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| Hiking | 4.00 Miles |
2,871 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.00 Miles | 5 Hrs 20 Mns | | 0.75 mph |
| 2,871 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I left the Village bright and early, right after 10AM, and arrived at the trailhead a little after 10:30AM. I had to make the circle twice in order to secure a parking spot… as expected, visitation seems to be very high this holiday weekend. After some breakfast, hydration and other pre-hike rituals, I was off at approximately 11:15AM.
I didn’t enjoy the steep descent down the Tanner. I would rather it be steeper, so that I could use my hands, but those conditions are not present on this trail. Took my time and made it 1.4 miles down to the saddle and pink marked tree. Cached some water under the tree, peered up at Escalanate and started to ascend the south side. The climb up was not too bad; my philosophy was just to go up where I could and it worked out fairly well. 45 minutes after taking off from the saddle, I was in the vicinity of the base of the two summit stones and was looking to see if I could spot the slabs. I passed a couple boulders, nope, that is not it… way too wide. Continued further west, clambering around boulders and… aha, there is the crack. I continued around the northwest corner of the slabs to get a better look and…. Holy moly! Exposure! I wasn’t ready for it and it kind of hit like a ton of bricks; I immediately felt a little uncomfortable. I eventually positioned myself right beneath the chimney. Do I really need to climb this? It seems kind of difficult? I don’t remember reading this in the hike description? I was still slightly unnerved, but carefully proceeded up the chimney, which felt kind of tricky in a couple spots. Fortunately, the chokestones were stable enough to support my weight.
I arrived between the slabs and, at initial glance, neither one seemed more difficult to climb than the other. I climbed up the one side, and once on top, I was then able to determine that the other side was higher. I also recognized the slanted, pointy, purportedly shifty rock on the other side of the leap of the faith. But, problem is, in order to get to the jumping point, you have to either crest the crown of the slab (with cliff to your left) or work your way along the right side on a narrow ledge while holding the crown, with chimney directly beneath/to your right. This doesn’t feel good I told myself and climbed back down, fully believing I could get up the other slab, where there was no crazy exposure. I am confident in my pulling strength and believed I could pull myself up, but of course, it just isn’t that simple. There is a sloping ledge for your feet, but really no good hand holds to make the pull from. I made a couple attempts from a couple different areas, but with the rock sloping towards you, it was proving to be difficult. Okay, maybe if I can get a little higher to start from, I could reach further up and perhaps spot some sort of hold. I started to stack additional slabs on the existing rock stack, but that proved to not aide too well. Moved to the other climbing spot and tried to stack rocks there, but that was unstable and crashed down. Errr.
So, I climbed back up the other side to evaluate. I straddled the crown, but once again, did not feel comfortable at all to even make it to the jumping spot. I wasn’t comfortable working alongside it either. So, I climbed back down again and cautiously proceeded down the chimney area. Back around the north side and decided to inspect the east and south side of the slab. It was at that point that I realized that climbing up/down the chimney area was not necessary. Okay, since I am back to the climbing area again, I have to take one last look to see if I can get up. One try and no dice. I think it might be doable with a spotter for a leg up. Took a look at south side, which was a much higher climb, probably 25 feet. There was a nice crack half way up, put pretty much sheer to that point. I made an attempt using the small, unstable tree for assistance, but was nowhere in the vicinity and knew there was no way I was getting up there.
I was in the summit area for nearly an hour and decided it was time to get back down. Went south again, this time taking a more direct descent through the Coconino layer. Coming up, I had skirted to the north a touch. Anyways, once reaching the Supai group shelves, I cliffed out twice, which resulted in having to backtrack and climb back up to find a doable route. As I was heading down a minor shelf, a rather voluminous boulder dislodged (it was at least 3 feet across and almost a foot thick). Fortunately, I landed on my feet and the boulder stopped shy of crashing into the back of my legs (that is what I was concerned about in those split seconds). I eventually made it back to the saddle, but it took me about an hour from when I departed the summit area.
I hung out in the shade of the trees for nearly 50 minutes, ate some snacks, hydrated, laid down and generally waited for the sun to head further west. The further west, the better for the ascent up Tanner, as most of it would be likely shaded. Started back up and, it was sunny in some spots, but shaded for the majority, which was nice. I stopped many times on the ascent and sat down a few times, but managed to hike out in 1:03, which I thought was respectable.
I didn’t see anyone else on the trail, but back to crazy tourism in the parking area, waving and selfies while driving along Desert View Drive, elk jams as well as video recordings while hanging out of your vehicle window. You know, the usual stuff you see up here. |
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