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| Backpack | 29.76 Miles |
5,954 AEG |
| | Backpack | 29.76 Miles | 4 Days | | |
| 5,954 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | A last minute change of plans but we lucked out with blue water at the LCR! This hike was harder than anticipated. (Why is it always the supposed easy day that ends up being the hardest?)
Day 1: We left early to drive out to the Hopi Salt TH. The roads are as good as major forest service roads. Heading west, there is a spectacular view of the North Rim above the Nankoweap, Kwagunt, and Chuar valleys. Vishnu Temple sticks out, too.
Our hike along the rim felt endless but it was some of the best walking of the trip. We crossed Salt Trail Canyon just north of the trail and found a game trail showing an efficient way up the next ridge. There were several small side drainages where we had to choose between contouring or dropping elevation. Really, the only time difference between the options was that spent debating which course to take.
We headed for a drainage east of the point over the confluence to start the Walter Powell Route. We found a few small old cairns above a steep, narrow gully in the Kaibab and descended about 100 ft there. It was extremely steep and some large boulders were loose. There weren’t many signs of travel. After checking whether we had missed a traverse near the top, we returned to the rim and went down further north and west at the head of this drainage which proved to be the correct route. We found occasional cairns and signs of prior use to increase our confidence. There were several short downclimbs in the Kaibab. Steep talus took us through the Coconino. We began contouring down to the right near the Supai and eventually entered the bed again in the lower part of the Supai. Then we contoured on braided use trails around to the Redwall break. The Redwall was straightforward down a gully, with a few chockstones that required easy scrambling. We again had to contour along Muav ledges until we reached the final descent overlooking the LCR. This last contour might have been nerve wracking without the solid use trail.
We followed a good trail past the fish surveyor camp and to the Big C. The Tapeats ledges near the confluence were truly excellent walking. Tapeats is still my favorite layer. Pernell remarked on what looked like tracked plaster and we later realized it was the white sediment in the LCR. We retrieved water from the Big C for the night.
Day 2: We planned to get all our water from the Big C (although I’ve since read about people drinking the Lil C without much ill effect. Maybe we should have done half and half). We enjoyed a slow morning at the confluence listening to the first of the canyon wrens and watching the sunlight make its way down Chuar Butte. We also filtered about 20L of Big C water and “cameled up” before setting off groaning under the weight of all that water.
The walking started easily enough along the boater and fish researcher trails. However, we should have crossed the Lil C when we had our opportunity near the confluence, because we were too nervous to try other crossings with gaps in the travertine dams and ended up thrashing through a terrific amount of dense brush. The problem was that there are several places where the canyon walls seep water, and arrow weed and canes grow densely far up the hillsides here. Where we could climb above the brush, we were left without game trails on steep crumbly hillsides weaving between catclaw and mesquite trees. There were some truly huge catclaws here – I mistook them for mesquites from a distance! But oh man, you don't mistake them when they're ripping at your clothes and skin. A few times we also followed faint trails through the brush at the river level only to have them dead-end in thickets we had to fight through.
In one place I tried to crash through the brush to walk on sand at the very edge of the river. All that brush throws up a tremendous amount of dust when disturbed. It’s far too dense to see the ground; you walk on dead and broken stems. As I charged through here, ignoring the signs (green cattails straight ahead), I stepped into an invisible gully and sank up to my knee in quicksand. I quickly realized my situation could become a problem, because I could easily become trapped and Pernell was out of earshot. The sides of the gully were so steep that I couldn’t get purchase to climb out with my free leg. I had to take off my pack – loaded down with water – to maneuver at all, and then I had to be very careful not to let it slide down the bank and become stuck in the mud. I knew that surrendering my second leg or pack to the mud would make the situation much, much worse. So after shoving my pack to a semi-secure position on the bank in the weeds I twisted my body around and grabbed at the weeds until I had handfuls of solid stalks that wouldn’t break under moderate pressure. I carefully pulled my leg free, scrambled up the bank, and snatched my pack. Whew! Then I just had the tedium of crashing back through all that brush and climbing onto the rocky, mesquite-strewn hillside and I’d be back on track.
I was cornered into thrashing through deep, dense riverbank brush at least three times on my own and more with Pernell. We passed the Sipapu, which really was interesting. Yellowish water bubbles up in the ground around the base and it was warm. I tried again to cross the river here but chickened out. Still, I was able to wade through waist-deep pools rather than deal with more brush below the Sipapu. Poles were critical here because the water was so turbid anything deeper than 6-8 inches was invisible.
Finally, Pernell and I reached the place where most people cross from the Salt Trail to river left. A good trail through the reeds appeared here, and although it was swampy, the walking became much faster. We had seen marginal camps an hour earlier, but I knew if we pushed on until reaching the regular use trail we could make very good time to much better camps. We rolled in to a camp at the base of the Salt Trail at dusk. Whew, what a day! I had expected three hours of scenic, easy hiking and it had turned into seven hours of hard bushwhacking.
Day 3: After the previous day’s thrashing I was feeling much less inspired by the LCR, despite its pastel blue water. Thankfully, we turned it around this day. A trail led upstream above our camp. We had nice light day packs and took our time admiring the travertine pouroffs, which became steeper further up the drainage. We detoured a short ways up Big Canyon, which has travertine falls similar to Ribbon Falls. This area had blown out recently enough that there was very little vegetation crowding the basin; just small cobbles.
The fish crew trail finally ended near some impressive falls, but we also saw two more sets of tall falls upstream. We decided the brush didn’t look too dense and that we were willing to continue as long as the going was easier than the previous day. It wasn’t fast walking, but it wasn’t thrashing either. Near these other falls the water was much clearer and the travertine dams were about 10 feet high. The water surged between crevices, over scary strainer logs, and even gushed up where it apparently went through holes beneath the surface. In one spot the water had to weave between dams and there were all sorts of confused eddies. Falling in the wrong place along these dams could suck you into a deadly current. We enjoyed a long break at the highest set of falls, above which the river became quite calm and flat.
On our return, it took a leisurely hour to reach the trail again. We waded through some swampy trail below Big Canyon in our sandals then paused by the river to clean our feet and shoes. The white sediment on the riverbed is so fine - I wouldn’t mind spending an hour playing with it. There were a handful of mosquitoes at camp and just before we went to bed a skunk appeared out of the brush. Thankfully, it left without trying to spray us. I don't know what I would have done then.
Day 4: It wasn’t a cold morning so we packed up early then hiked up to the nearest travertine falls to soak up more of the river magic before leaving. After half an hour of sitting on a boulder, we were ready to go.
We took our time hiking up the Salt Trail and enjoyed some leisurely breaks, reaching the rim just after noon. The Kaibab gully at the top is a bit scrambly and I took a slightly harder route up. I suppose it does a good job of filtering the hikers before they get in too far over their heads. Best to be turned around right at the beginning. |
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