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| Hiking | 1.00 Miles |
1 AEG |
| | Hiking | 1.00 Miles | 10 Hrs | | 0.11 mph |
| 1 ft AEG | 59 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Joel and I had been mulling over a summit off the north rim for most of the summer, but various factors prevented us from linking up until this Labor Day Weekend. After going over several options off the north rim, we committed to Freya Castle, as it had just enough technical aspects to keep it interesting and on paper it did not appear to be as committing as some of the other ones on our radar up there.
We set off at 6:15 a.m. on the paved Cape Royal Trail, which couldn’t have been any more dissimilar than the terrain we would encounter the rest of the way. From the far point, we dropped off tourist left down a steep slope and then quickly encountered a series of manageable Kaibab shelves, before reaching the crux of the Kaibab layer descent; A narrow ledge traverse and semi committing step over where the ledge is most narrow. Two stayed upright, two crawled. From there, it was a couple of class four down climbs to reach the steep slopes and traverse that would take us to our coconino “break.” I use the term break loosely, as this break would require two rappels to clear. We left fixed lines at both rappels to ascend on our return. Once at the base of the coco, we began a slightly taxing, but short traverse to the saddle of Freya Castle, which was made less fun by the warm morning. From the saddle, we gained a couple of hills and then completed a quarter mile traverse along the base of Freya to a bit of a gully and the first obvious class three terrain that goes all the way to the summit. Most of this traverse was in the shade and I personally felt it went easier than the half mile we traversed to the saddle. The class three ascent to the summit was warm, steep and loose.
The summit offered a nice vantage point to Vishnu and the muddy Colorado bending through the Unkar Delta, however, the sun was hot, so we spent most of our time hunkered down in the shade, trying to force down enough food to prevent us from bonking on our return. We were all partially successful in that endeavor. The traverse back to the coco break felt more tedious on the return and the sun was hotter, but we persevered and were rewarded with a shady first jug out and scramble to our final fixed line.
Overall, it was an engaging, fun, sometimes warm, but rewarding ten hours below the rim. It was nice to finally link up with Joel for a significant summit, after admiring his work in the Canyon from afar for years now. I thought the four of us made a great team and I had a lot of fun in route to my 54th Grand Canyon summit. |
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Route Editor
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