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| Backpack | 25.17 Miles |
8,907 AEG |
| | Backpack | 25.17 Miles | 2 Days | | |
| 8,907 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I headed back to the Grand Canyon with my friend Spencer for an engaging summit and what felt like an ambitious itinerary at times. Our objective was Fan Island, a domineering summit, but a summit few will ever pick out of the skyline. We got a late afternoon start Saturday. We took the South Bass Trail to the river and then crossed over to the North side, where we would start our approach for Fan Island the next day.
We began the approach for Fan Island at 7:00 a.m., perhaps a little late in the morning by Canyon standards, but truthfully I think we were underestimating the summit. It was beautiful hiking to Shinumo Creek and there was even a prehistoric site along the way. This was my first time on the north side of the river here and my first time on the North Bass Trail. I was impressed by the robust Shinumo Creek and the generally stunning surroundings. From Shinumo Creek, we turned left into Burro Canyon and then took a steep slope up to the steep ridge that takes you to Fan Island. We were surprised to encounter a decent use trail and cairns for nice sections of our approach, however, it was still a bit of a slog. In particular, the final traverse over to the middle base area of Fan's south face.
It took a little route finding at times and some tentative scrambling and climbing before we knew we were definitely on the right route. Each little climbing obstacle we encountered gave us some slight trepidation for the eventual downclimb. Our angst was increased by the fact that we quickly realized the rope we brought was not going to be long enough to rap some of the toughest parts. Nevertheless, we continued upwards until reaching the final "pitch" to the top. I say pitch because several have soloed this section, but we had three cams and rope and it didn't make sense to not use it, so we pitched it out and I came up on belay. From the webbing at the top of the final climb, it was straightforward walking to the summit. The summit register was full of entries referencing the "pucker" factor and the upcoming downclimbs, so it felt good to know our nerves were not unwarranted.
Due to the length of our rope, we had to make three raps, all off natural anchors. We rapped the final climb from webbing around a tree, then rapped the second committing climb from a bush, backed up with a number one cam. Spencer felt good about the bush and pulled the cam for his rap. Our second rap involved slinging a sticky piece of limestone. I would recommend a .5, .75, #1, a 60m light rope and 10 feet of webbing for this summit. After getting off the main summit block the descent went pretty straightforward. However, the day and went on far longer than we had expected and we did not get back to camp until after 3:00 p.m. We quickly packed, aired up our rafts and crossed back over to the southside.
We did not break any speed records on the way out and finished with headlamps late into the night.
This was a terrific summit and a nice little test piece for me, considering my long absence from the Canyon. I would rate this summit difficult. Spooky was the word of the day, as we described out ascent. This was my 9th summit with Spencer and 61st summit overall. |
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