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| Backpack | 40.00 Miles |
10,500 AEG |
| | Backpack | 40.00 Miles | 4 Days | | |
| 10,500 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Another trip where I meant to "relax" and "take it easy" and got my butt kicked instead....
I hiked all the way into Clear Creek on Saturday. South Kaibab and Phantom Ranch were full of rim-to-rimmers. I hit the tonto platform around noon and it was WARM. Like, seek out random boulders for shade temperatures. I arrived in Clear Creek around 4 or 5 and felt my muscles stiffen immediately. I guess this is what I get for rushing down South Kaibab in 1:45. The next morning I was hobbling out of my tent like I've never backpacked before.
On Sunday morning I hiked a short distance up the creek to look for... rock formations. I found two very cool... rock formations. They're practically worth the trip out on their own. I also nearly stepped on a baby rattler before jumping back with an "argg!". It was pretty cute, though.
Around noon I returned to camp, picked up the rest of my gear, and continued down to the river. This was my first time in lower Clear Creek, which is very pretty but also a very long walk (I'm glad I only did it one way). I found a snake skeleton complete with rattle nearby. I set camp at the upstream-side beach, which had a bigger sandbar.
Monday was another warm day and my muscles were still sore so I opted to recover at my beach rather than hike out. Hiking out halfway would have been a poor option: a combination of big water carry and black-hot schist in the afternoon. The sand got pretty hot but the sun passed behind the cliffs around 2pm (what a nice summer camp!). I was visited by a few sucker fish (maybe blueheads?), an osprey, and three groups of boaters.
While sitting around, I read some of Harvey's Clear Creek logs. In one, he describes reaching the "cell phone corner" on the Clear Creek trail and realizing he needed to drain the oil pan of his car - so he took lunch and went all the way back up and down South Kaibab that day. In other he mentioned hiking with his full pack from Bright Angel Campground to the rim in 188 minutes. Jeez, that guy was fit!!
On Tuesday I was hiking as soon as it was light enough to see and reached the saddle between Zoroaster and Clear Creek around 8am. I had welcome cloud cover so temps were comfortable. I came up a little too far south (my fault - I didn't have a map) and scrambled most of the granite(?) ridge between the Tonto and Tapeats spire. The hardest moves were those taken to avoid cacti. There are the remains of a cairn at the top of the best chute to descend, but they're not obvious from the north. I'd done the route from the trail to the base of the Tapeats last spring so everything beyond here was smooth sailing. I found water in holes in Zoroaster Canyon (near the pouroff) and one very soupy green hole in Sumner Wash.
Near Phantom Ranch, I met a volunteer who was checking a fish trap near the bottom of Bright Angel Creek to prevent trout from swimming up. He's staying down there for about a week and just checks the trap a few times a day. What a sweet gig!
I think next time I visit I will try Harvey's shortcut from the ravine above boat beach to the cell-service corner - it's soooo short and I saw a game trail leaving at the top. After lunch at boat beach, I decided to see just how fast Harvey could hike and bombed from the beach up to the rim in 185 mins. The pace was tolerable but there aren't many places you can snack while hiking on that trail, so by the end I was on the verge of crashing. |
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