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| | Red to Grapevine canyons, AZ | | | |
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Red to Grapevine canyons, AZ
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| Backpack | 47.00 Miles |
12,500 AEG |
| | Backpack | 47.00 Miles | 5 Days | | |
| 12,500 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | The big 2023 Thanksgiving hike. It was much colder than last year and although we planned a few camps to receive early sun, the weather decided otherwise for us.
On Wednesday we set off down New Hance. It was steeper and looser at the top than I remembered and now I understand why people complain. After reaching the creekbed, we hiked up Red Canyon through stunning red rock and lovely Tapeats narrows. The cottonwoods were just hanging onto their golden leaves and we did some fun scrambling around pouroffs, especially a at tall one in the Hakatai. I identified a Redwall break before the one that the trail takes. We delayed our turnaround time and reached the beach in the dark to find our third companion, who had left town late after a meeting.
On Thursday we set off towards Hance Creek. We noted calm water and beach access below Hance Rapid, which seems like a preferable crossing place compared to right above the rapid. I'm impressed that Hance's trail to the asbestos mines is still visible from the far side of the river. Later, I thought I also spotted some mines at the same level in the bay west of Asbestos Canyon.
I'm always surprised by how long the trail takes to wind around Mineral Canyon and was glad my companions were willing to improvise our route and look for the shortcut Harvey described into the bed of Hance Creek. We continued down to Sockdolager Rapid, using three well-ducked and trailed bypasses. With the low water, we could walk quite far out onto the debris fan and had an exceptional view upstream. We saw tracks from boaters right above the rapid, though it seems like a tight place to pull back out. To return to Tonto west of Hance, we took a gully near the river up to the old constructed trail at the base of the Tapeats. The gully was steep and we scrambled up some flaky schist but it wasn't exposed. Near the top, we began encountering ducks. Construction is very evident on the bench below the Tapeats and we emerged onto Tonto near an old towering cairn at dusk. I wonder why this trail was built, because it wouldn't seem to offer access to the river for stock. Perhaps someone wanted to build a tram to the mines across the river, like at Bass' operations and near Horn Creek? We found a camp right at the point of the plateau with fantastic views and someone commented "do we know if it will be windy tonight?" The forecast from Wednesday didn't call for anything exceptional....
Well, it was windy. It was rather comical how, 10 minutes after crawling into our tents, we were all back out and scouring the plateau for heavy enough rocks to hold down our stakes. I dozed between the most violent bouts of flapping, but near 6am the wind shifted direction and suddenly I didn't have heavy enough rocks on the east side of my tent! I made hasty adjustments but by 7am I had torn a guy line, the tent collapsed, and I just ended up sticking my head and shoulders back inside to pack up.
We enjoyed a truly spectacular sunrise with looming dark clouds to the north and east and dark red alpenglow on Wotan's Throne, Vishnu Temple, and Isis in the distance. Lingering for breakfast turned out to be a mistake, because the sky let loose as soon as we began hiking. After crouching under a small overhang for about half an hour, we decided to give up on staying dry and make a break for Cottonwood Creek, where we would spend the rest of the day in our tents if need be. The weather eased on the way to Cottonwood and we all made very sturdy tent pitches, which would fortunately prove unneccessary.
We decided to poke around in lower Cottonwood Creek for as long as the weather held that afternoon, and ended up returning to our tents near dusk again. I was pleased when we were able to scramble through the Tapeats in the main arm, which I thought wasn't possible. In the metamorphic rock, we found more well-ducked bypasses around the falls and followed them. The second bypass involved a long, convoluted, scrambly contour through the schist and granite and I didn't particularly like it. We finally descended a gully Harvey marked, and I think if I ever return I'll stick to contouring at the base of the Tapeats to reach this gully. We opted out of the final bypass to the river and enjoyed a late lunch above the final pouroff in the bed. For our return, we mirrored our hike of the previous day by ascending a different gully to the base of the Tapeats at the Old Grandview Trail. This was even more straightforward than the descent into Cottonwood or ascent from Hance and the scrambling was on solid granite with lots of holds. We followed Old Grandview back up to Tonto and returned to our camp in Cottonwood.
On Saturday, one member of our group exited early to deal with a nasty cold. My other friend and I continued to Grapevine along Tonto. We poked around on Tapeats ledges near the mouth of Grapevine, trying to figure out a line that Harvey drew there which would provide access to the saddle above Grapevine Beach. We even saw several sheep running across the saddle and down towards the beach below, but we couldn't find a break.
After setting up camp near the trail crossing at the head of Grapevine, we started down into the lower creek for a "relaxed" excursion. I said I'd continue for as long as I could keep my feet dry, and that ended up being all the way to the pouroff near the river. Grapevine has flashed recently: lots of new boulders are deposited in the upper part of the gorge and some of the narrows have perfectly level gravel. The vegetation was scoured from many places up to about 5 feet high. Since I was here last November, there is also a new deep pool in the west arm of Grapevine. We were already on track to return to camp near dark, but we also decided to have a look at that Tapeats exit from Grapevine Beach on our return. From below, it was quite obvious that there wasn't a route facing the saddle. We checked the small bay around to the east and I did some scrambling I probably didn't have much business doing before calling it quits. We descended the schist gully back into the creek with just enough light to skip headlamps, then hiked for over an hour in the dark.
We exited via the southernmost arm of Grapevine on Sunday. I see now why this route isn't popular... it was quite brushy from the Muav to the rim and we needed to find several bypasses for short cliffs through all that brush. The lower section was pleasant though - nice Tapeats narrows and quick walking through the Bright Angel Shale. Difficulty started in the Redwall, where we made a very steep, brushy ascent and had trouble locating the top of the break. There was a 20ft chimney scramble and we had a few very tense seconds after my friend broke a hold. We found a long-dead bobcat or mountain lion kitten in this section.
We followed the creekbed through the Supai except for a few bypasses and progress was hampered by yet more brush. Two major cliffs near the top of the Supai required longer bypasses. At one of these places I was scrambling up a short band and a 20-30lb slab I'd been mantling on broke off. It was very unexpected and fortunately I had a very short drop and landed on my feet, unharmed. We returned to the bed below the Coconino and the scramble that stopped me a week ago was easier than expected, with good holds and a wide enough crack to wedge into. From here I knew the brush would be less bad and scrambling easier, but we did have to deal with the additional challenge frozen soil and slippery frosty slopes in the Kaibab. We reached the rim about 8 hours after leaving camp and I biked back to New Hance to pick up my car. This whole day, we had about 15 minutes of sunlight when we rested above the Redwall. The rim was frigid. I miss autumn! |
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