably sick next week, or just fine.
After that, it's a rough section on the banks of the Colorado. These aren't really beaches here, just boulder fields, with a climb up and over a cliff band, and a semi-technical drop back to river level. Then it's a steep climb way up above the river, maybe 400 feet, and then the trail flattens out and curves with the terrain in and out of small drainages until there's a short, steep climb up and over a pass into Deer Creek Canyon. The guys we met at the Red Wall with the wine said it took them 9 hours to do the traverse section, when it only took around 3 hours with plenty of breaks along the way.
Night was falling as I got into the Deer Creek camp sites, so I ended up staying with some guys I met at the trailhead the previous day who were doing the loop in the opposite direction, and taking 5 days to do it. That night was spent right next to Deer Creek, and the ground was pretty damp. The cold picked up and the temps dropped close to freezing - and this was at the lowest elevation of the trip! It should've only got down to 55, but I think the proximity to the water, and the large area of cold air that the Deer Creek Canyons drain, must've done something.
Next day it was up to the Deer Creek Spring, and back into Surprise Valley. I was expecting that section of trail to gradually slope upwards, but I should've realized it wouldn't be that easy since this whole trip had been one slow, technical section of trail after another. It's pretty much like everything else. Stair stepping up huge rocks, at times close to two feet high, usually around 16" though, and along narrow trails etched into steep slopes above cliffs.
The Red Wall section went surprisingly fast. I don't know why. It being day 3 and having just climbed up from Deer Creek, and doing another big climb under clear blue and overly sunny skies I should've probably been more tired, but all I could do was just keep trudging along. It was certainly much easier going up this stuff than down.
After doing a short stretch on the Esplanade I camped and spread everything out to dry a bit for about 30 minutes before the sun set. Off in the East a fire was eating up a mountain sending tons of smoke up into the horizon. As the sky darkened the light from the flames took over that ridgeline, and were simply massive. I think these were the mountains that divide Arizona and Nevada along the Colorado River over there. The flames must've been several hundred feet high to see them all the way from where I was at.
Last day was the Bill Hall Trail. It went pretty quickly as well. I was tired, but not exhausted when I reached the top. Then the clouds that had come in that morning started to drizzle, and I was out of there. This time I got home around 9:30, which is one of my better re-entry times to civilization.
If there were just a little more daylight, and an earlier start on the first day, this would've easily been a 3 day trip.
View photos from this trip
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
So Many Trails...So Little Time
I recently sat down and made a list of all the trails I want to do. It turned out, there were a whole lot more than I thought there were. So now if I ever want to get out, all I have to do is check the list and pick one out. So here in it's entirety (as of right now) is that great list.
- Escalante River - From City of Escalante to Lake Powell - In Sections
- Boulder Mail Trail
- Coyote Gulch
- Zion Narrows
- East Rim - Zion National Park
- Kanarra Creek
- Kings Peak
- Grandaddy Basin
- Naturalist Basin
- Mt Timanogos (yup, again - it's awesome)
- Little Wildhorse & Bell Canyon
- Upper & Lower Black Box - San Rafael Swell
- The Maze - Canyonlands National Park - Chimney Rock -> Pictograph Fork Loop
- Dark Canyon
- Owl & Fish Creek Canyon
- Hackberry Canyon
- Under the Rim Trail - Bryce National Park - the whole thing
- North Bass Trail - Grand Canyon National Park
- South Bass -> Tonto Route Loop - Grand Canyon National Park
- Kanab Creek Canyon - Grand Canyon National Park
- Hermit Trail - Boucher Loop - Grand Canyon National Park
- Old Bright Angel -> North Kaibab Loop - Side trip to the mystic Upper, Upper Ribbon Falls - Grand Canyon National Park
- Cascade Canyon -> Paintbrush Canyon Loop - Grand Tetons National Park
- Death Canyon -> Alaska Basin Loop - Grand Tetons National Park
- Open Canyon -> Granite Canyon Loop - Grand Tetons National Park
- Cascade Canyon -> Teton Crest -> Valley Trail Loop - Grand Tetons National Park
- Dogshead Trail -> Shoshone -> North Shoshone -> Delacey Loop - Yellowstone National Park
- Fairy Creek Loop - Yellowstone National Park
- Mallard Loop - Yellowstone National Park
- Heart Lake Loop - Yellowstone National Park
- Black Canyon & Rescue Creek Loop - Yellowstone National Park
- Bechler River Trail - Yellowstone National Park
- Telescope Peak - From lowest point in continental US to the summit - Death Valley National Park
- Cottonwood -> Marble Loop - Death Valley National Park
- Napali Coastline - Kauai, Hawaii
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
The Grand Canyon Curse Lives On
Ever since I first visited the Grand Canyon, I've had at least one bad thing happen every time. It all started with the Havasu Falls trip that lives on as the first entry in this blog. That included a speeding ticket in Big Water, driving lost through the Arizona desert half the night, barely escaping with a couple drops of gas to spare, and having to backpack through the hottest part of the day with boots I had before my mission that I should've tried on before I left. The second trip, I hit a deer on the North Rim. The third trip, my cell phone fell out of my truck in the Bright Angel Trailhead parking lot and was gnawed on by possibly a hungry squirrel that definitely left its mark, but at least I got it back. I couldn't help but wonder what the fourth trip would bring. It was ripe for problems given the last minute, same day planning.
At 5:00 pm, after work I was off to pick up a friend and head to the Kaibab National Forest to spend the night. We should've arrived around 11, but since it was Friday night of Labor Day weekend, and I-15 was choked with construction, rush hour traffic, and the mysterious Utah driver, there were plenty of delays, and we pulled into our campsite close to 1:00 am.
At 8800 ft our campsite had clear air with great views of the stars. No fewer than a dozen meteors burned through the sky while I laid watching the night sky from the bed of my truck. As sleep started to take me away a lone wolf cried out with it's smooth long-strung voice, but before long another joined in, and then as if they were cued, the rest of the pack joined in for the chorus to make harmonious music for the next couple minutes. Early in the morning they provided an encore performance which woke me up, but they sounded incredible, so I wasn't bothered.
Officially, there are no wolves in the Grand Canyon, and wolf advocates even spent the summer at the park advocating the re-introduction of wolves to the area. Maybe they succeeded. Maybe I got to be one of the first to hear wolves back in the park, or maybe they've been there all along, or come back on their own. Some might say I mistook a pack of coyotes for wolves, but if you listen to the sound bytes from each you can tell there's no mistaking one for the other.
We woke up right before the sun came up. It was cold and there was frost everywhere, and the meadows were shrouded in wisps of fog. The only thing I wanted to do was turn my truck on and get it warm. We packed up and headed over to the backcountry office to see if we could get the permits we wanted for an ideal rim to rim (R2) trip. We thought it was 6:30, so we had an hour and half to wait for the North Rim Backcountry Office (a temporary trailer on blocks for the moment) to open. We wanted to be there early to get in line before the hordes of Labor Day park goers who didn't get permits for their last minute trips showed up. The office opens at 8:00 am every day. 8 am came and went, and about 8:20 I went over to a nearby building to see if they were usually late opening the backcountry office. I found out the hard way, once again, that Arizona's stand on not following the whole daylight savings time routine isn't something to be overlooked before leaving on a trip. So, crank back the clock an hour cause it's really only 7:15 am. I took the opportunity to find out if there's ever a line, and turns out the North Rim Backcountry Office is mellow enough to show up a few minutes before to be first in line. After food, we got back, and were 2nd in line. The guys before us were on the waiting list already, so they had priority anyway. They got the permits they were looking for, and shortly later after a couple minutes of listening to one side of a vague back and forth phone conversation between our ranger and the South Rim Backcountry Office, we got one night at Cottonwood, and another at Bright Angel.
The rest of the trail description is similar to my trip last October except it was 102 at Cottonwood and Bright Angel.
Just past Roaring springs at the pumphouse I stopped for lemonade, a chance to dip my shirt in the nice cold creek, and a chance to talk to the ranger there for a bit in the shade. That place wouldn't be too bad to live in, especially since the house is on the grid, has a freezer, a swamp cooler, and all the good stuff that comes along with electricity (that includes otter pops, but those aren't for regular handing out).
Cottonwood was just a short walk away. The trail seemed a lot shorter this time around.
This time at Cottonwood I stayed in the creek a lot longer, at times soaking up to my neck. I was travelling super light with a waterless weight of 22 lbs for my pack - including food. I wish I would've thrown on another pound for sandals to walk through the creek a bit easier, but it was a necessity I could live without.
The bats this time of year were out just after the sun dropped behind the cliffs, and stayed well past dark, and were out early in the morning as well until the sun rose above the cliffs. Overall I think they were out for about 5-6 hours. It's a good thing too, since most of the bugs went into hiding when the bats made their appearance. That night we had thunderstorms roll through, and that brought some light rain which hit the mesh on my tent and splattered through. The coolness of the rain was welcome since it was pretty warm, but the splattering was annoying.
Next morning we were off to Upper Ribbon Falls for my first trip there. I was under the belief that there was only a faint use trail leading up from around the canyon entrance to Ribbon Falls, and there were indeed signs of people climbing up there, so up we went. It was steep, the scree slippery, and we had a cliff gaining height to one side. With enough of a slip, it could've been bad, but after making it to the top of the cliffs intact I figured I wasn't cursed around that canyon after all. The next part was great - that's when I saw this incredibly obvious trail down below leading straight from the bridge we crossed just after leaving the North Kaibab Trail. The entrance to the trail was covered with enough debris to cover it up so it wasn't obvious, and the desert brush keeps it well hidden even though it's a great trail to follow. With a short ascent up the hill we were on the trail. Upper Ribbon Falls is about 15-20 minutes from the bridge. There are froggies and flowers, and a couple trees. It's quite pleasant up there. I wanted to get a picture standing on a ledge the waterfall cascades onto before dropping 4 more feet into a pool. I took my shoes off and looked for the best hand and footholds to get up. Standing knee deep in the water the ledge was about level with the top of my head. I managed to climb out of the water, but when I went to make my second move, my right foot slipped, and my big toe, nearly had the toenail ripped right off then and there, and I knew before even looking at it that it was going to make the rest of the trip hell.
I left a bloody pebbles wherever I stepped. It was definitely a bleeder. For something so miniscule as a toenail, with only damage to the surface of the skin under the nail and in the nailbed, it was a lot of blood. The toenail was holding on, but only at the nailbed, and the last third of the nail on the sides. Everything under the nail that I could see was detached. So, I grabbed a photo of the damage, and got my shoes and socks back on so I could get to my first aid kit, which was in my pack, which was hidden by the mouth of the canyon entrance to Ribbon Falls. The Curse lives on.
Six fun filled miles, and countless reminders of my injury later I was cooling off in Bright Angel Creek again, at the Bright Angel Campground. The water here was much, much warmer than it was several miles North. The toe looked much better and had stopped bleeding, but I could tell it was well on it's way to coming completely off. I think all the hiking only helped speed up the process. Still something like that will take several more days to come completely off.
That night we were visited by Ringtails. Lots of them. They're pretty cool looking with a bushy tail as long and thick as their body and the head of a shrunken cat. Like everything around Phantom Ranch, they were used to humans around them enough to not really be bothered too much by our presence.
I wanted an early start out to avoid any heat the next day, and possibly a chance to beat my previous time of 4:50 to get out of the canyon. I wasn't sure exactly when I was going to start, but I knew I wouldn't sleep well that night knowing I could easily miss a good window since we didn't have watches to set alarms to. I slept for an hour at a time until 3:00 am (2:00 am MST for me) and I decided I might as well just go now. So I packed up as silently as I could and got ready, and made it on the trail at 3:43.
Everything at that time of morning is eery when all you have is a headlamp and a pack, and you're walking through pure blackness at the bottom of one of the biggest holes in the world with nobody for miles around you. I could hear the Colorado roaring to my right as I followed it to Pipe Creek. I looked off the side of the trail, down the cliff looking for the source of the sound, but saw nothing. Even during the middle of the night, it was still warmer than I preferred. My GPS said it was 86 degrees, but it reads temps 9 degrees higher than it really is, so it was about 77. I stopped to dip my shirt in Pipe Creek and put it back on. It felt odd doing something like that when the sun wasn't even out to overheat me, but it felt good anyway. Near Indian Gardens I spied two eyes reflecting back at me from within the grass about thirty feet away. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but the spacing between the eyes, and their size told me it was probably a deer, or a mountain lion. It wouldn't look away so I could see the profile of its head, and the grass hid any features that would make it obvious what it was. So I decided to force it to make a move and tossed a rock in it's vicinity. It got up and bounded away, so I guess it was a deer. Shortly after the sky changed from solid black to a lighter hue as I passed Indian Gardens campground. Headlights were bouncing in every direction as the campers got ready to move onto the next leg of their journeys. I had arrived just in time to make the final climb over the next 4 miles with the first campers to leave Indian Gardens. The sun kept coming up further and further as I climbed the switchbacks, and the sun line on the opposing cliffs dropped lower and lower. I thought the sun would have been on me by 3 mile resthouse, but it wasn't, so I guessed maybe at 1.5 mile resthouse, but again, it just wasn't there. It was only after the final switchback around the second tunnel that the sun hit me on the trail, and it was very short lived. I topped out at 5:05. It was very close to beating 5:00 which is a very worthy time, but 15 minutes shy of my record, so I was kind of bummed about that, but I had made it out, and I had some time to enjoy the relatively uncrowded South Rim before the shuttle picked us up to take us back to the North Rim that afternoon.
We were on the road by 6:30, in Kanab by 8, Nephi by 12, SLC by 1:30 am, and I was home at 2:20. I spent the last who knows how many hours drinking 4 liters of caffeinated soda, and was pretty buzzed the whole way. Other drivers on the road however were all over the place. Some got some courtesy wake up honks, while I couldn't get far enough ahead of some of the others.
View photos from this trip
At 5:00 pm, after work I was off to pick up a friend and head to the Kaibab National Forest to spend the night. We should've arrived around 11, but since it was Friday night of Labor Day weekend, and I-15 was choked with construction, rush hour traffic, and the mysterious Utah driver, there were plenty of delays, and we pulled into our campsite close to 1:00 am.
At 8800 ft our campsite had clear air with great views of the stars. No fewer than a dozen meteors burned through the sky while I laid watching the night sky from the bed of my truck. As sleep started to take me away a lone wolf cried out with it's smooth long-strung voice, but before long another joined in, and then as if they were cued, the rest of the pack joined in for the chorus to make harmonious music for the next couple minutes. Early in the morning they provided an encore performance which woke me up, but they sounded incredible, so I wasn't bothered.
Officially, there are no wolves in the Grand Canyon, and wolf advocates even spent the summer at the park advocating the re-introduction of wolves to the area. Maybe they succeeded. Maybe I got to be one of the first to hear wolves back in the park, or maybe they've been there all along, or come back on their own. Some might say I mistook a pack of coyotes for wolves, but if you listen to the sound bytes from each you can tell there's no mistaking one for the other.
We woke up right before the sun came up. It was cold and there was frost everywhere, and the meadows were shrouded in wisps of fog. The only thing I wanted to do was turn my truck on and get it warm. We packed up and headed over to the backcountry office to see if we could get the permits we wanted for an ideal rim to rim (R2) trip. We thought it was 6:30, so we had an hour and half to wait for the North Rim Backcountry Office (a temporary trailer on blocks for the moment) to open. We wanted to be there early to get in line before the hordes of Labor Day park goers who didn't get permits for their last minute trips showed up. The office opens at 8:00 am every day. 8 am came and went, and about 8:20 I went over to a nearby building to see if they were usually late opening the backcountry office. I found out the hard way, once again, that Arizona's stand on not following the whole daylight savings time routine isn't something to be overlooked before leaving on a trip. So, crank back the clock an hour cause it's really only 7:15 am. I took the opportunity to find out if there's ever a line, and turns out the North Rim Backcountry Office is mellow enough to show up a few minutes before to be first in line. After food, we got back, and were 2nd in line. The guys before us were on the waiting list already, so they had priority anyway. They got the permits they were looking for, and shortly later after a couple minutes of listening to one side of a vague back and forth phone conversation between our ranger and the South Rim Backcountry Office, we got one night at Cottonwood, and another at Bright Angel.
The rest of the trail description is similar to my trip last October except it was 102 at Cottonwood and Bright Angel.
Just past Roaring springs at the pumphouse I stopped for lemonade, a chance to dip my shirt in the nice cold creek, and a chance to talk to the ranger there for a bit in the shade. That place wouldn't be too bad to live in, especially since the house is on the grid, has a freezer, a swamp cooler, and all the good stuff that comes along with electricity (that includes otter pops, but those aren't for regular handing out).
Cottonwood was just a short walk away. The trail seemed a lot shorter this time around.
This time at Cottonwood I stayed in the creek a lot longer, at times soaking up to my neck. I was travelling super light with a waterless weight of 22 lbs for my pack - including food. I wish I would've thrown on another pound for sandals to walk through the creek a bit easier, but it was a necessity I could live without.
The bats this time of year were out just after the sun dropped behind the cliffs, and stayed well past dark, and were out early in the morning as well until the sun rose above the cliffs. Overall I think they were out for about 5-6 hours. It's a good thing too, since most of the bugs went into hiding when the bats made their appearance. That night we had thunderstorms roll through, and that brought some light rain which hit the mesh on my tent and splattered through. The coolness of the rain was welcome since it was pretty warm, but the splattering was annoying.
Next morning we were off to Upper Ribbon Falls for my first trip there. I was under the belief that there was only a faint use trail leading up from around the canyon entrance to Ribbon Falls, and there were indeed signs of people climbing up there, so up we went. It was steep, the scree slippery, and we had a cliff gaining height to one side. With enough of a slip, it could've been bad, but after making it to the top of the cliffs intact I figured I wasn't cursed around that canyon after all. The next part was great - that's when I saw this incredibly obvious trail down below leading straight from the bridge we crossed just after leaving the North Kaibab Trail. The entrance to the trail was covered with enough debris to cover it up so it wasn't obvious, and the desert brush keeps it well hidden even though it's a great trail to follow. With a short ascent up the hill we were on the trail. Upper Ribbon Falls is about 15-20 minutes from the bridge. There are froggies and flowers, and a couple trees. It's quite pleasant up there. I wanted to get a picture standing on a ledge the waterfall cascades onto before dropping 4 more feet into a pool. I took my shoes off and looked for the best hand and footholds to get up. Standing knee deep in the water the ledge was about level with the top of my head. I managed to climb out of the water, but when I went to make my second move, my right foot slipped, and my big toe, nearly had the toenail ripped right off then and there, and I knew before even looking at it that it was going to make the rest of the trip hell.
I left a bloody pebbles wherever I stepped. It was definitely a bleeder. For something so miniscule as a toenail, with only damage to the surface of the skin under the nail and in the nailbed, it was a lot of blood. The toenail was holding on, but only at the nailbed, and the last third of the nail on the sides. Everything under the nail that I could see was detached. So, I grabbed a photo of the damage, and got my shoes and socks back on so I could get to my first aid kit, which was in my pack, which was hidden by the mouth of the canyon entrance to Ribbon Falls. The Curse lives on.
Six fun filled miles, and countless reminders of my injury later I was cooling off in Bright Angel Creek again, at the Bright Angel Campground. The water here was much, much warmer than it was several miles North. The toe looked much better and had stopped bleeding, but I could tell it was well on it's way to coming completely off. I think all the hiking only helped speed up the process. Still something like that will take several more days to come completely off.
That night we were visited by Ringtails. Lots of them. They're pretty cool looking with a bushy tail as long and thick as their body and the head of a shrunken cat. Like everything around Phantom Ranch, they were used to humans around them enough to not really be bothered too much by our presence.
I wanted an early start out to avoid any heat the next day, and possibly a chance to beat my previous time of 4:50 to get out of the canyon. I wasn't sure exactly when I was going to start, but I knew I wouldn't sleep well that night knowing I could easily miss a good window since we didn't have watches to set alarms to. I slept for an hour at a time until 3:00 am (2:00 am MST for me) and I decided I might as well just go now. So I packed up as silently as I could and got ready, and made it on the trail at 3:43.
Everything at that time of morning is eery when all you have is a headlamp and a pack, and you're walking through pure blackness at the bottom of one of the biggest holes in the world with nobody for miles around you. I could hear the Colorado roaring to my right as I followed it to Pipe Creek. I looked off the side of the trail, down the cliff looking for the source of the sound, but saw nothing. Even during the middle of the night, it was still warmer than I preferred. My GPS said it was 86 degrees, but it reads temps 9 degrees higher than it really is, so it was about 77. I stopped to dip my shirt in Pipe Creek and put it back on. It felt odd doing something like that when the sun wasn't even out to overheat me, but it felt good anyway. Near Indian Gardens I spied two eyes reflecting back at me from within the grass about thirty feet away. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but the spacing between the eyes, and their size told me it was probably a deer, or a mountain lion. It wouldn't look away so I could see the profile of its head, and the grass hid any features that would make it obvious what it was. So I decided to force it to make a move and tossed a rock in it's vicinity. It got up and bounded away, so I guess it was a deer. Shortly after the sky changed from solid black to a lighter hue as I passed Indian Gardens campground. Headlights were bouncing in every direction as the campers got ready to move onto the next leg of their journeys. I had arrived just in time to make the final climb over the next 4 miles with the first campers to leave Indian Gardens. The sun kept coming up further and further as I climbed the switchbacks, and the sun line on the opposing cliffs dropped lower and lower. I thought the sun would have been on me by 3 mile resthouse, but it wasn't, so I guessed maybe at 1.5 mile resthouse, but again, it just wasn't there. It was only after the final switchback around the second tunnel that the sun hit me on the trail, and it was very short lived. I topped out at 5:05. It was very close to beating 5:00 which is a very worthy time, but 15 minutes shy of my record, so I was kind of bummed about that, but I had made it out, and I had some time to enjoy the relatively uncrowded South Rim before the shuttle picked us up to take us back to the North Rim that afternoon.
We were on the road by 6:30, in Kanab by 8, Nephi by 12, SLC by 1:30 am, and I was home at 2:20. I spent the last who knows how many hours drinking 4 liters of caffeinated soda, and was pretty buzzed the whole way. Other drivers on the road however were all over the place. Some got some courtesy wake up honks, while I couldn't get far enough ahead of some of the others.
View photos from this trip
Monday, August 21, 2006
West Rim Trail - Zions National Park
I was half expecting the West Rim Trail to be nice and mellow more the first 9 miles and then just wind down some cliffs and drop in elevation down to the Virgin River, but it's not so. Sure it starts out all nice and mellow, gradually dropping in elevation with some mellow rises up and over hills. The ponderosa pines mingle with prickly pear cactus and yucca to make for some interesting scenery. Even more dramatic though is the varying stages of destruction and recovery from numerous wildfires over the years. Some pines would be completely consumed while its neighbor was left unscathed. The cactus seemed to be the least affected by fire since they lay so low to the ground.
The first remarkable stop is at the three mile mark where you have a nice overlook of the infamous Subway. Someday I'll get around to doing it. After that stop you drop down some significant elevation in to Potato Hollow where the fires left only skeletons of large trees that once shrouded the trail in a green canopy. Now they reach out, attempting to snare the travellers who pass in their midst. This area is mostly covered in grasses, and some willow type things that cause my skin to itch. There's a spring in that area that I didn't visit, but I heard that it's full of green, slimey goodness.
From Potato Hollow you climb way up over the ridge. And this is when you realize the trail isn't gonna play nice. After several breaks you crest the ridge and get a great view of numerous canyons on the West side of the rim and you drop into Sleepy Hollow. No sooner do you reach the bottom and are awarded with great views, do you subcomb to the drudgery of climbing an even steeper trail to an even higher elevation than the ridge you just crossed.
Once up there the trail splits and most of the campsites in that area are only reachable from the Canyon Rim section. It's up here that you get to see the most dramatic and extensive layout of canyons that the West Rim Trail has to show. This section gradually climbs upward, but very gradually. The landscape to the East was completely obliterated by a wildfire. The designated campsites in this area are in small patches of pines that weren't affected by the fire.
We had campsite #4. It doesn't have any views from the Rim, but they're a short walk away. I set up my hammock in the trees and napped for a while. The mosquitoes hit hard that night, but the bats came out to feast on those blood suckers. There were several meteors that burned up in the sky while I was still awake to see them.
Next morning we saw the very different views that the South side of the West Rim Trail has to offer. After winding around the rim to Cabin Spring, I stopped to get some water to treat. Cabin Spring is nothing more than a very small trickle with a little pool big enough to fill a Nalgene bottle. There are two campsites right there with enviable views of Majestic Mountain, and the canyons to the South and East a short walk away.
It's at this point the trail starts dropping down a trail cut into the sandstone cliff opposite of Majestic Mountain. Eventually you cross over to the Majestic Mountain side, drop some more, and cross a bridge traversing a deep drainage. Unfortunately the trail climbs again, but only for a short while. Once at the top you can look down into the depths of Zion and see the trees surrounding the Virgin River beyond Walter's Wiggles, and Angel's Landing. Then it's a short trip to Scout's Lookout, and the obligatory jaunt up Angel's Landing just because it's right there and it'd be a shame not to do it. The rest of the way is on the paved trail down Walter's Wiggles, through Refrigerator Canyon, down the hot switchbacks, along the edge of the Virgin River, till you get to the bridge which drops you off at the Grotto.
The Virgin River was really, really nice to cool off in and wash off the dirt & stank of the trip.
View photos from this trip
The first remarkable stop is at the three mile mark where you have a nice overlook of the infamous Subway. Someday I'll get around to doing it. After that stop you drop down some significant elevation in to Potato Hollow where the fires left only skeletons of large trees that once shrouded the trail in a green canopy. Now they reach out, attempting to snare the travellers who pass in their midst. This area is mostly covered in grasses, and some willow type things that cause my skin to itch. There's a spring in that area that I didn't visit, but I heard that it's full of green, slimey goodness.
From Potato Hollow you climb way up over the ridge. And this is when you realize the trail isn't gonna play nice. After several breaks you crest the ridge and get a great view of numerous canyons on the West side of the rim and you drop into Sleepy Hollow. No sooner do you reach the bottom and are awarded with great views, do you subcomb to the drudgery of climbing an even steeper trail to an even higher elevation than the ridge you just crossed.
Once up there the trail splits and most of the campsites in that area are only reachable from the Canyon Rim section. It's up here that you get to see the most dramatic and extensive layout of canyons that the West Rim Trail has to show. This section gradually climbs upward, but very gradually. The landscape to the East was completely obliterated by a wildfire. The designated campsites in this area are in small patches of pines that weren't affected by the fire.
We had campsite #4. It doesn't have any views from the Rim, but they're a short walk away. I set up my hammock in the trees and napped for a while. The mosquitoes hit hard that night, but the bats came out to feast on those blood suckers. There were several meteors that burned up in the sky while I was still awake to see them.
Next morning we saw the very different views that the South side of the West Rim Trail has to offer. After winding around the rim to Cabin Spring, I stopped to get some water to treat. Cabin Spring is nothing more than a very small trickle with a little pool big enough to fill a Nalgene bottle. There are two campsites right there with enviable views of Majestic Mountain, and the canyons to the South and East a short walk away.
It's at this point the trail starts dropping down a trail cut into the sandstone cliff opposite of Majestic Mountain. Eventually you cross over to the Majestic Mountain side, drop some more, and cross a bridge traversing a deep drainage. Unfortunately the trail climbs again, but only for a short while. Once at the top you can look down into the depths of Zion and see the trees surrounding the Virgin River beyond Walter's Wiggles, and Angel's Landing. Then it's a short trip to Scout's Lookout, and the obligatory jaunt up Angel's Landing just because it's right there and it'd be a shame not to do it. The rest of the way is on the paved trail down Walter's Wiggles, through Refrigerator Canyon, down the hot switchbacks, along the edge of the Virgin River, till you get to the bridge which drops you off at the Grotto.
The Virgin River was really, really nice to cool off in and wash off the dirt & stank of the trip.
View photos from this trip
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Mt Nebo
Just checked off another county high point. Took the North Route off of Mona Pole Rd. It's a clean cut trail that slowly approaches the mountain while going up and down over a couple hills before you enter a basin on the North-East side of North Peak. The trail does a couple switchbacks before switching to a squiggle of a trail climbing directly up towards the ridge line. Once you're on the ridge, the trail rises and falls on the East slope of North Peak where you get your first good view of Mt Nebo, and eventually curves around to Wolf's Pass. Next is a 1200 ft climb up the North slope of an unnamed sub-peak. Once on top of that, you can see the final trek across a connecting ridge with steep slopes, tricky moves, and a use trail that's very easy to lose. There's a great view of Hell Hole Basin on your left as you cross that ridge. Once across, it's a final push up to the summit of Nebo -- officially 11,928 ft -- with loose scree and plenty of exposure. Best part though, it only takes 4.5 miles to get there, and once you've had enough of a higher altitude experience, it's a quick descent back to Wolf's Pass. The clouds were building the whole trip, and once we were safely off North Peak it started to sprinkle on and off for the rest of the hike.
Maybe next time I'll try it from Andrew's Ridge and see what that endurance fest is all about.
View photos from this trip
Maybe next time I'll try it from Andrew's Ridge and see what that endurance fest is all about.
View photos from this trip
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Mojo Rebuilding on the Ben Lomond Trail from North Fork Park
I've always been curious about the trails out of North Fork Park. There are two that head up to the Skyline Trail, the Ben Lomond Trail and the Cutler Trail. I needed something where I was gaining some good elevation and covering some distance so I could get some of the mojo back that I left on Mt Peale when I had to abandon the summit attempt, and the Ben Lomond trail seemed like a good candidate. It starts out innocent enough -- after you find it in the maze that is North Fork Park (follow the signs to the corrals and park next to them) -- anyway the trail is nice and wide, and in great shape. After a couple miles though,
overgrowth from the surrounding brush encroaches the trail sometimes making it disappear almost entirely. After 3 miles the trail flattens out a bit and crosses a saddle where there's some good camping and from there you get a nice view of Ben Lomond Peak, and Willard Peak View of Ben Lomond and Willard Peaks. The next two miles take you to the saddle right below the last big ascent of Ben Lomond. It was getting late and I didn't have enough water to summit, otherwise I probably would've done it just cause most of the work to climb Ben Lomond Peak is simply covering the distance to get to the point where I was at. It was okay though, cause my only goal on this trip was to make it to the saddle, and I did that, and I felt I could keep going all the way to the summit which was even better. So I turned around, bushwhacked the trail, ran out of water with two miles left and when I reached my truck I realized the mojo was good. I now feel ready to go out and conquer another one of the ultra-prominence peaks again.
 |
| There's a trail in there somewhere... |
overgrowth from the surrounding brush encroaches the trail sometimes making it disappear almost entirely. After 3 miles the trail flattens out a bit and crosses a saddle where there's some good camping and from there you get a nice view of Ben Lomond Peak, and Willard Peak View of Ben Lomond and Willard Peaks. The next two miles take you to the saddle right below the last big ascent of Ben Lomond. It was getting late and I didn't have enough water to summit, otherwise I probably would've done it just cause most of the work to climb Ben Lomond Peak is simply covering the distance to get to the point where I was at. It was okay though, cause my only goal on this trip was to make it to the saddle, and I did that, and I felt I could keep going all the way to the summit which was even better. So I turned around, bushwhacked the trail, ran out of water with two miles left and when I reached my truck I realized the mojo was good. I now feel ready to go out and conquer another one of the ultra-prominence peaks again.
Monday, July 17, 2006
La Sals/Moab 2006
The only reason I'd go to Moab in the middle of July is to climb Mt Waas and Mt Peale, unfortunately neither of those happened. Halfway up a ridiculous route on Peale I started getting dizzy which is really unusual for me even at high elevations, and we were only at 11,500 ft at that point. I continued up another 100 ft or so and only got dizzier, so I made the call to head back (we made it to the red dot in the pic). It was really disappointing cause I've never abandoned a summit attempt before, and I've wanted to climb those two for at least 10 years now. Going down was just as hard as going up. The terrain was pretty steep and consisted of flat chunks of granite anywhere from the size of a book to the size of a poster, all of it loose, and in never ending abundance. That stuff is difficult to walk on, let alone ascend. I think I'll try again when I have a couloir of snow to climb up and slide down.
The amount of bugs flying around up there was astonishing. I think all the flies from all of the surrounding lowlands came up into the mountains to cool off like we did, cause they were everywhere, even at the highest point of the trip, well above treeline. So we chose to spend the rest of the time exploring some of the cooler areas of Moab, like the fiery furnace in Arches, NP and the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands. We entered the WRT from Potash. The evaporation ponds are pretty cool, and below them there are some salt stalactites and stalagmites that have formed in one spot. Our final destination on the WRT was Musselman Arch. It was a fun ride out there. On the way back we went up the Shafer Trail Shafer Trail Panoramawhich I had previously mountain biked down, but have never driven in my 2WD Toyota Pickup (which turned 175,000 on this trip). It was a little nerve wracking negotiating a couple of the obstacles on the way up knowing that if I couldn't get past any one point I'd have to back down what I'd just driven up in reverse and try to turn around with what little wiggle room there is with a pretty good drop on one side. It's something like 1400 ft down from the highest point. A couple sections were sketchy, but the give it more gas method was a winner.
After that we headed back into the mountains to look for a site to camp, but the bugs were too bad so we just explored. I wanted to check out Miner's Basin so we headed up forest road 65 which one book describes as a really rough road, while another more accurately describes it as saying that while a 4WD vehicle isn't necessary, high clearance and solid obstacle negotiating skills are required. It wasn't all that bad, but high clearance is definitely a must. The lake up top is nice, but again, the bugs were too much. We headed down to Onion Creek to camp. It was warm, but the lack of bugs made it tolerable.
View photos from this trip
The amount of bugs flying around up there was astonishing. I think all the flies from all of the surrounding lowlands came up into the mountains to cool off like we did, cause they were everywhere, even at the highest point of the trip, well above treeline. So we chose to spend the rest of the time exploring some of the cooler areas of Moab, like the fiery furnace in Arches, NP and the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands. We entered the WRT from Potash. The evaporation ponds are pretty cool, and below them there are some salt stalactites and stalagmites that have formed in one spot. Our final destination on the WRT was Musselman Arch. It was a fun ride out there. On the way back we went up the Shafer Trail Shafer Trail Panoramawhich I had previously mountain biked down, but have never driven in my 2WD Toyota Pickup (which turned 175,000 on this trip). It was a little nerve wracking negotiating a couple of the obstacles on the way up knowing that if I couldn't get past any one point I'd have to back down what I'd just driven up in reverse and try to turn around with what little wiggle room there is with a pretty good drop on one side. It's something like 1400 ft down from the highest point. A couple sections were sketchy, but the give it more gas method was a winner.
After that we headed back into the mountains to look for a site to camp, but the bugs were too bad so we just explored. I wanted to check out Miner's Basin so we headed up forest road 65 which one book describes as a really rough road, while another more accurately describes it as saying that while a 4WD vehicle isn't necessary, high clearance and solid obstacle negotiating skills are required. It wasn't all that bad, but high clearance is definitely a must. The lake up top is nice, but again, the bugs were too much. We headed down to Onion Creek to camp. It was warm, but the lack of bugs made it tolerable.
View photos from this trip
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Buckskin Gulch - Paria Canyon
Here's the really brief synopsis of the trip:
Buckskin Gulch - The never ending canyon. The 12 miles seemed like 30. Turn a corner, oh look! More canyon!
Paria Canyon - Cross the "river", get sand washed off feet, climb up the opposite bank, get feet covered in sand, repeat 50 gazillion times.
Buckskin Gulch is really cool. Once you enter the main section of the canyon, there's only one route out, and I didn't even see it cause it looks like the rest of the canyon, unless you're really good at climbing chimney's, then there are plenty of routes out. Only one short section even opened up enough for some trees to grow down there. All kinds of animals fall into the gulch, like snakes and lizards, the occasional rabbit, mice, etc... It's pretty much a death sentence. We came across a bird of prey, not sure what it was, but it hobbled down the canyon in front of us for a ways before it hit a pool in it's path and we scooted around the side.
The pools weren't too bad, there were only a couple that were waist deep, and most had some packed mud from the constant traffic, but then there were the others where you just slid around cause the mud is about as frictionless as it gets down there. They were definitely cold. I think they were colder than Phantom Creek was in February when I cooled off in it.
After 10.5 hours of Buckskin we finally made it to the confluence of the Paria where we began wading through the mighty river *sarcasm*.
We snagged a pretty good campsite and settled in while it got darker, and a mouse made a snack of the thick foil pouch my freeze dried dinner was in. I was super pissed, cause that meant I was out one meal for the trip and it's not like I brought extras. So I slept with my food, cause there were no trees to bear bag it, and it was safe. However one of the mice came back and munched on one of my mesh side pockets. I don't know why, the camera was in there. The camera's always been in there. At least it didn't go through the main pack material.
Next day we did 8 miles or something, I really don't keep track without my GPS, which was left behind, cause it would've proved useless in most of the canyon. Nothing remarkable happened that day, just crossing the river time and time again. Somehow the trickle that we entered at the confluence was getting more and more water in it, despite the fact that there was only one good running spring along that section, so who knows where it's been coming from. The packs were hung from a nice cottonwood, and the mice were left without a meal.
We decided the next day to cut our trip by one day and do two 10 mile days instead of 3 shorter milage days simply cause there wasn't too much to do once you hit camp. After we got close to where we were going to camp to finish 10 miles (at least we thought we were there, you're permanently lost in that canyon your first time through) we decided that since we felt so good we might as well take up the challenge of getting completely out of the canyon that night. I don't know if it was the ibuprofen or the fact that we weren't doing something like climbing out of the Grand Canyon the last day, but it was easy enough to keep on going.
Speaking of being lost, we met these 4 ladies at one point when asked where they thought they were (cause we only had a vague idea ourselves) replied they were 7/10's of a mile from Shower Springs -- which they had passed maybe 3 miles ago, and wasn't really running. Right around the corner was the last reliable spring which was just a slow drip. We found out they were going to camp at Bush's Head Canyon, and we went on our way. We next saw them when there were only 10 miles left at the campground we would've stayed at, 1.5 miles past Bush's Head Canyon where they said they thought this was it, but it might be further down the trail. I was actually using a compass in there to come up with a profile of the canyon sections we were going through and matching them up with the canyon on the topo map to figure out where we were most of the time. One section was easier to figure out because you were dropping through different layers of sandstone and they were listed in the guide map.
So we got out shortly after the sky went black, drove to Page to get some food, rooms and a shower.
With two extra days I decided to go to Moab and get some good Italian at Pasta Jay's. I was going to check out a new riding area I heard about North of town, but as usual, I started driving up the highway and simply decided to keep going till I got home.
View photos from this trip
Buckskin Gulch - The never ending canyon. The 12 miles seemed like 30. Turn a corner, oh look! More canyon!
Paria Canyon - Cross the "river", get sand washed off feet, climb up the opposite bank, get feet covered in sand, repeat 50 gazillion times.
Buckskin Gulch is really cool. Once you enter the main section of the canyon, there's only one route out, and I didn't even see it cause it looks like the rest of the canyon, unless you're really good at climbing chimney's, then there are plenty of routes out. Only one short section even opened up enough for some trees to grow down there. All kinds of animals fall into the gulch, like snakes and lizards, the occasional rabbit, mice, etc... It's pretty much a death sentence. We came across a bird of prey, not sure what it was, but it hobbled down the canyon in front of us for a ways before it hit a pool in it's path and we scooted around the side.
The pools weren't too bad, there were only a couple that were waist deep, and most had some packed mud from the constant traffic, but then there were the others where you just slid around cause the mud is about as frictionless as it gets down there. They were definitely cold. I think they were colder than Phantom Creek was in February when I cooled off in it.
After 10.5 hours of Buckskin we finally made it to the confluence of the Paria where we began wading through the mighty river *sarcasm*.
We snagged a pretty good campsite and settled in while it got darker, and a mouse made a snack of the thick foil pouch my freeze dried dinner was in. I was super pissed, cause that meant I was out one meal for the trip and it's not like I brought extras. So I slept with my food, cause there were no trees to bear bag it, and it was safe. However one of the mice came back and munched on one of my mesh side pockets. I don't know why, the camera was in there. The camera's always been in there. At least it didn't go through the main pack material.
Next day we did 8 miles or something, I really don't keep track without my GPS, which was left behind, cause it would've proved useless in most of the canyon. Nothing remarkable happened that day, just crossing the river time and time again. Somehow the trickle that we entered at the confluence was getting more and more water in it, despite the fact that there was only one good running spring along that section, so who knows where it's been coming from. The packs were hung from a nice cottonwood, and the mice were left without a meal.
We decided the next day to cut our trip by one day and do two 10 mile days instead of 3 shorter milage days simply cause there wasn't too much to do once you hit camp. After we got close to where we were going to camp to finish 10 miles (at least we thought we were there, you're permanently lost in that canyon your first time through) we decided that since we felt so good we might as well take up the challenge of getting completely out of the canyon that night. I don't know if it was the ibuprofen or the fact that we weren't doing something like climbing out of the Grand Canyon the last day, but it was easy enough to keep on going.
Speaking of being lost, we met these 4 ladies at one point when asked where they thought they were (cause we only had a vague idea ourselves) replied they were 7/10's of a mile from Shower Springs -- which they had passed maybe 3 miles ago, and wasn't really running. Right around the corner was the last reliable spring which was just a slow drip. We found out they were going to camp at Bush's Head Canyon, and we went on our way. We next saw them when there were only 10 miles left at the campground we would've stayed at, 1.5 miles past Bush's Head Canyon where they said they thought this was it, but it might be further down the trail. I was actually using a compass in there to come up with a profile of the canyon sections we were going through and matching them up with the canyon on the topo map to figure out where we were most of the time. One section was easier to figure out because you were dropping through different layers of sandstone and they were listed in the guide map.
So we got out shortly after the sky went black, drove to Page to get some food, rooms and a shower.
With two extra days I decided to go to Moab and get some good Italian at Pasta Jay's. I was going to check out a new riding area I heard about North of town, but as usual, I started driving up the highway and simply decided to keep going till I got home.
View photos from this trip
Thursday, May 18, 2006
North Skyline Trail - North Ogden Pass
So for the 8th time in the last month, I hauled my butt up the North Skyline Trail to the snowline. Twice I did it on my bike. That did wonders for my riding already. 5 times I hiked it, and this time I threw on a 40 lb backpack to get me ready for my 45 mile trip through Paria Canyon next week. This time around I made it up to 8260 ft, that was a gain of 2500-3000, not really sure, in 3 miles one way. That put me on the ridge that's visible from North Ogden, the Southern-most part of the ridge.
The snow's melting fast, a 300 ft glissade that I was able to do on Monday is now not doable, that was 2 days for 3 feet of snow to disappear. Glissading it was fun though. It was really steep, about 70 degrees and I had to find a curved stick to use for self arrest. It was great.
The snow's melting fast, a 300 ft glissade that I was able to do on Monday is now not doable, that was 2 days for 3 feet of snow to disappear. Glissading it was fun though. It was really steep, about 70 degrees and I had to find a curved stick to use for self arrest. It was great.
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| This is what I glissaded down on Monday, it's all but gone now. |
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| On the ridge looking at the rest of the trail under snow |
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| Standing on the snow...again |
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| Ben Lomond with the sun low in the sky behind it. |
Monday, May 1, 2006
Lewis Peak Runoff = Waterfalls
Up until Saturday I had never seen any water flowing on a section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail I ride frequently in Ogden, but with the sudden warmup, the snow melt on Lewis Peak is coming down. This has created a couple different waterfalls, some right next to the trail which look really bad in my photos, and the water is discolored from all the sediment it picks up. I wanted to hike upstream to see if there was one huge waterfall coming down the massive cliffs that make up the face of Lewis Peak, but I was occupied with getting my ride in, so I passed it up. I couldn't help but do a ride up to where the lower falls were, and then trek on up the creek to find some bigger and better falls. It was rough. There's a trail that kind of disappears unless you know where to look, so I lost it and ended up making my way through the brush oak. It was rough, but it was worth it. The water cascades down several tiers falling off at different angles with each section. The light from the low sun was perfect for getting some good shots. On the way back down I stayed on the boulder scree for a good section, then made my way down to a dry section of the creekbed that is used as a trail. That was a lot easier.
View photos
View photos
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Superstition Mountains, AZ
Flew down to Phoenix to do a 4 day backpacking trip through the eastern Superstition Wilderness area. Got to the trailhead about 20 minutes before dark, but that's fine since I was only going in a couple miles to the first campsite. Camp was going to be at a location known as Pinon Camp. I setup camp on a stretch of slickrock, had some dinner and went to bed. I thought the person I was backpacking with was up and walking around after I fell asleep, and that woke me up. I heard footsteps walking in a circle around my tent, then down into the brushy area and back up. I called out their name, but nobody responded. I sat up to see who was making the noise, but when I looked where I last heard steps no more than a second ago, there was no one, and the person I was with was still asleep in their tent.
I was awake after that, so I thought I'd try some night photography. Found out my camera only captures up to 15 seconds, and it takes it almost that long to process the imagery it captures into a grainy mess. It was still fun though. It took about 5 shots to get one framed how I wanted it cause you can't see anything through the viewfinder, or on the screen. Then there's the matter of back lighting from the moon to deal with, and adjusting the ISO for more exposure without unnecessarily increasing the graininess, or decreasing the length of exposure. I got some decent results. Film would've been superior in this situation, but digital is what I deal with now.
Next morning I was off to Charlebois Spring. Didn't see another party on the trail the whole time. It got nice & hot, a little too hot. I had to make up more Gatorade on the way, and there's only one good spot of shade the whole stretch. Got to Charlebois with only a little water left. Going up the canyon the spring is in, in search of some nice, clean, cool, refreshing water I passed a trough full of somewhat clear water with green algae growing all the way to the top of the water and fish swimming around in it. In the back of my head I thought that might be the "spring" but I wanted to go up further to find out for sure. The canyon bottom is full of dense trees, vines & other growth with a marshy bed, and small cliffs on both sides making it impossible to navigate through there. I went as far as I could before I tried climbing up on the cliffs to get closer to the source, but with cactus of all varieties hedging up the way it was impossible. Thankfully I had a water filter, and tons of iodine tablets. I've had to drink nastier, and untreated before, so I was okay with this. A real spring would've been awesome though. So I guess they just pipe the spring water down to the trough and let it fill up. I think they should have the pipe drop the freshwater from a height into a trough so it doesn't get mixed immediately with the trough water, but I guess the BLM can ensure everybody treats their water this way and avoid any unnecessary problems if the spring water is contaminated, or gets contaminated on its way from the source to the end of the pipe.
That night while I was eating in my tent I heard footsteps pounding up the trail for about 20 seconds. I looked up to see who was coming and someone paused for a second, looked at our camp, and kept going. It probably was an actual hiker this time around, but since they didn't stop for water, and this was the only water source for many, many miles, we were far from any trailhead, they were alone, hiking at night, plus what happened the night before, you've gotta wonder.
The next day I went to filter more water and while I was doing it, this thing with six legs, and the body of a cricket crawled out of the green mass on the side of the trough, slid itself across the concrete and plopped down on the ground next to me. I have no clue what it was, but given it's state, I'm guessing it just did a transformation from something else to it's adult stage and it wanted to dry out. That's why there are filters.
Next day I hiked to Whiskey Springs. There were more cactus, and only one good spot of shade the whole way. That section of trail felt like I was a world away from the desert for a couple hundred feet. A picture was taken in that section, and it looks like I have a bloody elbow in it, so when I saw the pic on my camera's screen I asked the person I was backpacking with if I had unknowingly done anything to my elbow and the response was no, and we took a closer pic of my elbow to prove it. Weird stuff.
Whiskey Springs has a couple excellent campsites, well shaded with plenty of rocks to sit on. Unfortunately most of the lower sites had equine visitors so you'd have to be okay with loads of dried up horse crap getting on your gear to camp down there. There's another trough here, much worse than what we had at Charlebois, but there was enough water to finish the trip without using that gunk. I went in search of the spring source only to come up empty handed. There's a small pipe coming out of the trough with some water dripping out the end, and that might be a piped source, with the trough only holding water that flowed through it as it came downstream during bigger storms, who knows. I can think of some better names for these things than springs. A quick hike up the hill above our campsite yielded some really incredible views of where I'd hiked from over the past two days, unfortunately I didn't bring my camera up to where I was, and I wasn't going to waste energy going all the way down & back up just for a couple shots.
The hike out took me to the South side of the Superstitions and the desert plants are stunning in this area. It looks almost like it was landscaped. 1.5 miles from the car, after having gone for 3 days without seeing a rattlesnack, there 10 feet in front of me was the tail of one sticking out on the trail. I took a couple steps to make sure it knew I was there and to take off, instead it winded up the rattle and backed out of the bushes onto the trail, and made it's way into a massive prickly pear. Since it wasn't budging, and rocks didn't persuade it to move any I just made my way around a bush off the trail and let it sit there and rattle.
View photos from this trip
I was awake after that, so I thought I'd try some night photography. Found out my camera only captures up to 15 seconds, and it takes it almost that long to process the imagery it captures into a grainy mess. It was still fun though. It took about 5 shots to get one framed how I wanted it cause you can't see anything through the viewfinder, or on the screen. Then there's the matter of back lighting from the moon to deal with, and adjusting the ISO for more exposure without unnecessarily increasing the graininess, or decreasing the length of exposure. I got some decent results. Film would've been superior in this situation, but digital is what I deal with now.
Next morning I was off to Charlebois Spring. Didn't see another party on the trail the whole time. It got nice & hot, a little too hot. I had to make up more Gatorade on the way, and there's only one good spot of shade the whole stretch. Got to Charlebois with only a little water left. Going up the canyon the spring is in, in search of some nice, clean, cool, refreshing water I passed a trough full of somewhat clear water with green algae growing all the way to the top of the water and fish swimming around in it. In the back of my head I thought that might be the "spring" but I wanted to go up further to find out for sure. The canyon bottom is full of dense trees, vines & other growth with a marshy bed, and small cliffs on both sides making it impossible to navigate through there. I went as far as I could before I tried climbing up on the cliffs to get closer to the source, but with cactus of all varieties hedging up the way it was impossible. Thankfully I had a water filter, and tons of iodine tablets. I've had to drink nastier, and untreated before, so I was okay with this. A real spring would've been awesome though. So I guess they just pipe the spring water down to the trough and let it fill up. I think they should have the pipe drop the freshwater from a height into a trough so it doesn't get mixed immediately with the trough water, but I guess the BLM can ensure everybody treats their water this way and avoid any unnecessary problems if the spring water is contaminated, or gets contaminated on its way from the source to the end of the pipe.
That night while I was eating in my tent I heard footsteps pounding up the trail for about 20 seconds. I looked up to see who was coming and someone paused for a second, looked at our camp, and kept going. It probably was an actual hiker this time around, but since they didn't stop for water, and this was the only water source for many, many miles, we were far from any trailhead, they were alone, hiking at night, plus what happened the night before, you've gotta wonder.
The next day I went to filter more water and while I was doing it, this thing with six legs, and the body of a cricket crawled out of the green mass on the side of the trough, slid itself across the concrete and plopped down on the ground next to me. I have no clue what it was, but given it's state, I'm guessing it just did a transformation from something else to it's adult stage and it wanted to dry out. That's why there are filters.
Next day I hiked to Whiskey Springs. There were more cactus, and only one good spot of shade the whole way. That section of trail felt like I was a world away from the desert for a couple hundred feet. A picture was taken in that section, and it looks like I have a bloody elbow in it, so when I saw the pic on my camera's screen I asked the person I was backpacking with if I had unknowingly done anything to my elbow and the response was no, and we took a closer pic of my elbow to prove it. Weird stuff.
Whiskey Springs has a couple excellent campsites, well shaded with plenty of rocks to sit on. Unfortunately most of the lower sites had equine visitors so you'd have to be okay with loads of dried up horse crap getting on your gear to camp down there. There's another trough here, much worse than what we had at Charlebois, but there was enough water to finish the trip without using that gunk. I went in search of the spring source only to come up empty handed. There's a small pipe coming out of the trough with some water dripping out the end, and that might be a piped source, with the trough only holding water that flowed through it as it came downstream during bigger storms, who knows. I can think of some better names for these things than springs. A quick hike up the hill above our campsite yielded some really incredible views of where I'd hiked from over the past two days, unfortunately I didn't bring my camera up to where I was, and I wasn't going to waste energy going all the way down & back up just for a couple shots.
The hike out took me to the South side of the Superstitions and the desert plants are stunning in this area. It looks almost like it was landscaped. 1.5 miles from the car, after having gone for 3 days without seeing a rattlesnack, there 10 feet in front of me was the tail of one sticking out on the trail. I took a couple steps to make sure it knew I was there and to take off, instead it winded up the rattle and backed out of the bushes onto the trail, and made it's way into a massive prickly pear. Since it wasn't budging, and rocks didn't persuade it to move any I just made my way around a bush off the trail and let it sit there and rattle.
View photos from this trip
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Devil's Playground II -- The night hell froze over
Needing a break and some solitude I headed back out to the West Desert to a great little camping spot. Weather was in the 60's, blue skies, forecast said there'd be a little wind, and possibly some snow in the morning. Looking at the weather satellite images it looked like the storm would miss my camp by a ways so I wasn't worried. I tried a new way to get to my camping spot in the Devil's Playground. I took Immigrant Rd at mile marker 33 (on highway 30) down to the turn off. I think entering from mile 33 or 24 is about the same driving time. So no matter. The night was going great, but then there were a couple drops, then it stopped. I decided to move into the tent anyway. 30 minutes later it started drizzling, but nothing bad. Then the wind picked up. My camp was in a little alcove of rocks so I was sheltered for the most part from the wind in the direction it was blowing, then it changed direction and things went downhill. The rain was horizontal. I reinforced my tent by putting a couple more stakes in at different angles and using some guy lines to tie it down. But it was no use. The wind gusts were just too much. In a brazen move I packed everything into my pillowcase, loosely rolled up my bag and darted to my truck with them so they wouldn't get wet. By now the rain had turned to horizontal freezing rain. I dropped the tent poles and collapsed it sideways and stuffed it under my pickup bed cover and turned in for the night. It got cold, and the wind never stopped. The condensation on the inside of my windows froze and just built up thicker and thicker as the night wore on. My back window was caked with 1/2" of ice, and every couple minutes there would be a thud as a chunk of ice that had built up on a tree landed on my roof. I had planned on spending 2 nights, but my tent was a frozen brick that would probably take 4-5 hours to thaw out, and then it wouldn't dry enough to be usable, and I didn't know if any other fun weather would be coming my way, so after some pics in the morning I took off. I only had trouble in one spot on the way out, it's a steep 15 foot climb followed by a steep 25 foot climb. I made it to the top of the first fairly well, just spinning out a bit towards the top, had a little trouble getting up enough speed to make the 25 footer, and lost it right at the top. It took about 6 tries, but I managed to get up the rest of the way without having to back down and charge it again. The wind coming back was insane. There was a stretch of highway where the tumbleweeds were dancing across the road by the hundreds, just floating over the barbed wire fences on both sides. It was a sight to see. Curious to find out just how fast the wind was gusting I looked up the weather station that's just outside the Devil's Playground area and it said 81 MPH top gust. Wow. I believe it though. It was insane.
View photos from this trip
View photos from this trip
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Grand Canyon II
This trip I went down the South Kaibab Trail, spent 2 nights at Bright Angel CG, did a day trip up Phantom Canyon, and returned via the Bright Angel Trail. The weather forecast was sketchy at best. It was constantly changing, and never looked very appealing, but there's nothing you can do about that. The weather turned out to be very nice. Highs in the mid 60's and lows in the 40's. It only rained the 2nd night, but even then it was only a few sprinkles a couple times throughout the night. The next morning the skies were blue and partially cloudy again. I was trying out a bandanna dealie from Buff, and I loved it. You'll see it in pretty much every picture. I was also sporting a new pack, the Kelty Shadow 4500, and a new bag, a 25° Kelty Lightyear 650 down. Both of those were great. With those two new additions to my backpacking arsenal my full pack weight (water, food and all) for a 3 day trip is 35 lbs.
The South Kaibab Trail is one steady descent. Looking at the vertical profile of my track on my Explorist 600 it's almost a smooth 45° angle from start to finish. The views are great. A mountain goat was spotted on the way down. Mileage: 7.6. As soon as I got my pack off at the BAC (Bright Angel Campground) I went down to the creek to find a nice pool of water to sit in for a nice ice bath (it's good for the muscles). A father & his two sons were washing their feet off nearby and they could barely stand to put just their feet in, and here I was trudging across the creek and comfortably sitting down in a pool & cooling off. A couple scouts were walking back to their site and they stopped to gawk at me. It was hilarious watching these people get so worked up over it. Sure it was freezing, but that was the point. The air temp was probably around 50-55°
Phantom Canyon isn't marked or really mentioned in any GC lit, but it's got some pretty cool waterfalls just out of view from the North Kaibab Trail, and it requires wading to get to them. After about a mile there's a really deep pool that I didn't want to go through since getting wet and cold in that canyon, a good ways from dry clothes would've been a really bad idea. On the way back some guys who had been past that said that it just opens up into a clearing around the corner and there's nothing to see.
The BAT was pretty much the same as last time, except this time I made it out in 4 hours and 50 minutes. That last mile is the real killer. Looking at the vertical profile of the BAT it's a gradual rise up until a mile past Indian Gardens and then it gets really steep, gaining twice as much elevation in half the distance (just a guess).
View photos from this trip
The South Kaibab Trail is one steady descent. Looking at the vertical profile of my track on my Explorist 600 it's almost a smooth 45° angle from start to finish. The views are great. A mountain goat was spotted on the way down. Mileage: 7.6. As soon as I got my pack off at the BAC (Bright Angel Campground) I went down to the creek to find a nice pool of water to sit in for a nice ice bath (it's good for the muscles). A father & his two sons were washing their feet off nearby and they could barely stand to put just their feet in, and here I was trudging across the creek and comfortably sitting down in a pool & cooling off. A couple scouts were walking back to their site and they stopped to gawk at me. It was hilarious watching these people get so worked up over it. Sure it was freezing, but that was the point. The air temp was probably around 50-55°
Phantom Canyon isn't marked or really mentioned in any GC lit, but it's got some pretty cool waterfalls just out of view from the North Kaibab Trail, and it requires wading to get to them. After about a mile there's a really deep pool that I didn't want to go through since getting wet and cold in that canyon, a good ways from dry clothes would've been a really bad idea. On the way back some guys who had been past that said that it just opens up into a clearing around the corner and there's nothing to see.
The BAT was pretty much the same as last time, except this time I made it out in 4 hours and 50 minutes. That last mile is the real killer. Looking at the vertical profile of the BAT it's a gradual rise up until a mile past Indian Gardens and then it gets really steep, gaining twice as much elevation in half the distance (just a guess).
View photos from this trip
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