Grand Canyon Powell Plateau Oct 2009

Powell Plateau Traverse

Six months ago, Dave and I did a backpack/rafting trip from Kanab Creek confluence of the Colorado River all the way down to Lava Falls. That involved 30 backpack miles down Kanab Creek to the river; 34 river miles; and 3000 foot climb straight up the Lava Falls trail. During and after that grueling but exciting adventure I swore I’d never do anything like that again. But within 6 months, Dave and I were off on another one of those excursions into the great unknown (unknown to me at least, Dave had been on much of this section of the Grand Canyon either on other backpacks or Commercial River running trips).

As the departure date approached, I was wondering what I was getting into and why go through with it, knowing how grueling it was to be. But a few nights before leaving, PBS was airing the great Ken Burns documentary – The National Parks. And watching that show and detailing the love and passion of our wild lands from such environmental leaders as John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt; John Lacy, Steven Mathers, and others – I grew more and more excited. Hearing about how Muir would climb the tallest pine trees in a lightning storm and wave back and forth on the swinging tree limbs and how he charged at bears to feel what it would be like to be a bear (I wouldn’t go as far as he did) got me in the wilderness mood. I told Dave that I wanted to dedicate this particular outing to all these great icons of the wilds.

Day 1:
As per our custom, we got up bright and early to start this initial long day. We dropped off Dave’s Pickup at Monument Point, our anticipated end of the hike. The sun was just coming out when we arrived and there was a group of backpackers starting out down that trail. We got into my Jeep and drove about an hour or so to the rough and slow-going National Park road to Swamp Point, our departure trailhead.

We started down the steep North Bass trail at elevation of 7,500 feet, and began our very steep descent into the Grand Canyon. This trail is one of the 2 toughest trails going from the rim to the river, and is not too frequently used by anyone – just a few backpackers here and there. We left early enough so that the first 5 miles which we descended, we were mostly in the shade, which was important since the temps were going to be in the mid 90’s towards the bottom of the hike, and the sun was intense. The views were spectacular up there looking down this side canyon of the Grand. Powell Plateau loomed high above us to the west, its Ponderosa Pine trees standing tall, as well as all the buttes and points and rocky slopes surrounding us.
PHOTO’s 17-19
Photo’s – credit goes to Dnally on the photo’s. He takes all the photos (except the few that I took of him)


By noon, we lost our shade for the rest of the hike down to our camp. It was hot and the trail was rocky and steep. We made it down to Shinumo Creek after about 6 hours of hiking with our heavy loads – not only did we have our normal backpack gear but also our inflatable rafts and all it’s accessories, which added about 12-14 lbs. By the time we made it the 11 miles to the creek, my feet and toes were quite sore. So we just sat by the cool creek in the shade of the Cottonwood trees, and relaxed for a couple of hours. We did take a ½ hour stroll up creek to the narrow section of the White Creek, which flowed into the Shinumo Creek. We slept under the stars, knowing that a strong cold front was hitting just north of us in northern Arizona and most of Utah. Luckily, it seemed like the clouds from that front stopped just above our heads so it was a mild night with lots of stars and a bright moon.
PHOTO’s 20-29



Day 2:
After a tough 1st day hike down to the river, our plans on this day was going to be just as tough, if not tougher. Slightly well-rested, we headed down the creek about 2 miles to a trail that climbed about 600 feet up and then over – leading us down to the mighty Colorado River. This trail would take us to the river just below Bass Rapids and above Bass Camp. PHOTO’s 30-32 We had a great view looking at the rest of the challenge for that day – we had to cross the river with our rafts and then climb somehow about 1000 feet above the river on the south side; then hike in the direct hot sun about 6 miles to where we’d camp for the night. Then follow that up by hiking another 6 miles the following day – back down to the river about 6 river miles below Bass Rapids. After looking at the prospects of the hike, knowing how long, hot and tiring it would be, both Dave and I thought of changing our plans and were leaning on instead rafting down those 6 river miles and avoid that tough hike. Not that rafting and portaging that stretch of the river would be much easier. It would just take us much less time.

But lo and behold, what did we see at the Bass Camp about 200 feet below us? It was a river party. We dropped our heavy packs to the side of the rocky trail and walked swiftly to the sandy beach at the shore of the clear-running river. A nice, young man on the boat greeted us with “Want a beer?” . I responded with – ‘Its 10 o’clock in the morning, no thanks”. His response – “Scotch?”. (Sorry, that’s from the movie Mr. Mom, slightly modified). I did say no thanks to the beer, but asked if my any chance we could hitch a ride on their boat about 5 miles down river. They gladly accepted, so we retrieved our packs and hurried down to the beach and climbed on board. They promptly departed with 2 new passengers. PHOTO’s 33-35


Dave and I were on the boat with 2 extremely nice, energetic guys. The whole group of about 16 young guys and girls were from Steamboat Springs, CO. Most of them ran rivers for pay or pleasure on the Arkansas River; as well as many other rivers out west. They were on their way down river on a 21 day trip and were having the time of their lives. Pete was manning the oars and Jason sat back towards the rear where I was seated. They were the nicest guys, we enjoyed hearing about their travels and experiences; and they were quite impressed about Dave and my plans for this trip. They had never seen the little Alpacka Packrafts that we used and amazed how small they were. They thought of us as some time of modern day hero’s.

We immediately hit our first rapid, Shinumo Rapids, then a few more rapids down the way. They were fun riding these on their large boat, but would have been probably rapids that we would have portaged at least half way down the rapids. As we hit calmer waters we soaked in the sun, conversed, and talked about the Canyon as only people who have experienced the real Grand Canyon would talk about. They gave us a couple of beers each, and all I could think about was here I was drinking beers on the Colorado River, running rapids with these boaters, and enjoying the incredible views. I could have been up there struggling with 45 lbs of backpack cursing my way along the Tonto Trail – 1000 feet above the river. I considered myself a lucky, lucky man. PHOTO 36


The toughest and last rapid on this ride was Walthenburg rapid, but it was a breeze and fun. Got splashed and cooled off, and finally we found the beach where we asked them to drop us off. One of their boats had pulled their boat into a beach about ¼ mile above our beach, thinking it was their destination for the day (Elves Chasm). Dave with his knowledge and I looking at the map, told them that this wasn’t the correct landing. So at least we slightly earned our free ferry and beer. But Pete pulled our boat onto Toltec Beach, and Dave and I jumped off. I was tempted to see if we could continue down more and more of the river with them, but didn’t. We reluctantly told them many, many thanks and goodbye. They tossed us 2 more beers. It was like saying goodbye to 2 of your best buddies, yet we only met each other 2 hours earlier. Thus is life on the river!!

Toltec beach was heavenly with its soft white sand, great views up and down of the river, the sun shining down on us. We toasted each other with our beers and sat back, realizing that our plans had called for us to get to this spot 24 hours later on day 3 – all tired and soar and hot and thirsty. But here we were, having the whole day to enjoy and relax, which is what we did. PHOTO’s 37-38

In the afternoon, we hiked up a steep trail from the beach that went high above the river down towards the Royal Arch hike, one of the toughest, remote hikes in the Canyon. Dave wanted to inspect a 20 foot rappel obstacle to see what it was like, just to inspect. It didn’t look too difficult, especially coming down from the other direction. Dave checked it out closely, then we headed back down to the beach.

That afternoon and evening, it got quite windy coming up river. This would have made it difficulty floating down the river with the strong head wind. But it didn’t affect us much as we ended camping along the river, the beach all to ourselves. As the sun was setting we surprisingly saw 5 backpackers coming towards us from 400 feet above on a rugged trail – the same trail that we went up to check out the 20 foot rappel. They came down to where we were, and we offered to share our beach with them, but they said they were hurrying down about ½ mile down river to another camp, so we talked briefly and said goodbye for now.

Day 3:
Thanks to avoidance of the 12 mile hike above the river, including 6 of those miles this particular morning, this day was to be a relatively easy day. We had about 5 river miles of floating and we had all day to take it at a slower pace. And no hurry to start too early from our camp, so like yesterday morning - this morning we had time to relax at the camp before taking off.

We had a mile down the river to a stop at Elves Chasm. This was to be the highlight of the trip as far as excursions off the river to side canyons. It was an easy 1 mile float with only 1 riffle that wasn’t much of a problem. We pulled in below the mouth of the Elves Chasm canyon at the same time the 5 backpackers that we saw the night before were arriving from their walk from their camp down the river.

Elves Chasm has to rank as one of the most scenic locations in the whole Grand Canyon, all 277 river miles and all the side canyons and creeks and waterfalls. It’s only about ¼ mile hike from the river where you arrive and contans a waterfall about 80 feet tall. It certainly seemed like a perfect setting for Elves from Rivendale (from Lord Of The Rings lore) to loll about and frolic around. I kept my wetsuit on, and since it was cold in the water and in the shade, it came in handy when I jumped in the water. Dave coaxed me to swim over and climb up about 10 feet up to a boulder under the bottom portion of the waterfall and to jump in. The jump in was filmed by Dave; and it was a fun splash. PHOTO’s 40-45; video on hoto 46 of me jumping into the water; PHOTO’s 47 and 48


The 5 other backpackers arrived soon thereafter and we traded stories. We told them of our plans, and they thought we were cool in what we were doing. They told us of their outing and all of their experiences in the Grand Canyon. These guys were from nearby Flagstaff, AZ and were tough and seasoned. They were doing the Royal Arch loop hike, which starts on the South Rim, travels over some difficult terrain to the big and quite beautiful Royal Arch; the way involving some tricky and scary traversing and downclimbing. They would finish their hike by hiking the 12 mile Tonto Trail back to South Bass canyon and back up to their car. This 12 mile Tonto Trail is the portion we avoided by getting the ride from the Steamboat Springs private boat group.

These guys were really nice, and we had a great talk. All of them as well as Dave climbed above the waterfall and went further up canyon. I didn’t go since it looked too scary to me, although Dave insisted that I would have been fine. All I could see was all them on their hands and knees under a ledge, with the 100 foot drop-off to down to where I was. Not to mention many over similar maneuvers. Dave said the hike up canyon from above was incredible, and luckily I will be able to see the photo’s. PHOTO’s 49-60
I have to admit, I’m not in the same league as these Flagstaff explorers, or Dave for that matter, when it comes to scary drop-offs and exposed cliffs. I’m a wimp, in other words. At least to a certain degree.

Just before we were ready to leave, a commercial river party came to Elves Chasm. We talked for awhile with them. All were nice, other than one of the guides who questioned us pointedly about whether or not what we were doing with the little rafts on the river was legal. Dave insisted we had a backpacking permit (which we did) and that the Grand Canyon knew about the rafting – and they considered this sort of a gray area as far as if it was legal or not. But this bald headed river runner (I’ll call him Nick – from here on all river runners will have anonymous names) kept interrogating us.

From Elves Chasm we continued on down the river on our rafts. We only had to portage one large riffle and one rapid; and we ran a riffle. We arrived at Blacktail beach and rapids a little after lunchtime, and this was to be our camp spot for the night. We arrived and saw the same commercial boat group there, the same one we saw at Elves Chasm. They were all eating lunch, and offered us to join them, which we kindly accepted. They had a roast beef lunch, drinks, oranges, etc.. Even though we had already eaten lunch about 1 hour earlier at our last portage, this food was much enjoyed.

Many of the guests on the trip asked us about our journey, and seemed excited to see 2 ‘hardened Grand Canyon explorers and adventurers’ live in person. The guides were all friendly and loved sharing stories. Nick, the bald guide who seemed determined to get to the bottom of the legality of the rafting down the river, kept up his barrage of questions. I left it to Dave to try to weasel his way out of the persistent questioning. But Nick ended up warming up to us, and actually offered us some water as well as a couple of my favorite beers, Tecate beer from Mexico (and the only beer sold at Phantom Ranch, about 32 miles upriver from our camp).

After this commercial boat group left on down the river, we were left all to ourselves for the rest of the day. Blacktail canyon was a very pretty location. At the beach where we camped we had a straight 2 mile stretch of river (downriver) called Conquistador Aisle, with the Great Thumb Mesa looming high above the bend in the river at the end of the Aisle. PHOTO’s 62 and 63. Upriver you had the view of the Blacktail Rapid and the bend in the river. PHOTO’s 81

There was a narrow Canyon, Blacktail canyon, in the Tapeat level, that went to the north. It was a short ¼ mile hike to a little waterfall, although there was only a trickle of water coming down at this spot. It was very narrow, with dark ledges on each side. PHOTO’s 64 thru 80
Legend has it there are ancient spirits that reside here, and is a very spiritual place. I’ve heard stories of campers who have escaped rainy nights on the beach to sleep under the cover of the ledges in this narrow canyon at night – but get weird vibes that they shouldn’t be there. Some kind of spirits were there – and they were forced to leave the canyon. We were there in the narrow canyon only during the late afternoon, so I have to say I didn’t get any visits from the Great Ancient Ones.

I slept on the beach a few feet from the little waves from the river. PHOTO 82 thru 90 It wasn’t the best spot – due to damp sand and sloping beach. I was about to doze off that night when something ran by my left side (Dave and I slept under the stars, we didn’t use tents. And hoped for no rain.). I turned around to see a Ringtail Cat running right by me. These persistent pests are determined to get to any food a camper may lay out and they never give up. We use a good food protection from pest like the ringtails, something called a ‘Ratsack’. It does a great job of keeping mice, ringtails, ravens, etc… from getting to our food. Other hikers have not been so lucky in the past, seeing all their food ransacked by one of these scavengers. Ringtails are smaller than raccoons and about 3 times larger than a squirrel. They have huge, bushy tails. The one thing that evolution hasn’t been kind to them is that at night, when a camper shines it’s flashlights in the general direction of where the suspected food-thief is – there eyes light up like 2 red beady lights. It’s sort of spooky seeing 2 red lights (or 4 if the guy has a partner) staring right at you in the pitch darkness.

For an hour or so, I kept a lookout for the 2 red lights that were harassing me. I kept a few little stones nearby. Dave was sleeping high above the beach, I wasn’t sure where. But his Ratsack full of food was about 20 yards from where I was – and the Ringtail seemed to hanging around his Ratsack full of food. A few times I spotted the ringtail, so I flung some small rocks its way to scare it away. The little guy didn’t like that, but he stuck around. I was hoping I didn’t end up hitting Dave with one of my rocks. Eventually, I didn’t see the red lights any more so I figured he gave up.

Finally at peace from the raider of my camp, I was able to think about the next days journey. And it was anticipated that this would be by far the toughest day for us. Twelve miles of river running, with 8 rapids and many riffles to either run or portage. Most we knew we could portage, but 2 or 3 we were not entirely sure. The anxiety started to hit me, I was quite nervous about this part of the trip, into the great unknown. I prayed to God to get me through that last rapid for tomorrow – Bedrock (supposedly an easily portagable rapid 1 mile up from our camp for tomorrow night). I actually thought that maybe I’d rather be working back at my State Auto office on the projects I work on, in safety of Corporate America, rather than being out here in the dangerous Grand Canyon - No, probably not. But I also promised God that if he got me through this safely that I’d never do anything crazy like this again. Of course, 6 months earlier I said the same pray as we were barreling our way down from Kanab Creek on that river trip.

Dave told me that around midnight he couldn’t sleep. The almost full moon was shining bright, keeping him awake. He got up and with the moon, went back into the narrow Blacktail canyon (remember, this is the little tapeats narrow that legend has it the spirits of the ancient ones dwell). He says as he walked further and further into the canyon he really felt spooked by something out of this world. His hair (what little hair he has) on his head stood straight up. He walked briskly back to the beach.

Day 4:
Since it was such a long day ahead, we needed to get started early. So we were in our rafts and off by 8:00 am. Our first rapid was a mile down, and we did our first of about 10 portages for the day. PHOTO’s 91-92


As far as our portaging, since our rafts are so small we usually portage all the rapids other than a few of the smaller ones. We even portage some of the larger riffles, some of which seem more like rapids. We pull over to the shore right above the first drop-off of the rapid, sometimes as close as just a few feet in the still, calm water. We then put the backpack around our right arm and somehow put the boat over the other arm or shoulder. It’s a real ordeal carrying those 50 lbs, mainly due to the awkward way we must handle the large load. And the path to the spot we put the boats to get back into the water is very rocky, lots of boulders and sometimes brush such as tamarisk trees. It’s a very awkward and grueling process. We find a good spot to take off in our rafts, usually about ½ way down the rapid where there are no dangers – other than large waves and eddies and/or whirlpools. We try to get into the current of the fading rapid, so that will carry us on downriver at a good speed.

A few miles down at what was supposed to be a riffle near Enfilade Point, Dave hit a series of huge waves and got tossed over into the water. He turned the raft back up and climbed in unharmed. These were big waves and I had to work hard to stay up – once you got past one big wave another one came and hit you again. I rode it through without getting tossed.

Our third rapid of the day, Fossil, was the longest rapid I’ve seen on the river. The Commercial rafting party we saw the previous day (that offered us lunch) were camped here and preparing to take off for their days journey. We came upon one of the guides, Joe from Freedonia, AZ. He asked us if we needed anything and even offered to take us down river on their boats. I was tempted, but Dave was determined to experience the river in our little rafts. So we thanked him, but declined. Fossil rapid was long, long, long. It made an ‘S’ curve and went on for about 3/4rds of a mile. We portaged most of this, maybe ½ mile or so. This was a very tough portage, with some uphill climbing involved. I was totally exhausted by the time we placed our rafts down on a rocky shoreline, about ½ down the rapid. We continued on.
It was right after this rapid that we hit another riffle head on, and again Dave flipped out of the raft into the river. Again, he had no trouble getting back in and quickly. I, on the other hand, went through the thrilling ride with much effort but not getting tossed out of the raft. Dave loves the rapids, whereas I have somewhat of a fear of them. His theory is that since he gets tossed out much more often then I , and that he always gets back in with no problems, that he doesn’t mind getting tossed out. I was only tossed out once, on the very last wave of the very last riffle just below Toroweap Point on our April trip. If I got tossed out more often, then I’d realize that nothing serious would really happen. Our paddles are connected to the raft by a little bungee cord so all we have to do is hold onto the paddle and we wouldn’t lose our raft down the river. And our backpacks are tightly secured and roped down to the front of our rafts, so we shouldn’t lose all our belongings either.

We were making great time after Fossil, with a few more riffles and all of the sudden we came upon Randy’s Rock, a little over 6 miles from our departure this morning. This was a small rapid, with a big rock in the middle of the river. We were told to go right for an easy run (easy for them to say). This was supposed to be our lunch stop but we arrived earlier than we thought. Before we knew it, we ran this rapid, and made it. It was a thrilling run. We ended up going 1 more mile to the next rapid, and after portaging we took our lunch break. We had made great progress thus far. About 7 river miles completed, about 4 ½ more miles to go; and only 3 more rapids!!

After eating a little lunch and drinking lots of water, we continued. The next rapid we weren’t sure about if we could portage, this part of the canyon had the Vishnu Shist rock (1.7 billion years old, perhaps the oldest exposed rock on the planet) PHOTO’s 93-95 (that’s me in raft on 94)
coming straight down into the water, so there was no beach and perhaps no possible portage – at least that was what Joe from Freedonia told us back at the Fossil Beach. But luckily there was a small debris fan coming down to the water at this point, so we were able to do the portage here. Two more rapids!! And we were pretty sure that we could portage both.

A mile further was the tough Spector Rapid. This was a short but strong rapid. As expected, we had a good portage (if you could call any portage good). Only 1 more rapid to go, the powerful and dangerous Bedrock Rapid about 1 more mile downriver and only 1 more mile before we ended the day of rafting the river. And Dave was pretty sure this was a short one, and should be easy. Plus many boats have gotten stuck on the rock in the middle, and that caused many a problems for them

Bedrock rapid is a place where a huge boulder dominates the middle of the river. You’re not supposed to go left of the boulder, or else you enter an extremely difficult and swift rapid. If you go right, it’s just a little better. When we got to the portage, we were only able to get just past the difficult drop off just below the big Bedrock in the middle of the river. But then we discovered that we had no way of going any further. And studying the rest of the run that we needed to take, it looked a little tricky. The fast moving current pushed you towards a big wall and would maybe get you stuck in an eddy with a tough way to get out back into the current. Then you had to avoid a small protruding rock to get back into the combined current from both the left and right. We weren’t too thrilled to find that we had no other options. Dave went first and did an incredible job of paddling with all his might and not getting stuck in the eddy, then he pushed out away from the small protruding rock into the current and then avoid all over eddies and waves and got into the current and past the rapids. I followed along right behind him and we both made it. That was a lot of energy and strength spent and we succeeded. But we were totally physically spent.

Luckily we were now only 1 mile of easy floating. No paddling necessary. We pulled over at the top of Duebendorff Rapid, one of the toughest runs on this section of the river. We didn’t have to worry about running this, because this was the place we planned on camping our last night on the river. We carried our pack about ¼ mile to the camp downriver at Stone Creek. I collapsed on the sandy beach, totally exhausted. In fact, so wiped out that I told Dave that if he’d go back and carry my raft back for me, that I’d buy him a case of beer. He accepted, so I just lay on the beach.

We had been on the river for about 8 hours. Portaging in the sun takes a lot of you; as does the effort in running the rapids. On the plus side, most of the river just floats on down at about 3-4 miles an hour current and the scenery is breathtaking. During this part of the river floating, you can just sit there and enjoy total quiet, solitude, the river, the inner gorge of the canyon. And a much needed rest. But I was totally spent, and knowing the next 2 days would involve a 5800 foot climb out of the river to Dave’s car with a 45 lb pack on my back, I was not in a good positive frame of mind. Plus I had no appetite, even though I needed lots of food to get me going. My mouth was dry, I was tired of eating my backpack food and was craving a nice bowl of ice cream. In short, I was not in good shape physically or mentally.

Just as Dave was coming back to our spot on the beach with our 2 rafts (he was now 20 more beers richer when we got home), another commercial boating group was completing their run of the rapids above our beach. Our beach was one of the best around, quite large and perfect for a group as large as theirs. They asked us if they could share out beach and we said, YES. In fact, as they were pulling in, Dave recognized the group leader, a friend from 2 streets down from him and the leader of a 1-week trip he had taken about 4 years earlier. Dave waved Deb onto our beach. PHOTO 96

The best news – they promised to invite us over for their dinner. Sure sounded better to me than my dehydrated Spaghetti and meat sauce. I wasn’t sure if I could even eat my dry, unappealing stuff. The boat group pulled in, set up their camp and kitchen, and all the guests wandered off in all directions of the beach area to set up their individual camps. PHOTO 97


I wandered over, barely able to even walk the 30 yards over to their kitchen. We met all the guides, all guys; and I met Dave’s friend Deb. They quizzed us about what we were doing and they all seemed amazed at what we were up to - and this coming from veterans of the river of many years who have done many incredible journeys themselves. I was offered a couple of Ginger Ales, and that really helped my unsettling stomach. And adding some whisky to the drinks may have helped the cause even more.

Meanwhile, we conversed with many of the guest.

There was Tex, who simply came up to us immediately and bluntly asked “What’s the story here’; wondering what we were doing down there on the river with all this gear.

There was Maureen, a nice looking down to earth lady who used to work as a ranger at the north rim and now worked at the South Rim at a commercial book store. She loved the canyon country, and knew a lot about it.

There was Blink, a very nice young lady who was there by herself. We talked to her a lot. She liked to set up her tent right up along the river bank so that it made her think she was at the ocean. Everyone else camped back up on the dunes, away from the river.

There was Si, visiting from Israel. I talked to him in length; we had a great conversation about Israel, politics, President Obama, etc… He asked me about my family, and I told in a proud fashion about my daughter back in college in Ohio and how I raised her since she was 3, and how important she was to me. He told me he could tell how much I felt about her from the passion he felt in my eyes as I was talking to him about her. Si was there with a Cousin from Arizona.

There was a younger married couple from Seattle, who seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was a really nice young man who was there with his father; a man from Vancouver. And a number of other folks from all over the country.

We talked to the guides, and they were great. They offered us anything we wanted, and they told us of their trip so far. But mostly they wanted to hear about our experience on our trip. It was like we met up with long lost friends.

Dinner was served, and (sorry to my Mom who made great spaghetti) this was the best spaghetti dinner I’ve ever eaten. I had 2 huge helpings, 4 pieces of garlic bread, salad, a hot off the grill brownie, and of course a Tecadah Beer. I have to say my spirits and body were now feeling the way they should. As it was about time for hitting the sleeping bags, Deb offered to take us the rest of the way down the river first thing the next morning. This stretch was only 2 miles with 1 or 2 riffles, so it was going to be one of the more enjoyable sections for us to float. But we figured it would save us lots of time and energy, with all the preparation we’d need in the morning and all the packing up once we were done floating and getting our packs ready. So we had one less thing to tackle. And as we walked off to our separate little camp spot, one of the guides (Eric, a former stock broker salesman from Boston, who used to wear a tie to work everyday, who now spent ½ the year on the Colorado River as a river runner and guide) gave us each nice sleeping pad to take with us to help us sleep more comfortable.

I have to say I was in great spirits as I laid on my tarp and pad that night. The moon, 1 night from being full, shined on the inner gorge of the canyon, the sound of the rugged rapids that ran just at my feet where I lay, the few stars that poked out and were visible despite the bright moon. As I listened to my IPOD (Neil Young was playing – something about a cowgirl in the sand) I could only pray and thank God for everything that I beheld – all of His creation. But mostly I thanked him for getting out of the toughest part of the trip. From here on I’d be hiking out of places that I’ve already been on 2 or 3 other occasions. It was no longer a trip into the unknown.

Day 5:
I woke up early, as usual. I walked up towards the rapids above our camp and then up to Stone Creek to the waterfalls, then packed everything up. PHOTO’s 98-106 After getting everything ready, we joined the boat group for a well-prepared breakfast. They had bacon, eyes, muffins, juice, coffee, sausage, and so on. Deb offered to also take our heavy load that we no longer needed, such as the rafts, paddles, wetsuit – everything and anything. I thought it was a good idea so I gave them raft and accessories. Dave just wanted to keep his with him on the hike out.

I gave them my raft, and told them to feel free to take it out of the pack if they wanted down the river - and take it out on a test run. I figured they were so nice to us that it would be the least thing to do for them. I hope they get a chance to do so.

By around 9:30 our time, we took off from Stone Creek campground and floated the river. PHOTO 108
It was 2 miles from Stone Creek down to Tapeats Creek. The commercial group would pull in below the Tapeats rapids. This would be where we would be starting out from the river up to the rim for our 2 day hike out. I hopped up front with Blink, the young lady who liked to camp by the river. She told me all about her annual trips to Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert – 12 years and running. We enjoyed the quiet canyon and smooth flowing water, and I pointed out a few highlights of that particular area – ie. Powell Plateau behind us, the route above the river from Stone Creek to Tapeats Creek, etc..

The boat took on the rapid, a relatively average one. But it gave us a few good splashes. Enough to make Blink give out a good, loud scream.

We pulled over to the shore, got off the boats, and got out packs ready for the long haul out. We said goodbyes and thank you’s to all. Deb gave us both good hugs. Although it actually wouldn’t be the last we saw of most. Two guides were taking about 12 of the guest up the same way that we were heading up; they were going to check out Thunder River about 3.5 miles up and then over Surprise Valley and down to Deer Creek, and the majestic Deer Creek waterfalls at the river. This loop hike was pretty grueling, especially for those not experienced with desert hiking. The guest were warned that they would need to hike at a good pace, that it would be an all day hike, that it was about 8 miles and a climb of at least 2,000 feet. And no shade for all of Surprise Valley. But other than that section, they at least would be near some great water sources. Such as Tapeats Creek, and Thunder River (including the waterfall there itself); and then Deer Creeks spring waterfall and Deer Creek itself. We left about 3 or 4 minutes before that group of hikers set out. We were wondering about a couple of those in the group – we didn’t think they were good candidates to make the all day, tough hike. Especially, we wondered about Tex, who took up the tail end of the group. Dave and I definitely felt that Tex shouldn’t be doing this hike – we really doubted that he’d make it.

Our plan today was to make it up about 2/3rds up the total climb of 12 miles and 5,800 feet elevation gain. Immediately we hit a steep climb of about 300 feet straight up a rocky slope. We were about 2 minutes ahead of the boat group – and they really kept up with us at a good pace. But then we basically lost them way behind. We made it down to the creek and made our first of two creek crossings. Just after that, we took a nice, hour long break at a beautiful waterfall, taking a dip or two and soaking our soar feet in the cold, rushing water. We were passed by a couple other groups of backpackers heading down-creek. Including a couple with a dog – which are not legal in National Parks. We didn’t see our boat group for quite awhile, but they passed ahead of us up the trail at the waterfall break. Lagging behing by about 5 minutes were 2 of the guests, including Tex. We thought he’d drop out by now, but onwards he went. The last person was one of the guides, Erik, who needed to be the last in line to make sure no one wandered off alone.

On we went. This time up this tough Thunder River trail, we went a slower, more even pace. This was smart – in the past up this and similar trails we tended to go much faster. We took another nice creek break right before we left the creek – which was at the confluence of Tapeats Creek and Thunder River. This where the trail made it’s first (of a total of 3) big climbs up. Each of these climbs are about 1,600 to 1,800 feet elevation gains. It climbed at times right along the actual Thunder River – the smallest river in the country.

Just as we started our climb up, we saw Tex hiking down towards us. He was soaking wet, I thought from taking a dip in the river but Dave thought he was sweating like crazy. He seemed to be in a hurry, and he told us he was bailing out on the hike and heading back to the river. We asked him if he knew where he was going, and he told us one of the guides was right behind him to go along with him. Then he took off. Five minutes later, the guide Erik was following along, sort of jogging along trying to catch up. He seemed really perturbed about Tex –saying he really shouldn’t have come along and put the whole hike in minor jeopardy. There were no boats from their group anymore at the mouth of Tapeats Creek and the river. Those boats had all probably gone down to Deer Creek to await the group of hikers heading that way. So we still wonder whatever happened to Tex and the frustrated Erik. At least we haven’t seen any newspaper articles of a man from Texas getting lost in the Grand Canyon, at least not yet.

We made it to the highlight of this hike for us as well as the boat group – Thunder River spring - A huge gushing wall of water coming out of the limestone redwall cliffs. Not only a spring, it was a river gushing out of the openings of the rock. No matter how hot a day it was, with the water and wind and the shade of the cottonwoods, you were actually cold up there. This was a perfect place for a long, long break to cool off from the desert heat.

We got there as it looked like the rest of our friends from the boat group were ready to leave. It seemed like half were there and the other half had already taken off. According to the 1 remaining guide, Tex screwed up everything and the guides weren’t too happy. There is no way he should have asked to come along, but he insisted and there was nothing they could do to persuade him not to go. So now the other guide and Tex were totally separated from the rest of the hikers; as well as who knows what the situation will be when they finally get to the river. The hope was to hitch a ride with another boat group down to where the others where – down at Deer Creek falls. But you never know, maybe all the boaters for the day would be already passed them by the time they got to the river. Dave and I lucked out by barely catching our ride the first day, maybe Tex won’t be so lucky.

As far as the rest of the hiking group, the guide at Thunder River said that half of his group missed the obvious spur trail to the Thunder River spring (which was where Dave, the guide and I were currently talking) PHOTO’s 108-111 and kept going up the remaining 800 feet on the main trail to the rim of Surprise Valley before realizing they needed to back down to the spur trail. So they had to climb up that thing twice – not fun. You could tell the guide was getting quite impatient and perturbed with all the guests. He needed them all to get their butts going in order to get to Deer Creek canyon in good time, but there were a few of the guests who were just slow as can be in getting going. Finally, they all set out in continuing their hike. It’s not all fun and games being a guide on one of these group tours. In fact, Dave ran into the same thing when he worked for a spa as a hiking guide. The guests always caused you headaches like this. And worst of all, you had folks like Tex who insist they can do a hike way over their heads, and not only cause the inconvenience of ruining it everyone else, but sometimes put themselves in huge danger.

But we’re sure they all made it back in time and in once piece, so I guess there is nothing to worry about for this group. They were all gone, and we had the whole magnificent spring to ourselves for about 2 hours. This is where we ate, drank cool refreshing water straight from the river, and got out of the sun. PHOTO’s 112-116


The rest of the hike that day was later in the afternoon, and clouds were starting to appear. It was a benefit having the cloud cover when we made the 2nd (of the 3) 1,800 foot climbs – this one straight up the redwall layer. It would have been hot in the sun without the clouds. We made it to the rim above Surprise Valley at about 6:00 – at about 5,000 feet elevation. We had gained about 3,200 feet in elevation from the river since we started out this morning. It was getting windy and more dark clouds were slower moving in. We camped right near the rim, and enjoyed a nice sunset. PHOTO’s 117-120 (in my opinion, some of Dave’s best photos) The full moon came out, but most of the time it was obscured by the fast moving clouds.

Day 6 (last day):
Luckily it didn’t rain on us during the night, but we were wondering if these clouds would produce rain. Dave woke me up in the middle of the night, asking me if I had heard the hikers and their dog pass right by us on the trail – I said no. Then he woke me up again at 3:00 and said he thought it would be a good idea if we were to start hiking right away. The clouds were moving faster, getting darker, and he was concerned of getting stormed on. So we packed up real quickly, and off we went in the dark.

We have hiked this trail many times before, so we knew the general direction of where the trail went. It is not the easiest of trails to follow at times, not like a maintained, popular trail in a city park would be like. For the first 3 miles, it was mostly followed by looking for cairns (a pile of rocks formed by man to show directions). I had my headlamp, which was useful, and also we had occasional the bright moon light to use to guide us along. It wasn’t easy, but we never really felt like we’d get off the trail.

It was amazing how bright it was when the full moon was out. Most of the time the heavy clouds would block all the moon light, but when the moon cleared the clouds and the moon light hit us, it was like bright sunshine. It almost seemed like you needed your sun glasses.

On we went, we made it to the start of the last 3 miles and the last of the 3 tough climbs. Another 1,800 feet of switchbacks and grunts and climbs. Walking in the dark had it’s advantages, for one we went at a slower pace then normal (although the whole way up since the day before we had slowed the pace down, which helped). So we plodded on and on. For me, this last 1,800 feet had always wiped me out before, it was so hard and it came at the end of an already grueling hike. Sometimes my legs would cramp up as there were lots of stretching on some of the sections where you needed to step up. But this time was the best I ever did, no problems at all (perhaps it was the climbs I did 2 weeks earlier in Colorado up peaks over 14,000 feet).

The only problem was the storm. It was getting worse, and as we got higher up towards 7,000 feet elevation it was getting nasty. The clouds were darker, the wind was fierce – luckily no rain. At the top of the highest point of the trail - Monument Point, where we were heading, it looked almost like a Hurricane. And it sounded like one. We finally topped out, the hard part was over. But we couldn’t linger to enjoy the view. I thought I heard thunder, but it ended up just being the wind at the top – it was so loud and strong. So we made the last, easy 1 mile hike going mostly gently down hill to our car.

We Made IT!!!! Everything was fine, we were safe!!! Or so we thought – we still needed to get my car parked at the remote Swamp Point about 1 ¼ hours away. It was great getting that backpack off for the last time and getting fresh clothes on, and into Dave’s car for the long ride on the forest road to get my Jeep. The wind was really whipping the trees around. Our main concern at this time was seeing the golden Aspen Trees fall leaves being thrown off the trees – all those beautiful fall colors getting whipped in the wind.

We finally made it to the last stretch of the rough dirt road to Swamp Point. This last 7 miles was slow going and tough. We came to a smaller tree that was blocking the road, and we both easily moved it out of the cars way. Shortly thereafter, 2 more trees were blocking the road. These were larger. We struggled to move the larger aspen out of the way, but couldn’t do it all the way because there was a standing-tree that would block any further movement of the tree. We realized there was no way around these 2 trees. Dejectedly, we realized my car was stranded out on the point.

We drove to the Grand Canyon entrance and there was a nice Park Ranger there who assisted us. She said this nasty storm had knocked out all the power on the North Rim and there were many trees that were down across most of the roads. In fact, the popular Point Imperial Road that took tourist out to all the viewpoints was closed due to a huge tree down over the road. It had trapped a lot of tourist out there at that part of the park. So the ranger told me that it could be days before they had the resources to go out to this remote road of the park. We figured we go on home and we would have to come back out whenever they were finished cleaning up after the storm.

Oh well, I could live with that inconvenience. The important thing was that we were back in 1 piece and my body had survived this extraordinary experience in the inner gorge along the Colorado River. My Jeep can wait for a few days.



Final Thoughts:
The trip was an exhilarating experience, with lots of adventures and challenges which resulted in sore bodies but refreshed minds. When you’re away in the wilderness for so long, you don’t hear one bit of news. And the more you’re away, the great feeling that becomes. You really don’t care if the stock market collapses, if Sara Palin continues to be an idiot, if ND football team lost another game (they actually won), if my project at work is behind schedule, etc… There are so many thrills down there. This particular trip, the highlight has to be all the great people we met and the experiences we had with all of them; as well as knowing we added to the excitement to their already thrilling ride down the Colorado River.

But even those experiences can’t surpass the feelings you always get down there in deep Grand Canyon:

- The immense views when you’re on top of the rim and as you continue down, down, down towards the river – all the colors, the feeling of awe due to the distances in this grand canyon – it had to be 18 miles from the north rim to the south rim from the start of our hike down. All the side canyons of the trail heading down – each of them in their own way a grand canyon that would take weeks to explore.

- The layers and layers of different rock, each 300-500 or so feet thick. Each 100’s of millions of years old, all the way down to the river and ending with the oldest exposed rock on this planet, the Vishu Schist -1.7 billion year old back, hard rock.

- The solitude, the quiet, the sun, the breeze, the cool water, the waves of the river, the sound of those waves, the soft white sand (reminds me of Caribbean sand)

- The miles of river water between the rapids where we let the 4 mile an hour current gently take us down the stream. Merrily, life is just for me. We’d be floating down the inner gorge, resting our sore body and staring in awe of the cliffs and layers of rock and splashing the cold 52 degree water on our faces.

- The sunrises and sunsets, where the light of the new day or the sinking sun would give all the rocks a different color and glow

- The nights sleeping under the stars and planets. Seeing an unexpected shooting star. There were fewer on this trip due to the rising of the moon, which became larger and larger each night; ending in a full moon our last night. The glow from the full moon on the inner gorge was out of this world – it always makes me think of what it would have been like to be Frodo Baggins travelling through Mordor in the Lord of the Rings – the glow on the spooky Vishnu Schist and other rock. In fact, in Blacktail canyon we saw a spot in the rock where there was a gap of 1 billion years old where the Vishnu Rock (1,700,000,000 years old met a spot of rock of 700,000,000 years old – a gap of 1 billion years where the scientists really know anything about)

- Of course, there’s always the wildlife. This trip we didn’t see as much as usual. We saw the ringtail as well as 1 Desert Big Horn Sheep on the other side of the river from our Teltec Beach. In the past, there would be hawks, eagles, ospreys, herons, snakes.


To conclude, I need to mention that perhaps the most amazing thing about the Grand Canyon is the fact that way back 100 years ago, there were many powerful politicians, business men, ranchers, miners and various other people, who fought hard for many years to not allow Teddy Roosevelt to protect the Grand Canyon as a national park. It would hurt their business and ‘wasn’t economically viable’. They had a number of other arguments, such as why allow someone from back east to tie up their land from any development. Luckily, after years and years of effort, it finally became a National Park. Is there anyone out there now who can dispute that this is one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. Can anyone imagine it NOT being a national park? The same fights were put up for Zion National Park, Yosemite, Yellowstone, etc…

The disgusting thing is that we are continuing this debate in the modern world on other public lands that have values similar to the Grand Canyon. As we speak, the same battle rages for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and millions of other acres of public land throughout Utah and the west. The same arguments from miners, logging companies, businessmen and general people who just don’t want to preserve our natural national wonders. But as we learned from the battles over Grand Canyon and Zion, it just makes sense to protect such natural wonders. We are fighting a good fight out here to protect these gems for future generations – because remember, God created these natural wonders and they’ve remained that way for millions of years. But all it takes is 1 day for someone to come in with a vehicle or a bulldozer and go through a creek bed or the forest and destroy that area forever!! Do what you can to help protect our natural wonders.