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| Hiking | 9.00 Miles |
2,900 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.00 Miles | 7 Hrs 30 Mns | | 1.32 mph |
| 2,900 ft AEG | 40 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.
I linked up with Dave for another summit in the Grand Canyon. We made the quick drive up to the backcountry of the north rim Friday and stepped off from the "trailhead" for Elaine Castle around 6:10 in the morning Saturday.
The car read 37 degrees when we started, but we warmed quickly as we began the off trail woods approach to Lancelot Point. The woods approach to the rim/point varied between some extended sections of pleasant walking under the big pines and firs to a few brief sections of deadfall obstacles and easy to avoid locust patches. The descent off the rim was steep and loose, but pretty on par for most off trail travel up there. The break through the coconino entailed a short c4-ish down climb, from there we used the narrow drainage to descend a few hundred feet, before picking up a right traversing and cairned use trail that took us to the brushy saddle area. From the saddle, we headed up some steep hills to gain a more truer saddle that allowed us to cut up to the north east corner of Elaine and the base of the coconino. We then hacked our way along the coconino to the obvious class three terrain that takes you to the base of Elaine's limestone summit cap. A dead tree and some light scrambling gets you to the top. Some ruins in the area shed light on the fact that the currently recognized FA date might be off by a thousand years or so. We spent a pretty good amount of time on the summit resting, reading the rather historical register entries and taking in the views as some welcomed clouds rolled in.
Canyon partners are not always easy to find, so it was nice to link up with Dave for another one. With Elaine now ticked and having already done Excalibur, King Arthur and Guinevere, I have nearly summitted all of the Arthurian themed/named summits in that cluster there off of the north rim . |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
