@ShatteredArm
Well now I feel like a fool! I had researched the trip extensively about six months ago, and even had a printed copy of the official trail description, but I never actually read it!

Thanks everyone for the help and feedback!

@chumley Yeah, a "steep chute" is a better description for it than "cliff." It definitely looks a lot less scary from the bottom, such that psychologically, the route would be much easier going up, especially with packs. Most of it was well-protected (in the chute), but there we...

chumley wrote:Google StreetView

I never realized there's StreetView for the whole river. That will be super fun/helpful in the future!

@chumley
Cool pictures, and those show it exactly! In the third picture, the dashed red line is the 50' section, and the green and purple are the 10' bands.

I've searched through many photosets, and found a few photos that show the area, but none showing the exact cliff in question. https://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=371625. In this photo, taken from the west side, you can see the east side trail in the top left corner. The two ~10 foot sections go t...

@joebartels
Thanks! So it sounds like we should have crossed back over to the west side where east and west meet about half a mile from the Colorado.

I returned on the east bank So just to clarify, you crossed Tapeats creek "delta" (i.e. where it flows into the Colorado River) to get on the east side, and then went up the east side from there? Do you recall whether there was a steep climb initially to get up on the ledges, or whether y...

For a little context, I've hiked every trail/route on the South Rim (Beamer, Tanner, Escalante, New Hance, Grandview, South Kaibab, Bright Angel, Hermit, Boucher, South Bass, Royal Arch, Point Huitzal, and the entire Tonto), plus the North Kaibab, so I'm no stranger to the Canyon. I got a permit to ...

@big_load I have the Kovea Spider too! I use it for winter weather so I can turn the canister on its side or upside down for better flame reliability. I also bought the adapter so I use it with propane when car camping. My regular backpacking stove is the SnowPeak Gigapower. It has a few features t...

@louie For the upclimb, I'd say the footholds are pretty decent, but I felt like the handholds were lacking, so I was hanging onto the rope for upper body support. But I'd say the majority of my weight was on the feet on the rock. I'm not a rock climber at all. My brother's a climber and had just a...

@friendofThundergod
Sometime we want to do the whole rappel down Royal Arch canyon. Those get to be 100+ feet and you have to do a single rope with a pull string. That would be exciting!

@louie Here are a few photos to show what it's like. The anchor point, showing plenty of room to move around and tie things: DSC_6776.JPG One of our group members on rappel: DSC_6781.JPG The entire cliff face after lowering down our packs. This should give you an idea of the holds available for upc...

Apologies in advance for the long post! :lol: Skimmed through this thread, but obviously didn't read all 13+ years/40 pages of posts. Wow! Seems like a wealth of info. At this point, I'm still using my parents vehicles to get to/from trailheads. Most of the time I'm going hiking/backpacking with the...

nonot has a good answer. I did this trip back in 2017 and we did it the "proper" way with a helmet, rope, webbing, etc. When arrived, there was a fair amount of webbing already tied around the rock. W and a nice (read: good condition) rope with knots tied every few feete felt confident in ...

This is my first post on the forum! I was backpacking this past weekend Rim to Rim (one night Cottonwood, and one night Indian Gardens) and may have some value-added information to add here. Chatting with the ranger at Indian Gardens, she said there were new records set on October 24th for R2R dayhi...