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| Hiking | 22.47 Miles |
8,570 AEG |
| | Hiking | 22.47 Miles | 12 Hrs 20 Mns | | 2.04 mph |
| 8,570 ft AEG | 1 Hour 20 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | I have wanted to do Cheops for a long time now, however, the summit has eluded me the last few years, as a few trips were cancelled, I cancelled an attempt and other hikes in the canyon took precedent. This time however, I set a date and was determined to finally reach the plateau that is a peak.
I reviewed all of the old triplogs again and brushed up on the route with Chumley again. He also gave me a pretty good breakdown of what I would be encountering at the "crux" obstacle. I was feeling very good about finally knocking out Cheops and then all of a sudden it seemed as if everything was working against me getting up there to do Cheops. First it was a less than promising weather forecast that seemed to be only getting worse and then it was the Xterra deciding it needed a 1000 dollar repair job Friday morning. All logic said the weather alone was enough to cancel, oh and not being able to con someone into joining me. However, despite these obvious signs pointing to another cancellation of Cheops, I chose to go. I shot one more quick question to go about the "crux," picked up my car and was on the road for the canyon Friday night.
In typical canyon fashion, I got a solid 2.5 hours of restless sleep, making for a little bit of a slow moving Saturday morning. I decided for an early start thinking it might help with beating the rain, but there was nothing to suggest that it would. Started my short walk to the South Kaibab trailhead at 4:22 in the morning. The light rain started about an hour into the day and pretty much continued through most of the first half of the day. I took the official route to the plateau and found the initial off trail climb and traverse more pleasing than the climb out of Phantom Ranch. For some reason that climb killed me today. Although, I did enjoy Piano Alley, its much more appreciable when not carrying a full pack, as I was the last time I went through there. The obstacle that I spent two years dwelling over ended up not really being much of an obstacle at all. I recognized it pretty quickly and other than stopping to take off my gloves, I really had no delay or hesitation in going up it. The hand holds were great and I chose not to dwell over the exposure. I thought in terms of scrambling, there were harder spots than that along the northwest ridge. The Plateau offers a great 360 view and although mine was limited from the low lying clouds, I still appreciated it. I did not spend a lot of time on the Plateau, but the thought of those rocks along the N.W. ridge getting more and more slick as the rain came down was starting to seep into my mind.
No issues going down, in fact, it seemed quick. It rained the entire time and there were several areas along Utah Flats running lightly and feeding quaint little cascades along the trail on my return route. The sun literally came out of nowhere. It stayed with me until I reached the 3.5 miles to south rim sign. Literally, with a crack of thunder all hell broke lose. The worst rain of the day, thunder, lightning, hail and then snow at the top. I sloshed and froze my way to the top, but got out fine. There were however, some unprepared Phantom Ranch weekend warriors who were caught pretty off guard by the severe weather. I kept telling the people sheltered along the cliffs that we would be better off with snow, as I thought that might mean an end to the thunder and lightning, but no it pretty much lasted the entire way. Big fat wet snow flakes fell for the final 1.5 miles or so and there was a pretty good amount on the south rim when I finally crawled out.
A great summit overall and it motivates me to start working on knocking out a few more canyon summits. The conditions were not ideal today, probably not the best time to be scrambling up the back ridge of Cheops, but I was still able to make it happen with just a little bit more attention to detail in spots. In fact, most of the terrain was not near as slippery as one might think, from Piano Alley to the ridgeline most of the large rocks have a nice coarse texture that really lessens the slip factor. But a slick one did grab my attention every now and then. Always nice to do a memorable one on the old man's birthday again. |
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