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| | | Bright Angel - Nankoweap Loop, AZ | | | |
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Bright Angel - Nankoweap Loop, AZ
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| no partners | | Trip report: Bright Angel - Nankoweap loop via the Butte and Vishnu faults, 12/25/2024 - 1/1/2025.
This was my second trip to GCNP, following last year’s Phantom-Crystal loop in the same Christmas-New Years week (a great time to be in the canyon!). For the second time, I’m left awe-struck by the canyon’s variety, and by how all of its different aspects are each, in their own way, beautiful and fascinating.
There’s a good bit of beta online about this route. Bill Ferris’s wonderful reports are so detailed as basically to serve as guides. Bob Bordasch has a good set of maps. I know of two GPS tracks for the off-trail portion: Peter Bakwin’s (from his trip with Buzz Burrell; see his report on HAZ), and the waypoints from Will Petty’s 2011 speed run (shared in the Grand Canyon Hikers Yahoo group). When they diverged, I tended to go with Petty’s: he had rehearsed the route extensively, and he also seemed to like it more the Bakwin and Burrell did, which suggested to me that he might have avoided some less pleasant bits.
12/25. South Rim Visitor Center to Cottonwood. The shuttle wasn’t running at 7am, and the cab service wasn’t picking up the phone on Christmas morning, so I began with the Rim trail. This proved a nice way to see the sunrise. The walk to Cottonwood was pleasant. I had the wildlife highlight of the trip when my campsite was ambushed by a pygmy owl just after dusk.
12/26. Cottonwood to Saddle Mountain trailhead. I hemmed and hawed over the Old Bright Angel vs the North Kaibab, and went with the latter; the deciding factor was that I could get water at the North Rim admin building, and I needed a lot since I was headed into a dry camp. I then hemmed and hawed some more about the Ken Patrick trail, and ended up taking the road to Point Imperial instead, mindful of the need to make it to Nankoweap creek by the following evening. The roadwalk was mentally taxing (the aspen groves are pleasant, but three hours of them was a lot), and I occupied myself by composing a limerick about our labradoodle. The rim-side sites at Saddle Mountain are stunning, but I took the forest site in the (forlorn) hope that I could protect myself from the wind. It was a frigid and mostly sleepless night, and my water was about half frozen in the morning.
12/27. Saddle Mountain to Nankoweap creek. The Supai traverse lives up to its reputation for exposure—I can’t think of a comparable named trail anywhere. But the exposed bits all have secure footing, so it never felt dangerous—just required focus. The descent from Tilted Mesa was a toenail-buster. I got to the creek in midafternoon and considered moving on, but wasn’t sure if I’d find a good campsite before Kwangut (which I wouldn’t be able to reach in daylight). As it turns out, there would have been plenty of good dry camping spots on the ascent to the saddle. But it was still nice to have a warm campsite by the creek.
12/28. Nankoweap Creek to a site on the descent toward Sixty-Mile Creek. This was a big day, physically. I followed Petty’s route via a drainage a bit upstream from the end of the Nankoweap trail, rather than the more direct drainage Bakwin and Burrell used. This worked well, and the route showed signs of travel—including a nice hat someone dropped! (Let me know if it’s yours...) I descended to Kwangut following the drainage on the right, which had just a few minor obstacles to bypass. I picked up 8 liters at Kwangut. On the way up to the Kwangut-Malgosa saddle, I started by following the ridge Petty used, but it required boulder-hopping that was awkward with my heavy pack, so I dropped to the slope on the left. This was probably a mistake—the slope was loose and slow, and I couldn’t get back to the ridge. After the Kwangut-Malgosa saddle, route-finding through the Fault gets simpler: just follow the drainages through the fault and use the slopes on their sides when the drainages have obstacles or brush. The Butte Fault area is a huge rubble heap, and I sometimes wondered if I was missing better views on the river route—but it was very cool to see the faulting, and the Supergroup rocks underfoot were interesting and varied. In the context of the whole route, I’m glad I took the Fault for the contrast it provided (and I gather the river route has its own challenges). The coyotes in Sixty-Mile held a dinnertime conference call, just like the dogs in our neighborhood at home.
12/29. Sixty-Mile to upper Lava. A day with two distinct halves: hot and arid through Carbon, then lush and wet through Lava. There are pour offs in the descent from the saddle that require significant bypasses. I found the crossover to Lava unintuitive to navigate and ended up using GPS a bit. Lava was gushing all the way up to its source spring. I ended the day by visiting Juno ruins, a few minutes beyond the spring, and scoping out my route for tomorrow. My campsite had lots of wolf spiders … eek. I used my tent (just the bug net) for the only time on the trip.
12/30. Upper Lava to a site a little below the Freya-Vishnu saddle. The day began with the notorious Lava-Unkar saddle. While I haven’t tried the other routes people use, I’m very glad I followed Petty’s waypoints—I think he helped me avoid trouble others have run into. I began with the Tapeats break to the left of the abutment across from the ruins (I think most people use the wider break on the right). This is a steep and narrow slot, but it’s direct and not brushy, and though it looks tough from afar, it isn’t exposed and is just a stiff class 2 or easy class 3. I then contoured and descended over to the main drainage (perhaps descending too quickly), and turned uphill at about the 5000ft contour (others report turning at 5200ft), ascending straight into the Muav. All the way to the saddle, to borrow a formula of Steck’s, I went up when I could and left when I couldn’t. There was minimal brush during the ascent, and a deer trail helped during both the ascent and traverse. All in all, I didn’t find the ascent nearly as bad as I’d feared: a calf-burner, but not much of a thrash, and not dangerous. The descent to Unkar is easy. When I got to the main creekbed, I needed water, and found a very small trickle 10 minutes downstream from the junction. I dredged this out until I had a puddle large enough to scoop water from. (The situation amused me. Do my students imagine their professor spending his free time dredging a mud puddle?)
12/31. Freya-Vishnu to below the Redwall on the descent from the Wotan’s Throne-Angel’s Gate saddle. Today began with a boulder hop up to the Freya-Vishnu saddle. At the crux, where there are several options, I took the ledge on the left, which is a simple scramble and more protected than it seems from below. The initial descent is steep and loose. The traverse at the bottom of the Redwall is facilitated by a deer trail near the wall; staying high limited the feeling of exposure. The talus descent after the traverse is miserable: steep and very loose. I nervously tiptoed one step at a time. Vishnu had lots of water, including a convenient water-bottle refilling station: a spring that dripped directly into my bottles. The ascent up to Hall Butte-Wotan’s Throne saddle was, for me, the hardest feature on the route. It’s very steep and very loose. I went up way to the left and then zigzagged over to get around the Muav cliffs, but I’m not sure that’s a better option than a more direct route: it took ages to contour through all the loose terrain. The spectacular traverse to the Wotan’s Throne-Angel’s Gate saddle was a welcome reprieve. I occasionally tried to follow a use trail that comes and goes, but the terrain is easy enough that it didn’t matter if I wasn’t on it. The descent that follows is a hoot. It’s the most exposed portion of the route, including three 10-15ft pitches of down-climbing that will be easier if you lower your pack (30ft of webbing sufficed). While at times near-vertical, the rock is excellent, the route-finding straightforward, and the climbing is easy, no harder than climbing down a step ladder. I was hasty lowering my pack on one pitch and it slipped the last few feet, smushing a water bottle and soaking some warm clothes. Whoops! As a result of the mishap, it was a chilly night and I didn’t have enough water for coffee in the morning (mixing the grounds with my granola was a desperate mechanism for caffeine delivery).
1/1. To the South Kaibab trailhead. The Tapeats break into Clear Creek requires a bit of zigzagging to find ledges that connect. There was plenty of water in East Clear Creek. There were mule deer on the Clear Creek trail. I was tired and depleted as I started up the South Kaibab, but as I got moving and the temperature cooled, I was happy to be able to finally turn on the jets after days of painstaking tiptoeing. Blasting through the Muav in about five minutes, after spending a tough hour working that layer the previous day, was like riding a magic carpet. I topped out in 2:55, and in tears of gratitude. What a week it had been. |
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and relaxed a bit before having an awesome dinner in the lodge. Great way to cap off the day! 
Up the South Kaibab Trail with not many others on trail for good reason. However, as luck would have it just before hitting Tipoff the thunder clouds started to build and provided shade on the climb which was a lifesaver. Break at Tipoff and it actually started to sprinkle a bit. After the break continued on to Skeleton Point and next quick break with the clouds and threat of rain still providing welcome relief. 
I chose CCW for several reasons: 1] I believe it's the more difficult direction. 2] Early pass-through of the extensive Supai trail damage below the tunnel on the North Kaibab before any possible closure delays (not sure if the crews were on leave). 3] Semi-shadier on the last rim dash (
