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| Buddha temple attempt, AZ | |
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| | Buddha temple attempt, AZ | | | |
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Buddha temple attempt, AZ
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| Backpack | 38.00 Miles |
14,000 AEG |
| | Backpack | 38.00 Miles | 4 Days | | |
| 14,000 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no linked trail guides |
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| no partners | | 5 years ago I got a taste of peakbagging in the canyon with summits of Cheops Plateau and Shellbach Butte. When I did Shellbach, I got the itch to do Buddha since it was so close and the approach thru the Redwall and part of the Supai is the same. In the intervening years I had done a few other major summits(Isis, Hayden, Brahma), so I figured Buddha would be definitely doable. Well... I guess I underestimated it a bit.
I had the plan in my head for a few years, and finally decided to pull the trigger for this Thanksgiving.
Day 1: South Kaibab to Phantom Creek via Utah flats route. This was my 4th time on this route and I love it. The views are incredible. Unfortunately half of my group was already having a hard time getting to Phantom creek. I felt like I was hiking slow - but was stopping every 5 min or so to wait to keep the group in sight. I was already carrying the dynamic rope and my personal technical gear, but to help speed things up I took half of the group technical gear as well..Still, we didn't make camp until 4pm and was pretty wet with all the rain. We took the overhang camp near the one drop in Phantom.
Day 2: My plan was to leave prior to sunrise when we had functional light to negotiate the very steep slope above camp to reach Sturdevant canyon. You take the canyon all the way up above the redwall to reach Shellbach saddle. The going was pretty slow even with daypacks. We finally made it to the upclimbs in the Redwall and the final class 4 move in the Supai in order to reach Shellbach saddle. At the saddle, we dropped extra water, layers etc for the way down, then continued up the Supai. After a few cliff bands, we reached the part where we were to traverse north for less than 1/4 mile dropping down to 6000ft contour. This through us off a bit - the route next to the cliff wall where we were at looked pretty good. After a bit of searching we stayed at that level and it went. Our next goal was a gully that provides access to class 3 shelves and a final class 4 chimney to get to the top of the Supai. At this point I did a time check - it was already 11:30 and we werent' close to the start of the technical climb. We still had to breach the final supai band and then traverse around to the other side of Buddha. I decided to call the summit off. At this pace we may not summit till close to dark. We decided to try and find the route thru the rest of the supai. After another 15 min or so of searching we think we found the final climb - there was a rope left in place. It was pretty vertical and we would've had to rope up for this final section. By this time it was close to noon and I felt better about my decision to abort. We decided to go on over to Shellbach butte since none of the group had been there except me. It's a great summit and has awesome views of the area. After a bit we headed down - didn't make it to camp until after sunset.
Day 3: Now the group sorta split. 3 of the group was hurting from the first day and the day before. One person didn't even do the Buddha attempt. They decided to sleep in and just hike to Utah flats(our planned night 3). One person wanted to do Cheops Plateau. Bill and I had both done it twice so we decided on Cheops Pyramid. We went back on the Utah flats route till after it passed the Plateau, dropped packs and traversed to the South side of the Pyramid. There were occasional cairns and the scrambles were fun. All the redwall was very loose so some of the airy sections felt slightly sketchy. The top was wonderful and we spent 20-30 min up there. Headed down and to camp at Utah Flats. Got to camp really early - 2:30. So had time to hang out and read.
Day 4: Down Utah flats and then out. Most of the group wanted to hike out Bright Angel, but we had two cars parked near South Kaibab and I prefer it anyway. We made plans to meet at the Maswick pizza pub for post hike beer and pizza.
It was a great Thanksgiving - even though Buddha won...this time. |
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