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| Hiking | 16.86 Miles |
4,321 AEG |
| | Hiking | 16.86 Miles | 11 Hrs 14 Mns | | 1.74 mph |
| 4,321 ft AEG | 1 Hour 32 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | After a 222 day layoff from the Canyon, I decided it was time to get the band back together. I bait and switched Dave and Karl with talks of Deva and then countered with easy strolls out to Espejo and Commanche, luckily that was still enough to get them off the couch.
Karl saved the day by braving the drive down off the rim from the Desert View area, my original plans had us starting at the tower parking lot. This saved us approximately four miles of hiking. The drive is clearly doable with stock 4runner, or stolen work van (see photoset) but you won't ever catch me driving that with any of my vehicles.
We started hiking at approximately 6:45 a.m. to a beautiful morning and pleasant temps. After just under a mile we came across an extremely stuck work van that appeared to have been stolen, judging from the broken window and mangled steering column. Needless to say the van will not be driving out from its current location. Unless a helicopter is lifting that van out, its going to become a part of Grand Canyon lore. The NPS is aware of the van and have painted that on the side of the van to let passersby know.
We caught up to a backpacker around mile two and as expected did not run across anyone else the rest of the day. We cached some water near our "junction" with Comanche and Espejo. For Espejo we took the some out of the way road towards Gold Hill and then exited the road to reach a basin with a pretty distinct elk, or horse trail down its center. I do not know if the basin has a name, but foxtail basin would be a good name, if it does not have one. The route to the rim was pretty straightforward and our elk/horse trail pretty much took us the whole way.
A class four scramble gets you off the rim and down to the saddle of Espejo and the rim. The route starts just north of the crumbly ridgeline and generally stays right (north) for the duration of the scrambling descent. Karl and Dave got down what is probably the toughest scramble of the route with general ease, but neither one was feeling the slab obstacle that followed and they chose to stop there. I continued on down a series of obstacles and steep terrain to nearly the base of the Coconino, before traversing back towards a steep chute that finally took me to the Espejo-rim saddle. From the saddle its a blocky, pretty straight forward scramble to the summit. I made my visit short, as Dave and Karl were waiting on me and then returned the way I came.
From Espejo, we pretty much took the rim of the Grand Canyon west to Comanche Point. The route was a little up and down and I will admit I was bonking some, but the views along the rim were superb. Thankfully, we had a strong breeze and sporadic cloud cover to give us some reprieve from the heat. Its a class two ramp approach to the summit of Comanche. Bare left to avoid the little drainage just below the summit. The views from Comanche are absolutely stunning and we all wondered if there were any other views from the rim that offered so much cover of the Colorado River. Comanche seems to get a lot of visits from looking through the register. After an extended break we made our way back to our morning cache of water and then returned the way we hiked in. |
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Wildflowers Observation Moderate
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