Cool, more info is good.
Early spring is a good time, you won't freeze, except for the first and last day. You should be careful about staging a car on the north rim, many roads are closed due to the snow until mid May.
7 days is plenty to do a lot. It sounds like you want to do approximately the Hayduke route. You could also do the Horsethief route, or perhaps a combo of both.
There are remnants of the plane left in the canyon, the location is between Chuar and Temple. You can scramble between the river (Hayduke Route) and the horsethief route in this drainage, though it is not a pleasant hike.
To do this in 3 days would involve using the Tanner trail and crossing the river. I am not sure how you plan to cross, but there are not many river rafts early in the season and you may have to wait awhile, perhaps a full day or two. Packrafting across above Lava is possible, but I wouldn't recommend attempting to cross by yourself at the LCR/CR junction - Harvey Butchart's best friend died (drown) on a trip w/Harvey there when he went through the rapids on an inflatable mattress. Crossing above the LCR junction may be possible, but I know of no triplogs.
If you carry a packraft, it seems possible (slightly aggressive) to hit all items: Lower LCR, Crashsite, Kwagunt, Granary, in 7 days. I would only recommend this to experienced backcountry/offtrail backpackers. Spring would be best - you will probably have water problems on one of your days.
Otherwise I'd recommend you split it into 2 trips, which would be easier logistics wise. Other than visiting the crash site, your itinerary is pretty reasonable.
HippyHaley wrote:@nonot the fact that I have so little info IS concerning
which is why I asked and we are in the planning stages, hoping to do this later winter/early spring when it's still cool out for safety reasons of course, knowing me i'll freeze but that's okay.
I know the crash site is on the other side, we have river experience and have plans on crossing safely already in the final stages, it is simply a matter of reaching the area in due time.
We were considering a 7 day trip for the whole thing, as for the sipapu
we know the rules and have an "IN" but I worry about the trail time on that one, all things considered the sipapu and kwagunt ruins might be dropped due to time restraints for the trip in the works.
My main desires are 1)Nankoweap Trail 2) the granary and 3) the crashsite 4) the LCR/CR junction.
I read a guy's blog who said he and some friends did the crashsite trip (36 miles) in 3 days, his photos say there are still plenty remains to be seen at the crashsite, maybe not a full plane as most people expect but even the tiniest shard of evidence is fascinating to us, we see beyond the physical...If all else fails we might split this into 2 different trips coming from nankoweap once and tanner another. but we're still not sure.
any further suggestions? would be much appreciated.
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