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| Backpack | 11.50 Miles |
880 AEG |
| | Backpack | 11.50 Miles | | | |
| 880 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | again a somewhat flawed radiacode recording https://map.radiaverse.com/tracks/28051 ... -112.17451 GPS and cliffs being what they are it has us teleporting to the tonto after reaching the base of deer creek falls, this would have made for a nice loop but was outside my capabilities.
Day 1: Hermit to Monument. Faster having done this before until the Tonto Junction. Only saw one person on trail, but there were two groups at camp. Fairly quiet, but we've been spoiled in the GC. Permit says to filter water here, when it rains feces from the water treatment up on the rim flows down hence the high nitrates. Yay.
Day 2: Figured we'd go down to the river and head ~20 minutes up the cedar creek drainage until it cliffed out then poke around upstream of camp. Heh. Some fun bypasses early on until the main obstacle - my partner noticed a sheep path so up we went. Steep and loose in places, but doable, and we were able to drop in above the main obstacle. Poked around upstream, had to troubleshoot one bypass a bit, then made it behind the dripping waterfall below Cedar Springs. Pretty cool! Walked over to the ridge of the next canyon over, traversed up it a bit until there was a viable drop down but got some raindrops and didn't want to be going down soggy class 2 or wet class 3 so turned around. Getting back to our original saddle was annoying due to one little cliff band, but the steep drop down went far better than I thought it might. Made it back to camp and despite again not seeing anyone while moving had a group of 7 there with four tents. I do wonder how it works with 3 large groups given they took up two of the four main camping areas.
Day 3: Pack up, decide to just head straight to Salt Creek (Horn was booked) then explore from there. But... the vegetation upstream wasn't actually that wet to brush past, so let's go up a little... then drop our packs... then head up canyon... then scramble up faint sheep paths to some waterfalls. Easily distracted I always leave a lot of slack in my trips. :p
Made lunch under an overhang as it rained properly for the first time, then had a late entrance to Salt Creek, stopping a few times to check out Cedar Creek (where we saw two Bighorns fairly close up passing above the Tonto Trail!) and the little unnamed canyon we skipped the day before. Did a water carry over from Memorial, but might have been better off filling up at Cedar?
Day 4: All our nice clouds are gone. Tonto is hot, sun umbrellas are out. Meet a group of four backpackers not in the highest of spirits, then a shockingly cheerful and chatty trail runner. The sounds of heavy machinery and bright orange flagging intrude on wilderness, and Havasupai Gardens is crowded. Amusingly the new NPS sign telling you to report signs that don't promote the grandeur of open spaces or a narrow view of history itself fails that criteria, as does every sign on the two boards about trail conditions, water supplies, safety info, shuttle schedules, elevation maps, etc. Toy with reporting all of them.
We wait things out a bit and then slog up Bright Angel, hitting shade and quickly going from overly hot to slightly chilly but nice given our previously slightly overheated nature. I can't imagine going low later in the year lol.
Driving on the hermit road around sunset was a pooeyshow of people parking half in the road, doing 5 point turns in it, etc. NPS could have made thousands on parking tickets. :p |
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Cedar Spring |
Quart per minute |
Quart per minute |
| | | Some nice pools around 2900ft and above on the tonto. |
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Garden Creek |
Medium flow |
Medium flow |
| | | running well, but potable water @ havasupai |
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Horn Creek |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | NPS says to only drink if the alternative is death by dehydration due to radioactivity. |
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Monument Creek |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | Was running well around camp and immediately above and below, as well as up above 3600 ft. Has unsafe levels of nitrates from tourist poop on the rim after heavy rains |
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Salt Creek |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | Wasn't quite as mineral looking as expected, but can have unsafe levels of radioactivity after rains | | | |
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