During this last weekend of August, Ellery Gibson and I took our packs down the Hermit Trail to sleep out a couple nights. I had been down here several times before, so we kept going at a steady pace and aimed for the bottom of Monument Creek. We knew that Purtymun's gear was cached there, and we wanted to see about the trip to the river here. As usual, there was a little water running in Monument Creek, and we saw the bed springs under the overhang which had been used in the old days when the loop from the Hermit Trail over to the Bright Angel Trail was an accepted and popular outing. Walking to the river down Monument Creek is a pretty simple task, which didn't surprise me since I knew that horses could make it. We timed ourselves back up from the river to the Tonto Trail at about 45 minutes. I don't think the Inner Gorge is as deep here as it is at the South Kaibab Trail.
The river seemed very low and the rapids known as Granite Falls were concentrated over toward the right bank. The water was pretty wild, and I was not surprised that the Purtymun Party had given up here. What surprised me more was that they had come through Horn Creek Rapids with portaging. We found the pile of duffel. A life jacket was near the top and we tried it on for size. Georgie White had already pushed the rubber boats out in the current but they had soon been caught by eddies. The story is that they showed up at Lake Mead about four months later. Elmer finally brought some pack horses down Monument Creek and took the rest of the stuff away overland. The only approach by horse now is along the Tonto Trail from Indian Gardens, because the shorter route down the Hermit Trail is blocked by rock slides.
I forgot where Ellery and I left our packs, but I know I brought my air mattress down to the river here. Somehow I had gotten the idea that it would be fun to paddle around on it in the river. I believe I had done this on a picnic in Oak Creek, and I wanted to see whether it might be possible to use a mattress as a means of going down river. It worked fine for me in the quiet pool. I could paddle upstream with the backwater along the edge and then cross over and return without getting too close to the rapids. Ellery tried it too, and right away he had the curiosity to see how hard it would be to get back up on the mattress if you had slipped off or been turned over for some reason. That maneuver is awkward at first, but with a bit of thought and patience, you can get the hang of it. The technique is to lie crosswise across the middle of the mattress and then to pivot your body until you're lying lengthwise. We didn't know this then, and it was comical how the mattress would pop up the wrong way.
Ellery and I still had time to leave Granite Falls and go back over near Hermit Creek before it was time to make camp for the night. I had never been to Boucher Creek nor Boucher Camp, so I resolved to test out my theory that the mattress would furnish good transportation downstream and see that region too. Ellery went with me to see Hermit rapids and then while I was blowing up the mattress, he waited around to see me off. I hadn't at that time worked out a system to keep the contents of a knapsack dry as I floated along so all I took with me was shoes and socks. I figured I would get back to Hermit Camp where I had left the pack in time to eat lunch. Later I wished that I had brought my watch, because I would have liked knowing how long it took to float the 1.6 miles downstream from Hermit to Boucher Rapids. Ellery figured that it might take him a bit longer to go up the trail to Hermit Rest than it would take me, so we agreed that he should go on ahead at a leisurely pace while I was returning from Boucher Creek by the Tonto Trail. It seemed to me that I floated the 1.6 miles in less than 45 minutes. There were no rapids or riffles of any kind along this section of the river. I inspected the left bank to see whether I could walk upstream near the water without going up onto the Tonto Plateau, and I came to the conclusion that this would not be advisable. There would be too much rock climbing. However, my impression wasn't too firm because when I heard later from Dock that Russell and Monnette had done this going from Hermit to Boucher, I supposed that it would be feasible. Finally, in April, 1958, we tried doing just this. Don, Ivan, and Marshall Maynes gave up the long one-day loop hike. When I went on, I had to go up to the base of the Tapeats, but this trip is covered in another place in these logs. Going downriver was so simple along this stretch that I became enthusiastic about the method.
At this time, I believe there was a little water in lower Boucher but none up by the camp. From my later trips, I learned to expect water during all seasons somewhat higher than the camp. I must have been in a hurry, because I went right past the rock cabin without seeing either it or the small structure I later called the rock chicken coop. It was easy to see the old trail leaving the bottom of the wash going up to the Tonto level. I also noted the branch which goes on up the Redwall to form the Boucher Trail. On the way back to Hermit Creek, I experimented with going higher and straighter than the regular trail. The experiment was not a success as the route was rougher and I probably lost time. When I crossed Hermit Creek, I noticed the old corral they used for the mules. One item of interest before you get to the creek is a high and well built fence from the base of the Redwall down to the edge of the Inner Gorge. I thought it probably had something to do with the limit of some mining property, but I learned later that it was put up by the Park Service to keep the wild burros out. They reasoned that the bighorn sheep would come back if there was no competition with burros, and that the sheep could climb around the fence while the burros could not. Actually, the burros could go up the Boucher Trail and come down the Hermit to restock this basin. We found burro bones along the trail down into this area where rangers had shot them. There were also some live burros somewhere around to judge by the manure.
Hermit Camp used to be quite an elaborate affair with tents mounted above wood floors. There were even concrete bases for some sort of structures in regular rows. They had piping to bring water to the grounds from higher up the creek and with this irrigation, there were cottonwoods growing. There was a cable car to bring down supplies from Pima Point above and wagon roads for moving food and supplies around. The one thing that is most nearly in its original state is an underground storage cellar.
After a late lunch on the path approaching Hermit Camp where we had spent the night, I left for the rim and got out in good time, a half hour after Ellery.
I'm not sure whether the move away from Hermit Camp over to Phantom Ranch was a good one. You get a better view of the surrounding cliffs from Hermit. The walk down to the river at Hermit Rapids is interesting , and the rapid itself is much more spectacular than anything along the River Trail to Phantom Ranch. It must be that Phantom Ranch is more strategically located on the way to the North Rim. Also there are so many interesting places to go to from Phantom Ranch like Clear Creek, Ribbon Falls, and Phantom Creek. I believe you get a broader impression of the whole Grand Canyon from the South Kaibab Trail than you do from the Hermit Trail. In making this comparison, it is interesting to read James chapter on the Hermit Trail which was only in the planning stage when he wrote about it. He called it a trail to the scenic heart of the canyon.
The mattress worked so well going from Hermit to Boucher that I was excited about using it for more ambitious projects. I knew that the part of the river from Sockdolager Rapids to Bright Angel Creek was noteworthy for the steepness of the banks and the impossibility of walking around the rapids, or at least two: Sockdolager and Grapevine. I figured that if I could do that part, I could do it all. I don't remember how I got Ben Surwill interested in going with me. We didn't know each other very well and he had never hiked with me. He was young and had been in the Army, so I thought he would be in good condition for the trip. I didn't even find out how good a swimmer he was. I suppose I chatted with him in front of the training school and mentioned my ambition. He was enthusiastic.
It took us a little longer to get to the bottom of the Red Canyon Trail than I had figured it would. On the way through the Supai, we had an experience that I have never duplicated. We were following the bottom of the wash instead of keeping to the slight remains of the old trail. When we came around a big rock about the size of a room, there was a bighorn ram only about 15 feet away from us. It got to its feet rather deliberately and walked away in front of us without showing much alarm. Possibly it was not in good health because it lay down again not very far away. It let us catch up and then moved on several times so that we must have had three or four close encounters over a period of about 20 minutes. Most unfortunately, I was not sure I could keep a camera dry on the river, so I was not armed at the time.
It was quite warm near the bottom of the wash, and I think we ate our lunch under the shade of a big rock about a half hour before we reached the river. At this time I was not aware that the trail strays away from the bottom of the wash most of the way down. I know now that when you are below the Redwall, you should go nearly to the bottom of the wash and then turn north at about the same level until you come to the tributary from below Zuni. The trail goes down into the shale here toward the east and then stays rather high above the bottom of the wash as it turns the point back into the main arm of Red Canyon. There are a couple of places where you have to scramble down past big rocks if you stay in the bed of the wash.
It must have been after 1:00 p.m. when Ben and I were finally ready to shove off below the bottom of Hance Rapids. I was not familiar with the Inner Gorge along here when we did this, and the only times that I had my bearings for sure were when we were negotiating Sockdolager and Grapevine Rapids and when we were passing the mouth of Clear Creek. I had looked at the river from the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon, about 60 feet above the level of the water. However, I have to confess that I didn't recognize Cottonwood as we were passing it. We were wearing sneakers so that we could get out and walk without hurting our feet, but we found that the wet rubber soles on the polished schist and granite were exceedingly slippery. Once when we were just standing and thinking things over, I lost my footing and fell in such a way that my hip hurt for a number of days. When we were going along a narrow ledge 30 feet above the water to bypass one rapid, Ben and I agreed that we were probably taking the hard way out. We would have been safer down in the water. At both Sockdolager and Grapevine Rapids, we climbed along the right bank for about a third of the way through the rapid and then pushed off where the waves were not quite so high. We must have walked clear past some rapid or riffle about 12 different times.
Once I saw that there was a rapid ahead which I thought we ought to scout from the bank and gave Ben the sign to land to the left. As I was getting out of the water, I heard him say, Here I go, I can't make it to the bank. It was a short but sharp drop. It seemed about the steepest place in the river that I have ever seen. The river narrowed and then spilled over a huge rock in about the middle with the water apparently only a foot or two deep over the top of the rounded rock. It seemed too me that Ben went over the south end of this smooth spillway and dropped five or six feet at about a 45 degree angle. He did it in fine style without seeming a bit unnerved and waited for me in an eddy at the end of the millrace several hundred yards downstream. I suppose I should have pushed off and done likewise, but I climbed down the rocks on the left and had to paddle to get into the current below.
We were in the water when we passed Clear Creek, but we walked past Zoroaster Rapid. On the whole we stayed quite close together while we were in the water. Ben could paddle a mattress about as fast as I could. Sometimes we would be abreast and talk things over, but most of the time I was slightly ahead and made the decisions about landing and inspecting rapids ahead. We had a bit of trouble keeping out of eddies, but on the whole we were able to do it. One thing that made the trip a bit unpleasant was a cold drizzling rain that came down on our bare backs from time to time. When the wind blew, we were a bit too cold. Another thing that worried us was the lateness of the day. We were a half hour behind my schedule when we pushed off from Hance Rapids, and I had told Ellery that we would get down to the bridge by 6:00 p.m.
When we did get to the bridge, it was nearer 7:00 p.m. The engineer was just finishing taking his water sample and readings, so we stopped above the bridge and talked to him briefly. We noted a very small rubber boat about half full of water moored near the path leading to the cable car. We later learned that someone had come down from Lee's Ferry in it but had decided to abandon ship here. Ellery had been waiting for us on the bridge until 6:30 p.m., and then had hiked up and told Roma and the others that we must have stopped our trip along the river somewhere and that we would probably not be coming along that evening. Getting out of the river up by the cable was a mistake as it was a climb through brush and rocks up to the path. We ate our supper near the bridge and then started up the South Kaibab Trail as it was getting near dark. Now I began to wish I had checked Ben for hiking speed before bringing him. He had no wind at all and needed six and a half hours to go from the river to the rim. When he saw how long it was going to take him, he asked me to go ahead and tell the others he was all right and telephone his wife in Flagstaff that he was OK. I tried to get to the top by 10:00 p.m., the time I had predicted, but I didn't make it until 10:15 p.m. The car had waited until 10:00 p.m., and then they had gone to Bright Angel Lodge. If I had phoned the lodge from the telephone three-fourths of a mile down the trail, I would have intercepted the car. As it turned out, I waited near the rim in a shed and didn't see the car when it checked back about 10:30 p.m. Then they took the kids back to Flagstaff. In the meantime, Mrs. Surwill had gotten Miss Tyson and Miss Burton to babysit for her and came back up to the canyon to get Ben and me. Roma was quite disgusted at the mismanagement at the tail end of this expedition, and I don't blame her!
At the first hiking club meeting, I told how I was going to float by mattress from Tanner to Hance Rapids. Gary Hanson , from Winslow, besieged me with the request that he should go too. He talked a big line about how much canyon hiking he had done. We both took it for granted that he could manage himself in the water. I also invited Dale Slocum and he brought Young Veasey. In fact, Dale drove his car for the trip. We took bedrolls up to Lipan Point Friday evening so as to get an early start on Saturday. It was my first time down the Tanner Trail.
I had learned something about the trail, which is not shown on the official map, from Mr. Pullen. We followed his directions and followed it well enough until we were below the Redwall. We must not have been looking carefully from above as we came down, because from the Redwall switchbacks you can see what the trail does next. First I went to the right of the little knoll, but I soon decided that this was wrong. I led the others down into the ravine to the left, which was correct, but when we got down into the wash in the Muav Limestone, we didn't notice that the real trail goes along at this level or actually climbs a bit to the left. We went on down and then couldn't make up our minds. Slocum and Veasey decided to head for the bottom of Tanner Wash while I got Hanson to follow me north along the slope above the Tapeats Sandstone. We went along here with no great difficulty and actually came to within a few yards of joining the real trail without seeing it. When the Tapeats cliff was replaced by a rocky slope, we went to the bottom of the wash. Slocum and Veasey were nowhere around. I took a chance that they were not ahead, after we had waited for them for 20 minutes, and went up the wash looking for them. They had been stopped by the same fall in the Tapeats that later killed Father Gavigan and they found the same bypass to the west that Mahaney and Owens used. I was going up this bypass when they started down it, so it was obvious that their route was slower than ours. When we got together again, I hurried them down to the river because I could see that we might have trouble with darkness again and I didn't relish going up the Hance Trail after dark.
We ate a quick lunch and took off. It is easy to walk below Tanner Rapids to start, but I wanted to show the others what you could do on a mattress, and I rode through this one. The others did likewise and we were off. In no time, however, we saw Veasey out on the bank walking. He had begun to feel sick and shortly after, he threw up. Since he was Dale's guest, I asked Dale to go back with him by land to the car. By this time Hansen was quite far ahead of me, but he waited and we proceeded together. He was good enough in the water. This is supposed to be an easier stretch of the river than the part I had been down the preceding week, but we were caught by eddies and taken back upstream more than once. The only rapids we bypassed on land were Unkar and 75 Mile. When a wave tipped us over, we both had the same reaction, to let our feet hang down while we lay across the middle of the mattress crosswise. This worked fine for even the worst water, but where a lot of rocks were showing, I preferred to have us walk rather than risk collisions.
It was well after three when we got to Hance Rapids, and by the time we had eaten some more lunch, we had started up the trail by 3:30 p.m. I thought we might be at the top by 8:30 p.m., but I hadn't reckoned on my hiking companion. Again he had no wind, and it was completely dark by the time we were going up the ravine in the Supai. It was after 11:00 p.m. when we finally hit the road. For some reason, Gary was so sleepy, he wanted to lie down with no more cover than a deflated mattress and go to sleep beside the road. He took both of the mattresses to do this, and I walked on, hoping to get my sleeping bag out of Dale's trunk and tell them that we had made it out all right. When I reached the car, Slocum and Veasey were not around, and the trunk was securely locked. I walked on to Desert View but I couldn't find a warm place to lie down there either. The shed where a generator was running was warm, but the floor was a mess of dirty oil. I got all the water I needed and went back to Lipan Point. Finally I built two fires and sat between them with my head down on my knees. However, I didn't get any real sleep until the sun came up. I stretched out under a juniper where the sun could reach me and slept for about an hour.
Veasey and Slocum had started back along the river from a little below Basalt. First they thought they could save time by going up the valley west of the ridge where the trail comes down. Then they decided they couldn't climb the Tapeats anywhere and returned to the river, thus wasting quite a bit of time. Actually, they could have gone up the Tapeats at one place and came right out on the trail, since I left the trail there on another occasion They filled their one quart canteens at the river about 4:00 p.m. and started up. Somewhere they found a cache of canned goods left from the search for the body of the seasonal park ranger who was killed by a fall off the Tapeats cliff down here. They must have gone up the bottom of the wash using the same route as on the way down, because they said a seep which had had water in it in the morning was dry by evening. They tried sleeping with the flat air mattress for warmth. It's too narrow to do much good, but they spent the night in one place without trying to continue after dark.
On Sunday morning, I could have carried more water down to them, but I was afraid I might become a drawback without any food in me. Joe Lynch at the ranger station couldn't let me have any. I called Flagstaff and Veasey's wife came up with food for the rescue. By the time I was starting down to meet them with food and water, Veasey was about out. Slocum had given him the last of the water to help his speed. I went down to meet Dale and we came up together about 1:00 p.m.. So ended another snafu!
Some of the students wanted to take an overnight hike between semesters, but I overruled them saying that it would be too cold for sleeping out even at the bottom of the canyon. We compromised by taking a one day hike. The three girls elected to go to Plateau Point, following the spur away from the Bright Angel Trail at Indian Gardens out to the viewpoint overlooking the inner gorge. We let them out at the head of the Bright Angel Trail and then went to talk to Frank Sylvestre about the loop trip down the Grandview Trail, along the Tonto across Hance and Mineral Canyons to Hance Rapids, and then up the Hance or Red Canyon Trail. He thought that we should allow two days for such a trip but that we could get to the river and back by way of the Red Canyon Trail all right. He told us a little about finding the break in the Redwall from above on this trail but said that it was quite a bit easier to see from below.
Boyd Moore, Robert Gardner, and I thanked him and started driving east along the rim road. I felt in the mood for something ambitious and I figured that I had companions that were at least my peers in hiking, so I convinced them that we should go over the whole loop in one day. We made very respectable time down to the mines by Horseshoe Mesa, but in crossing a slope of mine tailings, we got the first hint that Gardner might be a handicap. He took a long time making up his mind to come over the way we had.
We crossed Hance Canyon without going clear around on the contour as the Tonto Trail seemed to do. However, we were about as high as the place where you first find water when going down the wash. When we ate lunch, it developed that Gardner had only one can of Sardines and a box of Cheesits. Before long he was complaining about his internal workings and slowed down practically to a standstill. It became clear that he would not be able to make it out in one day. Since I had to meet the girls and take them back to Flagstaff, and since I thought I had better bring some more food to Boyd and Robert, I left them with the advice to get to Hance Rapids and try to keep a big fire going all night.
The territory was new to me and I was not carrying a real map, although I did have a crude sketch of the route. I was not positive of the identification of Hance Rapids, and when I saw no trail going up Red Canyon, I was a little uncertain that I had the right canyon. However, I followed my best guess and proceeded after leaving a message and a flashlight on the sand at the rapids.
I followed the route along the bottom of the wash for a mile or so and then I began to worry about getting caught by a dead end in the Tapeats, so I climbed out to the left on the shale and went towards the most promising break in the Redwall. It turned out to be the right place except that I didn't follow a ledge around a promontory and go up by the regular trail. When I saw a chance, I climbed up a crevice and got out on top of the Redwall. The way ahead from here seemed very dubious. It seemed to me that the bottom of the Supai, a shaley slope above the Redwall, might pinch off to nothing in some of the bays ahead, so I considered going high up on the Supai right where I first came out on top of the Redwall. It was a toss-up, but I decided to proceed south before ascending. This turned out to be the right decision, because although the ledge became a narrow and rather steep slope in the shale in a couple of places, it never gave about entirely and I reached the valley below Coronado Butte without any real trouble.
About here darkness fell and I just had time to pick out the most likely part of the Coconino to ascend before I lost sight of everything farther away than my feet. It was quite dark, a moon-less night, when I reached the Coconino there was quite a bit of snow on the rocks, but I had the great satisfaction of finding signs of trail construction here where it was most necessary to find the right route. Above the Coconino, there was quite a bit of vegetation, and I was able to go on up even though I had lost the trail again. It took about fifteen minutes more among the junipers to find the highway and it was a fairly long and cold walk before I came to the car parked at Grandview Point. It was a good thing that I had kept my Machinaw instead of leaving it at the river for the boys.
As I was driving along the rim road towards the village, I met a car which stopped after it passed me, so I stopped too. It was Frank Sylvestre with the girls who had become worried. I took the girls back to Flagstaff with me where we arrived rather late, about midnight. I set the alarm to allow about three and a half hours of sleep, but I lay awake quite a bit thinking of how cold the boys might be getting. After picking up all the food that was handy, I started back to the canyon before daylight. The boys were supposed to be walking up the Red Canyon Trail to meet me. I had more trouble locating the right place to go down through the Redwall than I had had on the ascent, and it was nearly noon by the time I was down in the bottom of the wash about a mile or so from the river. I hadn't seen the boys at all, but just as I was about to round a bend out of sight from anyone above, Robert Gardner hailed me. I climbed up and we had a meal together. Boyd had given up about 11:00 a.m. and had gone back to the river to retrace the route we had followed the day before while Robert had persisted in following some burro trails that didn't lead much of anywhere. After eating, Robert and I went back up to the car which we reached about 5:30 p.m.
As luck would have it, I had brought another flashlight with me on Sunday and before I had gone down the Grandview Trail very far to meet Boyd, I was using it. It was most gratifying when I saw another flashlight coming up a long way off. He had also seen me coming. I reached him about 8:15 p.m. and we ate a fairly good meal cold out of the can. It was almost 1:00 a.m. before we were back to the car with no casualties. It turned out that the boys had kept quite warm down at the river beside their big fire and had been able to sleep for almost an hour at a time before it was necessary to build the fire up again.
My air mattress experiments were carried out in September, 1954 when I had begun by going from Hermit to Boucher Rapids, then from Hance Rapids to the Kaibab Bridge, and finally from Tanner to Hance Rapids. All had gone well both when I was by myself and when I had a companion, except when Ben Surwell had been carried through a short but sharp rapid after I had given the word to land and walk around it. When Boyd came to Flagstaff for the start of the trip, he then told me that he was practically a non-swimmer. I told him that swimming had very little to do with the case as we would be merely paddling over the sides of the mattress or holding on and kicking with our feet when we get tipped over. Since the superintendent of the Park had denied my request for permission to go through the Park by that method in the high water of late May, I suggested that we go down from Lee's Ferry to Nankoweap Creek and get out when we came to the Park border.
Roma and Wanda Euler took us up to Lee's Ferry to see us off. In the short distance from the boat landing to the mouth of Paria Creek, Boyd decided that it was not for him. I waited and we walked over to the car together. We had to cross the quiet water of the lagoon to get to the road, and I should have seen the great difference between the way I crossed with a few gliding strokes and the way he inched across very slowly. I told myself that he would catch on with a little more practice.
We went back to Flagstaff and decided to see Goldwater's newly discovered bridge by a different route, down from Point Imperial along the Nankoweap Trail. Dale Slocum wanted to get some good pictures of it, so he joined us on the project. He took us to the North Rim in his Austin. He was to return the same way we were going down while Boyd was coming with me out to the river, along the bank to a quiet stretch where we would cross, and then go out by way of the Tanner Trail.
One mistake was starting as late as 2:30 p.m. from Point Imperial. We had to follow the rim around to the north, but we still didn't see any signs of a trail where we thought one ought to be. This bothered Dale considerably, and he was always stopping to look at his map. He had two gallons of water while Boyd and I had only an afternoon's supply. After protesting Dale's needless delays a few times, I suggested that we part company and that Boyd and I could then perhaps reach water before time to camp. That suited Dale too, so we hurried ahead while he went on studying the map. Later I learned that he spent the night in the woods at a high elevation with his water, heavy photo equipment, and no blanket.
Boyd and I worked around to the north to get down to the saddle at Saddle Mountain. Here we could have studied the map to good advantage ourselves, for then we would have seen that we were supposed to get below the highest part of the Supai right at the saddle. As it was, we followed the Hermit Shale clear out to the east end of Saddle Mountain. This was slow going and darkness caught us here with too little water left in the canteens to let us think about eating much more than a raw carrot.
In the morning we were convinced that we had missed the trail completely, but we found a crack in the Supai where we could climb down to the ridge separating Big Nankoweap from Little Nankoweap Canyons. This climb was not dangerous although in a couple places we had to hand our knapsacks down. We saw traces of the trail at this lower level, but we soon lost it again while we were trying to get down to the creek in Big Nankoweap. Some of the way down the Muav was pretty much of a scramble, but we eventually got to the creek and ate a combined meal consisting of supper and breakfast by 10:00 a.m. on the twenty-fifth.
While we were moving our packs upstream to a place where the creek again had water, marked by a grove of cottonwoods, we passed a peculiar place in the bed where the bottom appeared as smooth as flagstone. We went on without our packs and made good time following the directions Goldwater had given in the Arizona Highways article to head for Mount Hayden and then to turn so as to keep it on one's left. As we approached the Tapeats, we scrambled up where there was a break on the north side and were soon rewarded by a good look at the bridge. This was the third time it had been seen from the ground in historic times, first by Goldwater and his helicopter pilot and next by a ranger who climbed down to the top of the Redwall from Point Imperial. The fourth time was when the Life photographer and his party, including Dale Slocum, got clear below the bridge off Point Imperial using ropes. Dan Davis reported in May, 1956, that a guide has cleared out the Nankoweap Trail so that horses can make the trip. I took color pictures although the bridge was in the afternoon shade. I stretched a string across the span, and when I got home I measured the piece and found that the bridge is 147 feet across and, from the pictures, one might conclude that it is about the same in height. The Life party give the width as 162 feet without saying how their measurement was made.
After a night where we had left the packs, Boyd and I got an early start on the twenty-sixth. It was easy to go down to the river along Nankoweap Creek and we were impressed by the way the broad, open valley gives way to the narrow canyon at the fault line a couple of miles from the river. On a broad rock in the middle of the streambed, there was a distinct trail cairn, probably set there to show where one should leave the bed to take the Fault line Trail. We also noticed the Indian ruin at the top of the talus south of the mouth of Nankoweap Creek. We had the objective of reaching the mouth of the Little Colorado on the other side of the river for our campsite, so we did not climb up to investigate the ruin.
Walking along the bank was not too difficult although the river was high and we were forced to plow through a good many thickets of willow and some mesquite. Before we came to Kwagunt Canyon, we decided to try out the air mattresses. Boyd got along quite well and seemed quite pleased with that method of travel, but we didn't get far from the west bank and were careful to land safely above Kwagunt Rapids. I tried towing him by a short rope we had along, but we could make almost no progress that way, and he remarked that he could see that we were strictly on our own when out on the river. Between Kwagunt and 60 Mile Rapids there was a lot of swift but otherwise untroubled water but we passed up the chance of crossing until we were rather close to the mouth of the Little Colorado River. I should have remembered the slowness with which Boyd crossed the quiet lagoon and we never should have entered the river where the current was 10 miles or so an hour. I also should have had Boyd wait for me while I crossed it two ways before he attempted it.
As it was, however, when we came to a place where an eddy would carry me half way across, I decided to start. Boyd elected to watch my progress. It wasn't good, for the current swept me down a short rapid back to the west side of the river. After I tried some more to paddle to the east bank, I gave it up and landed on the original side. I climbed up on a ledge and tried to signal Boyd not to try it. While I was looking upstream to locate him, I saw him riding swiftly by in the middle of the river. I hurried to join him, but I might never have seen him again except for the fact that he was stopped by a big eddy below the mouth of the Little Colorado. All I could see of him was his mattress in a big roll with his legs locked around one end and his hands gripped around the other. He was first caught by the backwater at the east side, and I cut over there trying to intercept him. I had to be content to follow the current myself but before could I overtake him, the current at the top of the eddy had taken him downstream again but now it threw him into the bigger eddy on the west side of the river. I identified this later as being just upstream from the wash which comes in from the west, north of the place where the TWA plane fell 13 months later. This eddy seemed to be as big as three tennis courts and it was a closed concern. After both of us had gone around a couple of times, I caught up with him. I couldn't get him back on top of his mattress with his pack completely waterlogged, so I had him drop it off. With the help of my hand, he got back on the mattress. He was white from shock but he talked rationally about having very little strength left. I had him hold on to my feet for a time, while I tried to paddle for both of us. It was after sundown, and I was beginning to worry about how long we could take the cold water. We passed within a few feet of a projecting rock in our repeated circuits of the eddy, but the current was always too strong. I should have decided that our best bet was to get into the center curret again and try to land somewhere else. After a time, Boyd let go of my feet, and I thought he had got his strength back and was going to try to paddle himself again. I don't know why I didn't fall in behind him and stay with him, unless I had the idea that if I could make the bank I could throw him a line and pull him in. At any rate, we got quite far apart and for some reason, he was the first to escape from the big eddy. While I was wheeling around for my turn at getting out, I could see him propping up on his elbows in an effort to get his head farther above the water. Then before he disappeared downriver, I could see that he had upset and was lying on the underside of the mattress again and still hadn't learned the trick of holding on to the middle with his feet down and his head up. This was the last I saw of the best hiking friend I have ever had. I followed downstream through the turbulent water where I was holding on to the middle of the mattress making no effort to get back on and paddle because it would have toppled me again very promptly. When it was too dark to see anything at all far away, I began working over to the east bank which was now lined with willows. There was so much water in my knapsack that I found it difficult to get back on the mattress, but I did a few strokes of the scissors kick and was soon climbing out on the bank. My matches were still dry and a fire was easy to get going, but eating anything was another matter. I felt that I should try to keep up my strength for the job of getting out the next morning and telling the story, but falling asleep was difficult. Walking along the bank the next day, I prayed that somewhere I would see a miracle and that Boyd would be waiting for me on the bank; it was all a waking nightmare. At the foot of the Tanner Trail, I dropped off the food I no longer needed and Boyd's as well which I had brought across the river to lighten his pack. I found that a heavy heart is the worst load a person can carry up the trail, but I made it to Joe Lynch's home by five o'clock and told my story. Roma almost fainted when I told her over the phone. Sam drove to Desert View to pick me up. I was no help in the ensuing days because I was sick the night after I got home and was weak for several days after.
After a lecture by the arctic explorer, Steffanson, he was approached by a little old lady who remarked "Your talk was very instructive, but didn't you have any adventures?" The explorer is supposed to have stiffened and replied "Adventures, Madam.! Adventures are a sign of incompetence."
My rambles in the Grand Canyon have been seasoned very slightly by adventures. I usually have a good idea about what will go before I attempt a project. I may not know all about a route, but I've developed a good ability to interpret maps and distant appearances. I want a better than 50% chance of finding a route before I begin the search. An example was my hope to go off the rim of the Grand Canyon west of Atoko Point in order to get into the beds of Kwagunt and Lava Creeks. These areas have interested me ever since Dock Marston told me that an old time miner named Harry McDonald had been seen leading his burros toward the rim on the Walhalla Plateau on his way to his diggings at the mouth of Lava Creek. According to the map and current information, no way was known to get down between the Nankoweap Trail at Saddle Mountain and the Old Bright Angel Canyon Trail.
Marston had suggested the north side of Cape Final as a possible descent route, so I tried that first. Actually, I inspected it from the rim at Naji Point and thought it looked quite good. I could see a big forested ravine that seemed sure from the rim down through more than half of the Coconino, and the lower third of that formation was obscured by forest trees. When I went over to check it, I was not encouraged by a deer trail, and when I got through more than half of the Coconino, I found the lower part possible only by using a 40 foot rappel. This was not a route for McDonald's burros, but on other occasions I used it for a rappel route that saved hours in getting down to the bed of Lava.
I had an agreement to meet a friend at the North Rim Campground in the late afternoon, but there was plenty of time to stop at the viewpoint looking towards the mouth of the Little Colorado River and check the north side of the promontory leading to Atoko Point. I could see a promising break only about one-quarter of a mile from the highway. When I drove back about 1.3 miles and parked near the low point of the road, I acted impulsively and started down the ravine at the very head of Kwagunt Canyon instead of going over to the break I had chosen. This idea worked fairly well in that I got to within 20 feet of the bottom of the Coconino, but I couldn't do the final vertical drop.
It was an effort to backtrack up the dirt filled ravine and get on a deer trail going east. This route led to a viewpoint near the base of the Kaibab that showed me the broad bay where I had hoped to get down. I soon was encouraged by noting a deer trail descending here. To be honest about reporting this route, I had to scramble over some big rocks and down some rock slopes where a loaded burro would have needed some help from a constructed trail. I did get down to the Hermit Shale and found a nice little spring a few yards to the west at the base of the Coconino. That day I didn't have time to go any further. This discovery may not have solved the question concerning McDonald's burros, but it made possible numerous trips down into Lava and Kwagunt Canyons and to the top of Siegfried Pyre.
The road from Pasture Wash Ranger Station direct to Bass Camp seemed too badly washed out to attempt in a car, but I was able to drive to Signal Hill and Havasupai Point. I might have gone on from Signal Hill to Bass Camp by car, but instead I parked there and walked the distance in 35 minutes. There is part of a rock house here, and just under the rim below the house there's some sort of cistern (?) or shelter (apparently artificial, at least in part). Could this have been the cave where G. W. James did his writing? (I later found out that it was not; James study is further to the west.)
Starting down at 10:10 a.m., I was below the Coconino by 10:30. I did not see the altered trail shown on the map which joins the regular trail at the top of the Coconino. Down on the Hermit Shale I lost the trail for a while but found it again by 10:50 a.m. and noted a small pile of fitted rocks which seemed to mark the junction of the trail to the west under Chemehuevi Point. At 11:17 a.m., I was starting down off the terrace at the top of the Supai east of Mountain Huethawali. I had missed the trail on this terrace but found it lower down before rounding the point to double back south to the head of the gorge in the Redwall. The part of the trail down through the Supai was about the most clearly defined of all except possibly the very top part of the trail in the Kaibab. From 11:17 to 11:31 a.m., I was on this stretch and had arrived in the wash below most of the Redwall at an old broken down gate. Brush had grown over the trail pretty badly along here.
From 12:00 to 12:30 p.m., I was eating lunch directly under the cave in the Redwall on the west side of Bass Canyon. I would suppose that this cave is inaccessible unless one were prepared to use some hardware. From here for quite some distance, the trail gets quite far above the wash on the east side. By 1:06 p.m. I was down in the wash again. At 1:20 p.m., I came to the striking folded strata which James called Wheeler Fold. This was about at Bedrock Tanks (which was completely dry) where I made the foolish decision to climb around and up on the east side over a spur instead of finding the easy way down past the tanks and soon out of the wash a little to the east. I could have done this without ever having to waste effort climbing. By 2:10 p.m., I was taking my picture of Bass Rapids, having thus taken four hours in the descent including the half hour for lunch.
The trail went on downriver past Shinumo Rapids, but that was where I turned back and made camp on the sand above Bass Rapids. There was only a little driftwood for fire building, but the site was beautiful and the weather was perfect for my bedroll.
The current above the rapids was very moderate even in the middle of the river, and I paddled upstream on my mattress until I came to a good place for landing on the other side. I took about 55 minutes to walk from there over the hump to Shinumo Creek. I couldn't go any further because it was getting late enough to think about supper. The trip back across the river was even easier.
I started hiking out on Sunday at 7:00 a.m. and was back to the rim at Bass Camp by 2:05 p.m. after taking a half hour out for lunch and an hour and a half to circle Mr. Huethawali. Mystic Spring, which is located one mile north of its supposed position on the Matthes-Evans Map, had been dry a long time to judge by the fact that there were no water-loving plants to be seen anywhere in the vicinity. The wild burros had used the trail recently enough, but the only ones I saw were in the junipers up on the rim.
The only sign of fairly recent use was a couple of new looking tin cans near the top of the Supai where the trail is about to leave the plateau. Perhaps that was as far as the hikers went. Some very rusty cans were set up apparently as trail signs lower down. One thing of interest was the sheet iron boat high on the rocks at about the high water line near the rapids. It still had two pairs of oars and numerous empty oil cans inside for buoyancy. Incidentally, one of the striking features of this part of the river is the narrowness of the channel and the resulting waterline which stands possible 40 feet higher than the low water level.
On Sunday with Allyn Cureton and Don Finicum, I doubled back up the South Bass Trail and climbed up to the Tonto Trail missing any established trail for some of the way. When we came to Copper Canyon, we timed ourselves at an hour to get clear around it. We turned back when we came to the next deep bay (which Allyn and I timed in December at 35 minutes) and dropped down into Copper Canyon where we found the mine with plenty of water in the vertical shaft. We then came to a trail which went towards the river but we left it to skirt the cliff upriver. We had to do some scrambling to get back on the river trail rather high up, but from there it was easy to go back to the sandbar above Bass Rapids.
Allyn went with me on this trip. We drove the car clear to Bass Camp by the direct route, but on the way back to town damaged the oil pan. We spent the first night at the Copper Mine. On the second night we went to Elves Chasm and back to the next wash upriver. Garnet Canyon water was salty, but the next creek downriver was even more salty. On the third night, we were back at Bass Rapids. We spent the fourth night in the barn at the Pasture Wash Ranger Station. The trail down to the mine from the east drops below the rim right at the little fall. Allyn found a narrow strip of tinfoil in Garnet canyon. I believe it was from an airplane. With a real early start and a light pack, I believe one could walk from Bass Camp to Elves Chasm in one day. (four and a half hours to Copper Canyon and six hours more to Elves Chasm.)
I got an early start from Flagstaff but I needn't have. When I reached Hermit's Rest, it was snowing hard and the ground was soon white. I waited until 9:40 a.m. before I decided that the weather was going to be tolerable for an extended walk. A few more snow showers fell for the next hour, but by the time I reached the Dripping Springs Trail, the weather was looking up. Dan Davis had really dashed any hopes that I might have had about the Boucher Trail. He said that it was less visible than the Old Hance Trail, which is only existent for a quarter of a mile or so through its whole extent. He said that the only fairly easy walking was right on the edge of the cliff, and that after so long a time, it became quite nerve wracking. It seems to me that he must have had a poor day of trail finding, because I'm sure that I was on the trail 95% of the time, and very seldom was I even close to the edge. The trail was usually from fifty feet to one hundred and fifty feet from the top of the Supai cliff. It was at least as easy to follow as the Tonto Trail and I would rate it decidedly better preserved than the New Hance Trail and not to be compared with the Old Hance Trail. For long stretches, one could walk along at a good clip with no hesitations about being on the trail. I noted about 10 cairns along the way.
It is essential to have a map along when it comes to descending the Supai. One part of the trail has fallen away making it impossible for a horse. I missed a piece of the trail here by not swinging left immediately after the first cliff had been passed. In fact the whole trail through the Supai is the hard part to follow. There is quite a bit of choice in getting down to the top of the Redwall after the Supai has been passed. Just below the top of the Supai, there is a convenient overhang where I ate lunch during the heaviest snow shower (the last shower).
The descent through the Redwall is most interesting. t hardly seems possible that anything better than hand and toe holds could be constructed down a place so steep, but there are actually short switchbacks all the way down. Some of the trail has fallen away, but it would be easy for a wild burro. Below the Redwall, the trail is hard to see, and I missed it for some distance. I feel sure that if I went over it from the bottom up, I would be able to locate much more than I did. For that matter, I missed a long stretch of the Tanner Trail the first time I tried it. As proof that the Boucher Trail is still in reasonably good shape, I cite the fact that it took me only five hours and 10 minutes to get from the car to Boucher Camp, carrying a full pack and a half gallon of water. It took 25 more minutes to go down to the river. In view of the distance on the map, the rate of travel compares favorably with that on other trails. I a.m. sure that one could get from Boucher Rapids to Hermit's Rest quicker by the Boucher Trail than by going first to Hermit Camp via the Tonto Trail and then up the Hermit Trail. However, a map would be more necessary along the Boucher Trail.
Two Park Service sleeping bags are suspended from a wire inside the old roofless stone cabin that is all that is left of Boucher's Camp, just as Dan had said. It is so small that when Louis entertained his guests, they must have slept in their own tents. (However, three men have slept inside the cabin at one time.) It seemed about big enough to hold a cot, a small table, and a chair. Dan didn't pinpoint the location very well when he said it was right at the junction of the Tonto Trail and the Boucher Trail. A better way to locate it is to say that it is only a few yards away from the junction with Boucher Creek, which incidentally has a permanent spring a little higher up. This spring had gone underground before it reached the cabin, and the creek was flowing on the surface. In September, 1954, Boucher Creek was dry clear to the river, but now it appears and disappears until about a half mile from the river where it flows continuously. It may well be a permanent stream higher than the cabin also. South of the cabin on the same side of the creek, there were signs of terracing and one very small rock building, roofless now, that might have been for chickens or a hog. There definitely was no sign of a Camp at the junction of Topaz and Boucher Canyons. Judging by my rate of walking, I would estimate the distance from the Camp to the river as being between one and one and a half miles. The river was already running a good flow, and the rapid looked considerably more impressive than Sockdolager was just a few weeks ago. While climbing around to take a picture, I looked upstream to check the desirability of going back to Hermit Rapids along the bank. It seems doubtful that this would be faster than going up and over the Tonto Trail. The mine shaft is there as reported. In fact it is only about fifty yards from the cabin north across the wash. The shaft only goes in about 40 feet. I'm not a good enough miner to state whether Boucher had copper there or was just taking a shot in the dark. It makes a nice cave to get out of the weather, and I slept warmer just a little way in than I would have under the sky.
Going from Boucher to Bass Canyons is quite a lot better right after a rain. There are water pockets near where the trail crosses Slate Canyon, Sapphire Canyon, in a tributary about halfway to Turquoise Canyon, at a nameless ravine just east of Ruby Canyon and in Ruby Canyon itself. In addition there was running water just a little above where the Tonto Trail crosses Slate Canyon and right where it crosses Serpentine Canyon. The flow was meager so they may well dry up in the summer. There are many burros in this whole area, so there may be small seeps higher near the base of the Redwall, but the burros may well go to the river itself for water when necessary. I looked as well as I could from several places, and I think that a person would have no difficulty going down Ruby and Serpentine Canyons all the way to the river. I carried a full gallon of water at all times across this stretch, but on the day after a rain, this is unnecessary. The pockets at Ruby Canyon were big enough for a bath which I proceeded to take. The total walking time from Boucher Creek to Ruby Canyon was 10 hours, and from Ruby to the Bass Trail four more hours. My estimate would be 35 miles for the whole stretch. There were many places that would be hard for a pack animal, but I don't think the trail was ever much better at these places, so I suppose stock could be taken through still. There was only one place, at the head of the canyon just east of Serpentine, which was clearly man-made. This was a short stretch of retaining wall. I missed the trail many times but there was no embarrassment, but on nearing the head of Serpentine, I should have dropped below the top ledge of the Tapeats somewhat back from the end.
All in all, this was a fine time of year for the trip with an abundance of flowers and birds. I avoided the possibility of rain at night by putting my air mattress under an overhang at Ruby. It was unseasonably cold on the rim at Pasture Wash, and on Sunday I walked back to the car at Hermits Rest just ahead of another snow storm.
Allyn and I had a little difficulty keeping our feet under us while crossing Bright Angel Creek in its high stage. The high water is due to the melting snow from the North Rim. We carried rocks for ballast. Phantom Creek was also high and we had to wade constantly instead of hopping across it. By lunch time (45 minutes upstream.), we were almost to the place where the engineers have now fixed a cable to assist in climbing around to the left of a small fall. About an hour and forty-five minutes later, we came to the pleasant surprise of an aluminum ladder at the fall in the Tapeats Formation. This fall is northeast of Cheops Pyramid. The isolated woods on the north of the canyon is just below Sturdevant Point. There must be a spring there. 45 minutes from the fall to the mouth of Haunted Canyon and an hour more to the split in Phantom. About a quarter of a mile northwest of the fall is the only overhang we saw in the whole area of the upper valley. A very rusty can and a low rock wall show that it was used as a Camp possibly twenty or more years ago. The real mystery was the cow chips we noted. How did anyone bring a cow in there? Later I found our how. By a horse trail that leaves the North Kaibab Trail about a mile downstream from Ribbon Falls (McKee and Davis). At one other place we noticed some old burro manure, but not enough to indicate the presence of any wild burros in there for a considerable time.
We turned at the angle in Phantom Canyon and followed the creekbed for almost an hour into the Redwall (43 minutes to come back to the packs at the angle). There was an interesting chute at the top of the Bright Angel Shale and two rather impressive falls higher up. We were finally stopped at a place where the high water took all the room. It was a sharp turn in a very narrow part of the canyon so that we couldn't see whether there was a high fall beyond. The canyon was very narrow and dark here, similar to the box at Ouray, Colorado. In low water in the fall, one might go higher and see what is around the corner.
The almost dry branch which goes on to the base of Shiva Temple also splits in a manner not shown very clearly on the map. Instead of tapering down to a narrow slit, they turn into large rounded overhangs which would have beautiful waterfalls in wet weather. The one on the west would give a fall of at least around 250 feet. A little to the south, there is a narrow slit tributary which cannot be climbed even when dry, but between the big dry fall and this slit, there's a talus slope which goes high up on the Redwall. I believe the rest of the cliff can be climbed here by working first to the south and then following a ledge with some green growing on it up and to the north into the notch above the big fall. In one long day, one might climb Shiva Temple and return here.
In going back to Bright Angel Creek, we chose to follow a deer path which went up and over the blunt ridge east of Cheops. We crossed to the south of a shallow valley which was mostly bare red rock and came out in view of Phantom Ranch. Instead of going down to the river where the telephone line crossed, we found a rock cairn indicating an old trail through a break in the Tapeats cliff. Getting through here involved scrambling down over some rather large blocks so we still didn't think we had found the way that the cow had followed to the upper valley. There was another marker down at a saddle in the Archean rocks which directed us to Bright Angel Canyon itself. It was a steep and rather scree covered slope down to the north end of the campground, but the return was about an hour shorter than it would have been if we had come out the way we went in (up the bed of Phantom Creek). Furthermore, the views were most interesting and we ran into acres of beautiful, flowering cacti (Mariposa tulips and Indian paintbrush). Remember the Indian cave lookout above the spring halfway up Haunted Canyon? Also, Boyd and I tried to climb the Redwall at the end of Haunted Canyon. I very nearly succeeded, but one place about eight feet long seemed a bit too risky. If I had crossed that, I'm pretty sure that I would have been able to do the rest. We found penciled names in the little cave above the spring that's the source for Haunted Creek. (Mr. McKee tells me that horse parties used to go into Upper Phantom Canyon by getting above the Tapeats at or near Ribbon Falls and following the bench along the base of the Redwall. They mentioned the lone steer of Phantom Creek.)
Dale Hall and I walked down to the Bright Angel Campground between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. Friday evening. I got off fairly early by myself Saturday morning to see about the horse trail to Phantom Canyon. It started just where I had figured it did, about a mile south of Ribbon Falls where the valley opens out. There were several cairns along here although I missed the trail, if any, more than I found it. I began to feel pretty sickish from the heat by eleven and it took me from 8:00 a.m. until after 1:00 p.m. to get from Bright Angel Creek to Phantom Creek. Heading the canyons and gulches is time consuming, but in cool weather it wouldn't have taken nearly so long.
I found two cane beds with a trickle of water coming out of the larger one directly below Johnson Point. The bigger oasis below Sturdevant Point has a most luxurious appearance with big cottonwoods, but I couldn't see any water on the surface.
I was so pooped that I sat in Phantom Creek quite a while and then took my time preparing some soup and then eating it. The end of the trail doesn't show much as it gets down near the creekbed of Phantom. I think it has gone by way of scree slides, but it is near the overhang with the can and cow chips.
When I started on, I moved about as fast as Allyn and I had done in cool weather, but I did rest some while sitting in the creek water. It took just 45 minutes again to get from the fork to the final box at the end of Phantom Canyon. The bed was dry this time, and it was easier walking. There was a trickle of water in the shale chute at the lower end of this branch, but the Redwall was dry where we turned back before. I was able to walk up the ramp and around the corner where I saw exactly what I had guessed I would, an impassible fall in two steps. At the top was a big chockblock. The grotto was about 30 feet across at the bottom, but higher up the canyon it appeared to be only half that wide. From most of the bottom you couldn't see any sky at all. A couple of points of interest you encounter in going up this branch besides the falls are spots where the creek runs under rocks which have fallen together in such a way as to form natural arches. There is a long vertical slit cave on the right as you go along which is inaccessible. One point that I think I can settle from my observations here is about deer trails. I had been wondering whether a well established trail always means a through street. The answer is negative. There is a well established trail around one fall in Upper Phantom Canyon, and only about twelve minutes walk farther up everything without wings is completely stopped.
On Sunday morning I got off before six feeling full of pep again and went down to the vicinity of my arrival the day before. I started up the slope with the intention of crossing on top of the Muav Wall from the base of Isis to the base of Cheops. I had started up either too soon or too late to do this, and I wasted almost an hour going up and then returning to the creekbed. The next time I started up, I was doing it the way Allyn and I had gone up towards the saddle east of Cheops. I had forgotten exactly where it takes off, but it is definitely west of the head of the fall in the creek where the ladder is fixed.
After passing a couple of ravines on the deer trail, I headed up to the base of the Redwall at the northwest corner of Cheops. I left my pack at about the level of the saddle that I would use on the way back, and headed up towards the top with only my canteen which I had left behind at the very base of the Redwall.
There is very little chance to miss the way up or down this approach ridge. At times it looks a bit impossible, but when you get closer to the bad spots, there are good holds. Plenty of the rock is rotten which requires considerable vigilance. I don't think I have been up anywhere before so continuously exposed and airy. Sometimes the ridge seemed only about six feet wide with 300 foot drops on both sides. I put up two or three cairns to guide me back in the best places. I would say that this involves more risk than Shiva Temple. One interesting feature is the natural window right where the ridge joins the very top of the Redwall.
I was on top about a half hour and got some pictures, all overexposed, up and down the river and one good one of the pyramid to the south which surely looks sharp from this direction It was a thrill which I may never repeat, but there are a lot of other possible buttes in the Grand Canyon. I noticed that it took an hour and 40 minutes to reach the top after I left the bed of Phantom Creek. The ridge itself took me a half hour going up and the same to come down. To get back to Bright Angel Creek, I followed the same old trail Allyn and I had discovered, but this time the rocks were so hot that I couldn't make good time at all. I ended the trip to the creek with a dry canteen and was glad to sit in the water again. After some swimming in the pool at Phantom Ranch and eating at the campground, I got going up the Kaibab Trail at 2:45 p.m. and got to the car at 7:30 p.m., an indication that my hiking is slowed down badly in the heat.
At the head of the short canyon just west of Sturdevant Point, it looked as though one could climb up through the Redwall. Then one might follow the top of the Redwall around above Haunted Canyon and eventually up to Widforss or Tiyo Point.
Allyn Cureton and I visited Dan Davis and talked trails on Friday evening, May 24, 1957. He advised us against trying the road to Topocoba Hilltop because of mud, so the next morning we drove around to Hualapai Hilltop and started down the trail by 12:15 p.m. We reached the creek in two hours and started up the long trail immediately. When we arrived at the last level ground below the spring, we set up camp. We were both more nearly exhausted from the heat and the heavy pack when we arrived at 6:30 p.m. than at any other time of the trip. We noted that the two springs in Lee Canyon, one a little above the mouth of Rattlesnake Canyon and the other about halfway from there to Topocoba Hilltop, were flowing very well. We took a cooling bath in the first one in a very fair sized natural bathtub.
The next morning we got an early start and were in fine shape again. I want to ask someone about the old road that was partly built up towards the ravine which comes down from the draw at the beginning of the trail. Perhaps a mining company was trying to put a road clear to Supai. They must have been intending to build quite a trestle across the sheer cliff up into the notch. We had already noticed one section of roadway farther down the canyon. The grade is so steep at the upper end that they must have been thinking in terms of horse drawn wagons or Jeeps, but of course this was done before the time of the Jeep.
We noticed that the rain barrel by the hilltop warehouse is still effective with a good sheet of screening to keep the bugs out of the water. We left the road directly up the faint trail to the north and made our way cross country past the telephone line to Supai and on to the road leading north. We saw where this road branches; the main part turning to the west and the other continuing north along the east rim of the plateau for a good part of the way. The views east as far as Desert View and also down to the river are terrific. If there were a good road along here, it would be a tourist must. It is easy to see why the trail along the Esplanade ends at Forster Canyon. There are impassible slopes in the Hermit Shale. The rim along here is particularly unbroken by ravines, the drainage being to the west right up to the east rim. There are some interesting sinkholes near the rim however. We noted tire tracks from some truck far beyond where the actual road gives out and becomes a trail. We reached the head of the Great Thumb Trail about 5:00 p.m. Finding the little spring at the bottom was rather difficult as the one cottonwood tree growing there is practically hidden by the steep side of the ravine. The flow is so little that it just about stops completely in the heat of the day. There was a shovel under an overhang so that one could clean out the sandy pocket where the water collects. On Monday we started on to round Gatagama Point. We noted at least two places where one could climb back up to the rim in the general area of the spring. There was a little water left in pockets from the rain on the previous Friday, but most of them were dry by this time, and we began to discount the possibility of getting all the water we might want anywhere we looked. The going soon became very tedious although the views in this wonderland of rocks were correspondingly striking with lots of mushroom racks and other fantastic formations. We didn't investigate the possibility of going down the fault into the west arm of 140 Mile Canyon because we could already see that our time was running short. By noon, we had come to the seep spring in the east arm of Olo Canyon, but it was pure luck that we saw it at all. By 2:00 p.m., we could see that we would not get to Supai in one more day, so in order not to miss Jim's commencement, we took what might have been our last chance to climb out to the rim. It was very hot so our progress up the talus above the Coconino was slow, but we found a very good deer trail on the slope above the lowest part of the Toroweap and followed it east to a draw in the Kaibab. Just as we thought we were about out, we came to a vertical cliff in the middle of the draw with what seemed like impossible sides. However, I saw one possibility, and Allyn found a better one right near it. After we passed this with some difficulty, we just had to hike on to get to the top of the plateau. The deer must be able to negotiate this place, but I would like to see them do it. It must require some fancy hopping. We were carrying enough water to take us through a normal supper, but we hiked on until dark before bedding down.
Tuesday morning as I was reading before 5:00 a.m. and about to wake Allyn, I caught a flash of light out of the corner of my eye in the direction of Yucca Flat. When I told Allyn, he said that we would probably hear the explosion of an atomic bomb about 21 minutes after the flash and we did. In fact we got two reports. We didn't try to eat breakfast there, but in two hours of walking on an empty stomach, we got to the warehouse with the plentiful supply of rain water. We were able to go down the long trail and up the short arriving at the car by a bit after 5:30 p.m. It was furnace like in Havasu Canyon, but we found a breezy, shady, side canyon where we ate lunch in the shade and had the luxury of actually shivering a bit when the wind came through. We figured that we had walked about 90 miles in three and a half days.
We got to the North Rim and ate lunch in the campground. After dropping in at the Administration Building, we drove as far out the Tiyo Point road as we could. In fact, we bypassed three fallen trees by end runs through the woods for short distances. Finally, we were completely stopped about four miles from the point. We walked to the end of the road and studied the view of the route to Shiva. Then we found a pool of stagnant water and prepared to Camp. The mosquitoes soon convinced us that it wasn't a good place, so we went back to the rolling meadow near the clear stream in the basin. Here we didn't notice mosquitoes until late afternoon, and they gave us no trouble when it got quite cold at night.
In leaving the road to turn the car around, I misjudged the nature of the ground and got completely mired. We worked with the jack putting on chains and putting rocks and wood under the wheels for a couple of hours that evening and about three more hours the next morning, but we were finally convinced that we would have to have help. By the time I walked into the village and got a ranger to help us, which he did quite easily with a Jeep, it was after noon. We spent the rest of the day trying to go down the canyon just east of Tiyo Point, and found that it was impossible to get through the lowest part of the Coconino Sandstone. Then we came back up to the road by a direct route and went out the faint road marked with yellow diamond shaped tin markers which was labeled Shiva Xp Pt, presumably meaning Shiva Expedition Point. It seemed to end far back from the rim and it also seemed to be going too far to the west. From the double diamond which seemed to mark the end, we walked southeast past a couple of tributary ravines and came to a point which seemed like an excellent place to leave the rim on the way to Shiva Temple. After making sure that we could get below the Kaibab Limestone here, we walked back on the level and encountered Shiva Xp road just a little way from its junction with the Tiyo Point road. We marked it and returned to the car and our campsite in the basin. An interesting feature of the basin was the prevalence of turkeys and also the noisy coyotes that were quite near us the first night. Another circumstance was the heavy frost on our bedrolls by morning. I was very glad to have two sleeping bags along.
We got off early Saturday morning and left the car by 6:20 a.m. The point of departure from the rim was just east of the draw whose west side extends into the ridge which points out towards the saddle leading to Shiva. We followed a deer trail a bit to the east below the highest part of the Kaibab and then went down a gully in the Coconino. After some floundering on the steep Hermit Shale, we followed a deer trail and made good progress towards the saddle. This deer trail is rather high just under the Coconino cliff most of the way.
On the first big clearing of the saddle, we parked the gallon canteen under a tree and went on with two quarts for both of us. Just south of a small hump which separates the saddle into two sections, we found a large mescal pit or yant oven. There is some pretty bad manzanita on the east part of the saddle which we had to buck on our way to Shiva and avoided rather well on the way back. We knew from reading and our own observations where to go up the shale to the sandstone on the east side of the northern projection. On the sandstone, we went south for about a 100 yards and started up in earnest. The way up is rather difficult at times, requiring some chimney climbing of a rather easy type. That is, the chimney work is for only short stretches of say six or eight feet at a time. The peculiar part is that there always seems as if there might be a dead end around the next corner. At one place I took the precaution of building a marker, and I was glad I had when we were coming down. The toughest place for me was a crevice I had to inch my way up near the top of the Coconino. There was an artificial pile of flat rocks for a step at the top of the crevice. Allyn helped me here by climbing up and stepping across above a large plant. He yanked it out of my way and I was able to proceed. Above the sandstone, we went to the west and up to the rim by a well established deer trail. The trail was not defined right to the head of this route through the sandstone, but one wonders whether the deer can go down where we came up. If they can drop about straight down for eight or ten feet and land on a three foot ledge, they could make it, but I can't imagine them going up this way. For about three extra miles, one could go around to the southwest corner where there is a simple rock slide over the Coconino and then a deer could come back to the same break in the Kaibab that we and the other parties have used.
We reached the top of Shiva in three hours and ten minutes from the time that we left the north rim. We found a sort of lean-to and three milk cans which had been used to air drop water right where we came over the rim. We also found an old wooden frame that was probably used for a work table. We crossed to the south side and ate lunch looking towards Boucher Canyon. We inspected the southeast corner and couldn't see any sign of a cairn that Kolb said he had built on each corner. We did see the broken milk can which had come loose from the parachute, and we saw plenty of deer signs including antlers. In fact the antlers seemed more plentiful than they do in comparable areas on the two rims.
After spending two hours on the Temple, we started back and got to the point of departure in two hours and 45 minutes. This time we climbed the Coconino at the end of the point which is directly above the saddle. It's shorter that way and we could have done even better if we had stayed on a deer trail on the east side of the ridge instead of going up on the top of the ridge. It seems hardly possible that the experts in 1937 could have taken one day to get down on the saddle and another half day to get to the top of Shiva. The four mile approach to the rim and the corresponding return to the car at its end are the only things that keep this from being a simple day hike for anyone in our hiking club. The official party had the downed timber cut away so that it could reach the rim by car. We found a V-8 hubcap in the woods on the way to our point, but I can tell from a picture in Natural History that they started from a point some distance to the west.
Otis Marston had the note that Charles McCormick had met Harry McDonald, the miner who had shafts near the mouth of Lava Creek, with his two burros somewhere on Greenland (Walhalla) Plateau. However, no one seemed to know anything definite about the location of any sort of trail south of the Nankoweap Trail.
Some friends and I walked out to Point Atoko and followed the rim to Naji Point with the objective of studying the north side of Cape Final where we thought the trail ought to be. We saw a considerable break in the Coconino near the end of Cape Final, and there is also considerable faulting in the Redwall east of the point. This seemed to be the best bet. The next day, I went out there by myself to investigate. The Kaibab was no obstacle, and I made good progress down the Coconino, although there were a couple of places where trail construction would be necessary before burros could make it. Just as I was beginning to feel smug, I found that the bottom of the Coconino consisted of a 60 foot sheer cliff, so I had to admit defeat.
As there was still quite a bit of time, I parked at the viewpoint called Two Rivers Junction and did a bit of looking. On the north side of the promontory leading out to Point Atoko, there seemed to be some promising breaks in the Coconino. I walked along the rim to the ravine at the base of this promontory and found that I could have parked very close to this place. First I went down the main ravine and got to within about 25 feet of the bottom of the Coconino, but from there it was sheer. I then climbed to the top of the Coconino and proceeded east a few hundred yards. Here was my last chance for the day, because I said I would be back to camp rather early, and I didn't want to worry anyone by staying out too late. This time everything went smoothly. There was an obvious deer track clear to the bottom, and a burro could have done this ravine with no improvement, unless one would like to cut a bit of brush. Furthermore, from Cape Final I could see that there is a very promising break in the Redwall just west of Hubbell Butte. This ought to provide a trail into Lava Creek, although I'll have to walk down here before I'll know that I can.
This trip was taken with Dale Hall, and the principal objective was to reach the source of Tapeats Creek (not of course to be confused with Thunder Spring) and visit the cave which Don Finicum had found.
We arrived by car at the rim from Big Saddle Camp in time to eat our lunch. Not much farther on the way to Crazy Jug Point, the car wouldn't pull up the rough, washed out road and we took off on foot.
I didn't know where the break in the Coconino was, and we used a little extra time finding it. However, we worked west from where we went down the Kaibab, and this was right. We not only found a possible place to get through the Coconino, but we found the trail itself. A bit lower, we lost the trail again, probably by going west too soon. Then we found it for a while, and lost it once more, this time probably by going too far south towards the outer side of the Esplanade. After quite a bit of scrambling, we got to the main trail just about where it drops into the little defile above Surprise Valley. The rest of the way to the campsite was without incident. The total time from the rim to the Camp was four hours and 50 minutes. Dale Hall appreciated a cooking pan that he found at the cache of supplies. He had an $18.00 kit of dried food but not a utensil for cooking. He also located a line and a fishhook, but was unable to catch a single fish.
On Tuesday, after a night during which I was a bit cold in my one cotton blanket and Dale was a bit sore from sleeping on a concave but not very smooth rock, we started off for the source of Tapeats Creek. I followed a plan that I had made before. We went up the trail until the way leaves the stream about a third of the distance up to Thunder Spring. Crossing there, we had a bit of a rock climb to get around the Tapeats, which Dale thought was a bit risky towards the top.
At the top, I decided to do my hiking in the coolest possible costume, my underwear shorts. As I was folding my trousers up to put away in my knapsack, my watch slipped out and rolled over the ledge and only stopped when it was about 60 feet and a couple of bruising bumps lower down. It was a pleasant surprise for me to find it still running when I came back that afternoon. We left a rock marker at the top of this climb, and it really helped when we came back the same way.
At the level where we found ourselves, the going looked a bit bad with plenty of little gullies in the way, so we climbed through most of the Muav and went along rather close to the Redwall until we could see the springs below us. Near the end, we had to go lower because there were plenty of rough gullies at our level. I would guess that it took us around two hours to complete this travel by contours, and it appealed to us as being a lot easier than fighting our way upstream through cold and swift water.
We saw one place where a person might swear that there was a bit of artificial rock building for a trail. After considering it for some time, however, and looking at the surroundings, we decided that it was just a coincidence. Perhaps the same sort of thing got Lauritzen started on his speculation about the Spaniards and their gold train. We saw no deer signs along this upper level, but when we returned, we followed the lower level, just above the Tapeats and were on a deer trail a good part of the time.
The water from the spring flows south, and then when it reaches the main canyon, which is usually dry, it turns west until it turns south again just before it is joined by the water from Thunder Spring. The first north-south section seems quite a bit shorter than the next west-flowing part of the creek. It is also much steeper, about half the grade of the creek below Thunder Spring. This point is not brought out in Lauritzen's description, nor does the water issue quietly from a depression in an amphitheater which can only be entered so he says, from the tunnel-like streambed. The springs are in a jumble of rocks at the base of the Redwall, or rather a little lower in the Muav. The whole area is overgrown with verdure, trees, vines, moss, and ferns. The rocks as big as rooms, have fallen from above and make travel through this area quite a problem. The actual springs in the Muav are pretty well obscured by all the small rocks and the side valley itself is a V-shape both in horizontal cross-section as sell as vertically.
The cave, which quite clearly used to be the main outlet for the water, is above and to the northeast of the spring area. For 60 feet, the mouth is quite wide, about 35 feet by 10 feet high. There is an upper branch beyond this, but the main arm goes left at a lower level. This one is quite straight for a hundred yards and had a pool covering most of the floor. During both nights, Dale was slightly bothered by the mice. In fact, one took a nip at his ear the first night and some of the food sacks had been nibbled at. The temperature was about right for my cotton blanket the second night, quite a contrast to the night I spent at Shinumo Creek about one week before, when I lay on top of the bag and perspired until 11:00 p.m. with only my shorts on.
We made the trip back to the car with a little more use of the trail in about five hours and 20 minutes. Dale was definitely a stronger hiker at the end than I was.
Seven miles on the Point Sublime road to W4, and then 14 more to Swamp Point. In one meadow, a big rattlesnake crossed the road just in front of the car. I just saw the fat body. I backed up and looked, but the wheels had missed it.
I noticed the tree ladder lookout on Swamp Ridge and climbed it. I couldn't see the Canyon but the cliffs in Utah were in plain sight.
From Swamp Point, Steamboat Mountain is a striking feature to the west. Crazy Jug Point, near Big Saddle, is also a prominent landmark. I took pictures of Steamboat and Point Sublime. The trail over to Powell Plateau is still in fine shape although on the way south from the saddle there is a spot for a few yards where it is a bit overgrown. From something the ranger said, I inferred that this was improved by the CCC. There is a frame cabin with stovepipe and glass windows just west of the saddle. One window was broken and can be unhooked so that a person can enter the cabin.
The trail across the plateau is marked by yellow metal blazes to show the most nearly level route to traverse the length. The markers are a bit too far apart, but the walking is easy. There were plenty of deer visible, and one buck had about the biggest spread of antlers I've ever seen. A coyote stood and watched me at about 100 feet range, and only ran when I was just ready to take a picture.
I missed Dutton Point by going a bit too far west and reached the rim above Hakatai Canyon. I followed the rim to a big recouple at the head of Waltenberg Canyon. Wheeler Point looked tempting, but by the time I had reached a place to cross Dutton Canyon, it was 5:00 p.m . Since it would take until dark to reach the car, I started back. On the way, I traveled more directly, but it would have been very slow and uncertain on a cloudy night. It was just cool enough for my Dacron bag by the car, and the one mosquito didn't bother me for very long.
I was on my way down the North Bass Trail by 7:05 a.m. on the 18th.It took a little over an hour to see Powell Spring and return to the trail. There is an old trail, wide but badly overgrown in places, which in general follows the bottom of the ravine towards Powell Spring. Maybe it went beyond the spring, something that is not clear now. The lowest pool from the spring is up Grass Canyon a few yards from the bottom of the ravine which eventually becomes Tapeats Canyon.
The trail from the saddle east going just below the Coconino is still good as far as an unnamed seep spring which is only about ten minutes walk from the saddle. A chimney is all that is left of a rock cabin just east of the seep. As the rock work has no adobe mortar, it must be the construction of a white man.
The trail seems to go on east, but soon splits into two deer trails. I decided I should back up to a steep ridge west of the spring and then head downhill. Most of the way down, I just followed any handy gully to avoid the brush, At the lower part of the slope to the open wash below, I was on a narrow ridge which had an obvious trail down it. The gulch just east of this ridge had a nice little stream flowing down it, but the water went underground just before it came to the main wash which comes out of the east side from Powell Plateau. This is evidently where the Bass Party camped on the way to Point Sublime. It is strange that the main wash from the west should have gone farther east from the spring below the Coconino and cut back across the running stream. There is a recouple marker where the trail comes off the ridge into the wash, and farther on I saw the bench mark at elevation 5697 feet set in a rock on the west side of the wash. This observation was accidental because I missed it when I was coming back. It took me over an hour to get from the bottom of the Coconino down to the bed of the wash. There must be a faster way!
The travel is easy down the wash through the rest of the Supai. This formation is definitely arched down from Powell Plateau into Muav Canyon. This is the only place that I've seen the Supai bent.
There is no chance of missing the place where the trail leaves the wash at the beginning of the Redwall, because here the bottom drops out. I soon missed the trail in the junipers by going too far away from the edge and thus missed seeing a natural bridge just a 100 yards or so from where the trail leaves the wash. On the way back, however, I saw it and took three pictures of it. It's not much to get excited about, just a hole in the red limestone about 50 feet in span in the Redwall where it comes out on the canyon wall. You next go behind about three or four promontories of Redwall which are higher next to the canyon than they are to the west. The trail goes down the north side of the last of the series. I overshot and had to study the map and backtrack. You go south on a ledge below the promontory and then down a brushy slope first north and then south to the creek bed. There is a shallow cave near the trail just before you reach the ledge and several inaccessible caves near the top of the Redwall across the canyon. Another small one was noted nearly in the center of the ravine where the trail goes down to the ledge.
Before you reach the Muav Formation, there is running water for half a mile or so. This was where Clubb and Schwartz made camp after coming all day from the nearest place on the Shinumo, not a very long day's run. I had a late lunch here and started on after a cooling bath about 2:00 p.m. There were better bathtubs a bit lower where the Muav starts. Except for one short detour where there is a short fall in the Muav, you keep to the wash until the Tapeats makes another forbidding canyon. Burro signs are obvious here, and are found as high as the cave near the top of the Redwall. Although I heard some braying lower down, the only burro I saw was on the steep slope below the Redwall where the trail comes down.
When you finally see Shinumo Creek below you, you can follow the map across a shale slope to the southwest and then descend when you come to a barrier cliff. Or, as I found on the return, you can go down a well established burro trail that goes through a break in the Tapeats rather near the bench mark. This follows the crest of a ridge that goes down quite a bit more directly.
The heat below the Redwall was pretty bad. Rocks in the shade felt quite a bit hotter than body temperature. The cold water of Shinumo was a relief. Ants were all over the ground and when I hung my knapsack in a mesquite tree, tiny ants got into about everything. I arrived at 5:00 p.m. after taking over an hour to see Powell Spring. This made the trip down take about eight hours and 45 minutes overall. After cooling off a bit, I went on down and saw Bass' Camp and Shinumo Gardens. This flat impressed me as much better farm land than anything Boucher had. In fact, it seems to me that it is about the most inviting place to irrigate and grow things of all the possibilities in the entire Grand Canyon. It was just a bit farther to the trail that I had covered last October. I got back to my pack by 6:30 p.m.
On the way up, progress was smooth except at the very beginning and again at the very end. It was still only 5:30 a.m., and in the dim light, I couldn't locate the trail I had come down. I had to descend and go up the burro trail along the ridge. Also at the end, I did not recognize the significance of the trail cairn telling me to leave the wash and start up the ridge to the Coconino. Instead I went up the main wash towards Powell Plateau and had to fight manzanita for a good hour to get over to the saddle.
Roma went with Don Finicum, Allyn Cureton, and me to the head of the Grandview Trail. She toured the rim while we started down the trail at 8:45 a.m.. We went out to the trail off Horseshoe Mesa near the end of the west spur and then across the Tonto to the edge of the inner gorge where Cottonwood Canyon meets the Tonto Platform. The boys agreed that the view downriver from there is about the finest they have ever seen of the gorge.
We then backed up and went down into Cottonwood Canyon via the ravine on the east side which is just south of the edge of the gorge. There is no difficulty in reaching the bottom of Cottonwood here, but before you have gone very far down the main wash, you come to a series of barrier falls. We backed up a few steps and then climbed out of the wash to the west. At the small saddle we found a very old rusted tin can and considered this a good indication that we were on the historic Grandview Trail. After descending a short distance, however, we found that the way down below the falls was barred completely by cliffs and we had to work our way much higher before we could finally descend. We found a slightly risky way to climb past some granite pinnacles and then we were able to get down without further trouble.
At the bottom, we went back up the wash to view the lowest of the dry falls which had stopped us. These drops seemed to be fewer and considerably higher than the corresponding barriers in Hance Creek. The lowest one seemed to be about 60 feet high. Perhaps they had fixed ropes and rope ladders to get by these falls, although I rather doubt it in view of the height. There were pools deep enough for a float below the falls. It was only a matter of minutes to walk from here to the river. It seemed even farther directly down to the water than I had remembered it from my previous trip, probably 50 or 60 feet almost straight down.
We ate our lunch in the shade of the rocks just a few feet back from the river and were pleasantly surprised that it wasn't uncomfortably hot. The air currents were interesting here. Once when Allyn held up a piece of paper and released it, it went directly upwards for a couple hundred feet and then came down just as fast only a few feet from us.
Don's recently broken toe was bothering him on the way down, and when Allyn and I went in search of a way to get to the river, he rested. Only a few feet farther away from the river, we found an easy way to go up and to the east. Just a few yards of walking and we came to a simple rockslide clear down into the water. I thought sure we had found the official end of the trail until I remembered what the pictures showed at the bottom of the trail. I then realized that still more searching will be needed. However, I'll still bet that this is an easier way to the river than the historic route, which I now believe must be somewhat farther downstream. To return, we might have climbed up to see the spur trail off the Tonto to the west, but since I had come down that way on Thanksgiving, 1954, I elected to go up to the base of the Tapeats to the west and then follow this level south. The walking proved to be fairly easy and we even had burro trails part of the way. Perhaps this is what was meant by the map which showed the trail coming down Cottonwood Canyon to the river. The only place where the trail is a bit indirect is just before you reach the dry arm of Cottonwood Canyon where the trail, very distinct here, goes up to the Tonto Platform.
We followed the Tonto around until it came to the branch where the spring is located. While the boys rested next to a standing pool of not very choice water, I went upstream to see whether the spring was flowing higher up. It got better the farther I went, but it seemed to start much higher than I wanted to take time for. On the way back, I came to a place where there had been some sort of structure, perhaps only a board floor for a tent. What seems most puzzling here were the pipes for bringing water from higher up. They were standard plumbing size. This site had been used rather recently too, for there were some cans of K-ration type lying around. These may date back only a year or so when some men were working on the trail down the west side of the neck to Horseshoe Mesa, according to Dan Davis.
Don and I went up the regular trail to the mining area, but Allyn insisted on going out the upper end of Cottonwood Canyon, where from a distance it appeared possible to get through the Redwall. He reported later that it was quite difficult to do this, and that he had to prop a tree trunk up to climb past a certain ledge. He made the trail above just ahead of Don and I, but he wouldn't have if we hadn't taken the time to investigate O'Neil Spring at the end of the spur trail just below the Redwall as you are going up to the mines. I came to a fair sized hole under some rocks, but there was no water in it at this time of year. It was damp, however, and had one willow growing out of the middle of the depression.
We got down to the river from the rim in three hours and 45 minutes, and came back up in four hours and 40 minutes when the 20 minutes spent investigating the spring was deducted.
We were taking Gene Foster's truck and station wagon to Lee's Ferry. The others in the party wanted to see the Glen Canyon dam site and would not get to Lee's Ferry before 5:00 p.m., so I had the opportunity for a hike in the area while waiting for them.
After an early start from Flagstaff, I got to the parking lot by Navaho Bridge about 9:00 a.m., and soon afterwards started downstream along the south rim of Marble canyon. There were numerous small ravines and one larger one that took me about 15 minutes to find my way across, but I had no idea that my progress was as slow as it turned out to be. In about an hour, I was only opposite 60 Mile Wash and after almost two hours, I was only down to Badger. One point of interest was that the river was flowing very smoothly all along here and another was a big rockslide on the north side of the river a bit downstream from 6 Mile Wash. It covered the lower cliff and from its top, one could work west to a ravine which cut through the upper Kaibab cliff. It was pretty clear that one could go on out from there.
The side canyon from the south whose mouth is at Badger seems to be larger than Badger Creek Canyon itself. I took 40 minutes to get back along its rim to a place where I could go down to the bottom of the branch farthest to the east. This branch is one of the most interesting places along the route to the river as both walls overhang and give it a very gloomy, yet romantic appearance. Walking is very easy here as all loose debris has been swept away by floods. The natural steps in the bottom of the canyon are sometimes embarrassingly large, but the only place where there is any doubt about progress is at a place where someone has fixed a chain to make the climb safer. Near the river, there are big rockfalls which slow a person down considerably.
Just at lunch time beside the rapid, the sun came out nicely and I enjoyed a bit of suntanning. I thought that this should be Soap Creek Rapid to judge by the length of time it took me to reach it, and if it was, the proper way to leave the river was directly across and up the creek to the north if one would rely on Davis' instructions in his booklet Escape Routes. Since my approach from the south fitted Badger, I decided not to chance going up the canyon directly across, but rather to get out on the north side of the rockslide and hanging valley mentioned previously. I knew I didn't have time for further exploring and still make connections according to my agreement with the others. I was able to walk upstream on the south side without too much hindrance from the willows, mud, and rocks. There were at least three places along here where I saw beaver tracks and willows cut through. When I was in sight of the talus slope, I crossed the river on my air mattress dropping about three widths of the river downstream in the process.
The climb out was without incident. However, the walking on the upper bench below the upper cliff was rather precarious. When I reached the top, I angled toward the east and ran into 60 Mile Canyon which kept branching and keeping me turning more and more to the west. The walls were vertical until the canyon was only 30 feet deep. When I finally got across, I soon came to the highway and had about two miles to walk to Navaho Bridge. I had been traveling about eight hours with another half hour for lunch.
Dan Finicum and I took this trip while Allyn went to Trinity in the opposite direction. We made it from Bright Angel Campground to the water at the end of the Clear Creek Trail in three hours and 45 minutes. Some flood since last spring had caused more devastation than I would have thought possible. It had made a new channel, much deeper than the old and had torn up the willows and had covered the ground with boulders where there had been cottonwood leaves and grass over the sandy areas. Most of the cottonwoods are still standing, however, and in another ten years, maybe this area will look more inviting. Farther up where the canyon is wider, the devastation is not so noticeable. The supply cache was not disturbed. We put our packs down at the Indian ruin where the long arm of Clear Creek meets the canyon with most of the water. Between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. we got up to Cheyava Falls where I snapped a couple pictures. I noted that the source of the falls is about one-fifth of the way down from the top of the Redwall which would make the falls something like 400 feet high. There would be about 200 feet of cascades below this before the water reaches the streambed below. Even though the previous weeks had been unusually rainy, there was only enough water coming out to keep the rocks wet. On Sunday, Don and I checked my theory that the trail Hance had patented, going past the asbestos mines over to Clear Creek, should get down to Clear Creek along the short canyon which starts near the gap between The Howlands Butte and Angel's Gate. This turned out to be correct. There is a good deer trail at the head where it is easy to get through the Tapeats. Then we circled the west side of The Howlands and came to the short bay which drains down a wash just east of the mouth of Clear Creek. It was fairly easy to find a place to get through the Tapeats. We came down on the east side of this bay, but we noted three places on the west side which should have been just as easy. In descending the steeper slopes to the river, we had to pass small ridges to the west several times to find suitable rockslides, but we made it to the river where we could go east a few steps to look up the actual wash we had been in most of the time. The Cal Tech party and also Stanton camped here. It took about 15 minutes to go the tenth of a mile from here to the mouth of Clear Creek, although there was no real difficulty in negotiating the interesting schist.
Going up the bed of Clear Creek was a simple matter of walking along the gravel and stepping over the water about a million times. At one place the canyon becomes very narrow and steep walled. We thought we were coming to an impassable fall and would have to backtrack considerably, but the worst was a ten foot fall that we could climb around by merely exercising care in placing our feet. Even a fall wouldn't have been serious, only a wetting after slipping down about ten feet into a pool of cool water. We walked without hurrying from the river to the end of the trail in two hours and 25 minutes, which would make the hiking time from the Colorado River to Cheyava Falls less than four hours.
Kenny Burch drove Allyn Cureton, Don Finicum, and me to Big Saddle Camp and then drove the car back to Fredonia for us. I learned from him that there was a corral and a spring quite a distance up Hack's Canyon. One thing that surprised us a little was to see that someone was still living at Big Saddle even though the hunting season was over.
We didn't try to drive the car beyond the camp since the snow was eight inches deep and the ruts in the road made by a Jeep were now solid ice. It was a cold but beautiful walk through the winter woods, quite a contrast to the dry, red regions below where we would be spending our time for the next five days. We passed the marker I had left to point out the head of the horse trail. We thought this was probably the route known as the Big Saddle Trail but later found out that it was not. The marker consists of four short sticks leaning against a big pine tree on the south side of the car track. Don took Allyn out to the point where he had left the rim before off Monument Point. As an experiment, I scrambled down to a deer trail below the first cliff in the Kaibab Limestone just before we were to start up a grade to get to the point. My route was rather slow requiring care, but I arrived just before the others at the meeting place. We decided not to try the steep climb off the east side of the point where the Coconino sticks out the farthest south. We followed the bench along to the west, perhaps a half mile, until we could get down without danger. It did require a drop of about four feet, however, and to get up there one might have to build a bit of a rock pile. We reached the regular horse trail from Little Saddle before it came to the main water pockets.
The rest of the way down to Thunder Spring was without incident. This time we crossed the water from the spring just below the upper fall, worming our way across a log that spans the stream with one end in a perpetual shower of spray. We had a tussle to get through the jungle here and out to the bench just below the Redwall. The footing wasn't a bit good with our packs to balance and it took us an hour and a half to go from the spring to the point where we could look into the gorge where Tapeats Creek starts. I am quite sure the distance from this spot up to the source is less than half the distance back to Thunder Spring, but the going was so slow uphill that it took another hour and a half to reach the cave just as it was getting dark. We had time to pick up enough firewood and that was all.
After a leisurely supper we deposited our bedrolls in the dry right-hand branch of the cave where the ceiling is low and the cold air of the outer world does not come. Then we went exploring into the perpetual night of the cave. It was much dryer than it had been last summer although I was correct in trusting that there would be a rain pool right at the mouth. We were able to walk right through places where I had paddled my air mattress last summer. Keeping to the left, we came to the end of a couple of modest branches. Then I went back to my bedroll and read the Readers Digest by candle light while the other two did the real exploring. They found a branch that would be to the right as you go in. It soon came to a five foot rise and then turned to the left. The boys found one of the waterproof matches left by their friends the previous spring. A little farther was the waterhole that had stopped the fellows before. You could hear running water ahead. Don and Allyn found that you can step on a ledge to your left and get past this water. Rather soon the corridor opens out into quite a large chamber, possibly 30 feet wide and just as high. In places the flashlights didn't show the ceiling. This soon brought you to the main stream. If you could wade against the current here, there is no telling how much farther you could go into the mountain, but we were willing to turn back. It took 12 minutes to get back out from this spot when the fellows took me in to see their discoveries the next morning. Cavers who have entered since, say that it goes back 3000 feet or more.
We had a most comfortable night in this air conditioned cave even though it gave one a peculiar feeling to have to strike matches to see by the watch whether morning had come. In the morning, I found out that mice had gotten into my raisins! We found a metal support for a camera at the mouth of the cave. An indication of an earlier visit by a white man. After we ate and took the morning trip into the cave, it was 9:00 a.m. before we finally got started on, and again it seemed pretty slow to get back to the Thunder River Trail. We had lunch by the spring before we started over to Deer Creek.
On entering Deer Creek Valley, we followed the horse trail north of the small spring which forms the fall and then crossed the talus to take pictures of the spring. We kept to the east of the cane beds at the bottom of the valley for about half the way to the exit gorge and then crossed to the west side of the stream. We found the ledge through the lower part of the gorge most interesting and noted the way the stream cuts such a narrow channel so deep in the rock. I missed the best way to get down to the river and led the boys through a terrific thicket of cane and thorns. Allyn finally showed us that we could get down the last steep place by holding on to trees. The river was low enough so that we could walk far away from the falls to get a picture from any angle we wished. The deep, clear pool at the bottom of the falls was a fitting end for the beautiful 100 foot falls out of the 60 foot deep slit in the cliff.
We followed the river bank with no particular difficulty for about 45 minutes until we came to a sandy beach which had a fair amount of wood nearby. Just before we got here, we were perplexed by some peculiar tracks in the sand until we decided that they were caused by rocks rolling down from the cliffs above. Besides the marks in the sand, we also saw where the corners had been knocked off other rocks. The night here was a cold one with strong wind squalls at times. Sparks flew so badly that Allyn and I had to abandon the fire in a hurry. Deer Creek Rapids was rather unimpressive. We saw much better rapids between miles 138 and 139 as well as at Fishtail and Kanab Canyons. For about a half mile we had to climb up away from the beach. Fishtail had a particularly impressive wave at the very beginning that had a way of crashing upstream with a big splash. We ate lunch at the only sunny place we had seen all morning directly opposite 140 mile Canyon. From about here on, we saw bighorn sheep tracks almost everywhere there was any sand. We also noticed some Indian ruins on the south side near where we had camped. At about mile 143 we came on a recent campsite. Someone had outlined his bed with a row of rocks and had put down a lot of weeds for a mattress. There was a rock fireplace, and what surprised me more were tracks from a burro in places where the rain would wash them away in a short time. We had made such slow progress in the forenoon that we could hardly believe it when we arrived at the mouth of Kanab Creek. It was good that we had the picture from Dock Marston taken 85 years before. It matched perfectly when we walked past the sand dune and looked out towards the river. Progress up Kanab Canyon was fairly easy and we saw rather soon one place where seep springs had produced a lot of greenery. There were fairly frequent terraces covered with mesquite which also had trapped driftwood. When it was only 5:00 p.m., we came to one of these. I had a premonition that these spots wouldn't occur very often, so I called a halt for the night. I slept very warm here under an overhang with a good fire burning all night. The thing that made me wakeful was the worry that the creek would have so many meanders in it that the mileage would be too much to allow us to finish the trip on schedule and get to the college by Sunday night. We talked about how I might have to walk on by myself and ask someone else to meet the fellows on Monday. We decided to eat in the dark on Saturday morning and be ready to spend all day walking.
I got off by myself as soon as I could see enough to stumble along and passed under one dripping spring almost at once. I soon decided that I could make better time with my sneakers on so as to wade where ever it was handy. The day was cold and I was rather surprised to see ice frozen in places where the water was perfectly quiet. Don and Allyn soon caught up with me. The walls in this part of the canyon are 800 feet practically straight up and the bottom of the canyon sometimes is only 20 feet wide. There were quite a few caves high up in the Redwall and at a number of places we saw more seeps and deposits of travertine with maidenhair fern and other vegetation making the area on the wall green. I missed all pictures along here because there wasn't enough light. Little by little, the top of the Redwall seemed closer until about 2:00 p.m. we were at last above it.
Now we were faced with the problem of knowing which was Hack's Canyon. We thought we had recognized the main canyon from the east, Jumpup. In fact, we thought we had passed it twice! I was pretty sure of the second candidate for this honor, because the canyon bed was covered with gravel instead of having a lot of rather large rocks rolled down as in a steep short canyon. About an hour before I had figured that we were due to find Hack's, we came to a canyon with quite a wide mouth. There was quite a bit of pasture for the cows we had been following for some time. We decided that the place needed investigating because we would be sunk if we went right by Hack's. It proved to be a very interesting place with springs and grotesque rock formations. About the time we came to an awkward fall barring the way, Don found a horse trail leading around it, and we thought that was proof that this was indeed Hack's Canyon. When we got above the Supai out into a big bay below the rim cliffs, the trail petered out. I reconnoitered and decided that we could not even climb out in the vicinity, so we went back to the creek for the night. It was another thing we learned that day besides seeing another interesting place. We now were sure that we were past Jumpup Canyon. I knew from the lay of the land that we must be within something like an hours walk from the mouth of Hack's Canyon. We had supper and started to walk by moonlight.
Very soon we came to a big supply of dead cottonwoods and it looked like too good a chance to miss because we knew that it was going to be a cold night. Allyn and I used the fire all night, but still it was so cold that water froze solid in a cup. To make matters a bit worse, my mattress went flat, punctured by something I couldn't see on the ground in the dark. Again on Sunday morning we were ready to break camp by the first light. It took about an hour and ten minutes to reach the mouth of Hack's Canyon, making the walking time from the river about nine hours all told. It took four and a half hours of good fast walking to get from the mouth of Hack's to the car parked at the mine. A distinctive feature of Hack's Canyon is that the stream bed is nothing but gravel spread so as to have a gentle gradient. There is a campsite under an overhang on the north side near the mouth which has some names written on the rocks as well as some tools and old horse shoes. We took two hours to reach the corral and spring and about two and a half more to reach the mine. Most of the walking in Hack's was very easy, quite a contrast with some of the going early on Saturday when we had to work our way around big rocks which had tumbled off the Redwall cliffs. It is a bit hard to understand how they get stock to the mouth of Kanab.
When we got to the car, we had eaten our lunch about an hour before, but that didn't stop us from enjoying some huge pieces of turkey that Don's mother had left for us. We could testify that the two good falls near Thunder Springs and Deer Creek Falls, The Colorado River, and Lower Kanab Canyon make this route about the most interesting five days we could think of.
I parked the car at Desert View thinking that I would be coming out by the Tanner or possibly the Red Canyon Trail. I hadn't noticed the access road E14, which leaves the highway just southeast of the checking station. I thought that I was supposed to connect with the one marked E15, which leaves the highway two and a half miles from Desert View, and I was surprised how quickly I came to a road. Actually I had walked a mile through the junipers when I could have been on the road all the time. This is a fairly good road and would be all right for an ordinary car in good weather. It makes about eight turns to lose altitude to go down to the base of Cedar Mountain.
With no fresh memory of the map, I turned north on E15 when I was still quite a bit west of Cedar Mountain. This is the same as the old road shown on the east half map of the National Park. I didn't have the map with me or I would have kept my bearings better and I might have looked for the cabin marked on the map. I did note the way the road follows the wash which leads into Straight Canyon. Incidentally, this road would not be a good one to try in a car. The road was easy to follow up from Straight Canyon, but then it seemed to go west towards the rim of the Grand Canyon where the map shows it turning northeast. I left the road here anyway to look into a deserted hogan which was a little north of this west bend in the track. I believe I caught what was left of the track near Comanche Point.
This point was not part of the plan, but it looked so close that I couldn't resist the impulse to drop the pack and go over to it. There is a fresh surveyor's marker on it, possibly a year old replacing one that was a lot older. Of all the viewpoints along the rim of the Grand Canyon, perhaps this is the only one which gives 360 degrees of view. The closest horizon is the one back of Desert View, say six miles away and the farthest is Navaho Mountain and the Hopi Mesas, exactly opposite the Grand Canyon. Comanche Point is also unusual in that it rises up to a point as well as sticking out into the canyon. It's surprising to note that it's still above 7000 feet elevation here when the rest of the region is dropping fast to the east. I picked what appeared to be the biggest bay in the rim of the Little Colorado River Gorge south of the bend marked by Big Canyon and Salt Trail Canyon on the far side. The little brother of Cedar Mountain, which was somewhat south of the line to this bay, served as a further guidepost in reaching the chosen place. I had to cross a couple of draws to keep from going too far to the north and I came to another wagon trail which seemed to come down from the southwest about where the road was shown on the east half map. One branch crossed the wash and went to the north towards Cape Solitude while one track went down the wash to the east for quite some distance.
About a half mile west of where the road leaves the wash to go east of Little Cedar Hill, there's a peculiar rock wall which doesn't seem to have any purpose. It is about straight, paralleling the streambed about 60 feet long by four feet high and two feet thick. While I was preparing to take a picture, I put my canteen down and then moved to a better spot for the picture. When I was through with the camera, I didn't know where the canteen was, and it took me a number of minutes and considerable worry to locate it.
The road led me up on a flat northeast of Little Cedar Hill and then I figured to reach the north side of the bay, I would have to leave the road and head northeast again. I got back to the same canyon I had been in just as it came to the rim. I could see that the ravine farthest east on the north side of the big bay seemed to be the most probable place to descend, but it was too late to think about getting to the river that evening. Right below where I made these observations, there were several waterpockets mostly frozen solid, but one had only an inch of ice over a foot of water. So I filled the canteen and used the Halazone tablets for the first time. When I reached the next canyon north of this, I decided to camp, especially since there was such a neat overhang to keep dew off my sleeping bag. It seemed cold and lonesome as night came on, but the air mattress and the two sleeping bags did their duty and I was not cold during the night.
After a breakfast of crackers and raisins (eaten in bed), I got started for the day's hiking about 7:45 a.m. I intended to be back in about three hours at the most, after looking into the main gorge from the rim and scouting the top of the ravine I had thought possible the evening before. After my reconnaissance from the rim I started down the ravine at 8:30 a.m. There were at least three places which were real climbing puzzles, but each time I found a fairly safe way to get down without a rope. Perhaps a knapsack would have to be lowered by a rope at a couple of these places. At the place near the top of the Coconino, I kept to the left wall. Near the bottom of the same formation, I left the gully and went around on a talus which led back to the bottom of the same ravine. At the top of the Supai, I was quite baffled for a few minutes, but I found a good way right near the main channel along the left wall. It was easy from here to the top of the Redwall, and again I was mighty glad to encounter water pockets which I used on the way down and particularly on the way back.
A quick look showed that the Redwall here was impossible. Another observation was that the stream fills the bottom from wall to wall in places, and it constantly swings across cutting off all chance for a person to walk through here along the bank. You would need to ferry an inflated mattress to negotiate the deep spots, and I wouldn't want to try that in the winter. I had a feeling that the real Blue Spring Trail might be to the south, so I followed the bench above the Redwall for a half hour without finding the way down. I did see one good spring coming into the muddy main stream from the left wall. I also noted a saddle in the Supai where the bed has made a gooseneck. I was able to identify this on a map at the museum and I was able to conclude that the regular trail to the river was only about 40 more minutes walk upstream from where I had turned back. Since I had no lunch along and wanted to go home the same day, I quite exploring at 11:00 a.m. and reached the rim in two and a half hours, which makes me think that this route compares favorably with the regular Blue Spring Trail which kept Wing and Womack busy for a whole day when they were carrying heavy packs and using a long rope. There were no trail markers along this route, but I saw the hoof prints of a deer along the bench above the Redwall.
When I was at the top of the Supai, where the various ravines draining into this bay all come together before they go out to the river, I noticed a very promising route from the south side of the bay. It would have led me considerably farther from my campsite so I didn't try it. I would estimate that it is quite close to the top of the Blue Spring Trail as marked on the map. At 3:00 p.m. I was through a big lunch, packed and ready to go. I filled my canteen at the same water hole in the ravine to the south and then headed across the flats to the road which leads south on the east side of Little Cedar Hill. I soon came to a branch which led to a tank near the rim of the Little Colorado River Gorge. After a good many ups and downs and bends in the road, I decided to leave it and head more directly for Cedar Mountain. After two or three minor valleys, I saw why the road was not direct. There was a whopping big canyon between me and the butte. t was just about dark but the moon would be bright, so I dropped down to the bottom with the intention of climbing out on the other side. The bottom of this canyon, latter identified as Straight Canyon, was so easy to follow by moonlight that I settled for following it. In about two hours I was back on the old track, E15, at 7:30 p.m. and by 9:15 p.m. I was at the car. The view of the Painted Desert at sundown from the slopes just before reaching Straight Canyon was something to remember for a long time.
Dock Marston had said in a letter dated April 25, 1957 that two boatmen named Russell and Tadje had walked along the river bank from Horn Creek Rapids to Pipe Canyon with the qualifying phrase that he should check this information. I forgot the latter and got Allyn Cureton and Jim Lisonbee to repeat the project.
The Bright Angel Trail was a little icy at the top but we made good time trotting most of the way. We stopped for a moment to investigate a mine shaft in the side of the wash a little above Indian Gardens and also looked at the layout of the pumping station below it, but we still got to the river in one hour and 40 minutes. We ate an early lunch and left out packs and canteen at the river house. The going was very easy for nearly a mile. There is even an old trail beside the river for a few hundred yards. When you are about a half mile above Horn Creek Rapids, you have to begin some time consuming detouring up a ravine, over a ridge and down the other side. After about two or three of these places, we decided that the only way to get clear to Horn would be to climb above the Archean rocks and go down into Horn back from the river. About 100 yards before we arrived at this decision, I noticed the head of a pickax lying near a rectangular recouple built against the vertical side of a large rock which had rolled down from above. Allyn decided that this structure was the base for a forge. This was about 300 feet above the river and we noted a light colored dike across the river, the first of a series of vertical streaks that make prominent landmarks from here to the west. As we had already exceeded our time limit, we had to turn back the way we had come to pick up our packs. We found some sun tinted glass on the return. I got out at the Kolb studio about 5:15 p.m., four minutes slower than my best time up the Bright Angel Trail under the best of conditions. The descent was made 22 minutes faster than my previous fastest, but I had knots in my calves for the rest of the day.
A sequel to this was that Dock looked up his information about Russell and Tadje. They had beached their boats just downstream from Pipe Creek Rapids, but they had not walked back from Horn or anywhere near Horn. Reilly in 1953 had lost a boat at Horn and had looked the place over to see whether three of the party could climb out. He decided that it was impossible for a women to do it. At the time that Sturdevant and Johnson drowned, Brooks landed on the north bank and climbed up to the Tonto Plateau and was able to get to Phantom Ranch. He led some men back to that side of Horn, but as far as Dock knew, no one had succeeded in getting down to the mouth of Horn Creek itself. Dan Davis had tried and failed in 1955. Emery Kolb said that it was impossible.
Three weeks later, on February 15, 1958; Jim Lisonbee, Allyn, and I were back again. I had agreed to take a picture for Dock of the beach at the mouth of Pipe Creek where the Kolbs moored their boats in 1911 to try to get a good check on the stage of the river at that time. Consequently, Jim and Allyn went on without me along the base of the Tapeats cliff at the top of the Archean without going to the bottom of the Bright Angel Trail. I wasn't trying to break my previous record for the descent since I didn't want to ruin my legs again, but I did cut it down by seven minutes to one hour and 33 minutes. When I got back from the river, I didn't try to catch the boys. I followed Garden Creek back far enough to climb up to the base of the Tapeats and head west. Just to the west of bench mark 3702, at a place which doesn't show on the map, there is a ravine which pierces the Tapeats. I even found some initials and numbers scratched in the stone a little below where a tributary comes in from the east. I might not have seen this if I had been walking by it, but I noticed it from above on the west side. I believe it might be HHB Mor 4 06. I found out later that it said HB March 4, 06. Those are my initials, but I wasn't there in 1906! It appears to have been pecked by a nail and it is rather indistinct. After I had gone over to the angle in the plateau and had looked down into Horn, I came back and followed this ravine out to the deer trail which Allyn and Jim had used. Their tracks showed plainly. We found that white men had been here, leaving some rock-pile markers and a bit of a wall which may have been a windbreak to make sleeping more comfortable. I went ahead far enough into Horn to see where a descent might be possible. This was just south of a spur that projects into Horn not far from the angle.
Allyn and Jim found the going very simple at the top of the Archean rocks and they arrived at the bottom of Horn by 11:30 a.m. having gone down the same ravine I had regarded with favor. They proceeded downstream about halfway to the river before they came to a major obstruction, a waterfall about 100 feet high. They spotted a bottle with Dan Davis' and Bill Diller's signatures dated sometime in 1955. Jim stopped here, but Allyn tried a most improbable route down which he showed me four weeks later.
On the March 15 trip, Jim could not go, but Elena Favale and Roxyn Cureton made up the other members of the party. Elena was a good hiker and a good sport, but she was slow on the rock climbing of which there was only a taste before we got to the bottom of Horn. She elected to wait there for us. I changed into sneakers here and was quite glad later that I had. Roxyn accidentally dropped the Davis bottle over the cliff, but we signed our names on the paper and left it in a can under a few rocks about four feet above the creek bottom on the left. Allyn's route past the fall does not involve climbing above the level of the top of the fall. In fact this would be impossible unless one went back and climbed up to the west. In the smooth granite to the right, there is a place where there is a break in the perpendicular wall above and the one below. The average slope is still around 45 degrees, but there are also some footholds. On the return, I even found some deer droppings lodged in a crack. After crossing this place that I might have taken one look at and considered impossible, you go around a corner and are on a small sloping platform. From a few feet back from the edge, you would think that the drop is straight down, but when you actually look over, you see that there are ledges every few feet and quite a variety of holds. If you watch for loose rocks, there is no danger. When you are finally in sight of the river, there is another, somewhat lower fall of perhaps 60 feet, but here you have a to backtrack a few feet and climb up about 200 feet on the west slope. You descend to the river right at the mouth of the creek. The slope is one of the consistently steepest we have ever followed, but again there are plenty of holds. One has to use some thought in finding the way but it is never impossible even if it might look that way at first. When we pushed loose rocks they crashed down to the bottom with only two or three bumps in 150 feet to the streambed. The rocks were pretty wet from the rain which began about 12:30 p.m., but my sneakers held all right. It took about 45 minutes from the river to our packs, but it seems as if this time could be reduced with a little practice on the route. From our packs to Indian Gardens it took about 90 minutes.
During Thanksgiving vacation in 1954, Marvin Hole, Boyd Moore, and I took four days for a good trip, one of whose objectives was to reach the river at the mouth of Hance Creek which we had reason to believe had been the end of an early trail.
After spending around an hour at the big cave on Horseshoe Mesa (Cave of the Domes), we came back to the neck and went down to the east. When we reached Hance Creek, there was still some of the afternoon left to try to go down the creekbed. We left the packs up among the cottonwoods at the top of the granite. When we had succeeded in making one detour to the right to get around a fall, we came to a worse place. We made the mistake of trying to go almost straight up to the left without retracing our steps far enough to find a much easier way to climb up and around the obstacle. After I had dislodged some rocks and almost hurt Marvin, we decided that we had run out of time and had better get back to the packs. We were more eager to negotiate the Tonto Trail over to the Kaibab than we were to see the river at the head of Sockdolager Rapids, so the next morning we did not renew the attempt to reach the river. At that time, I hadn't heard of the burro trail up to the Tonto out of Hance Canyon so we had to go rather far back before we got up to the plateau about where we had entered the creek. It is quite a long drag around Horseshoe Mesa, but we took a bit of time out to inspect the little spur trail which goes below the Tapeats and then ends in agreement with the map. We went clear back into Cottonwood Canyon and came around to the point to the west. Here we again took time to follow the spur trail which the map shows going down through the Tapeats then down to the river. We thought the map showed the trail angling off to the west immediately below the Tapeats and we followed the top of the granite in this direction. We soon came to terrific cliffs which we were sure had not been the location of any trail and gave this up. Just in passing, we looked over into Cottonwood and thought that the trail might have been constructed down to the mouth before it fell away. We scrambled down to the end of Cottonwood Canyon without seeing any more of the trail and felt rather frustrated to find ourselves looking down 60 vertical feet to the river with no way to reach it. With just a little more resourcefulness, we would have done what Allyn and I did in September, 1957. We could have reached the edge of the river by going south a few steps and climbing up and over an easy spur to a rockslide clear into the water a 100 yards to the east of the mouth of the creek.
For the rest of that day, we followed the Tonto and slept where it crossed Boulder Canyon. On the third day we reached the Kaibab Trail and then spent the night next to the Bright Angel Trail on a sand bar half way to Pipe Creek where there was lots of driftwood for some big fires which kept us quite warm. The next day when we got to the top of the Bright Angel Trail we were met by Roma and Anne who took us back to the car at Grandview Point.
We went to Mexico after Christmas in 1954, but for three days before, I took a solo trip to do a little more looking for Sockdolager Rapids at the mouth of Hance Creek. I spent the first night at Hance Rapids by a good fire. The second day I started over to camp in Hance Canyon. I found a rock marker on the rim above about where I thought there was a chance to get down into mineral canyon, but gave up the attempt as being too risky. I learned from Dock Marston that the Cal Tech Party had succeeded in getting down here, so I suppose this was their marker. When I came near Hance Canyon, I looked around a bit and found the place Art and Ray had told me you could descend without going far to the south. It was all right even with a pack. Again I put down the pack by the cottonwoods and tried to go to the river. This time I got up over the first detour and also located the right place for the second, one that took a fair amount of effort but involved no danger. By the time I came to the place for the third detour, this time to the right again, it was getting so late that I saw the necessity of getting back to the pack because I didn't want to be doing that careful type of climbing after dark. The next day, I wasn't in the mood to head back toward the river, although now I don't see why I didn't. I was more interested in seeing whether I could find my way up the route of the practically forgotten Old Hance Trail, and I wanted to allow time to come back and go out the Grandview Trail if necessary.
The attempt to find the old trail was entirely successful. I recognized the pinnacle at the box in the Redwall from a sketch which had been published in an ad for the railway. The trail actually showed some signs of existence from here up to the base of the pinnacle and then to the right into a wash. The bottom of the wash was just too steep for my shoes to grip and allow me to walk up, so I took a rather precarious route to the right above the water-worn bottom. When coming down on a later trip, we just ran down the bottom. In fact, Don and Bert found that by getting a running start, they could go up here. I then climbed out of this wash to the right and found some more trail construction. I would say that the best way up the juniper covered talus to the bottom of the Coconino is to stay over pretty much to the east, but when you are near the Coconino, cut across a gully or two and head up into the notch to the west of the wash. This notch, by the way, is the one farthest to the east which appears at all possible.
The next attempt to reach the mouth of Hance Creek was with Jack Morrow at the end of the school year in May, 1956. We went down the Old Hance Trail in the afternoon and camped where there is permanent water. For some reason, I had trouble remembering how to get through the Redwall. Jack and I climbed down a rather precarious place at the end and then went back up the right way to see where we had goofed. I put a rock marker where one should leave the wash with the slick bottom to go out to the right to the base of the pinnacle.
With two out of three necessary detours already worked out, we made good progress through the granite near the river. The third detour entailed about the steepest climbing of all, but it was not what you would need to label work for an expert. The view upriver from the mouth of Hance Creek was particularly impressive and coincided with an old picture. The river was really high, it filled the entire width of the river channel and continued downstream as far as one could see. The power of the high water appeared to be resist less. The backwater in the mouth of Hance Creek was tame and harmless and we enjoyed a good swim.
Since the mouth of Hance Creek was obviously not the place called the foot of the Grandview Trail under two other pictures, we tried again in the spring of 1957. This time Don Finicum, Allyn Cureton, Ellery Gibson, and I went down off Horseshoe Mesa by the trail off the west prong and followed the spur of the Tonto which the map shows going down below the Tapeats and ending over towards Hance Canyon. We saw a chance of getting down to the river at the foot of Sockdolager Rapids, and we were able to do this without much real difficulty although we had to select our ravines with a bit of care. At one place Allyn made his own choice and ended by coming down a bad spot holding his canteen between his teeth. I went upstream to a big rock which projects a third of the way across the river and took a picture looking up towards Sockdolager Rapids.This spot is just across from the rockslide which comes down on the north bank from the bay where the old asbestos mines are perched.
Later in the same spring, Allyn and I came down the Old Hance Trail again and met Dan Davis trying to reach the river at the mouth of Hance Creek. We showed him the right detours, but he was making slow going of them and didn't quite reach the rapid. This time Allyn and I went back by way of the spur trail at the top of the granite where we had been with Ellery. The climb up here was not complicated, and this method of getting to the mouth of Hance is now much the easier.
Another trip to match the elusive pictures was taken with Sharon Huff and Elaine Crowder. The map shows another spur off the Tonto in the direction of Cottonwood Canyon. Actually the map doesn't indicate even a descent of the Tapeats, and in this it is correct. We were able to get below the Tapeats by going down the draw to the east of Cottonwood, but we soon found progress in this direction impossible. When the girls saw what I proposed to try, they wisely backed out and watched my start to the river. A boy was killed doing this climb. This was about the most awkward way to the water that I have tried, but with patience, I found that it was possible. The views up and down from here were rather limited, and I knew long before I reached the bank that I could not be following the main trail to the river even though the reading matter said that you did not ride the horses down into the Inner Gorge. When I got back to the Tonto, I traced the edge of the plateau around towards Cottonwood Canyon and found the ravine just back from the river where you can walk down to the bottom of Cottonwood Canyon.
The next try was with Don and Allyn in September, 1957. We came off the west end of Horseshoe Mesa again and went out to the edge of the plateau above Cottonwood Canyon and then down to the bottom of the wash by the ravine I had noticed before. We soon found further progress barred by falls. Since I have already described this trip at length, I'll just say that although we found the way to get to the edge of the river, we didn't find the location of the foot of the Grandview Trail.
All three negative results put me back on the track I had been following at the very first of these efforts. I decided to check more carefully the existence of the spur trail just a bit west of Cottonwood Canyon. When I got below the Tapeats as before, I consulted the map more carefully than before and I noticed that the map shows the trail just below the Tapeats going towards Cottonwood Canyon as the trail construction indicated. Where the trail has fallen away completely in the scree above Cottonwood, it used to switch back to the north under the cliff which points toward the river. Then it climbs a bit and crosses a shoulder of this point and drops down by way of an easy ravine. After descending here a couple hundred feet, it rises slightly over another shoulder, and now you find yourself in a broad ravine of rather gentle gradient clear down to the river. The trail construction is quite obvious as soon as you leave Cottonwood. One has the freedom at the river to go along the bank for 50 yards without difficulty, and the views are not nearly as constricted as they usually are. The mouth of Vishnu Creek is only a short distance downstream and it would be easy to paddle across the river on an air mattress and climb out by way of Vishnu Canyon. On the way to the river, you get some excellent views of Grapevine Rapids. This was a most satisfying way to end the search for the foot of the Grandview Trail, and the relative ease with which the river can be reached by this route shows that the old trail finders knew the area most thoroughly. There is a mining claim location a bit to the west and about 100 feet up from the water, probably to direct attention to the mica which is thick on the surface here.
On the way back, I climbed up the ravine through the Redwall which is northeast of the box at the head of Cottonwood Canyon. Allyn had already climbed the box itself using a dead tree at one place to get up a cliff. My way required an awkward bit of swinging ones weight across while holding on to some fairly good grips.
The weather prediction was for a new storm to come in Thursday evening. For once the weather man was exactly right. A light rain started when I was less than half way from Bright Angel Campground to Clear Creek. It was running harder by the time I reached the foot of the trail at Clear Creek itself so I decided to head for the best shelter available. It was the big overhang at the junction of the long arm and the shorter one with most of the water. This was about 25 minutes walk from the trails end, but I called that a cheap price for a comfortable night out of the rain. My bed was in a nook which cut out most of the wind as well as all of the driving rain.
Friday saw me off to an early start about 6:15 a.m. About 15 minutes walk downstream past the trail's end, you come to a side canyon which leads towards Cape Royal. If you turn south into the branch that points towards the pass between Angel's Gate and The Howland's Butte, I had learned last November that you could get up to the plateau over a clear deer trail. However, I decided to try what Allyn Cureton had done during Christmas vacation. There is a tower separated slightly from the main Tapeats cliff about where you would say that the wall turns from facing Clear Creek into this side canyon. At one place I had to remove my pack and put it up on a ledge above me, but otherwise the climbing was reasonably safe. At two places on this climb, I noted steps formed by what looked like artificial rock piles. It would be anybody's guess who put them there.
Last November Don Finicum and I had followed the edge of the plateau around to the river. I remembered that the route was winding and not smooth walking either, so this time I climbed up onto the yellow shale below the Redwall. The footing was a little precarious, but the going is more direct, and when you come down you are well back towards heading the canyon which leads southwest away from Angel's Gate. I climbed down into this canyon and up the other side, but I cut off so small a portion that I decided later that I would have been smarter to have continued around the head at the Tapeats level.
The chance for a close view of Grapevine Rapids led me out on a point which is so near the rapids that my camera couldn't get the entire rapids in one picture. The long canyon whose head is below Wotan's Throne seemed discouraging to walk around, so when I saw a chance to cross it, I took the gamble. The way out around the end of Hall Butte was obvious, and I could get down below the first ledge with no trouble. After some study, I decided that the only way to continue was to use a crack just wide enough for one foot to go in. The handholds were mostly a matter of bracing with the elbows to get friction. I knew I would feel insecure with my pack on so I tossed it down ahead of me. It bounced and rolled about 100 feet farther but stopped just above another similar drop. Incidentally, nothing worse than some cracker crumbs resulted from this unscheduled roll. On the way back, I found another way farther up the canyon. One has to climb half again as high, but if I repeated the trip, I would prefer the short bit of rock work at the crack. On the return, I found that I was closer to the head where there would be relatively easy walking. I'm inclined to favor walking clear around this one too.
Vishnu Canyon is another situation. You need to go through the pass between Newberry Butte and the ridge to the north, so I believe I was wise to have gone down when I saw the chance at a place which came out just downstream from a fall. The catch came at the very bottom where some travertine spoiled my hope that I could walk a tilted ledge right to the streambed. For about five feet, there were a couple minute footholds, but there was practically no way to get any safety from one's hands. After investigating and deciding that it had to be crossed unless I were willing to go clear back up to the plateau. I practiced without my pack and then crossed with it. There was water in Vishnu Canyon which would go underground more than on the surface, but I would regard it as reliable throughout the year. I went up to the pass from a point a little farther downstream. When I had gone high enough to get a good view on the west side of Vishnu, I noted benches that sloped up to the south. I used the lower one of these on the return with relief at not having to cross the precarious bit of travertine. This ramp is above the fall and out at a different point of the west rim from where I had descended before. The map indicates that the cliff at the rim of the plateau is continuous along the river, around the bay where the mines are shown, and well into Asbestos Canyon. I could see that it was possible to get down into the canyon paralleling Newberry Butte. This was a roundabout way, but I was able to get a full canteen at a good waterpocket. When I tried to go below the quartzite cliff along the river and into the bay with the mines, I rounded a corner and faced a 500 foot vertical wall. Up on top again, I walked over and got a good view of the mines, but I still hadn't decided on the route to them when it was time to make camp. Here again I was in luck because within a few minutes I came to one of the best shelters in the Tapeats that I have ever seen. Within a short time it began to snow, but I fixed supper with the smug feeling that again I had won.
The first thing I did Saturday morning was to go up on the point to take a picture of Sockdolager Rapids. On the return, I discovered where I could scramble down to the Hakatai Shale. On a hunch, I passed up the first break and inspected a route that might be a bit more direct. Here I got the thrill of finding unmistakable signs of an old trail with switchbacks and crude retaining walls still showing. I soon lost the trail and went around to the mines on the steep bench which leads directly to them. This was slow and nerve stretching, because you realize that if you started to slide on these small pebbles covering the bedrock, you wouldn't stop and the vertical cliff was only a few yards away. When I investigated the mines, I still missed the burro trail up and out at the point nearest the river. I had to leave the way I came.
I went back over my route to the rim on the west of the bay and from there I could make out a definite trail in the shale on the relatively level bench above the mines. I decided to try a loop trip, over to Asbestos Canyon along the plateau and then drop down into the canyon wherever I could and return by way of the Hakatai ramp. This worked all right. There was a feasible way down into Asbestos Canyon where the map showed none at all. I saw the miners ruined shacks and, a bit farther downstream, a rather fresh looking sleeping bag fully extended and ready for the owner to retire. Camping gear, including a fairly new model can opener was cached back in a recess. Some of the stuff, a huge coffee pot for instance, had been picked up at the living quarters of the miners. What became of the lone camper is another mystery. I followed the stream towards the river, but before I had gone very far, there was a small fall which I was able to climb around. On attempting this, I came on a trail which stayed above the black cliff and obviously went to the river or a mine in that direction. This turned out to be the main trail leading to the old ferry across the Colorado River. I found a piece of ore among the rocks at the river's edge where the Archean first shows. The crossing copes with rather swift water at the present stage, about 13,000 cfs. There seems to be significant backwaters along the banks. I suppose the ferrymen were able to come back upstream after they had made the crossing.
The return to the camp under the ledge was according to plan, along the base of the Hakatai Shale close to the river's edge. The trail became quite evident as the cliff side mines above Sockdolager Rapids were approached. At the point, I could see the trail down to the mines. It is certainly a picturesque remnant of the old west. A monument to the men who had more courage than business sense.
There was still time to move camp to Vishnu Creek for Saturday night, and on Sunday I trekked from Vishnu all the way to Bright Angel Campground. Getting up the South Kaibab Trail was an easy chore for Monday morning.
Don Finicum, Ivan Dryer, Marshall Maynes, and I left promptly at 5:30 a.m. and were starting down the Hermit Trail at 7:30 a.m. The projected time schedule was to take three hours to reach the river, so we did some trotting.
At this time of year Santa Maria Spring was running very well, and there was water along the trail in the Supai at several other places. Four Mile Spring was wet, but we didn't note any water in the concrete basin. Don's opinion of the rockslides was that a Fredonia horse could cross them without too much trouble. He said that he would even stay in the saddle while the horse was doing it.
A short distance south of Cathedral Stairs where the trail goes down the Redwall, there's a rock choked ravine which leads almost directly down to Hermit Camp. I had noticed this before as being a possible means for a descent, so this time we tried it. The most awkward part is below the Redwall. It is quite slow and from the time it took us, we decided that we would have been better off on the real trail. Marshall got behind and then instead of leaving the streambed and coming up to the old camp, he tried to get down the side stream into Hermit Creek directly. He was stopped by the last steep 30 feet. While he was doing this, the other three had time to look over the campground. I took a picture of the anchorage for the old tram going to the rim, something I hadn't noticed before. The amount of construction and plumbing for irrigation was impressive. When we finally got together, we made it to the river in half an hour and were only seven minutes over the projected time. I believe that one could hurry down from the rim to the river in two and a half hours.
The warm-up in the weather during the last two weeks was very noticeable, and the near 90 degree heat was a bit hard on us as we climbed around on the schist of the Inner Gorge. We started down by the river at 11:00 a.m. and had gone along the river's edge for a short time when Ivan discovered that he had left his glasses back at Hermit creek. He hurried so fast when he retrieved them that he couldn't seem to recover his wind for a long time. We soon decided that our best bet for consistent progress was to go up to the base of the Tapeats cliff and follow it along. In getting to that level, Marshall discovered a charley horse, and Don saw that he wasn't in tip-top shape either. We decided later that we should have been taking salt in that kind of heat. Marshall saw that he had better start back without going any farther, and then Don and Ivan agreed to go back with him. I told them that I probably wouldn't get to the car before 8:30 or 9:00 p.m., so that they didn't need to hurry. They had a good swim in a pool in Hermit Creek before they started up the main grind. The cooling was only temporary. They felt the heat more going up the long switchbacks to the top of the Redwall than anywhere else. I parted from the boys a little to the east of Travertine Canyon a bit after noon. Right off I had to go clear down to the river level. In fact I filled my canteen with Colorado River water. It was a simple but slow drag to get back to the top of the granite on the other side, and there are many small ups and downs at the base of the Tapeats. It is much slower going than the similar route from Pipe Creek to Horn Creek. There were two places where one could climb up the Tapeats to the Tonto Plateau, the first just a little west of Travertine, and the other about half a mile before you reach Boucher Creek. Just west of this easy escape route, there was the most serious obstacle of all along the top of the granite. A ravine in the granite had removed all talus material. I had to climb down into this ravine. Getting out the other side was about as dangerous climbing as I would attempt. I had to empty the canteen and put it in the pack so as to use both hands. The hard part only lasted for a few yards, and right after that I began seeing burro droppings and tracks. I got down to the water level at the bottom of Boucher Creek three and a half hours after I had left Hermit Creek. I think I could cut this down to three hours with my present knowledge, but it is slower than the projected hour and a half to two hours I had originally thought.
After a short pause to tape my feet some more and to eat an apple, I walked up Boucher Creek eating a sandwich as I went. I wanted to make every minute count. At Boucher Camp I got two pictures which will verify, by the skyline, that James had his picture properly labeled. In going up the trail, I noticed that the junction of the Boucher and Tonto Trails is marked by a piece of wood propped up by stones. This time I was able to keep on the trail almost all the way. At one place a slide had removed the trail and I followed a burro trail which started almost directly up. I soon saw the mistake and worked down to the real trail which still gives much the better footing as well as a sensible grade for climbing. You go south and up until you are in the neighborhood of the peculiar travertine deposit and then start the switchbacks upwards towards a conspicuous short exposure at the base of the Redwall. I remembered this spot from my previous trip, but at that time in coming down, I had followed a burro trail to the north at this level.
Another place where I did a lot better job of trail finding than I did last spring was in the Supai. The trail is just east of the streambed in the most southerly part of the bay of Travertine Canyon and continues until you have only one more cliff in the Supai above you. As soon as it gets to the shale slope below this top cliff, it turns east and angles up consistently until it meets this cliff right where Boucher fastened the iron rods in the rock. I missed this before by continuing the descent instead of turning as soon as I had come down the steep break in the cliff. One might remark that this break is very hard to see from below and you don't know where the trail goes through until you are right there. Following the Hermit Shale around to the Dripping Springs Trail was not at all difficult. You mostly have a good deer trail to follow but occasionally you proceed without that encouragement until you catch it again. My time for the different legs of this trip went as follows: Boucher Camp to the top of the Redwall - one hour and 25 minutes, the top of the Redwall to the top of the Supai - one hour and five minutes, the top of the Supai to the Dripping Springs Trail - one hour and 20 minutes, and from the Dripping Springs Trail to Hermit Rest - one hour and fifteen minutes. Since this is five minutes less total elapsed time to come up the Boucher Trail than when I went down the trail last spring, I must have benefited by finding more of the trail. After these two experiences over this trail, I would say that it is one of the most interesting and satisfying of all the Grand Canyon trails and that it can't be any longer and harder than the Tanner trail. However, my time on the Tanner Trail of a little over five hours up was made carrying a pack, so I suppose it's really farther from Boucher Camp to the head of the Hermit Trail than it is from the Colorado River to the top of the Tanner Trail.
On the way up, I put some rocks on a dead juniper stump to mark the break in the top of the Supai cliff where you should begin the descent.
Marshall Maynes, Ivan Dryer, Don Finicum, and I set a fast pace down the Hermit Trail since we knew it would take all day to carry out my proposal. We would have reached the river ahead of schedule if we hadn't tried an idea of mine to leave the Hermit Trail before you come to the Cathedral Stairs in the Redwall and go down a gully directly to the old camp. It went pretty well for a while, but at the bottom, when you are really through the Redwall, there were some awkward slopes and steep sided ravines with big rocks in the bottom. Marshall got way behind, and we left him to follow as best he could while we explored the camp. He made the mistake of staying in the creekbed clear down to Hermit Creek and got hung in at the last 30 feet. We had to go back to advise him and were delayed considerably.
When we were looking over the old camp area, we saw something I hadn't noticed before, the anchorage of the tram which was used to lower supplies to the camp. We also noticed wagon roads over the area, and of course the concrete bases for the tent cabins.
As usual, it was part trail and part streambed to get to the river. We got there about 11:30 a.m. and ate some lunch before we went on. All of us felt the heat, quite a contrast to the snowy weather we had only two weeks before. We followed the river bank for only a short distance before we had to begin climbing up and down to get past sheer places. Ivan discovered that he had left his glasses where we ate at the mouth of Hermit Creek and hurried so fast to get them that he was pooped for the rest of the day. We soon saw that if we were going to get anywhere, we would have to go clear up to the base of the Tapeats and try to go along there. In doing this, Marshall finally agreed that he was too tired to try the rest of the trip, and Ivan and Don agreed to go back with him. They took a good soak in Hermit Creek and then went back at a leisurely rate since I wasn't slated to get back to the car until perhaps as late as 9:30 p.m.
I had to go clear down to the river level almost at once when I reached Travertine Canyon. Soon after I got back to the base of the Tapeats, I could have gone up onto the Tonto Plateau. There was at least one more place where this would have been possible, just before I reached a very difficult spot where a chute in the granite came right up to the Tapeats. After I had passed this bad spot, there were burro signs, and I knew I had it made. It took me three hours and a bit more to get from the mouth of Hermit Creek to the running water in Boucher Creek. I pushed on as soon as I could, even eating some more lunch as I walked up the streambed.
At Boucher Camp, I stopped long enough to take a couple pictures which would match James' view. The Boucher Trail was easier for me to find when I was going uphill, and I kept to it just about everywhere that it is still existent. It is quite a bit easier to follow through the Supai when you are going up, and I went from Boucher Camp to Hermit Rest in just a little longer than five hours and 10 minutes. Of course this time, I didn't stop for anything to eat during the entire trip, but I now have the impression that this trail is only a bit longer than the Tanner Trail and that it is much the better route from Boucher Camp to the rim.
After parking the car at Desert View, I shouldered my pack and started off gaily in the coolness of the morning air. It was 7:25 a.m. After I had walked about eight minutes, I thought to myself that walking with just a 20 pound pack was wonderful, and then I remembered that I had left my gallon canteen of water in the car. I lost more than 15 minutes by the time I went back for it.
As road E14 levels out towards the base of Cedar Butte, it goes rather near the rim. It's easy to see how the old version of the Tanner Trail went down here. I thought I might come up that way at the end of the trip. I was not sure about the best way to reach the head of the Blue Spring Trail, but when I came to Straight Canyon on the old vestige of a road labeled E15, I decided to stay with the road rather than turn down the wash. This time I followed the road more consistently than I had in reaching Comanche Point during Christmas vacation. When it seemed to be jogging too far south, I left it and came to a streambed with an old hogan on one side and a rectangular stone house on the other. The house was roofless, but it still had a fireplace. wonder whether that meant it had been built by a white man.
From here I headed towards Gold Hill and soon crossed the same old road. It seemed to be going farther to the north than was necessary, but I followed it anyway. By the time I was down in the wash which goes to the bay I had explored last December, it was still only 11:00 a.m. so I decided to take in Cape Solitude. I shot away my film at the river, the plane wreck, and the Little Colorado River. This was quite a long detour and I didn't reach the top of the Blue Spring Trail until 6:00 p.m. There was at least one frog in the cattle tank, but I decided against stopping there for the night. Since my canteen was almost empty, I swallowed the rest of my water and stowed the canteen in the pack.
I don't know what I expected after hearing about McKee's Party using a ladder and Wing and Womack having to rappel for 80 feet near the top. I had a strong hunch that this was foolishness, but I was a bit surprised when this mapped trail with car tracks leading to it turned out to be a good bit more abrupt and intricate than the way I had pioneered last December. Some of the rock-pile markers were most welcome and took me around points that I never would have considered as having any future. Some places you have to stand on tiptoe along a narrow ledge holding to something all the while, and other times you get down on all fours and go under a ledge. However, there was never any place where I had to take my pack off and let it down on the end of a rope. Just once I thought that I had missed the best way, but only for a short distance and I didn't have to retrace my steps. It took an hour and a quarter to negotiate the difficult part through the Kaibab and Coconino Formations, and it took the same time to finish the trip to the bottom. The last steep bit through the Redwall was done in the dark.
A depression in the main wash of the Redwall still held quite a bit of rain water. I filled the gallon canteen here which also made the last part of the trip a bit slow. There were mosquitoes near this pool, but at the bottom there were none and I had a fine night, the last time my mattress held perfectly.
In the morning, the first two hours were spent in going upstream to try to see where the water was coming from. I got to where the Redwall was no longer showing but there was still a bit of spring water flowing. Quicksand was an obstacle here, but a stick reassured me that hard bottom was only 15 inches down.
After this detour, I got my pack together and started downriver at 8:00 a.m. The biggest springs of all were at the place where the trail wash ends, a little below where I camped. Very soon I was through with quicksand but I had to cross deep pools which came right up to the Redwall cliff. Here I inflated the mattress again and used it the rest of the day. I would be in the water a few minutes and then be walking for 15. It was perfect for keeping cool on a hot day. In fact, my teeth would chatter when the wind blew. I was as impressed as Wing and Womack were with the Travertine dams. The big grotesque blocks of travertine which had rolled down into the river were most picturesque, and the blue water tearing down between them demanded more pictures. I knew that I would regret it, but I shot my last film here. As I struggled over the big blocks and fought catclaw along the banks, I could see why Wing and Womack were rather slow in getting by these places with their 200 pounds of duffel. They were just too careful when you think that they carried all their drinking water. It took me four and a half hours to get down to Salt Trail Canyon where I had lunch, and then it took three and a half hours more to reach the mouth of the Little Colorado River.
On my other trips to the Little Colorado River, I had stayed near the water just south of the mouth, but this time the main river was so high (the boulder island delta was completely submerged) that I went higher and found the old trail at this level. After almost two hours of in and out walking, I came to the large cairn on a point just north of a good sized bay near mile 63.4. I had suspected that this point was the location of the driftwood ladder that I had seen against the bottom of the cliff by the river on a previous trip. The way down appeared to be on the south side out near the river. Just as I was about ready to concede defeat, I saw a very clear cairn 20 feet lower on a ledge. There was also a rock-pile built up for a step below an overhang very close to where I was standing. I needed the rope to help me down to the step since there were no good holds. The rest of the way to the bottom of the wash was easy, but that still left a 35 foot drop down to the talus beside the river.
First I crawled south along a narrow ledge with no head room to where I was directly over the driftwood ladder. It falls about 10 feet short of reaching the ledge, so the man who put it here must have had a rope too, or else he did some daring rock work to get down to the top of his ladder. Incidentally, the ladder has long since come apart, but you can still see about two rungs which are fastened to an upright at one end. Crawling back was a good deal worse for my nerves than getting over there, because now I had to go head down and I could also see how thick the fragile rock ledge appeared. For a foot or so it was only about 10 inches wide. After I climbed up the fixed rope, I suddenly remembered the Hopi story of the peculiar rock they used for their rope in getting to the bottom, so I went back down to look for it. Above the place where the ladder is placed, I couldn't see anything special, but when I considered the possibility that they went down the middle of the wash I saw it at once. If it was ever in the shape of a man's chest, erosion has changed it. Now it looks like half a saddle sticking right out of the bedrock just over the edge of the fall to the river talus. It's still ideal for a climbing rope and it seems most odd to see such a knob right in the middle of the water worn rock. Some ledges below break the straight descent so that a person would have to climb hand over hand for only about 20 feet at a time. I didn't know how well I would make out getting back up a rope for even that distance, so I decided to come back in the fall when I could walk downstream along the bank after sliding down a rope to the bottom. I surely regretted not having any film left for a picture.
It took me about an hour and 40 minutes to go from here on to the first wash into the Colorado River at the end of the bench trail. The day was hot and I spent a long time reading my Readers Digest while sitting in a few inches of water. After a two and a half hour walk from here I was at the mouth of Tanner Creek doing the same thing. The shade here is fine, and the mouth of the wash was blocked off by a sand bar with just enough depth to float in. It was a fine way to fight the heat and I finished the magazine here and had part of my supper before I started up the trail a little before 6:00 p.m. I must try to remember this trail better, because I missed it again by going too high too soon. The walking through the Hakatai Shale is a lot better when you find the vestige of the trail. I spent the night on the little saddle just below the Muav cliffs. The sunset was fine and the silhouette of the points east of Cape Final was most impressive. The moon was bright and at this elevation, my bag was just right for warmth. I had carried a full gallon of water up here with me, and it was plenty. In fact I poured some of it out before I finished the climb around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. It had been a very successful trip except for two things. First, I snagged my air mattress on a catclaw and it wouldn't hold air after the first night, and second, my right foot was blistered near the top of the oxford by something. Sam Madariaga suggested that it was poisoning from the dye in the sock. Three blisters the size of half dollars kept me from thinking about another big trip before summer school, but Roma and I got our tour of Chaco Canyon and El Morro in anyways.
I left the rim drive at the Abyss trying to go to Pasture Wash via the telephone line road, but I missed the way and wound up going on the regular Topocoba Hilltop road. It was about as bad as ever, and I decided to return by the telephone line. When I did, I resolved to never try that again. The rocks were worse and more numerous than on the old road. The drive from the ranger station to Bass Camp is now in pretty good shape since they have made bypass tracks around two washed out places.
This time down the South Bass Trail I saw the dams where Bass had constructed two cisterns near the top of the Coconino Sandstone. I also noticed the small Indian ruins near the place where the trail turns to go down through the Coconino. They are about 20 feet above the trail. The better preserved one has enough room to shelter a sleeping man.
It is easy to walk out along the Grand Scenic Divide. I was mildly surprised to find a well developed burro trail leading most of the way out. At the end of the first level, there is a nearly continuous 20 foot cliff. I saw a big cairn below, but the way down to it didn't seem a bit inviting. South, about a 100 yards on the west side, I found a much easier place to get down. The end of this second level really seemed to be the jumping off place unless one came up from below, from the top of the Redwall. James' picture of Dick Pillar corresponds to the Fin of Supai. I took a picture of it. His picture shows the pillar with its top above the skyline. I'm not sure if I was that low. The whole trip to the end and back to my pack took about two hours, waterless since I had left the canteen at the pack. On the way back, I overshot the pack and wasted about five minutes looking for it.
I carried the pack a short way towards Huethawali Point and then put it down again. It took me an even hour to go from the pack to the top. I didn't make any false moves in getting up, through the Coconino near the southwest end and to the top of the limestone cap at the nearest place. There was an old can full of pebbles in a small rock-pile at the very highest point. I wasted more than 15 minutes finding the pack again by thinking that the first white ledge was the right one instead of the farther one.
There was no trouble in following the burro trail around past Chemehuevi Point, and I was able to spot the exact place where the upper trail to the seep spring left the level route to the west and south. It was 7:00 p.m. when I reached the spring and was really gratified to see that I wouldn't have to make out on less than a quart of water that I had left in my canteen until I could reach the car. There were two good drips. The farther one from the wall would fill a gallon jug in something like three hours. It's a really inspiring campsite with some shade from a thicket on the edge of the small platform. The view is really something and the weather was just right for scanty attire in the evening, and the morning temperature was just invigorating. Since I didn't know of any further water supply to the west, I gave up the idea of going on over and out by Apache Point. I left the sleeping gear at the seep spring and resolved to go until noon away from base. The trail was both hard to find and hard to follow in the bay between Toltec and Montezuma Points and progress was rather slow. By the time I reached the arm of Royal Arches Creek, which starts south of Montezuma Point, I was ready to see what was down the creekbed. It was relatively straight and easy going compared to the everlasting winding of the contour trail around the head of every gulch. There were a couple of drops in the center of the bed, but they were easily bypassed to the north, I believe. After I passed the junction with the arm which comes from west of Point Huitzil, I found two or three potholes with water in them from nearby seeps. They should be permanent sources of water. They were full of tadpoles which may explain why they didn't have any bugs to speak of in them.
A little farther there was a formidable drop of about 100 feet with no obvious way to get down. I thought I saw a break quite a bit to the west on the north side of the canyon, but as there seemed to be a nearer place on the south, I tried that first. There were deer tracks in this direction, but at the hardest place I had to face inwards and step sideways holding with both hands to the top of a block for additional security. Maybe the deer get by here with a broadjump, something I would like to see. Progress was smooth until I reached a little way down into the Redwall just after this arm joined the main creekbed. There was a place where I had to brace my back against one rock while my feet were on another, so I left my canteen and pack behind again. Ten feet of rope to let the pack down would have been useful here. It was the toughest climb of all. There were a number of spots where I had to stop and study the problem, but they were all pretty easy. In a half hour near the bottom of the Redwall, there were some deep potholes with water in them, containing tadpoles. The lower one had a snake, not a rattler, basking nearby. At the end of an hour, I was getting thirsty enough to consider turning back to the potholes. However, a mighty cool bath was in order before I started back. I took another drink at the pothole, but I was still uncomfortably dry when I got back to the canteen. I drank as much as I wanted to at my late lunch, and I picked up a half gallon at the cleaner waterhole on the return.
The flies were a nuisance on the trail, but I didn't notice any flies nor ants either at the campsite by the spring at the top of the Hermit Shale. I saw a lot more birds in this area than I usually do at this time of year. One evening, a hummingbird and a hummingbird moth were working at the same thistle at the same time. Twice I heard deer snort as they took alarm, the first time I had noticed one doing that.
The Tanner Trail was covered between 8:30 a.m. and noon on Friday. As quite a coincidence, there were two hikers at the river when I got there. One of them was Marshall Scholing of 1081 N. Riverside Ave. Rialto, California. He has the same ambition I have of covering all the canyon that he can. We promised to exchange letters telling how our trips come out. We talked so long that I got a rather late start on the next leg of my trip. I changed my plan rather abruptly to cover new territory and go up Basalt Creek instead of following the east bank of the Colorado River to Lava Creek.
There was a quiet stretch of water above the mouth of Basalt Creek, but I had no trouble crossing it on the mattress. Judging by the narrowness of the west branch of Basalt Canyon as shown on the map, I thought it would be more feasible to go up the east arm and then cross the ridge into the west arm. Also, I wanted to check the springs in the east branch. In the east branch, I noted three rock markers which might have been an indication of a mining claim or possibly trail markers. If it had been a trail, it may have gone up over the ridge into Lava Canyon rather than going back into the west arm of Basalt as I did. I have noticed a place where one could go up over this dividing ridge from near where the fault reaches Lava. The springs were there all right, but they were decidedly strong with minerals. One pool of warm water tasted distinctly bitter like Epsom salts. In this canyon I disturbed a big owl. About the time I got back into the long arm of Basalt Canyon, it began to rain which helped save my supply of Colorado River water. When I got out to the top of the ridge below Juno Temple, I saw that the descent would be much safer farther to the northwest where I could see a promontory with a reasonably gentle profile. Walking the shale slope over to it was rather slow and took considerably longer than I had allowed. By the time I was starting down towards Lava Creek, it was already getting dark. It was about 8:25 p.m. and quite dark when I reached the creek which had a nice flow of water where I landed, within about 50 minutes walk from the Indian ruin.
The next morning I got off to a good start and scouted the ruin under the overhang near the bend where the long arm of Lava turns north. Only one room is still standing, and it has a good sized hole in the west wall. The rock forms the roof, and it has a feature which I have never seen in these structures before, a zig-zag line of loopholes about 18 inches from the floor on the south side. There wasn't any obvious loot around, but east of the Colorado River, I picked up a piece of black-on-white decorated pottery which Bob Euler says was made between 1070 and 1150 AD.
After a short walk, I came to the branch which heads just west of Hubbell Butte and followed it right on up the Redwall. Between the ruin and this turnoff was a pretty travertine spring covered with maidenhair fern. At a place where the Muav Limestone forms a cliff, I had to back up and go up on the east side, which held me up. Right here I began to note deer signs. I had seen none at all in Basalt and they were rare if any in Lava. There was quite a bit of choice in going up the Redwall, but sometimes I did need two hands on the rocks. I couldn't say that I had discovered an old burro trail.
I followed the top of the Redwall to the southwest and then decided to climb up a little of the Supai. When I returned, I saw that it would have been shorter and easier to climb as much of the Supai as I could as soon as I could have. This would mean at least a third of the formation. As it was, I got around into the main arm of Lava and went at least halfway to the head before I got a good chance to go up through the Supai. I did the first main cliff and went on north to the next recess before I came to a good place to go up the rest of the way. It was relatively easy walking along the lower edge of the Hermit Shale. I went to the south side of the larger isolated cap of Coconino at the head of Lava, quite a struggle part of the way because of manzanita. It was now around 1:00 p.m. and I knew I couldn't reach the point below the Coconino west of Point Atoka where I had been last summer, so I went on around this butte of Coconino to the north where there was a deer trail most of the way. A double fault dropping a slice of the rock down over 100 feet was quite noticeable just west of where I turned back. A little cap of Coconino shows this very well. The next thing I want to investigate is the possibility of getting down into Kwagunt Canyon at this fault. Coming off the rim by this route and down into Kwagunt Canyon, over to Nankoweap Creek along the butte fault, and then up the Nankoweap Trail would make a fine two day walk.
I was returning by the same route along the Supai when I happened to stop for a bit and look around. Something that I had missed on the way in was plain as day; a rather large natural bridge about halfway up the Redwall on the west side quite near the end of Lava Canyon. I took a couple of pictures then, and also on Sunday morning after spending the night at the same place as before. I went back along the bottom of the canyon and got some more pictures by climbing up a slide on the east of the bridge, but that made the top blend with the background. The more distant picture really shows it better when there was no sun on it, at least in the black and white. At the end of the trip, I reported to headquarters and found that it had already been discovered from the air about two years ago by a flier named Hartman. They have been calling it Hartman Bridge. They told me that a man had recently decided to try to reach it and take pictures, but he hadn't carried through and my pictures were the first ones. Sunday afternoon I went down the creek and saw the old still site and the grinder locked in the tree where the shoots came up from the stump and surrounded it. (South side of Lava Canyon where there is a little spring. Mouth of the two-armed creek below Juno Temple.) It would be interesting cutting down one of those four sprouts which are now about six inches thick and see when the still was abandoned. There has been quite a flood since the last time Dock Marston was here. Now there is mud and small stones mixed in with the grinder and a piece of the flywheel has been broken off.
I put the pack down where the fault meets the creek and went on to the river with my camera. There was still a central channel at this stage of low water, but a good sized rock was showing near the right bank and only a sheet of water was going over another near the left bank. Between Sunday evening and Wednesday evening, the water fell several more inches because the latter rock was completely out by then.
I had been walking in the rain and under clouds quite a bit of the time each afternoon, so I misjudged my need for canteen water as I started out Monday morning. However, I should say something about Sunday night. Some animal kept rattling my discarded sardine can for a good part of the night. Also, I could hear rustling going on in my knapsack where the food was stored. First I tried hanging this near my head from a stick jammed into a crack of a little cliff. The noises continued, so I carried it far enough away and hung it from a mesquite tree so I couldn't hear the noises even if they continued. Between those interruptions and my mattress, which needed more air every two or three hours, I didn't sleep very well. The one wool blanket was warm enough all but about one night when I was glad to pull the plastic sheet over me too. I slept with my shirt on, and sometimes I put on my trousers too.
The trip up and down over the ridges separating Lava Canyon from Carbon Canyon (hardly any rise here), Carbon Canyon from mile 60, then on to Awatubi, Malgosa, and finally Kwagunt was pretty fatiguing. You must have to climb a total of about the same altitude as from the bottom of the Canyon to the rim, but you do get there. Near the top of the long arm of Carbon along the fault, I noted some barbwire and fence posts. A corral here seemed odd when there was no water around. Maybe in the winter or spring there is some. This may have been put here by the horsethieves, or it may have something to do with the attempted deer drive. The three little springs in Carbon Canyon along the fault leave a white deposit on the soil, so they might not be very good for the health. I thought I noticed a bad taste on my way north, but when I was coming back the water in the upper one didn't seem half bad. Perhaps I was a lot thirstier. In 60 Mile Canyon you should keep to the west of the fault even though it involves a bit of climbing to reach the other branch. On the return, I went down the bottom and up the other side and decided it was a bit longer but more interesting. While I was doing this, I saw a horned owl which seemed to be living in a small cave in the cliff. All these canyons have impressive gates through the ridges formed by the fault, especially Carbon. I followed down into the Tapeats at Carbon and soon came to a falls which barred the way.
From Malgosa into Kwagunt, you probably shouldn't go right on up the fault as the descent on the Kwagunt side is quite steep and something that a horse couldn't do. You branch off to the west and go a bit higher but have an easier descent. I did this on the return and found several not so rusty cans near the top. Dock tells me that E. A. Hinds took some students into this area in 1934 and thinks that these cans may date from them. It took between 9 and 10 hours for my trip from Lava Canyon to Kwagunt Canyon and I was going along with a dry canteen for the last hour. When I got to Kwagunt, there was a good flow of water which I sat in for a while and read my Digest. The flow in Lava dried up completely during the afternoon. I woke up about three in the morning and heard the stream gurgling merrily. After a rest, I went down to see Kwagunt Rapids. They looked much harder to navigate than the ones at Lava Creek (not to be confused with Lava Rapids) and were making a real roar. One could walk three-fourth of the way across the river with the rapid concentrated on the left side. Upstream the river looked calm and encouraged me to think that it would be no trick to float down from Nankoweap to Kwagunt Rapids. It took nearly an hour to walk from the fault to the river. I noticed that the clear water above the fault picked up enough dark shale to become muddy looking for the last third of the way to the Colorado River.
On Tuesday I thought from the map that I didn't have a very ambitious assignment, so I didn't start as soon as I usually do, about 7:00 a.m. It took me three hours just to get over to Nankoweap Creek. I went over the loose shale saddle west of the fault and somewhat lower. When I started up to reach the lower end of the Nankoweap Trail, I missed the mouth of the ravine which comes directly down from the trail end and I climbed the ridge directly west of this ravine. At the end, I found a bit of a deer trail but couldn't bring myself to follow it when it went down into the ravine. I had myself a tricky time climbing along the ridge of rotten rock which connects with the point just above the right ravine. I was able to follow the trail up through the talus covering the lower part of the Redwall pretty well although at one place I decided it was completely gone and decided to go straight up. However, I soon hit the trail above and followed it on to the top of the Redwall. At one place some retaining wall is still intact as the trail goes around a point. Where it tops out, there is a handle-less sledge hammer and two worn-out steel drills. I built a cairn here to help one see where to leave the top of the Redwall.
By this time I had run low on water again. I spent almost an hour following the trail up and along the Supai (hour for the round trip). There was no trail improvements to be seen, so I don't think the man has it in shape to take horse parties down to see Goldwater's bridge. The bottom of the Little Nankoweap seemed quite a bit higher than the creek in Nankoweap and since I was so short of water I decided against trying to get to the Colorado River down Little Nankoweap Canyon. I wish now that I had trusted the map, because I believe I could have gotten to the river about as soon as I got down to water in Nankoweap. (I found out later that this isn't true.) I went down the ravine directly below the end of the trail and found this route quite a bit better than going along the ridge. By the time I got to the river, it was too late to think about climbing up to the cliff ruins or going back to explore Little Nankoweap Canyon from the mouth. I walked to the bottom of the rapids and blew up the mattress. Before I had gone very far by water, I could hear rapids ahead. Rocks formed a bar out from the left bank and more and more water went through this bar to form a narrow sharp rapid next to the right bank. With my shoes off and in the pack, I couldn't do much barefooted, so it was very slow walking the rocks past this rapid. I wore my shoes for a while and then paddled over to the right bank again. By this time it was completely dark, and instead of guessing about rapids in the moonlight, I decided to walk the right bank. This was not too hard along the sand beaches, but I came to a lot of willow and mesquite thickets. Sometimes there were places where rain streams had cut vertical slits in the deep sand and crossing them was tricky. It was a slow job and I took to the water once more to bypass one of these thickets. Here I had to paddle against a backwater, so that wasn't good either. It must have been 9:00 p.m. by the time I reached the mouth of Kwagunt because it was 10:10 p.m. when I got back to my campsite at the fult. I was bushed. This struggle caused me to give up the idea of going back by water and I returned by the fault on Wednesday. There was a little shade and a few raindrops in the late afternoon, and I had no real trouble getting to Lava Canyon in nine hours or in floating for a half mile below Lava Creek Rapids. I reached the end of Tanner Wash by 6:15 p.m. in quite good shape. The river was so low that I could walk below the last cliff above Tanner almost the whole way and it wasn't hard to climb up and over the final bit.
My feet had taken a beating, mostly bruised with a couple of minor blisters, and I seemed not to be very peppy otherwise because it took me about six and a half hours to get up the Tanner Trail with a very light pack on Thursday.
Besides the owls and lots of gophers and squirrels, I had a good close look at a coyote in Malgosa Canyon. There were also a couple deer in lower Nankoweap narrows. On Wednesday, a little rattlesnake buzzed at me from under a rock, and a big one coiled and buzzed about 10 feet in front of me.
Roma let me out 1.3 miles south of Two Rivers Junction scenic view about ten Saturday morning. I wasted a little time finding the break in the Coconino by going out on a point near the base of the Kaibab instead of following the deer trail farther east before starting down. The way down was just as easy as I remembered it. A burro would have no difficulty. Just a few feet west, at the bottom of the Coconino, there is a little spring which accounts for the popularity of this place with deer. When I had proceeded a bit farther east at this level, I saw that I could have gotten through the Coconino where I had first tried, directly down from the road. Just to the north near the bottom, there is a chute where I could have gone over a small ridge and entered. However, going through the woods higher up is easier than along the Hermit Shale so my actual route was superior. I thought that there were no other breaks in the Coconino farther east but Davis and Ellis found one later.
Travel along the shale slope was not as bad as it might have been because I could follow a fair deer trail most of the way. I did lose it at times and it took me three and a half hours to get from the car to the dividing ridge between Lava and Kwagunt Canyons which I had reached in August. If I hadn't been timing myself to this ridge, I could have cut down into the Kwagunt drainage a little sooner. All this slope over the Supai is forested and easy. You don't see any rock at all.
The beginning of the Redwall is quite easy also with the Supai showing distinctly lower on the east than on the west. Either here or a little lower I made the mistake of not leaving the stream bed and going into the forested slope to the east. When I came to impassable falls, I decided to rockclimb out to the east without backtracking much. This was probably a mistake because I had to move very slowly past some difficult spots, especially with my pack containing nearly a gallon of water. When I did get past a couple of small ravines into the woods at this level, there was a definite deer trail so that there should to be a much easier way of coming down. A burro route here would be a good bet. Before you reach the very bottom of the Redwall, you come down into the creekbed again. In fact, the last of this wooded slope seems to be separated from the bottom by a final cliff. In the shale below the Redwall there are numerous small springs which keep a small flow moving for about a half a mile. I felt so sure that the water would continue that I emptied my canteen, and when I came to where it disappears, I didn't fill it thinking that more water would appear shortly. The Tapeats is a real barrier here with no chance of following the creekbed through it. I elected to go to the west along the rim thinking that I would find a break shortly and that I might find the Indian ruins which are supposed to be in Kwagunt. The cliff continued as far as I inspected it in this direction, but I could see a convenient break just south of the angle in the cliff on the east side of this tributary. I lost a half hour on this detour, so when I think that I got down to the main bed of Kwagunt in six and a half hours from the car, I should remember that I took a half hour to eat lunch as well as this bit of lost time. I also should be able to come through the Redwall quite a bit faster another time.
I might have decided to go upstream looking for the Indian ruins if I had kept all the water in my canteen, but now I was in a hurry to find the main springs which keep the good flow in lower Kwagunt. I did take time out to build a good fire which I hoped Roma could see and know that I had reached the bottom of Kwagunt safely. Actually, she didn't notice this fire. Progress was steady and relatively easy down the streambed. There was one place where two small holes in the shale held water, but they may have been a bit unhealthful since there was white stuff around the edge. Coyote tracks indicated that animals use this water, however. The good springs start rather far down, only a half hour's walk from the butte fault.
My camp Saturday night was a few yards upstream from where I had slept before. It was just where you start up the streambed to go towards Nankoweap. If I had known what sort of day Sunday would be, I would have eaten supper at Kwagunt and then walked over into Nankoweap after dark.
The beginning of the wash leading to Nankoweap confused me a bit as I had not remembered it as being choked with reeds. After a few yards I recognized it as the same one I had been in before. The start was early, 5:45 a.m. in fact. I felt fine and peppy, and this time I continued on to the top of the divide along the fault instead of going west to a lower pass. When you get to the top of this pass, you have to swing slightly to the west as you go down to stay west of the canyon which makes a perpendicular drop into the Redwall. This route is much straighter than the one I used before and there are no serious obstacles. There were two good sized claim markers about three feet high and about one-third the way to the bottom and two-thirds of the way down.
The day still seemed reasonably cool when I got to the river and I undertook the Indian ruins, which are really only granaries. I had to expect some climbing skill to get into the one facing north. This one and the others facing the river all surprised me by their small size. One is likely to judge them as being full sized rooms from a distance, but there is only one which is long enough for a man to stretch out in. There is a well worn trail leading to the main set, undoubtedly formed by people coming down river on boat trips.
It was 10:30 a.m. when I was through with the ruins, but I was still in the mood to go out by way of Little Nankoweap Canyon which the map indicated as possible. It was narrow and scenic, and there were several pools of rainwater which had stood for a week since the last rain. I also noted a pool of clear water from a seep. There were two or three rockfalls which made some detouring out of the creekbed necessary. After I had passed a side canyon from the north, the main canyon entered a narrows, very gloomy and forbidding. Around a bend I came to a 30 foot fall which did have a rather precarious route up around it to the south. It was about all I could do to negotiate this with my pack on, but just above this place around another bend, the end appeared. A narrow notch about 70 feet up formed the lip of another fall, and there wasn't a chance of going up anywhere. Before I began the descent, I noticed a three-fourths inch diameter climbing rope partially buried in the gravel and boulders. It was still quite strong and I could neither break it nor jerk it entirely loose from the gravel. In order to make the descent a little safer, I let the pack down using the 50 foot line I had in my pack. I hurried back to the river from this point in a half hour. I was now two and a half hours behind the schedule that I had set for myself in getting back to the rim.
The heat at 12:30 p.m. was now getting me down. I sat in the creek for a minute at one place, and ate a rather leisurely lunch trying to get rested for the rigorous climb ahead of me. It was after 2:00 p.m. when I really left the creek, and I went up the ravine that leads directly to the end of the trail. This part went off all right and so did the part going up the Redwall which I knew quite well by now. However, I was slow as I felt rather upset to the stomach. It was after 5:00 p.m. when I started on the Supai lap, and almost immediately beyond where I had seen it in August. The trail was completely obliterated by slides of small and large rocks. For as far ahead as I could see in a big horseshoe bay, the trail was non-existent and the footing would be dangerous with every step since a slide of only a few feet would mean a drop over a small cliff. As it would be dark before long, I gave up any idea of proceeding at this level. At this point there is a very unusual break in the top cliff of the Supai, in fact the only one I had seen or could see, so I started up. I put the gallon canteen in the pack and used both hands for climbing, but when I was four-fifths to the top, I encountered a mean step. The next toehold was about as far away as I could step without jumping across the face of a 20 foot straight drop, and the space where I wanted to be was occupied by a clump of brush. I almost gave up and went back, but that prospect seemed worse than taking the chance. I hooked one arm around the brush and got a friction handhold on the rock nearby and made the step. Somehow I wiggled until my pack came clear of the brush and I knew that nothing but a long grind would prevent me from reaching Point Imperial.
By this time I was quite tuckered out. I stopped and built a fire, partly to heat a cup of bouillon but mostly as a signal to Roma on Point Imperial that I was on my way back safely. She was unable to notice this light so far away, and likewise she didn't see the one I built farther along about 11:00 p.m. If one moves slowly along the Hermit Shale, he can be fairly safe even at night. The walking through manzanita and other brush was miserable and there were plenty of loose stones to watch for. I wore just my shorts to keep as cool as I could and make my water last longer. After drinking less than I needed for hours, I finally finished my water supply a little after eleven o'clock. At midnight I was on the saddle west of Saddle Mountain, but the walking after that was still bad in the dark. My way was often barred by briars and the pine needles on the steep slopes were difficult. Once in a while I would find a short stretch of trail, but I would promptly loose it. The moon had gone down about midnight. I was so weak by this time that I had to sit or lie down for about as long as I spent walking up the grades. Up on the rim, the wind began to blow and my trousers and shirt were not too warm. I used my blankets when I needed to rest. When I finally got to the top and was beyond the ravines, I could walk for longer intervals and finally reached the parking lot at Point Imperial about 20 minutes after sunrise. I surely was glad when Roma came back from one of her regular inspections down the rim road to see whether I could be coming out where I had gone down near Two Rivers Junction. I had lost nine pounds in two days, but with plenty of water and food at home, I gained it back in two days.
I started down the Tanner Trail at 7:52 a.m., and reached the river in just under three hours. Since I did no running (only a quick step now and then), it must not be much over the estimate of 10 miles. Since I wanted to cross the river below Tanner Rapids, I angled to the west from the shale ridge near the bottom and didn't get to the bottom of Tanner Creek at all. The river was real low, about the same as when I crossed in late August, but now there was very little silt in it. When you drank it, there was no grit in your teeth, and the last of the canteen was just as good as the first.
Dock had asked me to check the possibility of the existence of an old trail just below Point Ochoa heading over in the direction of Cardenas Creek. I climbed the shale slope to the west of the mouth of Basalt Creek where along one rather level stretch there seemed to be a poorly defined trail for about 50 yards. Farther on there seemed to be rocks cleared away for a trail for about 20 feet, but I saw nothing that was a sure sign of an old trail on the way over into Unkar Canyon as I kept rather high and crossed the arroyos near their upper ends beneath the basalt cliffs. It took about three hours to get from the mouth of Basalt to the bottom of Unkar, including a half hour stop for food.
There is a large tributary of Unkar which comes down from the bay beneath Jupiter Temple. I reached Unkar downstream from this streambed and was pleased to find a fair flow of water where I was. The water runs on the surface for about a mile and the spring was only a few yards above. There was more surface water further up indicating another spring existed. I left the pack here and started up Unkar at 2:45 p.m. with the camera and light meter. It was warm enough to hike in just a pair of trunks, but the heat wasn't oppressive as it had been four weeks earlier. I had gotten soft, however, and I was a little dismayed to have to rest when I was just walking up a slight grade in the streambed.
Unkar surprised me by being more closed in than the beds of Lava, Kwagunt, or Nankoweap. There were very few good views of the Redwall, but I don't think that there are any good breaks which would help you climb out in this area. Some kind of green herb which grows about three or four feet high was in bloom with small green flowers all over it. The air was perfumed for miles along here. Sometimes mesquite blooms are almost too sweet to be attractive, but these were just right. Another experience which was new to me was being startled by a certain kind of bird. It was about the size of a robin but had the build of a hawk. It would wait until I was only a few feet away and then it would start off with a sort of quick hiss. I had never noticed this kind of bird before, but on this day I saw at least six of them.
If I had the time, I wanted to see whether one could climb out of Unkar where it reaches north nearest to Lava. I followed the arm which goes in this direction below Cape Final. Where the bed comes up to the base of the Tapeats, there is considerable basalt showing which makes an abrupt cliff on the west side of the bed. The stream comes over part of the Tapeats and about 40 feet of this basalt is a vertical fall, but over to the east there is a simple climb up a talus. A 50 foot fault is quite noticeable here. The bottom of the Tapeats is higher to the west. The valley to the north was fairly open but bounded by the Redwall. I estimated that it would have taken another hour to reach the end and check the possibility of climbing out. There is a good chance of doing this since I know that there is the same fault here which makes it possible to go down into Kwagunt and probably makes a descent possible into Lava from the north. I would like to check both of these ideas out sometime. Going from the mouth of Unkar clear to Nankoweap would be much quicker if one could go from Unkar at its head into the south branch of Lava and go on to the north fork of Lava and then into Kwagunt. The traverse from Kwagunt to Nankoweap would have to be by the well known Butte Fault Trail or over a lower ridge west of Nankoweap Butte. Another possibility is between Colter and Hutton Buttes.
When I returned from this tour my wind seemed much better, and I came down in only a little more than an hour. I carried my pack downstream until 5:40 p.m. and decided to stop for the night. It was cool enough by then that I wanted my shirt on, but I would have been a little more comfortable if I had a lighter sleeping bag. The air mattress held air much better than the ones I have been using lately, and I slept all of eight hours. After 4:30 a.m., I watched the sky for quite a while and saw more meteors than usual. I think they must have been coming on the average of one a minute for a half hour. It may have been a regular shower, but I couldn't make out the radiant.
Breakfast was over before it was light enough to travel and I was ready to move by 6:10 a.m. I had already had to negotiate a couple of spots in the streambed which took just a bit of scrambling, but ahead the way was easier. It was just plain walking down the gravel. At one place I sat down and read to let the sun get high enough for me to snap a picture of the north rim. From most of Unkar you're too shut in to take good pictures, but now and then you round a bend and get a good view of Vishnu Temple or Freya Temple. Vishnu looks pretty wicked to climb. I'm afraid Merrel Club can have his corner on Vishnu.
Unkar Rapids occupied me for quite a while. It was a bit dark for good pictures. I took one on bulb resting the camera on a rock. When I had crossed the river, which I could do at about a 45 degree angle, I went down near the rapid and shot some more. Walking the bank on the left of Unkar Rapids is impossible even at the present low stage.
It was easy to walk the bank up almost to Cardenas Creek. The footing either gave out or else was very narrow below a bluff near here, and since I wanted to see the Indian ruin on the ridge, I climbed up and away from the bank. I spotted the ruin when I was below it and a couple hundred yards away. It is quite large with walls still standing about five feet high along one side.
Allyn Cureton and I left the car at 8:00 a.m. and were down to the river a bit after 11:00 a.m. We noted that the water was still lower than it had been as a white line was showing on the rocks about four inches above the present level. Keith Runcorn's rocks were still in the mesquite tree. This time we tried going along the rocks beside the water instead of climbing up and around the cliffs just upriver from the wash. We were able to climb up the spot where I had previously rejected the possibility of coming down and stayed near the water all the way. The island at mile 66.9 was no longer an island. It was connected to the left shore near the lower end and also still more at the upper end. Some nearly clear water was filtering through the mud and rocks, but the river would have to rise at least nine inches before there would be any direct flow. Just for the record, we walked across the island. Upriver from here the dunes were really something artistic. At mile 66.3, a pebble and boulder bar formed a partial dam for a pool which began just below Lava Creek Rapids. It looked as though a man could wade the river here, and a horse would have no trouble at all. At Lava Creek Rapids, the water was following a well defined and rather narrow channel near the center of the river. There seemed to be no obstructions here as the water was swift with no breaking waves. The waves were not much more than a foot or so high and quite smooth. There were at least three places between Lava Creek and Tanner Rapids which were distinctly rougher.
We walked by the old mining camp where the best structure was built of driftwood saplings with mud still showing between them. The lower mine shaft still had a pool of water over its floor, but there was no crust on the surface. The upper deep shaft was wet near the entrance, but back a bit farther we had to straddle mud and water in the middle of the floor. The walls and ceiling are crusted with bubbles of salt so thick that no rock shows. At a place or two, wet spots in the salt are stained a brilliant green by the copper. Back where the shaft forks into three parts, a short timber holds up the roof. We followed two of the branches to their ends, but the one towards the surface of the cliff had too much water on the bottom. About here I noticed my candle was burning very low. The flashlight gave all the light we had. At the same time we became aware that it was much warmer than out farther. When we got into the fresh air again both of us had a slight headache. I wouldn't have minded sleeping near the mouth because the candle burned twice as bright as it had at the end of the shaft. However, as the inward slope was down, the cold night air would have penetrated freely and we would not have had much protection from the cold. We dropped our packs on a smooth spot in the sandy soil where the mesquite is spotty near where the trail takes off to go up above the Tapeats cliff. It took us about one and a half hours to get to the bay where the Hopi climbed down for their salt at mile 63.4. Strangely, I didn't recognize the place for sure until I had passed it and stood on the point just north of where there's a distinct rock-pile. This rock-pile seemed unfamiliar too since less seemed to be standing than I remembered. However, from this point, I could recognize the exact route I had followed down across on the south side. We hooked the clothesline around the same square block to slide down to the step built up from below. When we were both down, we couldn't loosen the rope so Allyn climbed up and then came down with no help from the rope although he had a bit of help from me in showing him where to place his feet. I had also forgotten the exact location of the peculiar rock used by the Hopi for fastening their rope when they went down. It's not in the middle of the smooth bottom of the wash but over to the left side on a ledge about six feet lower than the main lip of the fall. It's shaped pretty much like the rear of a saddle and holds the rope perfectly. After taking a picture of Allyn with his head against the rock, I got ready and rappelled down with no ill effects. The rope hangs out abut nine inches from the cliff at the steepest place, but you reach this vertical place after an eight foot slope of about a 45 degrees inclination. The straight drop can't be much more than 15 feet until you reach a shelf of conglomerate where you can land and get off the rope. By rope measurement, it's 35 feet from the saddle rock to the ground below the conglomerate platform.
There were at least three salt seep springs along the next third of a mile downriver from this descent. The whole cliff face is white with salt stalactites and some stalagmites. The definite springs had built up big deposits. After we had just abut given up finding a cave, Allyn found two rather close together. They were about five feet deep and about 20 feet long parallel to the cliff face. I could see nothing that looked like a prayer feather or any sort of offering. One dusty looking lump might have formerly been a pedestal where a spring had dripped forming a pool on the top, but if this had once matched the Hopi account, it no longer did. Our photography was handicapped by the failing light and it was a good thing that Allyn had a tripod which served for my camera as well as his.
I had forgotten the best way to go downriver along the bank and we tried following the edge of the water. When a cliff developed, we went only as high as we thought necessary, but by this time it was completely dark and it was difficult to determine the best route. When our ledge seemed to be getting worse, I finally insisted that Allyn turn back and we climb up to the bench just below the Tapeats cliff. This would have been easy in the daylight, but it took a bit of care in the dark. We went down to the edge of the water again where we could see that we were back in the vicinity of the open area. This also proved to be a mistake because we had to pass the place where we left our packs before we could break through the mesquite. I was leading when we got through the mesquite and started looking for the packs. More by luck and intuition than sense, I practically stumbled over the packs in the dark when we couldn't make out the landmark we had picked, a peculiar rock with a distinct circle embedded in it.
The night was a bit cold especially since I was still sweaty when I went to bed, but we slept quite a few hours. The return was quite leisurely with a late start about 9:00 a.m. and arrived back at the Tanner Trail about 10:45 a.m. I noted an overhang of conglomerate just downriver from the last cliff on the left bank and Allyn investigated it. He found a five gallon can of Firechief gasoline and some wheat germ in glass jars, possibly one of Georgie White's caches. The trip out took about six hours. Allyn wanted a number of pictures and at one place he was delayed a bit by losing a part from his camera. After he looked through his pack, he found that he had put it on the ground. We were up to the car about 5:00 p.m.
I got started down the Tanner Trail at 8:30 a.m. There was about four inches of snow over the loose rocks which called for careful footwork down to the bottom of the Coconino Sandstone. It had been quite cool since this recent snowfall because there was a bit left in the shade clear below the Redwall.
There was a car parked where I had left mine when I took Allyn to the salt spring and when I saw the footprints on the trail ahead, I was pretty sure it was Allyn with a couple of other people with him. They had slept below the Redwall just above where the trail starts into the draw to go below the Muav. They had left their bedrolls there while they went to the river and back on Friday. I didn't meet them as I left the trail at the top of the Tapeats. When I was starting down the ravine to the west through the Tapeats, I thought I recognized a rock-pile, presumably marking a possible descent. It was pretty crude, however, and it may have been a natural circumstance. The way down wasn't particularly difficult, but it called for constant vigilance as I found when I rolled a rock and almost wrecked my wristwatch. The going was easy in the bottom of the wash, but towards the river it turns toward the east and the saving in distance would be minor if one were to follow it. The trail itself would still be best if one were coming upriver along the bank and were headed for the rim. When I was pretty well down, I climbed the shale slope and kept to the region about 500 feet above the river. here was a clump of mesquite and cane which signified some sort of seep spring. here was no surface water at this time of year, but this area showed quite a bit of travertine and someone has built a claim marker about three feet high on this mound of travertine. Keeping at this level, I went into Cardenas Creek and climbed a ridge above the one where the Indian ruin is perched.
The map omits showing the streambeds in the bay west of Unkar Rapid, but they are well developed and are surely as worth recording as the system of washes between Basalt and Unkar Creeks on the north side of the river. I went down to the beach and tried following the river downstream. The strata tilt up to the west and form little drops directly into the water even at the present low stage. With some climbing and descending when there was a chance, I got to the angle beyond which I could see the rather open area at the mouth of Escalante Creek. The catch was that there was a 30 foot drop to a sand dune and no way to go up or down this time. I had to back-track and climb clear away from the river above this series of cliffs (going into Escalante is much better). The cliffs on the east side of Escalante appeared improbable and worked clear around to the west side of this bay. George Billingsley has since gone around this corner at the river level.) I might have been able to descend to the bottom of Escalante on this side, but I went down a place that looked promising into 75 Mile Canyon instead. There were places that looked a bit rugged in this route, but by choosing the best way, it went through all right. I came to the bottom just where 75 Mile enters its final impressively narrow and deep canyon. Rather than chance getting caught by a fall in the narrow bottom at this time of evening, I followed the east rim of the gorge to the river. This put me closer to the mouth of Escalante than to that of 75 Mile Canyon. I just had time to collect some firewood before nightfall. It had taken three hours to go downriver about three-fourths of a mile, but I had seen some amazingly rough country.
It appeared that going from Unkar Creek to Asbestos Canyon on the north side would be considerably easier. You can follow the river bank from Unkar to the mouth of the wash at mile 73.9 and then go up the ridge which forms the west rim of this little canyon. A steady grade will take one right on up behind Solomon Temple. From there you should be able to walk around to the south side of Sheba Temple and down into Asbestos Canyon. While I was looking this terrain over, I saw a very potent little whirlwind move across the canyon just downstream from where I was standing. The dust was scooped up from the bottom of the canyon just as easily as it was from the rim many feet higher.
The two sleeping bags were almost too warm for the first part of the night (neither was down) and just right for the cold towards morning. At one time when I was awake, I heard the honking of flying geese. I wondered where they could be going on the fourth of January. They should have already flown south, and surely it was not time to be going north again. While Flagstaff was getting a dusting of snow, my sky was perfectly clear, but the wind for an hour or more kicked up the sand and little piles of it formed in the corners of my eyes. I had to shovel out before I dared open them. As usual, I ate crackers in bed before it was completely light. Before I got under way, I spent a little time looking into the mouth of Escalante Creek. The bed was easy to follow as far as I went up, but I feel pretty sure it is boxed in higher with dry falls. (I found out later that this is not true, there is a deer trail out.) I believe I could have come directly down into it on the west slope, but if I had I wouldn't have been able to plot my next move so well. There was evidence that prospectors had been in this area also. There was a rock-pile on the ramp next to the river where I came from 75 Mile Creek. I liked the open area at the mouth of Escalante. It formed such a contrast with the imposing cliffs both up and downstream.
There was no way to get down to the beach which formed quite a distance upstream from the mouth of 75 Mile Canyon directly from the rim next to the river, but I saw that there might be a chance to follow the bed down from a half mile above the river. There were a number of places where I had to use care in seeing that I could get back up some short drops, but they were all fairly easy. This inner canyon, which was about 200 feet deep and only about 30 feet wide, is one of the most impressive examples of narrows in the entire Grand Canyon. There were also water pockets in the narrow. It seemed so logical that there should be an unscalable obstacle somewhere, but instead one could go right out to the boulder strewn beach with enough driftwood to make a nice fire in cold weather. I thought that the hour I spent reconnoitering here wouldn't be missed at the end of the day, but it almost turned out otherwise.
The slope up to the west from the place where the narrows begin is fairly easy going except where one strikes really loose material. When I was above most of the slide with some really loose shale still ahead before I would be at the break in the Tapeats, I noticed that I could have gone up the creek around a bend and then up with less loose scree to cope with. Incidentally, the Tapeats in this area has very few breaks. I noted one on the south side of the bay formed by 75 Mile Canyon, but there seemed to be no others all the way back to where I had come off the Tanner Trail. (Later I found two such breaks in the Tapeats.) You go up the Tapeats near the north end of the point separating Papago from 75 Mile. I was on a faint deer trail much of the way from here well around into the side of Red Canyon. Papago Canyon is a short one, but it may be one of the relatively small number whose bottoms cannot be reached except by a rope climber. It looked wild and by now I knew that I had no time to waste investigating things no matter how interesting they seemed. (4-28-74 There are two ways through the Shinumo just north of the fall, one on the east arm near the river and one on the east side. Both are hairy. Enter the lower end or from the east (?) down cliffs just west of the point separating the two arms of Papago.)
When I looked to the bay below Zuni Point, the headwall seemed to have very little of the typical shale slope in the Muav. What benches there were looked so narrow and devoid of vegetation that it seemed suicidal to try that route. I saw that if I could get to the bottom of the wash, the rest of the route would be clear with a good deer trail up the red shale to the part of the New Hance Trail I had been over before. However, from above on the north, I couldn't see a break in the Tapeats and I wondered whether at last my luck had run out. When I came to a narrow rockslide, I climbed gingerly down it among annoyingly loose boulders and only realized when I got to the bottom and started up the opposite slope that there was an easier way just a few feet farther to the southeast.
At the top of the shale I noticed some copper ore and then saw a small shallow shaft showing where the miner had gotten a few dollars worth of the green and blue stuff. A definite trail went uphill from this mine for several hundred yards and then disappeared. The Redwall seemed rather broken from this direction, but I didn't recognize the official place where the trail surmounts it. When I went towards the place that seemed most promising, it turned out to be the right spot and I was above the Redwall just before 3:00 p.m. The rest of the trip was routine, but I have to confess that I missed the trail a few times and was truly grateful to Dan Davis for more rock-pile markers than had been along here before. Crossing the steep clay slopes at the heads of about three or four bays before you reach the valley in the Supai required about as much care as anything on the whole trip. It was similar to a lot of walking that I had done, and by this time I was in the mood to forget it. It took me about an hour to reach the Supai valley and two more to get out on the rim. I was pretty cold when Allyn Cureton stopped his car and backed up to see who was walking at that time of night. He took me to my car and pushed it when it wouldn't start from a coast. He even loaned me a flashlight to unstick the jammed choke. Even in the car I was thoroughly chilled by the time I got home. This was about the most continuously rough walking of any of my trips.
P.S. There is a driftwood pole about 25 feet long propped up among some boulders just west of the mouth of 75 mile Creek.
Allyn Cureton, Reider Peterson, and I went down the South Kaibab Trail at a leisurely pace to Phantom Ranch in two and a half hours. Allyn's knee was bothering him and he stayed at the Bright Angel campground by himself while Reider and I went on over to the Clear Creek Indian ruin to the most protected campsite I know about, short of an actual mine shaft in the Canyon. We slept fine out of the breeze and the full moonlight.
On Saturday we went upstream to the break in the Tapeats where Allyn and I had gone up to the figurine cave. This time we turned south into the canyon which comes down from the saddle between Deva Temple and Obi Point, actually just north of Deva. A picture I had taken from the base of The Howland's Butte indicated that one might go up through the Redwall here. One surprise was water flowing for about a mile in this streambed just above the Tapeats. We got around the first fall in the Redwall up a ravine to the south of the bed. It wasn't hard to go up nor was it difficult to go down again to the bed, but only a short distance above, we thought that there was a bigger fall with no way to bypass it. We were so sure we would be turned back that we left our lunches, water, and even my camera behind. When we investigated, we found another ravine to the south and just when it became vertical, there was a narrow shelf on which we could go back into the bed above all obstacles in the Redwall. From there it was straightforward up to the very top small cliff in the Supai. Just below this cliff, we found a rather fresh looking tin can. We would have had to make a long detour along this cliff except that there was a small juniper growing out of a crack just high enough to reach. After pulling up to it, there were foot and finger holds the rest of the way.
Deer tracks were not observed on the way through the Redwall until we came out on the Hermit Shale above Bright Angel Creek. They led north, but there was no break in the Coconino in sight. However, I think there is one around Komo Point via Obi Canyon. Walking on the frozen shale in a light coat of snow was very tricky. We also knew we could go to the south shoulder of Deva and get up it, but we didn't want to go that long without food. It took us a bit over an hour to get back to the packs and we were back to our campsite before 4:15 p.m. It took 25 minutes to go from the ruin to the place you leave the stream and three hours and 25 minutes to go from Clear Creek to Bright Angel Divide. Reider made it to the rim from the campground with a 17 pound pack in three hours and five minutes while I took three hours and 18 minutes for a 19 pound pack. Allyn came out a couple minutes faster than I with a 26 pound pack even with his stiff knee.
Allyn Cureton and I made it down the South Kaibab Trail in good time and ate an early lunch. We walked along the north side of the river on the old telephone trail, starting away from the engineer's station about 11:30 a.m. We left the trail shortly before it gave out and found the climb out of the inner gorge not too bad. We had to do more worrying on the way down on Sunday, but this was not bad either.
In crossing the valley southeast of Cheops Pyramid, we dropped down to cross the wash about as far south as it's feasible and kept to a fairly direct route to the west. We noted that there is no way to climb out of this valley up to the base of the Pyramid short of going up the wash itself. However, there is a break with a deer trail up on the plateau to the northeast. On the return we saw a beautiful sight, five deer breaking into a gallop down and across the wash and up this route.
In the drainage directly south of Cheops, we went west above the ledges well above the bottom of the wash. The going was rather rough, so we returned along the bottom of the wash until we hit the drop-off at the Bass Limestone. The return was probably better.
With the hope of finding water in the streambed to the west, we went around the base of the Tapeats plateau to the north. There was no water in evidence unless we were willing to go a long way down, so we kept going just below the base of the Tapeats and arrived at the head of the ravine leading south to the river just below Horn Creek Rapids before 2:30 p.m. The start down here was so easy that we both thought we would be at the river in less than a half hour. However, about one-fourth of the way down, the bottom of the wash dropped out, and we had to climb out of it to the east. There was plenty of unsound rock and scree covering steep rocks where one has to be very careful. When we finally found our way back to the bottom about two-thirds of the way down, plenty of time had passed, and our half hour had become an hour by the time we reached the river. It was another ten minutes for us to go up the river bank to the rapid itself where we finally found some small patches of sand that made good spots to bed down.
The river was lower than we had seen it last year in the middle of March, and the waves were really ferocious. It a boat would go down the middle, it would meet explosive waves where the direct current strikes big submerged rocks.
The temperature was just about perfect for our bags except that I got a bit clammy and cold towards morning. It must have been warmer than it was five weeks earlier because my hands stayed warm in the morning without gloves.
Climbing from the river to the base of the Tapeats on the return again surprised us by taking an hour and a half. We estimated that following the base of the Tapeats east is impossible. When we went back we varied the route by going up on the Tapeats plateau at the break rather near the west end. We crossed the top to the south and stood directly above the top of our route ravine. Then we went east and checked the break in the Tapeats by which you can go down to the granite on the side of river. We think that one can go around the point here into the ravine with the yellow bottom. This is a good route to the river, but you can't get downstream to the rapid itself.
Allyn found a hole in the top of a flat rock which had about a half inch of water in it. He said that it was about four inches deep and would hold a good many gallons. This was just east of the drainage across the middle of this plateau between the two humps. We returned by the route already described and were slightly disconcerted to find that the way down to the telephone line was harder to find than we had thought it to be on the way up. It was 2:30 p.m. by the time we were at the bridge and we both had a slow time getting out a little after 6:00 p.m. Allyn went ahead and must have been about a mile above me at one time. He tired out at Cedar Ridge, and by the time he had eaten more food, I was up with him, so we walked out together.
The Gibsons let me take their car to the head of the Red Canyon Trail while they hiked to Phantom Ranch by the South Kaibab Trail and returned up the Bright Angel Trail. I left the car at 8:35 a.m. and had no trouble finding the head of the trail. A car track goes right to it except that when you are in the beginning of the draw leading to the trail head, the track stays out of the draw.
My objective for the day was to identify pictures in Stoddard, and I found the one called starting down, the one at the joint of the Toroweap Formation and the Coconino Sandstone. I missed the site where the men were obliged to walk. I wonder whether the printer could have reversed that view. I also got his shot taken from the top of the Redwall showing the point of the Redwall projecting north from the base of Coronado Butte.
I was able to follow the trail better this time than on previous occasions. Below the Coconino the trail swings west on the gentle slope towards Coronado Butte and then switches down to the west side of the wash where it is fully developed in the Supai. It crosses to the east side of the wash for a few yards and then keeps to the west for another good stretch. For about the lower third, it's on the east side.
Dan Davis has told me about the other way to get down through the Redwall before you have reached the old official way, and I thought I would try it. I looked ahead when I got down to the Redwall and noted a place where the slope comes high on the Redwall. It seemed closer than I had remembered the right place to be, but I decided to try it anyway. I wish I had timed myself in getting to it, because it came along in what seemed far less time than the right spot had last spring. I had been going along lower than the trail and didn't notice the rock-pile and other marks of the old route, but when I got out on the promontory and started down north of the point, I realized that I was back to the standard descent.
Below, everything was familiar to me. The trail was clear for a while, but just before I reached the arroyo-like ravine to the north, I lost it and crossed the ravine a bit too high. When I followed it down a bit before climbing out, I came to a rock-pile showing the official crossing. I went north in the vicinity of the copper diggings, but I missed that hole this time. The way I had gone to the bottom of the tributary gulch which separates Moran and Zuni Points was easily identified, but from this angle, it didn't seem so impossible to keep up on the slope just below the Redwall. I might have saved time doing that last January. I followed the ridge on the south side of this gulch and ran into the trail still well defined before I got to the bottom. It was very clear on the north side. This was clearly a bypass for some big rocks and drops in the main stream. When the trail returned to the wash, the bed was still rock and a little water was trickling along it, something which is not true for most of the year. Towards the river, there was a narrow gorge. Before I entered this, I looked back at a view of Coronado Butte and recognized one of Stoddard's pictures. When you are through this narrows, there is a mesquite flat on the east. About in the center there is the old campsite with a cast-iron stove and sundry other gear lying around.
Down river from Hance Rapids, I didn't find the trail down to the ferry site, but the Tonto Trail was higher from the river than I had been on the other occasions I was along here. I kept on the trail most of the way but I didn't follow it clear back into a big horseshoe bend into Mineral Canyon. This time I didn't look down into the impressive drop of Mineral down to the river in the granite. When I climbed out of the depression still farther west before coming to Hance Canyon itself, I must have been closer to the river than previously, for I almost started down into Hance too soon. There was a burro trail leading down through the Tapeats, but I couldn't see what it was like below that. It might have been quite feasible to go all the way down. However, I continued along the contour and got a good look at the route out of Hance to the west beginning about where the canyon becomes narrow in the granite and where the last cottonwoods are growing. This was opposite the route I had used before to get down into Hance from the east. I was glad to go down here again because my canteen had been dry for some time and I also think it's quicker to get to the bottom and then go steadily up instead of having to wind along the contours of the upper slope. The bottom of this descent is a few hundred yards up Hance from the last cottonwoods where I had camped before near the start of the burro trail out to the west. It was only a short walk upstream until I recognized the picture of the overhangs referred to as being near the Temple of Set. I take it that the latter is an alcove in the Tapeats just downstream on the east side of the wash.
As I proceeded up the wash, I was interested in a helicopter going up and down the canyon sometimes rather close overhead. I began to wonder whether someone was lost and they were trying to decide whether I answered the description. I discovered the reason for all this traffic about half way from the junction of the east and west arms of Hance to the head of the east arm in the Redwall. A few hundred yards north of the biggest cave on the east wall of the arm, about where the old Hance Cabin should have been, and where the walls of an elaborate corral still stand, was a disabled helicopter. It had been transporting a government surveyor and had to make a forced landing. The second helicopter landed nearby while I was still talking to the two men. Apparently whoever had come down at the time of the mishap had not realized that they could walk to the rim in three hours or less, for they had built a very good leanto out of juniper boughs, a piece of work that must have taken about three hours.
At this spot, near the seep spring on the east, I got a good match for the background in Stoddard's picture of the Hance Cabin, but the foreground rocks eluded me still. There are no longer any cottonwoods at all south of the beginning of the gorge through the Tapeats, so I suppose a flood got those fine trees and also the cabin.
I found more of the trail above the Redwall than I had on the previous trips, but I seemed more confused near the top. The notch in the Kaibab which was farthest east had been the clue I had used before, but this time it seemed unpromising. I headed for the break just west of it. There were rusty tin cans down here, but I got out on the rim without finding the old trailhead. I then saw that the eastern most notch was correct, but I had done better by coming out where I did. There was a lot more snow in the right break.
It took me about three hours to go down Red Canyon to the river and about four to come up the Old Hance Trail from the cottonwood camp in Hance Canyon.
Allyn Cureton and I hiked down to the Bright Angel Campground in a bit less than two hours and arrived at around 10:00 a.m. We had passed a group of boy scouts on the trail and I had marveled at their warm jackets when I was going shirtless or at least wanting to. While we were eating a snack, we made the acquaintance of the math teacher at Verde Valley School who was also down there with a group of boys. They were taking the trip in easy stages, down one evening , up as far as Indian Gardens the second day, and out the third day. Mr. Caley, I believe his name is, is quite an enthusiastic Sierra hiker.
We started at about 11:00 a.m. to hike up the granite at the north end of Bright Angel Campground. Allyn still seemed a bit uncertain about the direction to take towards the top of the granite and he confessed that he had wasted quite a bit of time being confused about this part of the route when he went over to Trinity Creek on a previous trip. I went up a deer trail which was very clear but was a bit farther north than I had remembered the route to be the two times I had come down it. his good trail abruptly ended and we had to do some rock climbing to get back on the former route which was only a few yards away. We noted the trail cairn at the top of the granite ridge and also the one at the top of the ravine through the Tapeats Sandstone when we arrived at this higher level.
In order to save distance at the expense of some climbing, we dropped down into the upper end of the valley to the east of Cheops Pyramid. Here Allyn called my attention to a peculiar looking rock pile which proved to be a mescal pit with quite a bit of charcoal still showing. It was right against the base of a cliff.
Allyn had left his pack at the campground as he had decided to study while I went on after the ascent of the pyramid. I left my pack about where I knew I would have to go to get down from the pyramid to the shale, quite near the upper end of this steep valley. We looked the route over and decided to go up a talus slope to a shelf about one-fifth of the way up the Redwall on the east side of the pyramid. Then we walked around near the southwest angle. Here we had the steepest climbing, but after about 50 feet of not so difficult scrambling, we were able to finish by walking up to the east and then to the top by an easy route. A deer could probably get to the top, but we didn't see any signs that they wanted to.
Clubb's can and writing were still there under a small rock pile. He had written on a piece of cardboard, "Climbed by M. D. Clubb in his 60th year on July 12, 1957 in lieu of the great pyramid at Gizeh, which he was prevented from doing by virus jaundice." We had reached the top in just under three hours from the campground and we thought we had made all the right decisions about the way up.
When we had recovered my pack and had eaten a little, Allyn went with me down the draw to return to the camp via the Telephone Line Trail along the river. I went across the cactus covered shale flats to the east end of the isolated plateau of Tapeats next to the inner gorge. I decided in favor of skirting the east base of the Tapeats instead of going across the top to the break about in the middle above the inner gorge. There were three awkward spots where I had to use my hands a bit to get past small ravines, but when I reached the head of the sulfide ravine going down to the river, I saw that it was rather questionable whether one could get around the point to the west to reach the ravine we had previously used to get to the river at the foot of Horn Creek Rapid. Emery Kolb had said that he had run down the sulfide ravine to the river in 25 minutes. My time from the base of the Tapeats to the river was more like 45 minutes, but it was easier than the route presumably used by Chief Ranger Brooks after Sturdevant and Johnson had drowned.
I had been planning to sleep near the river somewhere and return to Bright Angel Campground the next day. I had my mattress with me and I had time to try something. I found that I could carry the inflated mattress over little promontories and paddle across, upstream on the quiet water between them. When I had gone along the north bank far enough, I paddled across the river. By then it was getting late and I just had time to find a nice bit of level sand for sleeping. In the morning it was only a short walk to the bottom of the Bright Angel Trail and I was back to the campground long before Allyn expected me. If I had some way of telling him where I was without going to the campground, I would have had a shorter walk to the car, but there was no big deal about having to go to the campground first.
Allyn Cureton and I slept next to the car parked in front of a cabin near the junction of the Topocoba road and the one going north on the mesa.
On Sunday we made good time with our rather heavy loads along the road near the east edge of the mesa. We carried almost one and a half gallons of water apiece so that we could return to the car if there was no water down on the Esplanade after this very dry spring. I watched the map carefully to try to get down off the rim in the same break between Gatagama and Hamidrik Points where we had come up two years ago. When I thought that we had reached the right draw to go west, we noticed that we could just get a glimpse of Great Thumb Point. But when we came to the fall in the bottom of the Kaibab, it didn't look like the right place at all. As I had remembered it, there should have been a longer approach below the fall after you turn into the ravine on your way up. However, when we scouted about 20 yards to the east, we found the place along a ledge where we had come up. It still didn't look like a good place to be carrying a pack, so I used the rope and let the packs down to Allyn. While I was doing this, I dislodged a rock which gave his finger a rather nasty gash. We ate lunch in some fine shade just after we got past this tough spot.
We noticed something we hadn't seen before; a way to get down from the rim into Fossil Bay. We didn't try it, but it looked sure fire. The route is south of the place where one would say the wash starts. This will be useful when I want to go along the Esplanade from Apache Point to the spring above 140 Mile Canyon. I could break the trip there and proceed later after getting more water.
The seep was still running in the main fork of the east arm of Olo Canyon, so we dropped our packs about 3:00 p.m. After a short rest, we started down canyon to see whether we could reach the bottom of the main part of Olo. There were several fine rain pools in the bedrock and we even took a bath in one on the return. A big drop stopped us about a quarter of a mile before we got to the main branch. We made our way along a bench on the south side until we could look up and down Olo Canyon. If we had been able to get down to the bottom we could have followed along the top of the Redwall to the Sinyala Fault and we could probably have followed this up and down right over to Mount Sinyala.
On Monday we got a fairly early start to try to find Reilly's Keyhole Arch. The walking was easy along the rims of small canyon tributaries of Olo, but we found later that we would have saved much walking by staying closer to the Hermit Shale slope until we could head this series. A short look at the fault canyon into 140 Mile showed us that it was well broken down and the descent would be easy. Furthermore, there is just about the best spring in this entire area near the bottom of the Supai here. There was actually a small flow of water from one pool into another among a grove of cottonwood trees. It took only about 25 minutes to get from the Esplanade to the top of the Redwall. If anyone really thought that the Redwall should be broken too, it was a mistake. There is a peculiar pit where two tributary canyons meet. On the north part of the partition separating this pit from the sheer precipice beyond, there's a depression which would appear to be the extension of the fault. Below this groove, entering the pit near its bottom about 100 feet down, is a cave which we at first assumed was a tunnel and would show an opening on the face of the wall to the east. However, there was no sign of this when we looked. Water going down into the pit actually flows out through Keyhole Arch a little south of this cave. One can stand on the west rim of the pit and look down through the arch to the bottom of the canyon beyond. It impresses me as being as interesting as either Goldwater's or Hartman's. I would estimate it's being about 100 feet high with a maximum width of about 40 feet. In an inconspicuous place a little south, near the outer end of the arch, Allyn noticed a small rock pile; more like a little wall or bridge built of seven or eight stones. We wondered who could have made it.
After lunch at the campsite, we made good time around the heads of the branches of Olo although we first went too far to the west and had to back up towards our escape route east of Hamidrik Point to get past the first canyon. When we were rounding Chikapanagi Point, we noticed that the fault canyon into Matkatamiba seemed to be just as feasible as the extension into 140 Mile Canyon. When we reached the place where McKee had reported water about halfway from Chikapanagi to Panameta Point, we were gratified to see two fine big cottonwoods growing just at the right place. However, when we got to them, there was not a drop of water on the surface. We had seen a seep in the small tributary to the north just before we reached this arm, but it appeared that we could not get down to it, so we spent our time going down the canyon we were in. Before too long, we came to a drip which we thought would be adequate if we used all the pans and got up in the night to collect the water into our bigger containers. In fact, when we left in the morning, we threw some of the water away.
We now had the idea that the fault canyons would make a fine shortcut over to Sinyala, but again we couldn't get very far down the canyon we were in until we came to a complete barrier. Just a few yards below our campsite, Allyn had to go back and look for his sweatshirt. While he was doing this, he located a better seep than the one where we had camped. It's near the junction of our canyon and the smaller tributary from the north. One cannot go up this arm because of cliffs. We followed a bench for a short way and then went out by way of an arm that led up to the ridge joining Panameta with Mount Akaba. We did not get around to the waterhole McKee indicated as being southwest of Mount Akaba. However, there was no sign of the two waterholes he mentioned as being in the Hermit Shale and just below it a little south of Paya Point. We checked down this canyon a short way but were soon stopped by a cliff. We did pick up some rainwater about where we ate lunch.
After lunch, the sky got quite cloudy and we had a few drops of rain. It was easy to get down to the bottom of the long arm of Matkatamiba which comes from the bay to the east. There were several good rain pools before we reached the main branch of Matkatamiba, and here were the first fresh signs of horses that we had seen. In fact, we saw the print of a man's boot also. When we reached Supai, we learned that a couple of young men had come over this way two weeks earlier to look for horses, but they had found only one. We made camp quite early at another good rainpool a little ways down the main arm of the canyon. Allyn scouted ahead while I took a bath and did a little laundry. He reported that only a half a mile or so downstream, the way was blocked. (I later found out that it does go clear to the river.)
On this trip, we noticed an almost sure way to climb from the Esplanade to the rim in the bay north of Paya Point.
Near the end of the Apache Trail, Allyn looked up and saw a ladder against the cliff. We inquired later and learned that someone had come down using this ladder all the way from the top of the plateau where we had first come and then had retreated.
When we left the camp by the rainpool in Matkatamiba, we counted on making a dry camp that night somewhere short of Supai, so we carried the most water of the entire trip, a gallon and a half apiece. We had to back up a bit before we could climb out of the canyon, but then we soon found a faint horse trail which saved us quite a bit of time the rest of the way to Supai. We got around between Mount Sinyala and the rim before noon. Rather than get a day ahead of schedule by going on in to Supai that evening, I elected to see the spring east of Sinyala. There was no trail going over there as we at first thought, and we wasted some time trying to follow something that turned out to be the regular trail leading towards Supai itself. Again it wasn't difficult for a man on foot to get to the bottom of the fault canyon. This time we were not at the base of the sandstone, but we found the spring, three shallow pools rather full of dead leaves and little bugs. Since we now had no worries about being short of water we decided to go down canyon and see how the Redwall looked there. After following it a short way, we came to an obstacle. We could have gotten by this place by going first up and then coming down a little farther, but we felt pretty sure that we would be stopped cold later. So as to assure ourselves of success, we hit upon going along the top of the Redwall on the west rim of Sinyala Canyon out to look down on the Colorado River. Here we had the benefit of a well defined burro trail. In fact, we saw three burros as we started along here. The Indians who had been over to Matkatamiba two weeks before had seen three bighorn sheep here. One interesting experience along here was to hear a shower of rocks from the ledges high up on the wall and to watch a dust devil slapping the cliff as if it were something at least as tangible as a tarpaulin.
The view of the river was outstanding. In fact we seemed to be standing right above it. Allyn gave me chills by insisting that there was a way to climb down the rocks as they were broken up. On the way back, we got buzzed by a small rattlesnake.
We were both pretty tired when we reached our packs after this detour of almost four hours, but after a short rest, we went on for an hour and camped at a rather windy, exposed site.
On Thursday morning, we were very glad to have the horse trail to guide us through the intricacies of the head of the north arm of Carbonate Canyon. We reached the head of the canyon leading down to the Apache Trail into Supai in good time, about 11:00 a.m. Here we made the mistake of following the horse trail along the top of the plateau to the west. We left the horse tracks rather soon, but we began finding cairns leading us on. When we got near the end and could look down on the village, we couldn't see a good way down, so we went clear back where we had come from at the head of the canyon. After eating, we started down the bottom of the wash and about 2:15 pm we were stuck again as we were looking down to the schoolhouse and chapel. We had to retrace our steps a second time until we could climb up to the horse trail on the north side of the wash where it goes about halfway up the entire cliff. Finally, at 3:25 p.m. we made it to the bottom of the valley and soon took a good soak in the cool water. We dropped our packs at a slightly wild spot and went down to see the falls without them. By this time, I could see that I was weaker than when we had started because I seemed to tire pretty easily. We reached the car on Friday about 2:45 p.m.
I left the car at Lipan Point and made it to the river in less than four hours. I didn't try to go along below the cliff at the bend and rather botched the process of circling around above. I was already feeling the heat pretty badly, a fast pulse even without much climbing, and I had to find even poor shade and sit down often while I was going up the Palisades Creek area. In the last wash before one leaves the river to go up along the Beamer Trail, I took a long rest and several dunkings in the river to cool off. I also cooked my soup and ate supper here, rather early for I got going again abut 5:20 p.m. I stopped for the night a little before 8:00 p.m. in a wash which I didn't recognize at the time, but it was the one leading down to the Hopi Salt source.
There was so little water in my canteen that I knew I should go on to the Little Colorado River before I ate breakfast. In fact I started on about 4:30 a.m. and got there about two hours later. On two of the former trips to the Little Colorado River, I had missed the trail at the last quarter mile and had followed the ledges just above the water, not too bad a method along here, but this time I repeated last year's process of going up from the mouth of this wash again and finding the trail which goes on and lands one above the sand hills leading down to the wash just east of the mouth of the Little Colorado River. This time I noticed a low wall made of rocks on the north slope of the wash where the trail goes down near the Colorado River and then back up again. It might have been put there with the idea of stopping a grazing horse. After a leisurely breakfast, I headed up the Little Colorado River, which was running only with spring water at the time. I took Eiseman's suggestion and forded the stream every time the other side looked like it would provide easier walking. Just above the sand slope on the north side at a place I can no longer pinpoint because I missed it when I was coming back, I noted a shallow cave in some conglomerate or breccia. The bottom wasn't level enough for a good bed, but there was a bit of charcoal and smoke stains on the ceiling. I couldn't decide whether this occupancy had been ancient or not, but I thought a bit of the ceiling had fallen since the smoke had stained it.
Just east of the second side canyon coming in from the north there is an alcove where a spring has deposited travertine or salt. The trickle of water didn't seem any saltier than the Blue Spring water, and I didn't taste the white deposits. When I had finished the detour up here and taken pictures, I noticed it was 10:00 a.m. meaning that I had been coming upstream about an hour and 45 minutes.
The Sipapu Spring was near the end of the track to the south and then on to the north. Its brown will contrast well with the green mesquite behind it, showing the advantage of color photography. This time I noticed that there is quite a flow of gas, a steady bubbling which keeps the water humped up in a place wider than a man's palm. That the spring flows more gas than water is clear when you notice the tiny trickle of water over the east rim. The stick is still cemented in the mineral of the rim. I noticed that the pool is an oval about nine by eleven feet, and that the top of the whole mound must be about three times the longer dimension of the pool. On the river side of the mound, I believe it must be about 25 feet tall. Something that struck me as odd is an ordinary galvanized iron laundry tub sitting upside down with a rock on the bottom on the ground just north of the cone. There was also a rock pile nearby. I was keeping fairly cool by getting my shirt and me wet in the stream quite often, but when I had taken the picture of the Sipapu, I saw that it would be at least noon before I reached the mouth of Salt Trail Canyon, and then if I went on up to the cross-over point above the Redwall, it would be quite late by the time I got back to my pack. I would have done this anyway, but I thought it would be interesting to be at the mouth of the Little Colorado River when the Marston party arrived, around four as I thought. So I turned back with the thought that sometime I would drive to the head of Salt Trail Canyon and come from the car down to the landmarks along the trail.
When I got back near the mouth of the Little Colorado River, I noted something that I hadn't seen on the way up, fresh tracks of several people in the sand. I thought this meant that Dock had already arrived, but I was a bit upset when I found no one near the mouth. I decided that they had taken a quick look and then had gone on down to the place where Dock said he liked to camp, just up from the mouth of Lava Canyon on the right bank, so I decided to join him there. The Beamer Trail would be mighty hot at that time of day, about 4:00 a.m. so after some misgivings, I decided to go by air mattress. This took a while to prepare for and I goofed in going down the blue water paddling. When I saw how rough and swift the water was over the rock bar, I climbed out on the bank and then had a tiresome fight with the willow and tamarisk before I could proceed. I should have just gone ahead in the swift water. I did take off finally, but below the island I didn't get far enough to the right, and before I knew it, I was in a back eddy. I knew this wasn't the only one, and I was so disgusted that I paddled over and got out at the place where the Beamer Trail comes down near the river. This time I started off with a full gallon of water prepared to make a dry camp fairly far along towards Palisades Creek. I stopped shortly after 7:30 pm where I could look across to the mouth of Carbonate Creek. On this trip I was fully aware of the identity of the Hopi descent ravine. The big rock which formed an island last year a bit below this place over near the right bank was joined to the mainland this time. Well before the time that I stopped for the night, I saw the power boats go by. I waved madly, but of course they had eyes only for the water. It was a pretty sight to see such a fleet of graceful craft.
I ate my breakfast where I slept and was on my way again by 6:00 a.m. My choice of a double cotton blanket fortified by long Johns was just about right for the temperature at this time of year. There were no insects after dark, but last night it still took me a long time to get to sleep.
When I had been walking only a short distance, I saw that I was right in my guess. There were seven boats lined up on the short beach. While I was filling my canteen and fooling around across the river and a bit upstream, they saw me and someone came over for me in a boat. I knew that if I crossed on my mattress I would have to go as far up the bank as I could, and then I might not keep clear of the rapids. Marston had brought a group of people from Disney Productions down the Colorado River to film the movie Ten Who Dared, which was about Powell's historic first boat trip through the Colorado River Gorge.
Thursday was spent in going back up to the Little Colorado Lagoon, this time the easy way, by boat. There were a couple of places along here where even the 70 horse power motors had a hard time taking the boats through. A couple of boats had to make more than one approach before they got over the hump, but finally all of them made it. The Walt Disney crew got busy with the Emma Dean and Kitty Clyde's Sister. We were in the lagoon swimming and fooling around when someone had the misfortune to take Kitty Clyde's Sister too close to the bar of rocks where the river flows around the island. It caught with its rear up on a rock and the prow down. The water poured through the motor well and soon nearly filled the boat. They got a rope to shore and transferred the duffel to the island. Finally after several hours of work, they blocked off the motor well and stopped the river from flowing through. Then after considerable bailing, they were able to float it free and drag it up on the sand. The bottom was pretty badly scraped with the fiberglass coating torn some and the keel scuffed, but they propped it up on its side and were able to repair everything before nightfall.
At the place where Boyd and I were caught in the big eddy, the water was boiling and forming temporary whirlpools. I would have had some rough riding if I had come through there with my pack on my back. It gave me something to think about.
At the blue lagoon, I retrieved the crackers, dates, and cheese that I had discarded the day before, and they were very welcome because the Marston party hadn't put the lunches in the boats as they had planned. I was able to share some of my stuff with them.
We camped in the same place Thursday night. Before supper, I was shown the mining shaft with the pack saddle hanging up, which was a little way up the igneous rock just north of the main growth of mesquite. I also went west through the mesquite until I could get behind a small peak of dark rock. An old trail goes up here and before I was through, I had climbed as high as the base of the Redwall across the river and was looking out towards the rim at Cape Final and points north. On the way down, I came to another mining shaft which was also too deep to explore without a light. Either of these would make a fine camp in the winter. I noted a claim marker clear up on the scree above the long climb up the ravine.
On Friday morning, there were quite a few things to do to get organized for more picture taking and packing to get off. I had plenty of time to experiment with floating through the rapids. The water was fast and the waves, especially at the end of the tongue, had a way of coming to a peak which were about six feet above the trough, but the mattress carried me up the steep side easily, and only the small crest would slap me in the face. I made two runs and thought it was as much fun as skiing. Of course there is less to learn, just get out far enough so you won't be hitting any rocks on the banks and turn the mattress crosswise to your body. The second trip down, I went almost to the middle to catch the biggest waves and where I landed on the right bank, I had to use a back eddy to get back upstream without having to climb high above the bank.
When the party finally got away from the campsite, we stopped below the rapid on the left bank and took pictures of other boats coming through. There was quite a bit of delay in getting the Powell boat, Maid of the Canyon, ready and I got impatient. I got on the mattress again and decided to see how easy it would be to cross the river. It wasn't a bit easy, and I was far downstream when I landed. I walked up as far as I could with ease and then started to return. This was still harder, and even when I was lying lengthwise on the mattress, I couldn't seem to shorten the gap to the other shore. My arms wore out and I finally had to use my feet with a scissors kick. Finally, I got into an eddy and landed, but I had not given anyone my plan of action and I was almost left stranded when the boats took off to go down to Tanner Creek. I guess I could have followed them down by water rather quickly, but by that time I had about enough water. I concluded that at 30,000 cfs or more, a person on an air mattress had better not count on landing at will.
The trip back up the Tanner Trail was done without undue strain in a little over six hours. Almost the whole afternoon was cloudy which made it quite a bit easier. I did happen to see a couple of claim markers I hadn't noticed before. I got home about 9:00 p.m. to find Roma mad as hops that she had turned down two fine invitations to bridge parties for Saturday night.
P.S. There were some good size fish in the Little Colorado, the first I had noticed. Up near the Sipapu, I saw one school of about 20 ranging from a foot to 18 inches long. There were some more down in the lagoon at the mouth. One rather small one of about eight inches was a catfish, but the rest were something else.
The people I remember from the Marston party: Otis Marston, Rod Sanderson, Larry Sanderson, Bill Beers, Bob Malotte, Buzz Belknap, Ballard Atherton, John E. Doerr (the NPS chief naturalist), William Clawson (a petroleum geologist), Al Nickerson (former Harvard crewman).
Disney Studio Men: Russ Haverick, Les Gear (radio man), and a number of Forcier.
Friday evening I slept beside the North Kaibab Trail 2.2 miles north of Phantom Ranch. I had visited with Dan Davis until I thought the bottom would be tolerably cool and had reached Bright Angel Campground about 7:30 p.m. After talking to some hikers there and getting my supper over, I walked on but spent some more time talking to George Shake, his brother, and the new manager of Phantom Ranch, Windsor, until about 9:45 p.m. The moon was bright, so I walked until 10:30 a.m. After a cool bath in the creek, I thought I would be all ready for a sound sleep even if it would be a short one. However, for some reason - I could have been excited about the next day - I slept only for two short naps all night. I was up and on the trail by 4:45 a.m. and ate my meal of crackers and raisins as I walked.
It was a little before seven when I filled my gallon can and the one-third gallon canteen to leave the trail. From below, the Redwall didn't look very good but I could get on the shelf formed by the bottom fifth. The place where I left the trail is about a quarter mile north of Ribbon Falls. The access to the shelf is at the farthest west projection of this Redwall promontory. I could see a ravine around on the south side of the promontory which just might be a way up, but I knew I had to go clear to it before I would be sure.
There was a faint deer trail along this lower shelf, so I was encouraged. The ravine was even easier than I had thought it would be. Most of the way up, hands on the rocks were unnecessary. Beforehand, I had expected the Supai rocks to be easier than the Redwall, but this was not so here. I followed a deer trail around the bay to the north and then went up along the rocky ravine that slopes up to the south. The general procedure was to go as high as one could in a ravine and then follow a ledge to the south and look for a break in the immediate wall. There were three places where I had to use cracks and toeholds to go a short way almost straight up. I marked these with rock piles or by putting a rock into the middle of a century plant, but on the way down I missed one of these signs. As a matter of fact, I had found an easier way. If one explored this slope many times, he could probably arrive at a reasonably easy way up. There were deer tracks at all levels but I feel pretty sure they didn't get through the cliffs at the same place I did, at least not the way I went up. The chief hazard was not the feeling of exposure above sheer cliffs but rather the poor footing on the steep shale slopes that always threatened a slide. If one were ever careless, he could not only take a spill that would scrape the skin, but he might not be able to stop himself from going over a cliff.
After passing about five places which seemed like the only weakness in the successive cliffs, I thought that it would be likely that my luck would give out somewhere. However, on the southwest side of Deva there was a ramp of slide rock from the Coconino above. Everywhere else that I could see, the ascent would have been impossible for my style of scrambling. Then at the very top, along the narrow summit ridge, I noticed what I thought to be the highest point. It was a small block of limestone about 25 feet high with sheer walls. However, it wasn't the highest point. Beyond it was a considerable plateau of the same limestone, but there was a nice ramp up it. The highest part was still farther north and was composed of red soil with a pinyon tree growing on the very highest mound. I built an eight inch rock pile near the pine in the open. There were no signs of any previous ascent, nor were there any deer tracks at the top. There were tracks on the Hermit Shale, and I am sure deer can go to the Summit.
One surprise was how narrow the temple is at the top. I didn't visit the wider southeast end, but from the middle to the north end, the level part on top is only 20 feet wide. One can see how much more difficult it would be to climb Brahma. Maybe the east side would have possibilities. I think that my way up from just north of Ribbon Falls would be easier than the route to the base of Zoroaster. The views of the other towers: Wotan, Brahma, Buddha, and Manu, were really terrific from Deva. There were lots of birds along the way and at the top hummingbirds were perfectly at home zipping by. As I looked down the steep slope where I had to find a way back, I envied them. In fact, I had some misgivings about locating the same breaks in the cliffs I had found from below. I was tempted to make it a real long trip, but surer, by going down into Clear Creek north of Deva, the way I knew for sure. As it turned out, I was temporarily confused a couple times, but I got down without hurrying an hour faster than I went up. On the way back, I saw just about the most perfect swallowtail butterfly I had ever watched. There were quite a few clouds and a several drops of rain. I even had some water to throw out at the end of the trip. It took me ten and a half hours total elapsed time to go from the creek to the top and back.
I walked back to Bright Angel Campground before I started supper at 8:15 p.m. It was one of my longest days on foot. My only regret is that I didn't take any pictures of the route either going up or coming down. I hope the views from the top will show well.
This route was suggested to me by Emery Kolb. He and John Ivens had done it in 1907 after carrying a 100 pound boat down the Bright Angel Trail.
Apparently I had been influenced by the people who cry horror at the mention of an air mattress on the Colorado River, because I didn't push off into the water until I was definitely past Pipe Creek Rapids. I really know that I can bounce right through about anything on the mattress when I ride it crosswise under my chest. As it was though, I stayed on it lengthwise all the way to Horn Creek Rapids and had difficulty keeping away from only one back eddy. I was interested in studying the south shore especially since I had walked there several times. I noted the sulfide ravine on the north side where I had come down before to cross the river last March. I was wondering whether it would be easy to land above Horn Creek Rapids while keeping far enough away from the bank to stay out of any back eddies. Actually, there was a good factor of safety here and I don't understand what the trouble was for the ranger party unless they couldn't decide which bank to land on. I stayed close to the right side for the last quarter mile.
Again I should have taken to the river without walking as far as I did along the talus. The sand seemed to have changed some and I didn't recognize exactly where we had put our bedrolls last February. The big jutting rock was still the perfect landmark and the river seemed a bit higher than it had been last winter. The rapids were still the most impressive that I have seen on the Colorado River and I got two more pictures.
From the river view, there seemed to be at least two fairly simple walk-ups on the south side at intervals of a few hundred yards below the rapids. I was taken by the big rock island just above the mouth of the first wash on the right below Horn Creek. I should have gone down to the delta of the creek itself, but I thought there might possibly be some barrier as there is at the mouth of Shinumo so I landed at this rock island. The next poor decision was to climb up to the base of the Tapeats quite near the mouth of the creek. I probably would have made better progress staying in the wash. (In March, 1973, I climbed up here from the bed using a rope for my pack.) Then when I got to the base of the Tapeats, after consulting the map, I turned towards Trinity Canyon. After about 20 minutes in this direction, I was stopped cold by an abrupt and absolute end to the ledge. (I later found it was possible using a rope for my pack. When I was going back, instead of trying to work down to the bottom of Trinity which may well be possible, I saw a low, man-made wall which I considered to be a windbreak left by some prospector who spent the night here.
The ledge continued around to the east and north with only some minor ups and downs. When I saw a chance to climb through the Tapeats without going on to the upper end of the short wash, I did this with a little care using both hands. Walking was easy across the flats here and I soon had to decide whether to go down into the arm of Trinity that begins below the middle of Isis Temple or go around it to the right. By this time I realized that water might become a problem before I reached the north rim, so I went down into the arm of Trinity. It was all boulders and sand and had no surface water. My next thought was to look for water in the arm I intended to follow to the top of the Redwall or, failing to find it, I would still have the choice of walking on to the rim in bad shape or going back down Trinity until I came to some. I had seen it from above when I was at the top of the Archean rocks near the river. Neither of these undesirable courses was necessary, however, for there were abundant rain pools in the highest part of the Tapeats Sandstone and even a little higher. It was only 5:00 a.m. but as I was quite tired and didn't know where to expect more water, I stopped for the night. On Friday I was under way by 6:00 a.m. but I didn't reach the top of the Redwall until 8:00 a.m. All of this walking was simple until near the top of the Redwall. Here a 20 foot cliff seemed like a real barrier until one reached it and looked to the left. There was some two-hand climbing here, but it was not bad and I could have gone up an easier place than I did. The best place to climb the Supai seemed to be in the bay on the east side of Shiva Temple rather than farther north. As I reached this draw, I looked down into the ravine through the Redwall, for it is this one that seemed to connect with the talus below by a ledge that traverses the upper part of the Redwall down into Phantom Canyon. It is still highly doubtful whether this is a feasible route because the ravine at the top seemed bad. I still want to test it however. (Later I found out that it does go.) I didn't look carefully, but I didn't see any rain pools here.
The way up through the Supai was easy scrambling until near the top. I believe I had already turned into the north arm when I gave up at a place over to the right of the wash itself and thought I might be in some real embarrassment, but then I saw that it was all right in the middle at a small fall. Near the very top, there was no chance in the middle nor to the north in the immediate view. Still I could see that the cliff was lower in that direction, so I went along this ledge. Just around the bend, the cliff ended and I was on the top in the Hermit Shale. Emery's water hole was below this highest fall of the Supai. (I later found out that this wasn't Emery's water hole; his is a rainpool on the saddle.) It's on the saddle on high rock. I would guess that it holds more like 20 gallons than 50. I filled my canteen here a little before 10:30 am.
I was not moving as fast with my pack as when I was walking with Allyn back from Shiva, although I was on a deer trail almost all the way to the top. I believe it was something like 1:00 p.m. when I got started away from the point just east of the nose that points towards Shiva Temple. I aimed to cut through the woods to the head of the Transept rather than follow the road. As I had no compass, I mostly walked directly away from the sun whenever it was shining. It seemed to take a long time just to reach the road out to Tiyo Point. I couldn't tell much from the ravines shown on the map because the actual ravines seemed to split into tributaries that I could not identify. Finally it became completely overcast, and when I came to access road W1C, I followed it rather than take a chance on getting lost. For the last hour and a half I was walking in a cold rain. I didn't want to get all my clothes wet, so I wore only my swimming trunks and my shirt. My teeth were chattering before the rain stopped just as I reached the shelter of the shed where they keep the mules. I walked back to the south rim the next day.
I parked the car at Lipan Point so that a coast would be sure to start it. Anywhere along the rim between Moran Point and Desert View would be satisfactory since I would have to walk that whole stretch either at the beginning or at the end of this trip. It took me about an hour and 20 minutes to reach the point where road E14 leaves the rim to turn east towards Cedar Mountain and I was eating an early lunch when I had reached the present trail along the Supai. The start of the Old Tanner Trail away from the rim is clear for about 100 yards, but the next time I was sure I had it was almost below the Watchtower. It was clear from here to the west arm of Tanner Wash above the Redwall. I checked the possibility of going down the Redwall about where it is tilted up the steepest and a talus below forms a long ramp. An expert could probably chimney climb down but I thought discretion was the better part of valor and went on. Vince Hefti, the Desert View ranger, said that the Redwall can be climbed near the end along the west arm on the south side. There was one rock pile marker that I saw along this whole clear part of the old trail. In the top layers of the Redwall in the main wash was a rather deep pool of water with signs that deer use it for drinking water. It had not been appreciably freshened by the recent rain and I was not tempted to use it for replenishing my quart canteen. I had found enough water on flat rocks so that my canteen was still full.
Along the Supai near the place where the trail descends the Redwall there were some horse tracks. When I got down the Redwall, I went directly down to the bottom of the wash to see where the priest was killed. Evidently Slocum and Veazey had come down into the wash farther upstream, because I did not see their seep. Heftik says there are some seeps up the east arm where the ill-fated party could have gone for water. Where the wash makes the leap straight down through the Tapeats, you have already come through 50 vertical feet, and the bottom of the fall is a good 20 feet above the bottom of the Tapeats, so I suspect the fall is closer to 100 feet high than it is to the 150 feet that some estimated it. It took me seven minutes to backtrack and get to the top of the place where the boys went down. At the bottom they were about four minutes walk and a scramble from the bottom of this fall. It took a bit of climbing up a low fall to reach the bottom of the big one. It was a walk of more than an hour to reach the river.
About a half mile from the river, a set of bighorn horns attached to part of the skull was perched on a small rock in the wash as if someone had started to take it out and had gotten tired of lugging 15 pounds or so.
I crossed the river on my air mattress and determined that the cabin site Dan Davis saw must have been at Basalt Creek delta instead of farther down. On the west side of the sandy area, not more than 100 feet from the shale slope and closer yet to the bank leading down to the river to the west where you'll find what's left of two cabins, probably consisting of wood floors and canvas roofs. One upright post is still standing to support the ridge. There was an elaborate stove built of thin stones and a cast iron laundry stove in the west dwelling. Near the east one there was some sort of grist mill. A base for a forge built of stones was farther east. I noted some small sherds on the sand at Basalt as well as at Unkar. At Unkar in the corresponding region of the sand delta was what seemed to be low walls of an Indian ruin. In one of the standing pools left when the river fell, there were some small fish which were jumping at flies on the water.
For some distance below Unkar, the going along the edge of the river was simple, but then ledges began to appear which tilted up to the west. When I was trying to get down at one place, I decided that it would be much easier if I would drop the pack. I chose a spot where I thought the pack would land without rolling, but after it fell about 15 feet, it bounced and began to roll towards the river. I watched helplessly while it gained speed and finally when I was about sure there was no hope, it hit a big rock, the last obstruction, and stopped. I might have been able to swim for it, because the water next to shore was in a slow backwater. Some of the opening mechanism of the camera was rather badly sprung, but I was able to open it and do a bit of bending to make things right, I hope.
My campsite was at mile 73.7 on the sand. The night was calm with no sand moving, and the views both up and down river were fine with Comanche Point getting the setting sun and Solomon prominent to the west.
I passed the mouth of the wash which heads below Rama and climbed up the west side of the short canyon more directly towards Solomon. I was not sure this was better than going up the bed. There seemed to be some water in the bottom, and the walking might have been easier. At the top I could see a good break in the Tapeats rather directly on the route towards Solomon, and this turned out to be fairly simple. Solomon looks as if it could be climbed, but the top would give one more to be careful about than Cheops, for instance. I also considered another route over to Asbestos as feasible, along the river until the Bass Limestone starts up. Follow along its top and then the Tapeats can be climbed directly south of Solomon.
The ravine down into Asbestos didn't look promising from above because it was so steep. I wondered whether I had mistaken its identity, but started down anyway. The closest one to the river is right. It leads down with no real difficulty right to the cabin site. Any other ravine would likely lead down into Asbestos above the dead end, dry falls in the cliff far below the Tapeats and Shinumo Quartzite. There was a seep in the right ravine about halfway down, so I knew that if I had to turn back, I wouldn't die of thirst. When I got to the bottom, I checked upstream and found that if one wanted to follow Asbestos higher up than the nearby fall, he would have to go up this same ravine, far above the block and then down again. I later found out this is false and the trail goes up to the west.
This time I looked over the cabin site better than I had before and also renewed my recollection of the polished conglomerate in the bed of Asbestos Wash. The cache of prospector's supplies under the overhang in the creek bed was also interesting. There was the old sleeping bag right where I had seen it before and also a new one folded neatly in the rear of the cave. Four large cans of tomato juice, a can of milk, and a jar of flour were stowed in some cardboard boxes with eating utensils for two lying clean and neatly placed to one side. The trail around to the ferry crossing seemed harder to follow and in worse repair than I had remembered it. I missed it a couple of times. The dark rock was just showing at the place where I crossed. The water was still swift and wavy from a small rapid and there were some boils and swirls. I was spun around once and had to kick fast another time to keep from tipping over. It was easy to go back up along the south bank in the backwater until I could get out without having to climb up away from the edge of the water to go upstream. There was some rainwater in hollows of the Archean rock so I didn't need to fill the canteen with muddy water from the river. The river seemed much redder than it had just the day before.
I forgot to look for Owen's markers on the sand next to the river. I followed the bed of the wash as far up as I could this time. There were a couple of seeps about 45 minutes walk from the river, but they are so slow that one shouldn't count on them in hot weather. I got more water from a rain pocket in the bedrock and then treated it with tablets since I saw some burro manure in the bottom of the pool. Just above the main tributary which comes from the east, there is a sizable waterfall, not straight down, but too steep for walking up. It can be passed to the east without extra effort. There is a good deal of fracturing along here with a number of places to climb out to the east. Before long, you come to another fall in the Tapeats and you have to get around it by climbing up to the east and go back above the fall along a ledge, but almost immediately there was a moderate sized fall but with no way of surmounting it. I had to retreat along the same ledge. When I climbed out of the wash, I could see that this third fall was the last. The burro trail over into Mineral Canyon went by right above this fall. I was soon on a maze of burro trails and one seemed to be the main trail with a horseshoe lost along it. It seemed to be going farther south before ascending since one has to cross quite a ravine to get to the right place in the Redwall for the climb. I gave up this idea of finding Davis' shortcut down the Redwall since I realized that it was doubtful whether I would make the rim in daylight.
The trail along the talus above the Redwall still seemed hard to follow. One can find some of it, but one mustn't try to find it all the time, or he will waste a lot of time. Just keep going here. There is a good deal of the old trail left paralleling the wash coming down the Supai. As you go upstream, you keep to the east of the bottom for perhaps one-fourth of the way. Then it switches to the west for a shorter distance. After that, I thought it followed the bottom for a short way and you find that it has been along the west side all the time. A little higher, the trail switches away from the west for the last time and follows up the middle between two branches.
On the way through the Coconino, I heard a noise and turned just in time to see two suitcase sized chunks of stone come down a 100 feet or so from me and crash near the trail where I had been just a few minutes before.
I parked the car near the park boundary sign on the Hilltop Road and started up the drainage in the direction of Point Quetzal at 10:00 a.m. Getting to the rim took a bit over 30 minutes. I was a bit surprised to see the telephone line going so close to the rim. Apparently the linesmen were not using a compass because it follows the bends in the rim. There is a trail of sorts approximately following the line. After a few false alarms, I finally got out on Apache Point. The trail seems to go from the east across the end of the point before it starts down on the west side. There was part of an old tin can on the ground just before you start down. The only other sign of civilization was a horseshoe on the trail along the Esplanade where it crosses a ravine, the second just north of Point Quetzal. Of course the trail construction itself is in evidence most of the time until it reaches the Esplanade. Along here there are plenty of burros and deer to show you where to go. There's even so much concentrated traffic along here that there are white scratches on the bare rock. The deer and burros seem to be thicker along here than about anywhere else in the park unless it would be along the Tonto Trail west of Bass Canyon.
The trail down the Kaibab and north around the spires below Apache Point was surprisingly well defined. Even in the white clay slope, it seems much clearer than it should if it were only maintained by the deer. The Indians built well. At least I have never heard of anyone like Hance or Bass working on this. The switchbacks down through the Coconino show quite clearly near the top, but lower they are about gone because of rock slides.
It was clear that I would have to keep moving if I hoped to get to the river by nightfall. After two hours along the Esplanade with plenty of the usual frustrating detours, I was about where I thought I should begin looking for a way through the Supai. When I was about directly west of the long tributary from the east, there was a rather promising break through the top layers of the Supai. When I was nearly halfway down, I was gratified to notice rain pools although it had not rained for 16 days. Apparently, the weather has cooled enough now so that evaporation is not so terrific.
At this level, I could see that the major cliffs were still below. Judging from what I could see across on the other side and to the south, there wasn't a chance to get through the lower cliffs. I filled my gallon canteen as well as the quart one and decided to go back up on the Esplanade and continue around to the Bass Trail and go out there the next day. I resented having to backtrack to get up on the trail at the foot of the Hermit Shale and I went around one more point. There in the canyon heading where the Esplanade Trail swings from southeast to east, the rocks were pretty well broken and I found no real difficulty getting down to Royal Arch Creek.
I remembered the route down through the Redwall along the creekbed fairly well, although I had the impression that some of the places were harder for me this time. It may have been because I had my pack on my back or it may have been because there was more water in pools at the bottoms of steep descents. The water was not very attractive because, in the larger pools at least, it was covered with a sort of green scum. This may have been pollen from the willows which were in bloom. In fact, the air was perfumed by the inconspicuous green flowers, rather odd I thought for the middle of October. By 6:00 p.m. I had just arrived at another large pool and there was a fine flat rock for my air mattress with plenty of wood at hand, so I decided to call it a day. The night was pleasant again, a little warmer than two weeks ago, but really about right for my bag.
On Sunday morning, I left my gear and started down to see whether I could get to the river. Within minutes I came to the spring. I remembered it as having fine pure water, but this time I detected a slight odor, a bit like sulfur. Just a few yards farther is the last tributary from the west, which looks like a promising way to get out on the bench below the Redwall to the west. One might try for a way down to the river in that direction. (I later found out that you could not do it.) I looked over this bench from a distance on the east side of the creek, and it appears to be impossible to get down the cliff to the edge of the river. (I later found out it would be possible but only with a 20 foot rappel - bring a 30 foot rope to tie around a rock on the ledge, this has also been force climbed by experts.) It's too bad that Allyn and I didn't study this point when we were going to Elves Chasm.
Just a few more minutes and I was thrilled to see a very shapely natural bridge spanning the main creek. It's about 60 feet in span and about the same height from the water up to the ceiling. One can go on beyond the bridge for about 100 yards and then you come to the end. There is a sheer cliff of around 150 feet drop. If there were a real flow in the creek, what a fall would be there. I took time exposures since it was still so early. This is the only bridge known in the Grand Canyon which spans a main canyon with a perpetual flow of water in it.
The trip back was uneventful. At the top of the Redwall, the choice of the right canyon was a bit confusing, but when I finally picked the one I thought I had come down, confirmation was forthcoming in the form of footprints. It took me six hours from the top of the Redwall where the tributary comes in from the east to get out on the rim. My navigation from Point Quetzal was weak and I hit the road a mile southeast of the car.
P.S. The narrow canyon which enters Royal Arch Creek from the west just below the spring has an interesting rock supported about four feet above the creekbed. The rock is nearly spherical and looks as if it could have rolled to its present position about 20 feet in front of a small fall and four feet above the bed.
Reider Peterson went with me while the main gang of the hiking club was going down and up the Kaibab Trail. I fumbled a bit in finding the head of the Old Hance Trail. I should park the car at the turn-off from the highway to the head of the Red Canyon Trail. I should remember by this time that the old trail goes down the ravine which is farthest east next to the cliffs in the Kaibab Limestone. We went east just below the Coconino this time and avoided the bad ravine crossings lower down.
We kept to the bottom of the wash through the Redwall, and I found that you can't see the big cave entrance after you've gone past it. I must not have looked up soon enough. There was running water at the spring near which Hance used to have his cabin a bit upstream from the old corral which is still showing with some of the rock walls in fair shape. The flow in the bed through the Tapeats wasn't much. We went down through the Tapeats and climbed out to the east after we came to the granite.
I got confused and told Reider that we were crossing Mineral Canyon before we had come to it. At the higher level, it seemed as though the trail made a big detour. It took over one and a half hours to go from the plateau where we had just come up from the bottom of Hance Canyon to where we were definitely in Red Canyon. It was really surprising how well the burros have formed a trail along the steep slope down to the bed of the wash on the west side of Red Canyon. There was water along here and it seemed to be staying above ground where I had found the bed dry just three weeks before, down below through the Tapeats. There were some rather good pools higher up in the shale below the Redwall.
We followed the bed until we were quite near the head of the canyon and then turned left. There seemed to be a sort of a deer trail where we went up the Redwall. At one place, for about 20 feet, we had to use our hands, but I believe deer could get up it, especially with a spring. Above this place we turned to the north and got to the top of the Redwall between two tower-like promontories. It was only about one-third as far from here to the beginning of the trail in the Supai valley as it would have been if we had come up the official way. I a.m. in favor of using this route from now on, especially as there is water along it. The bypass of the fall at the top of the Tapeats is a chore, but it's not too long.
The trail through the Supai goes first for quite a way on the east side, then about as far on the west. After a short stretch on the east and another on the west, you are sent up the middle into a slope where there is a peculiar forest. Although the rim, 1000 feet higher, is covered with junipers and pinyons, down here there is a fine stand of ponderosa pines. We got to the highway in semi-starving condition and had to walk to the car along the woods road in the dark.
"Newly Discovered Natural Bridge" Editor, The Arizona Republic
For years, the existence of natural bridges in Grand Canyon National Park was unsuspected. Then Senator Goldwater discovered one from the air in Nankoweap Basin which received publicity in Arizona Highways and Life magazine. Not only was this the first reported, but it had the mysterious habit of disappearing when in shadow. Until Goldwater went in on foot, its existence was discounted by an eminent geologist who could not believe it would have escaped observation by the official mappers. On the other hand, Melvin McCormick of East Flagstaff says that this bridge was well known to his father and his uncle who spent weeks in the area looking for the lost John D. Lee gold mine. This was 50 years before the recent discovery.
The public is probably not aware that other bridges have been subsequently discovered in the park, also from the air. In 1956, Pat Reilly of North Hollywood, California., found a bridge on an aerial photograph he had taken. It is in the Redwall formation at the head of one branch of 140 Mile Canyon north of Great Thumb Mesa, down and across the Colorado from Thunder River. Reilly and his companions on the trip through the Grand Canyon came up from the river and photographed it from below. Allyn Cureton and I were the first to get down to it from above to take pictures. We found a peculiar, man-made rock pile in an inconspicuous place near it. A commercial flier, Hartman, has discovered two more bridges from the air. I found one of his independently while I was verifying the existence of an Indian trail from Lava Creek below Naji Point and Point Atoko up to the rim of the Walhalla Plateau.
Recently I was exploring a creek with an interesting name, Royal Arch, which is west of the Bass Trail and east of Apache Point about 28 miles west of Grand Canyon Village. I followed an old Indian trail down from Apache Point, along the top of the Supai Formation. The number of burros keep the trail well defined. Using a mixture of luck and experience, I managed to get down through the red cliffs to the beginning of the cliff through the Redwall Limestone. At a number of places both hands were needed to descend the steep drops in the creek bed.
On Sunday morning, I continued downstream hoping to reach the Colorado at Elves Chasm. About a half mile from the river, I was stopped cold by a 150 foot cliff, perfectly sheer. If the spring were only bigger, this stream would make the finest fall in Arizona. I would have been keenly disappointed in not getting to the river except for the fact that I had just discovered about 100 yards upstream from the cliff, a beautiful little natural bridge. Using a rope, I measured the span as about 60 feet and I would estimate the height as the same. By this method I measured Goldwater's bridge as having a span of 147 feet. The park rangers did not know of the bridge, but the prospectors who apparently were everywhere in the 1900's must have told the mappers about it. This one, the only bridge in Grand Canyon known to have a permanent stream under it, should therefore be called Royal Arch.
J. H. Butchart Flagstaff
This time I walked quite a distance with a group of the college hikers: Donna Lee Haskell, Martha Shidler, Allyn Cureton, Dave Little, Dick Cowdrey, and the sponsor, Lawrence Abler. We took the Tonto Trail from Indian Gardens and headed for Horn Creek. I had been over the Tonto to Hermit Camp from Indian Gardens twice before, the first time going west when I made the loop to Hermit Rest and back to Indian Gardens in one long day with the help of a car ride for half the distance along the rim road. The second time Boyd Moore and I had come east camping, I believe, at Salt Creek after first visiting the river to see Hermit Rapids. I believe they must have some maintenance work on the Tonto along here because it seemed to be in better shape than I had remembered.
There was a little water running in the east arm of Horn Creek a bit below where the trail crosses it. I checked down this arm to see whether one could get below the Tapeats here. A big block in the bed made a 30 foot drop right where it joins the main stream and this proved impassible. (However, this climb has been done, I think by Sue Varin.) It was a short walk to the main arm with no problems. The walking is without incident until the place where the first granite shows. Here a large chock-block makes one pause. There are really three ways to pass this. First one can go up and around on a brushy slope to the east, or he can hang down and drop off on the east side of the block, or he can find steps in the granite to the west of the block. Between us, we used all three ways. When one is perhaps 400 feet down in the granite, almost even with the angle formed by the Tapeats from the river as it turns back into Horn, you find another barrier, a fall of perhaps 50 feet. To pass this you need to climb up to the west about 150 feet and come down to the north. This is the place in the streambed that we reached in 1958 by coming down from the base of the Tapeats to the east. The rest of the party went down below this fall and ate their lunch where the water is above ground in the granite bed. By this time it was nearly 1:00 pm so I thought it behooved me to be on my way. My first project was to test the ravine which ends about even with the last waves of Horn Creek Rapids. I had to go clear up to the base of the Tapeats to get over it. Between the beginning of this ravine and Horn Creek, there is a fine pinnacle in the dark Archean rock. If rock climbers get desperate for a risky unclimbed point, I could refer them to this needle. I'm sorry that I didn't get a picture of it. There were no difficulties in the descent over the partly loose slabs to the river.
The day was quite warm down here and I thought that my idea of floating downstream was going to work out. I had thought I would put one mattress on top of another and keep out of the water except for my hands in paddling. When I saw how swift and full of swirls the river were, I decided that I would have to use only one mattress and be prepared to slide off when necessary. As a final precaution, I lay on the mattress in the quiet water next to the rock and tested my reaction to the temperature of the water. In a few minutes, my forearms, which I kept under water, started aching. Since it was obvious that I would have to stay out from shore longer than that, I gave up the idea of going down to Hermit Rapids that day. The dip kept me cool for most of the way back up the ravine. Near the head of this route to the river, I saw an
unmistakable rock pile. Not too far south of here, I began to recognize signs of trail construction near the top of the granite. I could make better time along here than I could in the streambed. It finally came back down into the wash just a bit below the first showing of granite, a few yards below the spot where the chock-block caused our party to split on the way in.
When I gave up the idea of floating downriver, my alternate objective was to try to reproduce an attempt by George James, John Waltenberg (?), and R. M. Bleak (Dad) to reach the river in the next canyon west of Horn. I noted a bay in the Tapeats northeast of Dana Point which they inspected and decided must not lead to the river. Their next premature attempt to descend was down an arm of the unnamed canyon just east of Salt Creek. They checked the rim here although I thought it was obviously not a place to start down. There are two very simple entries into this canyon only a little further on with plenty of deer and burro signs leading down. I wanted good water for the night, so I kept on to the place where the trail crosses Salt Creek. It was running a nice little flow, and I was able to get a fire going with just time enough to eat most of my supper before it got dark. I had already found a good bunk under a convenient overhang just a few yards up from the trail. There wasn't much headroom, but I knew that my gear and bedding wouldn't be wet with dew in the morning. The air was so still that I could read by candlelight for a while. The temperature was perfect for my bag and I passed one of the most comfortable nights ever. There was just one flaw with camping at this time of year. There were great numbers of ticks out. Numerous times when I had brushed against some bushes, I found them crawling up my clothes. I had to pull a dozen or more off my skin where they were beginning to dig in, and in the morning I found one behind my ear quite fat with blood. Fortunately, I have not heard of any spotted fever in this area. I did wake up enough during the night to crane my neck out from under the rock roof and watch the progress of the lunar eclipse. The sky had been overcast at bedtime and it was also lowering in the morning, but during the eclipse the sky was as clear as everyone could wish.
On Sunday morning I started down Salt Creek itself, although I was quite sure this was not the place where James and his friends had been baffled. In about 25 minutes, I came to a drop in the bed which could be passed by climbing to the east, clear to the base of the Tapeats. A short distance north of here, one could scramble down to the bed again at a much lower level. In fact, I found the highest single fall in the Archean here that I know of. I'm sure it must be at least a third higher than a similar one in Asbestos Canyon. Furthermore, there is a permanent, though small, flow coming down here. The drop is not vertical, but it must be at least 75 degrees with the horizontal. It seemed about as steep as Nevada Falls in Yosemite. I would say that the drop here is 250 feet and it must be a real sight during a storm. Just around the bend from the base of the fall, there was a huge chock-block, but I was able to go down the 30 feet beside it to the right. Only a few yards farther there was another drop in the bed which stopped me completely. I put my pack down here and tried to get by it, but I saw that the least slip on the polished granite would render me helpless to get back, and I decided that the attempt wasn't worth it. Almost certainly there would be more and worse places. (The way was better to the east.) I had to go back up to the base of the Tapeats and I could see that I was still a long way from the river. I decided that the best chance to reach the mouth of Salt would be to follow the base of the Tapeats on the west side of the creek until you were nearly to the river and then try to come down. The going looked rather steep, but I believe it is possible - another project for my backlog. (Actually not, from here to the river is easy. R. Peterson passed this and returned when it was dry in the fall of 1961.)
I went east around and below the point in the Tapeats which separated Salt from the nameless parallel canyon. I could see water flowing along it and I dumped my canteen, which was a mistake. There were lots of burro signs here, more perhaps than I have seen anywhere else, but when I drank a couple mouthfuls of the water, I almost felt like throwing up. It tasted salty but also rather bitter like Epsom salt. I propose the name Epsom Canyon for this one. Fortunately the weather got cooler and wetter as time passed and I didn't suffer from the lack of water. The minerals in the water had formed a natural cement in many places along the bed and had thus formed a sort of conglomerate travertine from the pebbles. Coarse grass grows profusely right in the sandy bed in many places. The bed is unusual for the steady pitch downwards with no real drop-off until you are within earshot of the roar of the river.
Here, there was another chock-block of Archean rock possibly 20 feet in diameter at the lip of a fall, fully 70 feet high. I felt sure I was at the next to the last bend in the wash before you could see the river. When I was within 30 yards of this barrier, I heard a clatter of falling stones and looked up just in time to get a quick but clear sight of a bighorn ewe. She dashed over a knob of granite to the right of the sheer fall and then I heard her go across a cliff face somewhat broken by small prominences and ledges. When she was across this concave face, she paused at a little angle on the other side about 150 yards from me, and I attempted a picture of the white rump. She crossed this cliff face at a gait which was as fast as a deer's trot. However, when I looked at the sheer drop below and the very poor holds, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and backed away. Beyond this cliff, there was a simple ravine leading down to the wash at the river level, and I dearly wanted to be over there. I thought that I could reach an approach to it by climbing straight up the rather steep slope to the mouth of Horn Creek. When I had gone to the top of the ridge some 200 feet above without finding a descent into the ravine toward the river, I was anxious to find a less frightening way down. This was possible and I went down into Epsom Creek south of where I had climbed up. The walk back up Epsom was in the nature of an anticlimax. I passed the rather large arm to the east and went out by a deer trail up the more easterly of the two areas where the Tapeats is completely broken down.
If and when I try to get to the river here again, I would go to the base of the Tapeats here and then follow the top of the granite until I was in the ravine which forms a direct line with the last part of the creek where it reaches the river. I looked down from the rim of the Tapeats while I was going back to Indian Gardens and it appeared to be a fairly simple route. A person leaving his boat at the river would invariably choose this as the only feasible route. (I found out later that you could go east below the Tapeats and hit the trail out of Horn.) I was up and on the Tonto Trail by 11:00 a.m. What with dodging rain and sleet by sitting under overhangs below the trail and stopping for food, it was 4:30 p.m. when I finally reached Bright Angel Lodge. From Indian Gardens on, I had the company of a young Englishman in the foreign service who was returning from Japan to England and doing a bit of touring in this country. His last name was Watson, and he was experienced in technical rock climbing as well as being a skier. I can vouch for his walking ability. He had climbed the Battleship before we had met.
Principal Observations:
The old trail near the top of the granite on the west side of Horn Creek leading to the escape route from just below the rapid.
Noting that the spring in the nameless canyon just east of Salt Creek really is strong with salts while the spring in Salt Creek is pure water. The cartographers probably used a name obtained from the prospectors and put in on the wrong creek.
The bighorn ewe and its agility over a cliff face that I wouldn't tackle.
When I came to the end of the good road to Topocoba Hilltop, 12 miles west of the village, I thought I would experiment with the road sign which seems to promise that Topocoba is 24 miles starting on the less used track which goes west beside the fence. The ground here is much more nearly level than it is on the road I had used previously, and I could make relatively good time. However, when I came to a chance to turn right, away from the fence, I thought I ought to take it. This led to a wire gate that was a bit hard to close because it had to be pulled so tight. Just beyond, there was a water tank with water in it. Then the road began to wind in the bottom of a ravine until one reached another, larger pond. There were some cabins in this area, but no current inhabitants. With a good many curves and some pretty rough uphill driving, I finally got back to the usual road at the sign pointing to Pasture Wash. From the sign, I learned that I had passed Rock Tank five miles back. The experiment was interesting, but I had wasted time trying it. I came back from the fork between road W2 with W2A in a half hour less time than it took me to get there.
Road W2A going north was interesting in that there were fairly recent tire tracks up it. There were places where the vehicle must have tipped most uncomfortably, and the grades were such that I was satisfied that my old Ford 6 would have stalled completely.
The road north which often comes close to the rim was just as scenic as I had remembered it to be. This time, however, there was the bonus of spring flowers. The recent rains had brought them out in profusion. I could name a few, paint brush, penstemon, and wild phlox. I think I'll begin taking a few slides of flowers and have Mr. Deaver teach me the names. I enjoy them a bit better when I can call them something; such as desert mallow, lupine, or loco.
As I approached Fossil Bay I made frequent detours to study the possible way down. It was about as I had remembered it, but the place where I was rather sure of getting through the Kaibab Limestone seemed a long time in letting me reach it. Then I realized that it was the last place where the Jeep road is close to the rim. The wheel prints were still proceeding along this route, even though there were places where the vehicle had surmounted loose rocks bigger than footballs and had rolled over ledges like the courthouse steps. I decided it must have been a four-wheel drive vehicle.
When I finally started down through the Kaibab, I saw that the Toroweap Formation was going to be the question mark. The Coconino was well covered by talus material in many places along here, but the first of several places I inspected in the Toroweap was out of the question. About 200 yards to the north, I came to the place where I had placed my strongest hopes, and it was possible although two hands were necessary for safety. I could see that the deer went up and down here, and also there were numerous droppings which didn't strike me as just right for deer. Subsequently, I decided that they were left by bighorn sheep. This passage seems to be the only one for miles and later I found out that there is a constructed trail farther north. From a distance below on the Esplanade, it doesn't seem like a foregone conclusion that it is possible, but it appears that everything else is impossible, so it isn't hard to pick the right spot. On the return, however, I felt some relief when I detected my own foot prints and knew for sure that I was approaching the right place.
There was a change in the floral display below the rim.The delicate Mariposa lily was especially attractive. Barrel cactus was also in bloom.
The first thing I did down on the Esplanade was to head straight down the ravine. As I came to the first bedrock, I found rain pools and I know that I didn't have to retrace my steps to survive on the water left in my canteen. From the rim I had concluded that my best hope in getting down to the top of the Redwall was in a shallow bay on the northeast side of Fossil Canyon about the closest to the river. To get there, I had to head three other tributary ravines. In getting across these, I usually compromised by going almost to their heads and then crossing instead of going still higher and really heading them. There were more pools fairly accessible in these ravines, but I can imagine that in the summer heat, it might be a different story. When I got close to the fin of Hermit Shale which projects quite a distance from the base of Stanton Point, I found the walking fine. At the end, I decided to go on east and look down at the river.
When I had followed this course a short time, I was amazed to see a bighorn ram calmly browsing in the stiff false sage which is dominant over the Esplanade as well as on the Tonto Plateau farther east. My camera was now in the pack, so I ducked down behind the brush and got it out. Just after I took the picture, the ram looked me steadily in the eye, showing how the horns sweep down and spread apart. I turned the film and found that I was at the end of the roll. Before I had changed to a new film sitting down in the hollow behind the brush, the ram had moved on. I wish I had skipped trying for more pictures and watched it go. I estimated that the range for my picture was about 75 yards.
As I advanced, I carried my open camera in one hand and my canteen in the other. Once I realized that I was a bit excited by seeing the ram and wondered whether I was proceeding carefully. I wondered whether I had put the exposed film in my pack before I moved on. I stopped immediately and found that I had. Then when I was quite close to the rim of the Middle Granite Gorge, I put down the canteen to take a picture of Steamboat Mountain in the sunset. Almost at once I saw the advantage of going to the very edge for the picture and I walked 50 feet without moving my canteen. When I had the picture, I reached down for the canteen and couldn't find it. I had been wrapped up in my amazement at the dark and narrow river so far below, a view that appealed to me more than the one at Toroweap when the background of Steamboat Mountain is considered. I had no recollection of my movements regarding the canteen. First I considered the possibility that I had put it down a short distance away, but I couldn't see it. Then I tracked myself back through the soft soil for half a mile and then returned to the rim again. By this time I began to consider ways and means to do without it. I figured that the safest way would be to get back across the Esplanade as far as I could before dark and then go out to the car while it was still cool. I did go back for a half hour and found a good water hole. In the night, I decided too make a definite attempt to find it before I departed, and in about five minutes back at the rim I succeeded.
With no need for haste, I now wandered around the edge of the Esplanade above the mouth of Fossil Creek and inspected the chances for getting down the Supai Formation another time. The hardest part of the route in the rounded shallow bay near the mouth is right near the top. I'm sure I could have proceeded by tip-toeing along a narrow ledge, but I saw a route that is perhaps safer farther to the west. The Redwall didn't look a bit inviting from the top of the Supai, but I can't call the Indians liars until I have been down to the inner slit.
The only sign of previous human use of this area was about the largest mescal pit that I have ever seen. Without digging, I didn't see any charcoal, and besides, I couldn't see any firewood growing at all nearby, but that doesn't seem to be much of a difficulty.
On the return, I kept a bit higher and was usually farther up the ravines when I crossed them. It didn't seem to take so long to return, and up on the rim road I made rather good progress and reached the car by 4:45 p.m. There was only one small tick as I was getting to the top.
This time the main objective was to go to the bottom of the Supai to see whether one could get down the Redwall. Allyn Cureton and Dave Little went along. Another difference this time was that I took our '55 Ford because I wanted to drive out along road W2A and I thought the '50 would never be able to pull the rough spots up the first ravine. It was tough on the 160-hp motor, and I am sure that the 95 horses couldn't have made it. There were some wicked bumps and often rocks would be against the underside of the car. Allyn looked under to see whether we might be losing oil several times, and I still don't see why we didn't ruin the tires. It took us about 45 minutes to drive 6.3 miles. Several times the boys got out to lighten the car to help it bang up some rocky ledges. It is really a road for a four-wheel drive vehicle. When we finally parked, there was a rocky place just ahead that we never would have been able to surmount. On the return, I noticed that Pat had parked just short of us, probably before he saw our car. In fact, I had parked .3 miles south at first, and then had gone back to get the car. We must have walked about four miles from the car before we came to the place to leave the rim. I lost my reputation as a guide by announcing that we had come to the right place about three times before we were really there, but of course there was no question about its identity when we actually started down. Later as I looked at the map, I became convinced that there is a wash not shown on the map more important than one which is. We went down to the north of the first big tributary coming in from the right, but this is not shown at all on the map. The first blue line coming in from the right is relatively minor, and it is to the north of our route down.
On the talus at the bottom of the Hermit, we headed to the left to get the shortest way past the canyons coming from the head of Fossil and the further one on the left. As we crossed the main branch, we noted some water still standing in potholes, but we saw no more clear to our campsite at the top of the Redwall. We didn't follow the ravines down as far as we could have, but there was none left where I had camped two weeks earlier. Then I had a pocket eight inches deep provided with a small frog and not a single mosquito. On the return, we stopped for lunch at a place in the main arm where the walls are beginning to get high enough to make climbing out a bit hard. One pothole here was three and a half feet deep ten days after our most recent storm in Flagstaff, so I rather think it can be regarded as a permanent source. As Dave and I rested and ate lunch on the return, Allyn went up the main arm to see what appeared to be a spring at the bottom of the Coconino. It was a dripping spring all right, and considerably below the top of the shale, there was a pool about an inch and a half deep. Here he found a shovel and a pick with the name J. Wright on the handle. (I had fondly imagined that we might be the first whites to visit the profitless locality.)
In skirting the tributary canyons, we kept pretty well up without getting onto the higher ridges of talus. In two of these canyons, we dropped down and crossed when it meant only about 50 feet down and then up again. I was guiding quite well through here and often came across my own tracks from two weeks ago. We did not see the mescal pit I had seen before without noting its location. It was lower than our present route. We could cross from the main arm where we found water to my former campsite located on the central blue line of the last tributary going into Fossil Canyon in about one hour and 45 minutes. After that I goofed in my guiding. I kept too far to the left and we saw the rim above the river almost at the mouth of Fossil Creek before I realized why we were taking so long to reach the bay where I knew we could get down. When we swung around and headed a little north of west, we still came to the rim of Fossil too far to the south and had to follow my former route reaching the bay I knew was possible from the south. I led the boys down the route I had studied before even though it meant crossing a rather bad, narrow ledge. We handed our packs across this spot. We noted a better place to go up on the return, a place that I had seen before, about in the middle of the bay. It seemed like a long way down to the bottom of the Supai, but the footing was never bad.
There was no water left on the gulch along the top of the Redwall. We took about 20 minutes to go along the top of the Redwall to the next tributary to the north. We were really beginning to worry about the water situation although we could have made it back to the last water we had seen, right at the foot of the first slope off the rim. I had started down with two full gallons. There was another gallon and a half in the party, but we would have been distinctly in trouble in that heat with no more. Fortunately, there were two potholes in the Redwall still holding water, and we dropped our packs in a hurry. Dave had wanted to camp on top of the Esplanade so that he wouldn't have to tackle the 850 foot of Supai in the morning. I had said I didn't think we should split the party, and that if he couldn't make it down with us, I was willing to go back with him to camp by the water near the start of the trip. That persuaded him to go on down. Now he elected to stay by the packs and get an early supper while Allyn and I went on along the top of the Redwall to see whether it's possible to go down if you begin in the main bed. We found more water, and cleaner, in the next canyon to the north. There were pools along the bed of the main gorge and even a trickle over the falls, which incidentally make it possible to descend the main bed. After seeing that there is no way through the Redwall here (I found out later that one could go down here), we went up the main arm at the foot of the Supai. We went as far as some fine cottonwoods, but there was no surface water, however, there was a spring up higher. Since it was getting late and we had a strenuous day, we went on back to camp. I had felt weak from heat and exertion in the afternoon, but now Allyn seemed to give out. He lay on his back without trying to fix up a meal until it was pretty dark.
I found that I had goofed badly. I was without my usual Lipton's soup and can of sardines for supper. Dave saved me by giving me a can of vegetable beef soup he had brought. I lugged wheat chex and peanuts out of the canyon the next day, but I would have been very unhappy without that vegetable beef for supper. The sky was quite overcast, so Dave and I slept under a good sheltering rock 30 yards away from the streambed. I was too hot in my bag and I thrashed around most of the night. The tiny mosquitoes were thick here too. We didn't notice any bites, but the humming was a bother. I pulled a couple of ticks off at this campsite also.
One thing that I noticed as Allyn and I followed the top of the Redwall north was another mescal pit. On the way down the Supai we had also seen a partly burned juniper limb.
The return was fairly pleasant. We got to the top of the Supai before the sun reached us and proceeded to the edge of the cliffs giving the view of the Middle Granite Gorge, where we took several pictures. Allyn waited a half hour here for better lighting while I returned to the packs and read my Time magazine. We made the trip back to the rim without undue strain. I almost stepped on a bull snake and wouldn't have known a thing about it except that Dave said "Look out!" after I was already by it.
It's not quite honest to say that we have ruled out the possibility of getting down the Redwall in Fossil Bay. (Since then, several hikers have gone down Fossil Bay all the way to the Colorado River. There is an alcove directly opposite from where we came down the Supai which has a peculiar pinnacle made of consolidated talus material. It stands away from the wall near the top and the lower slopes of this pinnacle are too steep to descend. The best possibility would be to come down between the talus or breccia needle and the wall on the north side of the it. I should try this before I say no one could get down here. It also appears that there is a possibility of coming down the Supai on this west side of the gorge. (I later found out that the best way down the Redwall is down the bed with a bypass of the vertical fall on the left about 40 yards away. The chockstones and chutes are easy going down.)
No bighorn sheep seen, but there were some very fresh droppings.
I mustn't forget the sinkhole near the end of Apache Point rather close to the east rim which showed smoke stains on the ceiling where there is a shallow cave.
In retrospect, I wish I had gone through with this whole project, but at the time it didn't seem attractive. I left the car in good time, at 9:15 a.m. and at last used a compass to go more or less directly to Apache Point. It was a good thing to have along for the day was quite overcast and I couldn't steer by the sun. I was about an hour ahead of my schedule when I found Royal Arch and ate lunch down on the Esplanade. At this time I didn't feel that there was any hurry since I had two gallons of water. I went out on a point and took a picture that I hope pans out. It should show Elves Chasm right at the river. From this point I also noted that one can go down the Supai where the trail first comes down the Coconino and then follow the top of the Redwall to where it begins and thus reach Royal Arch more easily than the way I did it last fall. I'm pretty sure that the detours along the top of the Redwall are not as extensive as they are up on the Esplanade.
Around on the west side of Apache Point, I noted three things. One was that there is a distinct possibility for a man to climb down through the Coconino. (I later found out that it was quite easy.) Talus material covers the Toroweap and there is only a short stretch in the Coconino that might be impossible. I didn't go up and check this, but I did take a total of an hour and a half to go up to the base of the Coconino at two different places. One I wanted to see how much of a cave there was (it wasn't much) and again I wanted to know whether a lot of green indicated a dripping spring (it didn't.). Several times I made short detours to look into ravines for rain pockets. The only water I saw all afternoon has me guessing. Judging by the manure and two burros that I saw, the burros are thick along here. Right up where their trail crosses the bare rocks were three pools. The two deeper ones had loads of manure in and out of the dark fluid, which looked as much like urine as real water. The shallow pool was only an inch deep and right in the sun. I didn't try it, but I thought it was a promise of more along the way. The only other water I found all the way to the head of Fossil was in a little shallow pocket about one-third of the way from Forster to Fossil. It was protected from the sun, but it tasted rather bitter. I also can't explain how it had escaped evaporation when better pockets were dry.
Heading Forster Canyon was interesting. The burros had made a trail for me until then, but at the head of Forster the clay and shale bank becomes quite steep. My impression was that the inclination was about 45 degrees. Perhaps this discourages the burros from going any farther. Whether this is the reason or not, none of them do. I followed bighorn footprints when I crossed here. It had been sprinkling some in the late afternoon but the clay had not softened. The slope continues this steep for some distance beyond the head, and I was wondering where I was going to sleep. I found a clean smooth rock bed of a ravine which was also quite level for a few yards just above the rim of the gorge. I gave the question a bit of thought as to what I would do if it began raining hard, but rather than go on when I might get caught by darkness in a worse place, I camped there.
After supper and breakfast, I had only two more quarts of water, and the map made it appear that I had come only halfway or less from Apache Point to the sure water at the head of Fossil. I was sufficiently concerned about the situation to get going by 5:00 a.m. I was torn between the ideas of keeping up the best pace possible and going into a serious search for water. The short ravines along here don't have the same sort of beds as Olo and Matkatamiba, and I finally decided to concentrate on speed. I was afraid that food might make me thirstier so I held off eating. In late forenoon, I felt rather weak and even considered leaving my pack to pick up after I had gone for water. Apparently, I was exaggerating my difficulty because I reached the permanent rain pocket at the main branch of Fossil by 12:30 p.m. with my pack on my back. Although my concern was to cover distance as fast as possible, luck was with me and about two-thirds of the way from Forster to Fossil I found two shovels and an axe under an overhang and a frying pan out in the weather. On the rock wall behind was scratched the date 1943 and initials, I. D. Upon consulting the map, I would correct that statement by calling it four-fifths of the way from the head of Forster to the head of Fossil. About halfway from the old camp to the water in the main branch of Fossil, down in one of the ravines, I ran onto a fine mature bighorn ram. I would have missed him except for hearing him leave. Before he had gone very far, however, he was curious and looked me over carefully before he decided to leave for good. I knew I couldn't get the camera out of the pack in time, so I just stood and enjoyed the fine view from about 60 yards.
Sunday afternoon I lay around in the shade and caught up on some reading. After 5:00 a.m. I went up to the dripping spring at the very head of Fossil Canyon at the bottom of the Coconino and noted the animal trails up there. I missed seeing the lower pool where Allyn had seen the pick belonging to J. Wright. It started to rain before I got very far down from here and I spent no time in protracted search. This new rain made it unnecessary for me to dip again into the deep rain pocket which is the permanent water supply here where the main branch cuts down into the Supai. It was most welcome when I was getting desperate, but even a cupful looked green and the surface was pretty thick with bugs.
The sky instead of clearing as it had the night before, became more threatening as the night passed. About midnight, I retired to a prepared position under a good overhang and up from the streambed. There was a little shower, but that was all. I had carried two cotton blankets instead of a regular sleeping bag so that I wouldn't repeat the mistake of trying to sleep while too warm, but this time the difficulty was in keeping warm enough. I did make out quite well, however.
For some reason, I didn't have the old fight and determination and elected to work out of this station as a base camp instead of packing the whole load. I was also leery of trying to go from the Esplanade at 140 Mile Canyon clear to the car south of Apache Point in one day, and I didn't relish the thought of a cold night on the plateau above. On Monday I followed the Esplanade towards Great Thumb Point. To shorten the trip, this time I went up and over the long ridge of shale which projects from below Stanton Point. I looked rather carefully at the rim along Specter Chasm, and I couldn't even see a way to start down the Supai, let along get down the Redwall at the bottom. Progress was easier without the 30 pound pack I had been carrying the first day, or rather 40 pounds with the gallon canteen I had in my hand. I could keep up quite a steady pace, but the going was tedious as it seems to be everywhere along the Esplanade. You are forever having to decide whether to climb ridges or walk the much longer contours. I noted that bighorn sheep seem to prefer the climbing whereas burros set the trail along the contours. A person with a pack is more like a burro while one without can make like a bighorn. I did whichever seemed handy at the time. I had started from the main branch of Fossil at 6:00 a.m. and by 11:30 a.m. I had gone a bit farther than the point with the bench mark on top just before you get to Great Thumb. Here the slope gets as steep as it is at the head of Forster and presumably it is just as steep for a long way between Great Thumb and Tahuta. I want to come in from the other side and close this gap some time, but I certainly won't count on finding any water anywhere along here. Also we can forget about the isolated mile of trail shown on the map near Specter. I crossed its location repeatedly and saw nothing unusual, just short stretches where bighorn had made a path.
My plan called for a real investigation of the last possibility of getting to the river down the Redwall in Fossil. However, I began to get homesick and also to think of McKee's predicament if he had been alone. I had plenty of food, but a clincher was the short supply of tp. The upshot was that I started home Tuesday morning, but I did have one more thrill, three bighorn sheep high above me on the way out.
Marshall Scholing finally caught up with me after I had given up trying to find him. We went out to the base of the Sinking Ship with the idea of walking completely around it and trying to find a good, safe way to the top. At different times we had both been along the east side, and we found the metate still just where we had noticed it before. He showed me where he and Dean Bruner had gone up a minor turret before you reach the farthest north part. We climbed here this time and tried finding a way up to the main top. I have seen lots of pictures of people going up just as risky a place, but we gave up when there were perfectly good steps, but the blocks would have forced us to lean out and trust to friction holds. The rest of the trip around was interesting, especially since it was about sundown. There was a very well established deer trail along the west base which made for pleasant walking. We noted a crack on the west side which might lead to the top. However, there wasn't time to explore this possibility.
I showed some of my slides to the Hunts until about 11:00 p.m. and then Marshall and I drove out to Hermit Rest. We spread our bedrolls on top of a concrete platform which Marshall suggested was intended to help dudes mount their mules. It was warm weather all night. That was the reason I had changed my plan from going down Fossil to see whether I could descend the Redwall. It will surely rain sometime, and also it will be cooler in the fall. I'm beginning to lose confidence in my resistance to heat.
We started down the Hermit Trail at 6:40 a.m. Now that I've become conscious of bighorn sheep around the canyon, I'm practically sure I can tell the difference between deer droppings and bighorn droppings. If this is so, there are bighorn signs less than a mile from the head of the trail. We made a left detour along the Waldron Trail to let me get a picture of the peculiar fireplace which seems to go with a cabin that was never built. It took us just under two hours to reach Dripping Springs.
Marshall was surprised to see how much trail construction still shows where the Boucher Trail goes up the Coconino to the north. When we came out above the Coconino, we left the trail and followed the talus below the Kaibab around to the north. Most of the way along here there's a well established deer trail. Still the walking isn't easy, because the deer go up and down and also under projecting limbs. Marshall had to get back to the village by 4:00 p.m. so he left me when we were getting a view that almost took in Point Sublime.
He had been kidding me about the futility of hoping that we were the first white men to be following any route in the canyon. I told him that we would not see any old tin cans along our deer trail. I was correct about this, but just beyond where he left me, I found a weather beaten piece of cardboard with peculiar holes near the ends. Finally it dawned on me that this is what the military fliers use as a reel for the tinfoil they drop to simulating radar defense. We have found the tinfoil in all sorts of unlikely places.
The day before it had reached 100 degrees in Grand Canyon Village, and it was that warm again where I was hiking. I was carrying two gallons of water, and between the load and the heat, I wasn't doing very well. About 2:30 p.m. two-thirds of the way from Yuma Point to Cocopa Point, I put my pack down because I knew I should camp at least that close to Dripping Springs if I expected to get back to it the next day before I ran out of water. I walked around under Cocopa Point about a third of the way from the point to the end of the bay. Up ahead, it looked quite possible to come down through the Kaibab Limestone. If I had carried my pack with me, I would have proceeded here and trusted that I could climb out and return to the spring across the plateau. As it was, I returned and carried my pack to the projecting terrace just below Yuma Point. It was already 6:00 p.m. so I called it a day. This is one of the few places along this entire route where the ground is flat for several yards and the view swung clear from Powell Saddle to Hermit Basin. I could make out Hermit Rest very easily, but I assumed that no one could see my small cooking fire. I got a new impression that Isis Temple has quite a flat terrace around it, and the Coconino projects quite far south from Wotan's Throne. Likewise, Vishnu Temple doesn't seem quite so steep from this direction.
After a fairly comfortable night, and with most of my water gone, I made better time and reached the Boucher Trail in an hour and 25 minutes. It was still only 7:05 a.m. and I had had enough water left to take me across Mesa Eremita to investigate the possibility of a way down. The places I had been counting on didn't seem too good, but to the west where the rim rises higher, there's a grass covered slope up nearly to the top of the Kaibab. When I got over there, it was even better than it looked. There is a clear and simple deer trail down here. I had been telling Marshall that I would probably sleep on the saddle between Diana Temple and the rim, but even if I had kept on going, I would have been only about one-third of the way there by dark. If I use this break in the rim at the head of Boucher Creek, I will have only half as far to go to reach the Saddle by Diana Temple. The next time I try this, I'll go out by the road along the park boundary and swing over to the rim without having to drop down and then climb out of Hermit Basin.
I got back to Dripping Springs before 10:00 a.m. and had a leisurely lunch. It was so comfortable in the shade near the cold water. There was a greater concentration of birds around here than I had seen anywhere else in the Park: swallows, doves, a flicker, and a couple that I think were grossbeaks. When I left, the contrast was pretty bad until it finally clouded over just about the time I was climbing from the basin up to the rim. You won't have to be in very good shape to match me. It took me 45 minutes to go up the last mile, the slowest time ever for me.
907 W. Summit
Flagstaff, Arizona
July 30, 1960
Dear Pat,
Frank Wright was at the Museum last Sunday and I had a chance to meet him. I guess it wasn't very tactful but, in the short time I had with Roma and some others waiting for me, I broached the subject of looking up Little Nankoweap Canyon for the Goldwater Bridge. He said he knew that you didn't go up the main arm, but he didn't know about the north branch. He said that they went up until they were sure that the formation was wrong for a bridge. That took the forenoon. After lunch, the others were for giving up, but he went up Big Nankoweap Canyon by himself until he saw that he wouldn't have time to reach the Redwall. Either Goldwater wasn't very clear with his directions, or they didn't listen carefully. I believe though that it wasn't sabotage on Frank's part. I a.m. willing to give him credit for really wanting to locate the bridge. He seemed to be surprised that I thought a boat party should be able to get to the bridge and back in one day.
You must have heard from Dock directly about the loss of one boat. He finally wrote me at greater length than is usual for him and said that the Wee Yellow was rather severely damaged at Deubendorf Rapid, but that they were able to patch it up. It was in the lower part of Grapevine Rapid that it got swamped and perhaps broken up. I have already replied to Dock's letter and have asked about the usual sink-proofing and also whether the occupants of the boat got a scare. He's a bit short on his reporting of mishaps. He did mention that on the way downstream, a boy suffered a compound fracture at Vulcan and was flown out by helicopter - no details as to how it happened
I showed Bob your letter and he took down your address. When he read your other letter, he asked what the difference is between windows, arches, and bridges; so I believe you answered his question without knowing that he had asked it. You are right that windows are not too rare. Of course the best known example is at Cape Royal. The next best known is undoubtedly the one you see from the South Kaibab Trail as you are going up the Bright Angel Shale before you get to the white switchbacks. One that not many people know about is right near the top of the northwest ridge approach to the plateau north of Cheops Pyramid. I suppose I have it in one of my logs, but since Clubb told me just how to climb that, I never tried to tell anyone. It would be hard to see from a plane because it is triangular about 15 feet each way.
The radio address about Dinosaur was interesting. I also enjoyed the book, This is Dinosaur, It would take a lot of proof before I would believe that a short mountain stream had worked back and cut through the Unitas and then had started draining the whole basin north of there, but in general the article was well done. Apparently no controversy in science is ever completely over. Only a few years ago, perhaps 10, some geologist came out with a study of Meteor Crater that claimed it was a steam eruption instead of an impact crater.
You must have noticed the big play that the Polaris Missile and Lockheed got in this week's time. Congratulations!
I got the itch to try my shorter approach to Diana Temple and went up there Friday afternoon. After an evening of chess with Marshall Scholing, I drove out there, a bit over seven miles along the park boundary road, measuring from the turn-off at the Abyss between Mohave and Pima Points. While I was going through the forest by guess using the sunrise for direction, I was wishing I had brought my compass. I thought I should hit the rim within 20 minutes. It took 35, but I was within 200 yards of the place I had found. I was able to keep on some sort of deer trail about 90% of the time but the deer duck under brush and low limbs as well as going up and down constantly, so that one still can't make good time. Of course you have to watch your step constantly. (Which reminds me. My friend Marshall Scholing tells me on the word of a new ranger, Higgins, that Davis broke his leg on the Grandview Trail, presumably this spring sometime. I would like to get a bit more dope on that, because I thought I had looked up Dan so often that I would have known about it.) I noted one thing about the location of the deer trail down the Kaibab. It's not at the very head of Boucher Canyon but rather to the east about a fourth of a mile. The walking along this talus was slow but interesting. I saw bighorn sheep droppings as well as the ever present deer sign, and at one place I noted a very distinct bighorn hoof print. One thing that seemed pretty unusual to me was some copper ore near the bottom of the Kaibab Limestone. I don't know enough about mining to know whether that is really rare. The ore didn't seem to be very rich, but there had been no signs of digging and mining around there, so maybe I really a.m. getting to places where no white man has been before. There were no old tin cans anywhere along my route yesterday. I had the pleasure of watching three deer show their heels to me over terrain that seemed dangerous at anything faster than a slow walk. It took a bit more than two hours for me to get from the rim down and along ovr to the saddle south of Diana. Merrel Clubb told me that he and Kit Wing had tried to climb Diana, but that they couldn't locate a way to get down the Kaibab cliff. He must not have worked on the problem very long, because the break I used was within an hour's walk along the rim east of Diana. You would have to go a lot farther to the west to find a similar break, or that is the way it looked from the top of Diana. [I found out later that this wasn't true. There's a break just beyond Jicarilla Point and much closer by a rope route just west (Clement and Tadje).] On a hunch I went along the west side of Diana and was pleased to note that the deer trail was just as good along there as it had been below the main rim. The last part of the west side began to raise hopes that I would be able to make it to the top. Before that, I had decided that the objective was to walk completely around Diana with very little expectation of making the top. However, when the deer trail began climbing in earnest, I did too. When it got to within 50 feet of the top, it cut back to the south, around a couple bends and then to the top with no difficulty at all. I almost had a let down feeling to find it so easy, but as far as I can tell, I was the first one up it. I built three cairns, one where the trail topped out and one at either end in plain sight. It took me an even half hour to walk through the tangles of juniper from the north end to the south. Merrel had picked out the north end as the place to go up. It would be possible too if one would use a good crack for the last 20 feet. The trail tops out about three-fourths of the way from the south end to the north, on the west side.
There were some fascinating things to be seen from the top, especially a couple of caves near the upper end of the Redwall in Slate Canyon. There were also some caves near the top of the Redwall in Topaz Canyon, but these looked a bit difficult to reach. The ones in Slate Canyon looked like something the prehistoric Indians would have liked. Thus, my backlog of projects lengthens as fast as I chalk one off. There were no signs of Indian occupation on top of Diana that I could see in my rather sketchy look-see. I did look at an overhang or two just below the rim.
I was warmer and more weary on the return and reached the car a little before 6:00 p.m. On the return, I got to the road from the rim 10 minutes sooner than it took in the morning, but I didn't know which way to walk to the car. Just a bit west was a gate that I hadn't passed the night before, so I knew I should walk east. That gate presumably means that a fence goes from there north to the rim. It would be a good landmark to follow it I ever repeat this trip. Our paper has carried articles about the two men who recently swam down the Colorado to Phantom Ranch in five days. I have enough clippings to part with some. You might try the telephone to get a bit more information from them. I would be interested in hearing what shape their bundles were, and whether they wore life jackets at all times. Apparently they weren't too tactful with the rangers, but I rather agree with them that a modification of their method might prove quite safe and practical. Of course my suggested modification would be to get out and walk around the rapids, and do the swimming with an air mattress under you.
Sincerely, Harvey Butchart
I got off to an awkward start by taking the bus to Page. Mack Andrus saved me from having to wait until 4:30 a.m. Wednesday to get the bus back to Bitter Springs and then to walk 14 miles just to get to Badger Rapid. He saw me on the street shortly before supper time and put me up in his trailer with slides and music for entertainment Tuesday evening. He even drove me out to have a look at Waterhole Canyon where he had heard you can get down to the riverbank. We didn't see just how to do it, but it's several miles from the road to the river. On Wednesday morning he drove me clear to Navaho Springs and I walked down to Badger Canyon and got started on the trip about 8:15 a.m.
I could see that I wasn't going to make fast time on the trip as soon as I saw that it had taken me almost three hours to go three miles from Badger Canyon to Soap. I didn't explore Soap, and I stopped for lunch about mile 12.5. A little ways above Soap I noticed and photographed a peculiar rock sticking up on edge. Some water was flowing between it and the shore, but it was so far towards the left that I don't think any boat would be likely to strike it during high water. I don't remember precise locations, but I saw ducks of two sizes scattered through Marble Canyon and a few big herons. Twice I saw little catfish, and I would insist that one of them drifted close to me just to look me over.
Sometime before I reached Sheerwall Canyon. I was pretty sure that the Supai was becoming the dominant stream side formation. It was most interesting to a person who recognizes the various kinds of rocks in the Grand Canyon to notice which he is passing through. It seems a miracle that one can descend through several hundred feet of cliff with never more of a fall than the rapids that drop a few feet in a thousand forward or sometimes three or four feet in a hundred forward. Of course the secret is that the rocks come up much more than the river goes down. The riffles and rapids seem to come on the average of about a half mile apart, and at this stage of water, there is always a good way to walk around them all through Marble Canyon.
About an hour after the lunch stop on Wednesday I could see and hear that I was approaching a pronounced rapid, presumably Sheerwall, the canyon coming from the left. There were a series of falls in the canyon right close to the river, and I noted a trickle of water. It appeared that both sides could be walked. I had in the back of my mind that at some time, the current might swing against the outside of the bend strongly below the boulder bar, and I might be in an awkward position to proceed. Hence I worked over to the right on the inside of the bend opposite the boulders brought down the side canyon. This was a mistake as I could see when I got close. The rocks I had figured to get out on were separated from the real bank by several feet of deep and fairly swift water. There were now three courses of action as I stood on a flat rock and assessed the situation. I could paddle like mad upstream along the right bank and eventually be high enough to cross to the other side. I could push off towards the middle and go right down through the waves and trust that I would clear the rocks along the edge, or I could make a lunge for the bank and hope that I could get a good grip on something even if I couldn't get my feet on the bottom. The latter was what seemed best at the time, but I couldn't grip anything and I went over the falls next to the big rocks. I was hanging to the mattress with my feet down in the deep water. There was no danger of dunking, but I did scrape my shin on a rock. The pack was floating behind and was hanging by only one shoulder strap when I got through. It shipped a bit of water. I guess I must have felt a bit of strain at the surprise, because I soon felt a thirst that was unusual. I interrupted the trip to treat some water with Halazone before I continued, and about 4:30 p.m. I stopped for the day to give my blanket and stuff time to dry out. All this accounts for the short run of about eight miles the first day. It was luck that a few minutes before this mishap, I had decided that my legs hadplenty of sun for one day and had put on my trousers. I suppose the skin would have been broken much worse if there had been no protection. I believe I camped about Mile 16, at least before I came to House Rock Canyon. The place was on sand at the top of a talus of broken rock. At this place and the stop Thursday night, there were no ants or flies. I believe they were entirely cutoff from the rest of the world by the cliff and the water. This is truly the ideal kind of camping, cool all day from being in and out of the river, and not much bedding needed at night to keep warm. I was burdened by a heavy pack with food for 14 days, however, and I was worried by the sad shape my knapsack was in. One strap appeared that it might tear off at any time. The first night, the air mattress held air properly, but by the second, it had to be blown up twice during the night, rather a bother unless one is wanting relief from insomnia anyway. At this very first stop, I decided to give up the river trip at either Nankoweap or Tanner. Still I went on with the full supply of food for two more days.
Rather early on Thursday morning I arrived at what I took to be House Rock Canyon. At least it looked distinctly possible to climb out here. I went up this canyon to the right for about 20 minutes. There were rainwater holes in a number of places, and one of them looked so clean that I took a good drink on the way up and another on the way back. There were three places where it seemed a bit like luck that one could climb around falls, but I reached a place where the wash was opening out near the top of the Supai and decided that I had taken about enough time for that study.
About a mile and six-tenths further on I was impressed by a house-sized rock in the middle of the river and took a picture. I had Boulder Narrows on my list, but apparently I didn't connect this rock with the feature until Bob Euler told me so after I got home. I stopped at North Canyon for lunch, and offhand I wouldn't have thought climbing out here to be feasible although I didn't investigate the possibility. After starting on, my next check point was Stanton's Marble Pier at Mile 23. Somehow I had the idea that his pier might be a vertical column. When I thought I might be getting close, I noticed a thumb sticking up from the Supai cliff ahead and I stopped to take a picture. Before I started on, I recognized the real thing, a projection of gray polished limestone on the left bank (not Stanton's Marble Pier). (There is no milepost at mile 24.7 RW.) This is the top of the formation that gives Marble Canyon its name and also its most distinctive views. The river is cutting into 500 feet of rock for the next 18 miles after which the greenish shale seems to be definitely the water level formation.
The next check point I looked for was a broken down section in the left wall at about Mile 25. This was obvious and striking through the Supai, but I'm not sure how one would climb out as the Kaibab Limestone at the top seemed rather continuous, not to mention the Coconino Sandstone. I had heard terrible things about the rapids at Miles 24.5 and 25, but at this stage they didn't seem particularly impressive. Of course I walked around them, but I did that for all the riffles. I must have landed 25 times in the course of a day's travel. The horror stories about navigation through both Marble and Grand Canyons always stress the fact that the rapids are much more ferocious in the harder formations such as the Redwall and granite. At this stage, there seemed to be long quiet pools with very slack water, and then rapids, but not noticeably worse than they are elsewhere. I would agree that there are fewer distinct rapids and more current between President Harding and Nankoweap Rapids than through the Redwall, but I wouldn't have picked out the Redwall stretches as unusually dangerous. The quiet glassy pools running straight for almost a mile with the walls rising 2000 feet and more formed the finest views of the trip. Along some of these corridors the face of the cliff would be honey-combed with large and small caves and crannies. Now and then a side ravine would cut down with most intricate carvings through the stone.
The canyon to the left with a trail in it at mile 29 (according to the notes) eluded me completely, but somewhat before this I took a picture of a deer or other trail coming down from the left. It seems to me that it was in a region not too far below the broken walls at Mile 25. It would be fun to come through here again with time to check out these trails to the rim. There seemed to be a possible ford where this trail came down from the left, and I think one could walk the talus from here to Vasey's Paradise. (I found out later that you couldn't unless you went above the Redwall.)
At Mile 25.5 is listed Cave Spring Rapid. If I know what this means, it is a little spring coming down through the sand on the right bank, and the cave is somewhat below in the side of the cliff on the right. There is a big block of limestone resting on the lip of the cave, but in low water it would be almost impossible. I believe that Art and Ray succeeded in getting into it from their rubber boat, but it was a real feat. I don't know which cave near Vasey's was the one where the split twig figurines were found, but this might be it. (I found out later that it wasn't, they were in Stanton's Cave.)
My Thursday night campsite was about a mile below Cave Springs. I can visualize the first campsite clearly and also the third, but no special features of the second stand out. It was on the left side on the sand not as high above water level as the first site. I do remember that when I started in the morning, I was able to walk quite a little distance before it was necessary to get wet. No matter how cool it felt in the night, a little struggling with the big pack and I would be warm enough to appreciate a wetting even rather early, long before the sun struck the water. Then if the wind blew, which wasn't often in the early morning, I would soon be too cold again. After the third bivouac, I went back to my old system of lying on two air mattresses. That was fine and warm. I had been leery of difficulty in picking them up when I was about to leave the water, but that was really no trouble either
Some of the time I didn't feel particularly sure of my location, and when I started Friday morning, I hoped to get to Vasey's by lunch time. I hit it with a bit to spare, for I had time to go up to see the Indian ruin and the skeleton near the shallow caves just east of Paradise Canyon and then move on to Vasey's before it was time to eat. I looked rather carefully, but I couldn't see how Stanton led the party out of Paradise Canyon. It seemed to me that they would have had to improvise some sort of ladder to get up the wall right at the river. Maybe there is a break somewhere upstream, for one can follow the bank along here for several miles.
At Vasey's, for once, I didn't have to wait for the tablets to make the river water safe. The food I brought wasn't very appetizing, but it seemed to serve the purpose of nourishment. For breakfast there was grapenuts (soaked in water) and dates. For lunch more grapenuts and water, dates, and either cheese or peanuts. For supper there was Lipton's tomatoe-vegetable soup, sardines, and dates with the possibility of ginger snaps wherever they appealed to me. I hardly ever was conscious of an appetite, which worried me, because I was surely leading an active existence. I often thought of Nevills' remark that you couldn't run the Colorado on hard tack and beans. In rebuttal, I thought that Powell's first party would have been only too happy to have had plenty of hard tack and beans.
One hears so much about the charm of the greenery at Vasey's that it's a bit ironic to see that a great deal of this is the finest stand of poison oak that I've seen anywhere.
On the way from Vasey's to Redwall Cavern, a bit over a mile farther, the scenery is most impressive with the cliffs rising from the water quite often on both sides. It's fortunate that rapids never occur with nothing but the straight walls beside them. As I approached Redwall Cavern, I didn't share the Kolb's feeling that it was too good a campsite to pass up. It would be a fine place to spend a rainy night, but there was a regular sand storm going on under the overhang which I was most happy to avoid. There were a few windy hours while I was trying to sleep on the sand bars, but in general I didn't have much trouble compared to the mess of wind often kicked up in Glen Canyon. There wasn't any rain while I was away from home for eight days, but not long after I got back, it began trying to make up for the extra dry summer. I was glad I was not cooped up under my plastic sheet. There are some compensations to being through with a rough camping trip where you don't even have a tent.
There were no good check points for the rest of Friday, but I found the next morning that I had been making quite good time. I must have stopped about Mile 38.5. Anyway, it was right near a fine alcove. There was a narrow entrance at about high-water level. Inside you found yourself in a huge stone kettle. The stream during a rain would pour out of a notch almost into the middle of the pebble covered floor. The whole thing was similar to Powell's Music Temple but on a grander scale. At this third campsite, I finally decided to abandoned the food that would obviously not be necessary since I had decided to climb out the Tanner Trail. I was glad to get rid of three-fourths of the cheese I had brought, a mess if there ever was one in all that heat. Oil soaked through the plastic bag and messed up things generally.
Perhaps the lighter pack accounts for the fact that I would make better mileage from now on, or perhaps the current just got better when I got out of the Redwall. I thought it was too early to begin watching for Loper's boat, but I stopped to take a picture of some fantastic overhangs with a lot of swallow nests on the ceiling. Later on I learned that these are well known features, the Royal Arches. When I was putting the camera away I happened to notice the old boat pulled up by a mesquite tree. President Harding's Rapid came along sooner than I had expected it to. The formation near the river began to look like the Nankoweap Area. As soon as I began to look at every bend with the idea that it might be Nankoweap, of course it seemed rather long in coming, but I reached Little Nankoweap before 4:00 p.m.
For two years I've said that I would like to go back up Little Nankoweap Canyon and see how far up the north branch one can go. When I was actually back there, it almost took some will power to make myself start. I guess I was a bit overwhelmed by all the fine things I had already passed and my curiosity was rather beaten down. There was also the question of the feet. My new sneakers had shrunk when wet, which was all day every day, and they had chafed blisters. I didn't know how effective my adhesive tape patching was going to be, but I finally summoned my resolution and started up. Very shortly I saw the first human footprint I had seen during the entire trip. This time when I came to the obstructions in the bed, I climbed way up at the very foot of the Redwall cliff, but before I came to the north branch, I came back to the stream level. I found that I could have gone on around the corner and entered the arm higher up. I followed the deer up a talus around the lower obstruction, but higher where the arm splits again, I was stopped completely. I got back to my pack in about 45 minutes.
Sunday I started as usual around 7:00 a.m. and reached Kwagunt about 9:40 a.m. By the time I was ready to hike it was nearing 10:00 a.m. It took about an hour to reach butte fault. There was no water running down to the river, but I began to find more and more on the surface as I went up. Nankoweap Creek was running clear to the river. The two springs in Kwagunt are only about 40 minutes walk above the butte fault. I went on up past the place where I had built a signal fire, past the place where I reached the main bed down the break in the Tapeats, and went on to see how the main arm gets through the Tapeats. There is a neat narrows here, but the bed is well buried in pebbles and boulders, so there is no climb needed. On the return, I used a bit of time looking for Indian ruins at the base of the Tapeats on the north side of the wash, but without success. A person could spend quite a bit of time going up all the branches and combing the terraces in the open. When I returned to my supplies, I moved down to the river and spent the night as usual on the sand. While I was getting the soup started, a coyote stopped not so very far away and stared. Finally I yelled to him and he jogged a little farther away and they gave me his attention again. When he got ready, he finally moved on.
On Monday I got off to the earliest start yet, about 6:20 a.m. I wanted to see how much faster I could make it to Tanner than I had by way of the butte fault two years ago. It was much more pleasant to get in the water quite a bit and then walk along the beaches if I got impatient with the slow water. I recognized the place where Boyd and I were swung around and around. Now there was no difficulty to keep out of the back eddy. In fact, I was never given an undesired ride upstream in a back eddy on the entire trip. I also was never tipped over except in Sheerwall, although there were times when I got into the race below a rapid and was twisted around several times in the turbulent water. The currents up beside me or diving under would sometimes make me balance carefully to keep from spilling, but on the whole, there was not much excitement. I ate an early lunch at the Hopi Salt Spring area, and I reached Tanner by 3:20 p.m. a very pleasant and easy trip.
Here I loafed in the shade of a big rock and finished the Reader's Digest for September. On Tuesday morning I started up the trail rather early and made good time until the sun got warm. I had cut the water supply rather short to avoid unnecessary weight, but towards the top I was wishing I had been more willing to carry more. The last little swallow was at the top of the Coconino, but I made the rim in under five and a half hours, good time for me in hot weather. I still had to walk to Desert View where I joined my friends Dave Keim and Marshall Scholing. Marshall drove me back to Flagstaff.
I left home before 6:00 a.m. but I made a few picture stops along the way, especially on the way south from Jacob Lake since the aspens were glorious at this time. I also saw a few bow hunters scattering across the parks toward the forest. At a service station opposite Kaibab Lodge, I learned that the road to Saddle Mountain is now being used by trucks bringing out the fire killed timber before it deteriorates.
Jerry Foote had recommended the East Rim Scenic View, so I took that detour. It was only about 3.5 miles over there. There is a forested canyon below you, but the real view is the distant scene, Vermilion cliffs, Navaho Mountain, etc. The slash in the plain formed by the Colorado River is impressive and rather close, but one has no idea of the depth and grandeur of the gorge through which the river flows. I met a couple here who said that they regarded the aspens as more rewarding than the Grand Canyon which they were just leaving. They felt frustrated that they had not had a mule trip to the river, and they asked me whether the South Rim was enough different to be worth a visit. I should have told them that they would surely be able to find a mule on the South Rim. From there I went and parked the car at the Y where the roads to Point Imperial and Cape Royal fork.
I was rather sure that Dock's pictures were not taken up Neal Spring Canyon from here, and I wanted to see what the canyon became lower down. A short distance south of the picnic area where you see the sign warning against overnight camping, I noticed a wooden water tank on the left up a bit from the bottom land. A large pipe came up out of the ground and dripped water constantly into the tank which had only six inch deep water in the bottom. I couldn't find the spring from which the pipe came. Thirty yards from here was a bridle path sign pointing the way to Bright Angel Point in one direction and Point Imperial in the other. No vestige of the path remained, and I would be rather surprised if there is still a guide around who can follow these bridle paths from point Sublime and even more remote places in the forest.
A good deer trail led south down the valley to another spring, probably Greenland. Here there is a scaffold and leading down from the steep eastern slope is another large pipe with some sections detached. I couldn't account for the scaffold at the time, but now I think it was built to support a tank. These developments were probably connected with the cattle ranching on the North Rim before the Park Service took over.
A short distance beyond Greenland Spring, you come to the drop-off in the Coconino Sandstone. The deer trail soon disappeared, but there was no difficulty in continuing down. There were several spots in the Supai which forced one to think twice, but there were always safe bypasses. Schellbach had placed the pictures correctly if he meant the one of the head of Neal Spring Canyon to be the head of Bright Angel Canyon in the Coconino. There was absolutely no scrambling down through the Redwall. It developed the full 500 feet of depth in only a few hundred yards. The map is incorrect in showing permanent water right to the head of the Redwall. The bed is dry until you get below the tributary from the east which comes by the word Vista on the map. About 50 yards below this junction, six four-foot jets of water cascade out from the west wall and fall about eight or ten feet to the bed. These falls are only a few yards apart, so that they virtually form Bright Angel Creek in one sweep. The creek is very beautiful for the next quarter or half mile with very little drop and the Redwall cliffs hemming it in on both sides. I would like to go back and get right up the creek to the falls. It took me 50 minutes of scrambling through the brush along the top of the Redwall to the place where I got my view of the source, and then I decided to proceed to the Old Bright Angel Trail up to the rim. This turned out to be a good decision, because I reached the trail at Trough Spring in only about 20 more minutes. There is still some telephone wire along here, and I was able to find the overgrown trail up to the east without too much trouble since I knew where to look. I well remembered how I had to turn back here the time before since I didn't have a map along and only found this trail when I came back the next day and looked down from above. When I reached the rim, I studied the map and decided to go along north through the woods until I could turn east and drop down into the valley in the vicinity of Greenland Spring and return the way I had come. I kept postponing the turn east, and when I thought I had surely gone far enough, I ran into the blacktop pavement and knew I had overshot. The present road follows the old single track wagon road, which I could still see near the bottom of the canyon.
There was still some day left, and after I had eaten some cheese crackers and drunk all the water I wanted, I left the canteen and pack at the parking lot at Point Imperial and started to look for the break in the Coconino which leads down from just north of the Point. I found it so easily that I should have been leery of a change of luck later. I knew I would have to hurry and I didn't note landmarks along the cliffs as I should have. First I thought I would just get close enough to photograph Hayden from below, but when I had done that about 5:45 p.m. I decided to go up to the base of the butte. Then I decided to go on around it as the Hunts had, even if I would have to climb the Coconino by the light of the moon. I must have hurried still faster on the way back, because I picked the wrong point to pass before I started looking for the way up. When I began looking, it was dark, and I was frustrated at two or three places by a straight wall. Finally it dawned on me that I had passed the right place sometime before, but the progress was so slow and difficult through the brush and thorns that I couldn't bring myself to go back and find the right place to climb. I reached a break in the Coconino that offered a chance and started up. Over halfway to the top, the going got bad, and at one place I had to backtrack. Finally I found that I would have to use both hands and hope that the rock would hold. When I was past these spots, I sincerely hoped that I wouldn't have to go down them in the dark. At last I was relieved to see that I had the Coconino below me. I reached the rim in very poor condition from lack of food and then walked for almost 15 minutes just to reach the car. By that time I was ready to blow up the mattress, pile into my two sleeping bags, and drop off without really eating more than a little bread and a few raisins. The sleep was about the best I can remember out on the ground and the sun was up before I was.
Next I tried finding the way down to Kibbey Butte, but apparently I started too far to the south in the neighborhood of Brady Peak. I didn't give the place Art had marked on my map (which was at home) a try. There was no chance of getting down at the two places where I looked down. The first one took me two-thirds of the way down, but that wasn't good enough. I'll have to go back and try the place Art had indicated. This was frustrating, and I also noticed that I was weaker than I usually a.m. presumably from going to bed without supper.
To do something easy before the long drive back to Flagstaff, I went down near Cape Royal and took the short walk down to the spring past the Indian ruin (GC222). It's a nice walk and gives you some very interesting views. I particularly noticed how it would be to go along the talus from this canyon around below Cape Royal. This doesn't look a bit easy and safe, but it looks better than trying to go from the east along the ledge above the bottom of the limestone. (I discovered in later trips that the bench east from Cliff Spring is the best way.) The bottom of the limestone blends into the Coconino in a vertical drop. I believe I remember now that Merrel told me you should go down right near the end of Cape Royal itself. I should have looked at that when I was right there.
Another thing I should have done when I was near the end of the cape was to cross the ravine and climb up to look down into Clear Creek and across to the three temples: Deva, Brahma, and Zoroaster. When I had driven north some distance, I got the impulse to do this, and I walked for 45 minutes due west without coming close to the rim. I did show enough sense this time to leave the car at a place where the paving changed so that I would know which way to walk when I got back to the road, but I felt frustrated again and rather foolish as I consulted the map and noted that where I was, 6.5 miles north of Cape Royal, I could have walked for miles and come to Bright Angel Canyon without ever seeing Clear Creek. I had shown bad management four times in two days, rather a record for me. I did have the satisfaction of deciding where all of Dock's pictures had been taken, and I had taken the only picture I know of the source of Bright Angel Creek. However, if I can't show better sense of direction and distance in the future, I had better quit while I'm ahead.
I had intended to make a serious try for the mouth of Fossil Creek this time, but two and a half inches of rain made the road west from the village impassible. It seemed like an opportune time to finish what James, Dad, and John Waltenberg started on August 3, 1898 - to go to the mouth of the second canyon west of Indian Gardens. This is still nameless on the map, but I've called it Epsom Creek since last March when I noted that the water in seeps along this bed are foul with Epsom salts. In fact, the bed is crusted with the stuff.
The weather at 6:00 a.m. was so bad that I almost gave up the trip entirely, and actually I didn't leave until after 8:00 a.m. when it stopped snowing. On the way into the park, I met seasonal ranger Kaas (not sure of the spelling). He said he's also interested in hiking and exploring the canyon and that he hopes to get on as a maintenance man so that he can do more of it. He said they won't let him officially do any solo hiking, but he has done some anyway. The Bright Angel Trail seemed sloppier than I had ever seen it before, and one had to walk in the gutter as much as possible. The stream was flowing down through the Supai, and one could hear a little fall over the edge of the Redwall. It rained rather steadily until almost 5:00 p.m. but my trousers didn't get really wet since the drizzle was so fine. I began to get a bit wet just before it stopped.
It took me about an hour and 20 minutes to walk to Indian Gardens where I ate an early lunch and read my new Time. The trip from there along the Tonto to the head of Horn took one hour and the rest of the way to the head of Epsom took an hour and a quarter. I made the same mistake that the James party did and went over to investigate the edge of the east arm of Epsom where one can't descend. This did not take long, and when I came to the branch where I had come out last March, I kept to the right and found a good overhanging ledge not far down. There was enough dry ground under it for me to sleep out of the wet and I left my pack here. I should have found my firewood then and put it out of the rain before going on about 2:40 p.m. I hadn't been carrying a full canteen of water because I had thought I would camp near a supply, but now shelter from the rain seemed more important than lots of water, and I even decided to leave the half full canteen with the pack and merely drink plenty when I found some in rain pockets. I knew I would be rock climbing, and I wanted both hands free if possible.
The route along the base of the Tapeats on the east side of Epsom wasn't level or real easy, but neither was it particularly hard. There were frequent burro droppings but only a few places did they actually form a trail. I chose to keep along the top of the granite even when it meant a detour around a shallow bay. At the last angle before I came into the bay where the chute goes down into Epsom below the obstructing fall, there is a pinnacle you have to detour around. A notch between it and the main Tapeats seems inviting, but the drop on the east side convinced me that I shouldn't try this short cut. On the east side, when you do go down and around, there is a tricky place where a steep ravine in the granite cuts out the talus. It would probably stop the burros, but I found numerous bighorn sheep droppings beyond here.
The main branch of the chute looked rather passable, but there seemed to be sudden drops lower down. I could look across and see that the ridge dividing this bay from the next one east was well broken and only about 45 degrees with the horizontal. I was pretty sure that I could descend there and then come back to the main chute. This worked out very well and I got a bonus in the view to the east. I saw that there was another chute going clear to the river over there, but I kept to my purpose of going down Epsom.
At the bottom of the chute, there were some good rain pools where I had all the water that I could drink. I was below the main fall that stopped me in March, but right in front was another minor fall of about 15 feet with a chockblock to complicate things. The right wall didn't look inviting, but the left wall was made of a most peculiar brick-red rock, probably granite. It was crumbling and eroding in odd pits between veins of limey material, and these pits were my salvation. I was able to climb past the obstruction on the left. The bed was all gravel and boulders sloping gradually to the river below, and I was pleased to see that I had not greatly exceeded my time limit of four hours in reaching the Colorado River. The flow seemed to be quite a bit higher than it had been in late August, and the water was a deeper red than I could remember on any other occasion.
The return was up the main branch of the chute and this turned out to be easy enough. When I came to the notch, I was tempted to take a shortcut and avoid going around the outside of the pinnacle. This turned out to be a bad decision. I could go up several yards to the east of the notch, but it seemed very unsafe to try to get around the corner into the notch. I kept going higher until I was six or eight feet above the bottom of the notch. I had already come up past a couple spots that might give me a bit of trouble going back the same way, but mostly I was just stubborn about throwing away the work I had already put into the project. The corner into the notch was what gave me fits. I had to hold to the rough sandstone mostly by friction and step with my left foot around the corner where I was slightly off balance. Then I had to reach my right foot across the notch just a little farther than seemed safe. With a slight lunge I made it. When my foot was across the gap, I easily shifted into a push and soon was standing on the other side with an easy descent. Just before getting around this corner, I had kicked a loose stone out of my way to prepare the footing, and the smashing and falling far below had worked on my nerves. I was both relieved and a little shaken when I got back to safe travel, and I resolved not to try any more short cuts, especially when I was alone.
Using rather more paper than usual, I was able to get wet catclaw burning and had my usual soup, sardines, raisins, and bread. There wasn't much water left, but I had breakfast with it too. The night was no longer rainy, but I was glad to be in my cozy niche. The Dacron bag was precisely warm enough. On the way back to Indian Gardens on Sunday morning, I didn't go out of my way looking for water, but there were some good rain pools in the east branch of Horn just below where the trail crosses it. I ate a second breakfast at Indian Gardens, but I still felt famished just as I reached the last switchback at the top. The chill seemed to take more energy than the climbing.
My criticism of James' account would be that there are no blocks in the bed of Epsom of any great size and that they went down the bed to the obstruction more like one mile than three. I a.m. surprised that they decided to climb around on the granite between Epsom and Salt instead of going up and following the base of the Tapeats on the east. If they had used better sense, they could have reached the river in the same time they spent getting stopped.
Allyn was about the last student to show up for the start, but he had to call Dr. Abler who had overslept. My car got off around 7:00 a.m. but we stopped to take pictures of the Elephant's Feet and again at Inscription House Trading Post where the gas pump was not working immediately. Before we got our gas, Dr. Abler came along in the Fiat. He said he had been driving over 75 on the good road.
I drove my gang down to Navaho Mountain Trading Post. We had been noting that the road was somewhat better than it had been six years ago, but there are still some steep grades both on the bedrock and in the sand. We talked to Mr. Cameron who tried to discourage us from walking at all. He said all the hikers say they can make it all right, but lots of them get into trouble. He told us that we could drive out on the road about four miles before we came to a grade that was too steep for an ordinary car to come back up. His directions about finding the road made us think that it was right at the turn into the Indian school. When we didn't find it there, rather than hold up the other three who were going back around to Rainbow Lodge; Jim David, and I started out on foot from there.
As it turned out, the hikers didn't get started from Rainbow Lodge until 2:00 p.m. With darkness expected about 6:00 p.m. they were caught coming down the Cliff Canyon hill in the dark at the end and they camped before they came to the spring. Allyn had forgotten what I had said about the spring being in Cliff Canyon. He found some water in a pocket near where they stopped and they had supper without dying of thirst. In the morning when they started on, they moved camp to the exact site where I had camped before with Jim Butchart, Jim McGaffin, John Wilson, and Dick Kern. They got down to the bridge before noon.
Jim, David, and I weren't sorry that we had cut cross country without staying on the road because we ran into a fine Indian ruin with the notation PE7 painted on the wall. We did strike the road shortly before we came to the steep hill about two hours after we started or about 2:00 p.m. Instead of following the road to the east and around to the west on the grade, we cut downhill to the west and had a bit of a climb or scramble near the bottom. The scenery was already fine as we looked towards the north wall of Navaho Mountain and Navaho Begay. The foreground is still flat with scrubby brush, but the mountain is protected by a whole palisade of white towers.
Before the Jeep trail gave out, we decided on the basis of the map that we should take a sheep trail off towards a break between two low mesas. The pass was the place where the regular trail began, and we agreed that Mr. Cameron had done some good work to keep it up that well. Four canyons had running streams: Cha, Bald Rock, Nasja, and Oak besides the tributary of Bridge where the trail comes down. There were many places where it was hard to see any way for a trail to proceed through the wilderness of rock. The drop down into Bald Rock was especially picturesque since the trail turned abruptly to the south and followed a ledge right across the face of the sheer drop. The part of the canyon south of the place where the trail comes down soon goes up to a sheer wall. The cottonwoods and junipers along the bottom are especially fine and the bed of the creek is clean rock which often leaves flat surfaces. Jim and I chose to camp at 5:00 pm so that we would have this beautiful place to spend the night. The air was quiet, but it came down from the snowfields on the mountain almost 6000 feet higher, and I got uncomfortably cold at night, but by 5:30 a.m. I was lighting the fire and getting back in the sack to enjoy it. Saturday dawned fine and frosty, and we had high spirits as we started on. My hands were a long time warming.
I believe we decided that Nasja Canyon is about the place which is known as Surprise Valley, or else this name should be applied to the region hemmed in by the cliffs a little farther on. There were quite a few footprints along this entire trail. Some were evidently made by hikers with special boots, but there were many that we identified as belonging to Navaho sheepherders. Many long stretches were densely marked by sheep hooves. One thing that particularly intrigued us were the tracks of the tote gotes. They got along quite well on this trail, but they left many spots of red paint on projecting rocks along the rougher trail on the west side of the mountain. We called it tote gote blood. Considering the fact that the riders were at Rainbow Bridge on September 12, we thought the tracks lasted rather long. We noticed one arch to the south of the trail, only about 30 feet in span and not much for shape either. If this is Owl, they seemed rather hard up for arches. The one I noticed in the tributary to Cliff Canyon is far more impressive.
A short distance beyond Oak Canyon, the trail curves to the south and then back before it enters a long straight fault crack. We looked casually down the fault and remarked to each other that we could see clearly that no trail could be in it. However, when we went on up to the northwest, our trail seemed to disappear. As we went back to investigate, we met a Navaho woman on a horse. We couldn't make her understand our English, but she gestured forming a bridge with her thumb and fore finger and pointed down the fault crack. We were within a few feet of the main trail and hadn't noticed it. We knew that we could have located it without her help, but we had been careless not to have already investigated down there. When we were through with this fault, which was better than Redbud Pass, we came down to another running stream, and this time we knew there would be no more climbing to reach Rainbow. At the fork with the other trail, we put our bags out to air and ate our lunch. By noon, we were ready to go on, and judging by the total elapsed time for the trip on the two days, we decided that strong walkers could make the north trail to Rainbow in one day, especially if they took advantage of the easy part of the road and drove four miles farther than we did.
There were fixed ropes at the harder parts of the climb to the top of the bridge, and Bruce Baldwin, Jim David, and Susanne Osborn went to the top of the bridge using them. Allyn was careful to do it without touching the rope except to push it out of the way. Mrs. Presson and Larry Abler started back before the rest. I went down through the narrows to the junction of Bridge and Forbidden Canyons. Allyn walked with Jim and me back to the rest who already had potatoes baking in aluminum foil. I was rather weary when we hit camp about 4:45 p.m. I guess I hadn't eaten enough of the right things.
The night was windy, but we slept warmer and got off to a fairly early start about 7:00 a.m. Most of the party were out before 11:00 a.m. I carried the sleeping bag Mrs. Presson had used, and then I returned along the trail and carried the rest of her pack the last hour of her trip. My car left the lodge shortly after 1:00 p.m. and we were at the campus before 5:20 p.m. I noticed that we took two hours only getting from the lodge to the blacktop highway, although at one place in the sand on a steep grade, the passengers had to jump out and push the car.
The start on Tuesday was slowed by a broken fan belt and the need for more stop-leak in the radiator before I could go up on the Topocoba road Wednesday morning. I left the car shortly before 10:00 a.m. near the park boundary south of Apache Point. Following the compass, I reached the point in 85 minutes, noting the pit with the shallow cave to one side at the bottom. This is near the east rim and is about eight minutes walk from the point. I recall that it took two hours from the car to the place below the Kaibab where the trail starts down through the Toroweap and Coconino.
From the slope down the Coconino and Hermit formations, I thought that the route down the Supai would be easy. It would be to follow along the Esplanade past two or three minor ravines to the first big promontory reaching east, the one that points just south of the name Elves on the map. It was about 15 minutes walk from the bottom of the steep trail along the contour over to this promontory, and the easy way down it is right at the end. Several of the platforms are easy to descend, but when you are about halfway to the bottom of the Supai, they get harder. I made the mistake of trying to go south into the next ravine, but the cliffs become impassable in this direction. I thought I checked adequately to the northwest also, but I missed a good crack a bit to the northwest of the end. I did check over this way, but apparently I didn't go far enough or look carefully. It was getting so late by this time that I figured there was no use in going back to the top of the Esplanade and following my former route down into Royal Arch Creek as there would be no time to do anything new, like going along the talus out to the terrace just east of the bridge. I had agreed to meet Allyn Thursday night on the Topocoba road, and I had only food enough for two meals on Thursday. If I had known what I would decide in the end, I would have gone after water in a serious way and stayed down there.
As it was, I retraced my steps to the top of Apache Point. I had enough water left for supper and breakfast, so I stopped at the cave in the pit eight minutes south of Apache Point quite close to the east rim. It was easy to throw down enough firewood for three nights, and I spent the warmest, most comfortable night of the trip here with a fire going all night. The only mishap was a hole burned in the sleeping bag cover by a spark. In the morning, I went back to the car for more water and immediately returned to Apache Point. On both trips from the car to the point, the compass worked fine and I hit it just right, but on both trips back, I angled much too far to the west and had to walk more than a mile along the road to the car. At least I knew which way I had to walk, which was more than I knew for sure the time I hit the road too far east. I should take time out and mark a trail across here from the nearest approach by road to Apache Point.
When I went down below Apache Point on Thursday, I tried going into the ravine just north of the promontory. This was a mistake as the progress along the slope below the top was much slower than it had been on top the day before. However, I did get a good view of the way ahead and down. I could see burro trails on all levels below including right along the top of the Redwall, so I knew there had to be a weak place in the cliffs. I finally found it and marked the most crucial break with a rock pile. Along the top of the Redwall there was only time to take some pictures. I noticed Royal Arch from directly above, but I couldn't see the opening. There was a cave across the gorge just below the top of the Redwall east of the bridge which had a deep notch just above it. I suspect it is another keyhole bridge, about 15 feet wide and 40 feet high at the mouth of the cave. Another observation from here was the seven foot rock pile the surveyors had left at the bench mark on the terrace east of Elves. The talus leading to it is steep, but I saw a deer trail going along it. The return was uneventful, except that I saw an old rock house ruin south of the point, probably about 15 minutes walk.
I had intended to sleep by the car out by Apache Point Tuesday night, but a broken fan belt and the need for some stop-leak fluid in the radiator kept me in the village and I didn't start walking away from the car at the park boundary until nearly 10:00 a.m. Following the compass, I made good time to the point. When I first saw the rim, things looked peculiar and I climbed a dead tree to see my directions. They were all right, and I reached the point in 85 minutes from the car. It took 35 more to go down around the point to the break in the Coconino where I sat down to eat lunch. I was down on the Esplanade in about a half hour after I started. I got to the right promontory, the one that points towards the line of the Redwall paralleling the river. It was rather simple to find breaks in the various small cliffs near the farthest east points, but about two-thirds of the way down the Supai, there was a 30 foot cliff which seemed to have no breaks. I gave up looking about 2:00 pm and started back up. It seemed that there would be no time to find anything down Royal Arch Creek and return to the car Thursday evening according to plan, so I headed for the car rather than trying to find water and stay down there. As I reached the top of the Esplanade and looked back, I was still convinced that there should be a way to get down to the top of the Redwall where I had been looking for a route. I decided to try again on Thursday after getting some water at the car.
Wednesday night I held up at the bottom of a limestone pit about eight minutes walk south from the point and quite close to the east rim. It didn't take very long to throw down enough wood to keep a fire going for three nights instead of the one I was originally intending to be there. I used only one sleeping bag that night and it was the warmest of the five of the entire trip. In the morning, I went to the car being careful to hit the road west of the park boundary so that I would know which way to walk, but I did such a good job of veering that it took me an extra mile of walking. After refilling the canteen, I turned back to the point and Aztec Amphitheater.
This time I studied the promontory from a distance, but I went down into the ravine on the north side and had to walk over south going to get back where I had been so easily the day before. However, I did find the crucial crack that led me down to the burro trail along the top of the Redwall. I wish I had time to go on down into Royal Arch Creek, but I had given my word to Allyn to be back at the Great Thumb turn-off Thursday night. I did get an interesting look right down on the top of Royal Arch, and I noted a game trail along the talus leading out to the terrace above Elves on the east. I could see quite clearly the rock pile built at the bench mark which is shown on the map. There is also an interesting looking cave up near the top of the Redwall to the east of the creek. It might be a miniature keyhole arch, because there is a notch coming down part way above it. Perhaps there is a small hole clear through, but I couldn't see any light.
The only thing worth noting on the return to the car was that I swung too far west again and had an even longer walk to the car than I had that morning. I should learn to get back to the car better than this before many more trips.
After a cold and uncomfortable night doubled up in the back seat of the car, I got away by 7:15 a.m. After walking about an hour, I became uncertain about the weather. Allyn hadn't shown up, and I didn't want to run into a real blizzard, but I finally made up my mind that it wasn't going to get bad for a while at least. It took about the usual four hours to reach the break in the rim. This time I marked it with a three rock cairn. The footing down to the Esplanade seemed as bad as ever, and I was rather surprised at my own persistence when I decided that this route was feasible.
There was plenty of water in the rain pockets at this time of year, and if I had better sleeping equipment, it would have been ideal for a trip along the Esplanade. I ate lunch at the water where the main arm first meets the Supai bedrock. Progress along the west side of the inner gorge of Fossil seems easier than along the east side, and I was starting down into the fifth ravine along the west about one and a half hours after I had left the water pocket. This was not the one I had picked out from the rim above, but I thought that since I could make it easily below the highest cliff here, I should use the chance.
This proved to be as far down as this ravine would let me go, and I had to take the precarious route around the point to the next ravine south. Here I could go down another notch, but then I had to cross the wash and get around another ridge before I could finish the trip down to the bottom of the Supai. There has been a big slip of the Supai along here, and acres of rock are crushed and lying every which way. The very edge of the Redwall supports a steeper slope than the region a little higher, so I kept up here to go on south to the semicircular bay in the Redwall where there might have been a route to the river.
It was just as we had suspected from the other side. The short descent to the top of the inner talus was too difficult, and then the last part of the talus below was eroded into a practically vertical wall. I believe that this part would be feasible with two ropes for assistance. Possibly the whole thing was easier 50 or 80 years ago. The sleeping was pleasant down at this level and I found a little patch of horizontal sand in the steep stream bed. In the morning, I walked around to the south side of the bay and got a good view of the river. From here it looked easy to go up the slope and walk out at the ravine south of the one I had started down the day before.
When I went out, I inspected the possibility, and all but one place of about 15 feet, which might be done by a nervy climber without the encumbrance of a pack, would have gone all right. This would have been a real saving of effort in getting out, but as it was, I used discretion and went back along my previous route. As it was, I had already slipped three or four times and had skinned my hands in several places as well as hurting one shin. There were still plenty of bighorn sheep tracks and droppings, but I didn't see any sheep this time.
By the time I reached the rim at 1:40 p.m. the sky was beginning to threaten again. Having chilly walking gave me more pep than I had ever had along here, and I covered the 10 miles in three and a half hours. By evening, the sun was out and the moon was bright for several hours. I finished my magazine by candle light and then tried sleeping on the ground. The wind came up and I got into the car. Then I decided to drive home or at least start. When I was about 20 miles out from the village, it began to snow, and by the time I had reached the checking station, the air was so thick, I had to park. I drove on about 6:00 p.m. and reached home on icy roads at almost 10:00 p.m.
I spent an uncomfortable and cold night in the back seat of the car where the Great Thumb road leaves the Topocoba road and got a fairly early start on Friday morning. I hesitated for a while after I reached the high ground along the rim because the weather began to look threatening. It took about four hours to reach the break in the rim. Allyn hadn't showed up, so I went on figuring that he wasn't going to try to join me. There were some fresh bighorn droppings, but I saw no sheep either day.
The water in the deep pothole was only a few inches down from the rim, and there was cleaner water in the shallow pockets. I ate lunch here and went on along the southwest rim of the inner gorge afterwards. I stayed rather near the rim with the idea of not missing any good descent, and as a result, I had to cross several ravines where they were awkwardly deep. Once I tried to push up and get my knee on a ledge but my knee slipped back and I came down in disorder where I had been standing on a shelf only a couple of feet wide. At this time and about two other times, I skinned places on my hands. I finally found a good way to get below the first cliff, along the side of a ravine, the second blue line counting from the north that goes directly into the Redwall gorge on the map. Then I had to follow the contour around to the south into the next and when I reached the bed of this gully, I still had to go along the level around the next small ridge to another arm of the same drainage. From here one can go just about anywhere. The talus is steeper at the very top of the Redwall than it is high, so I kept up away from the rim and went on south to the big semicircular bay in the Redwall which has the talus within it. It seemed hopeless to go down here without two lengths of rope, a short one at the top, and one about 50 feet long for the steep cut away part of the talus lower down. It didn't look a bit inviting when I was there by myself, but now, a month later, I wish I had the ropes and had gone down to the river. Maybe I'll get the expert climber, Bob Eger, to go with me and make sure I'm doing it right. The night down here at the edge of the Redwall was fairly comfortable. From beyond this bay, it looked as if the departure from the Supai gorge could be made very easily by going up and out at the ravine south of the one where I had entered. It may be a safe route for the bighorn sheep, but I was frustrated by only 15 feet of cliff that had some breaks where a daring climber might have gone out. I thought the spills I had already taken were enough, however, and backed down and went out the way I had come in. I saw another mescal pit in one of the ravines through the Esplanade, but I can't pinpoint its location now. I walked fast when I arrived at the rim and got to the car in three and a half hours counting the time it took me to get food out of the pack and eat as I walked. I should have started for home when I got to the car at 5:00 p.m. but instead I tried camping there and wound up spending most of the night trying to get home in a blizzard.
Letter to Dock Marston
[November 27, 1960]
907 W. Summit Flagstaff, Arizona
November 27, 1960
Canyoneer Dock,
I'm getting behind with my replies. Thank you for all the information about the longer trail to Rainbow. I should have asked for material such as that concerning Owl and White Crag before hand. We got Owl for sure with pictures of our own, but we didn't see White Crag. The one I saw off Cliff Canyon is practically invisible from the trail itself. I stayed on the trail this last trip, and I wouldn't have known it went through. The time I spotted it, I must have been going along the bottom of the wash. I don't fancy my discovery as anything special, because someone else I mentioned it to had noticed it on his only trip to Rainbow.
Likewise, thank you for the account of the second ascent of Zoroaster Temple. That surely makes my type of climbing seem pretty tame. There is a German mechanic working at the local VW garage who wants to get a partner to do some rope and piton climbing with him. I'm not sure whether I want to start on that sort of thing at this time. I know of two college students who might be more interested.
I have just come back from four days in the canyon by myself, and my interest in such jaunts is not at a very high pitch. My projects went a bit askew and I seem to get more lonesome than I used to. I may as well give you a summary. Tuesday I got off almost an hour later than I had hoped to, and the fan belt in the car broke on the way up there. I was lucky it didn't break on the Rainbow trip. I drove 30 miles as it was with the water much too hot, and the pressure forced some small openings in the radiator. A can of stop-leak fixed that, but it was around 8:30 a.m.Wednesday before I got away from the village. I had planned to spend the night at the car out near Apache Point, but it was around 10:00 a.m. when I finally started walking towards Apache Point from the place where the road crossed the park boundary. There is a sign along the road at the place which makes it a good jump-off. I used a compass through the junipers, and I reached the point in an hour and 20 minutes. My goal was to get down the Supai by a new and easier (I hoped) route along a promontory that points right towards Royal Arch. It looked like a sure thing last May when I was heading the other way. By 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, I thought I was stopped completely after getting down two-thirds of the Supai. My food was just planned to take me back to the car the next day and I had already taken so long that I would not have time to reach the bench mark above Elves, so I turned back. By 4:30 p.m. I was up on the rim about eight minutes walk south of the point where I had previously noted a shallow cave at the bottom of a pit in the limestone. I had enough water for the night, so I gathered a lot of wood and kept a fire going near my bed all night. This was not the first time this pit had ever been used, because there was some smoke black on the ceiling. It was by far the most comfortable night I had on the trip, but a spark sometime in the night burned a hole in my sleeping bag cover. On Thursday I went back to the car to get a refill for my canteenand then turned around to see whether I could try a bit harder and find the way clear to the bottom of the Supai. The solution was only a few yards from where I had been on Wednesday, and actually I bungled the approach through the top layers worse the second try, but this time I got to the edge of the Redwall and took a picture of Royal Arch from directly above it. I did settle a couple of points that had been bothering Pat. From the air he thought that the talus below the Redwall on the east side of the creek was too steep for a surveyor to reach the bench mark on foot, but I saw a game or burro trail quite clearly along there. I could also see a well built rock pile about three or four feet high where the bench mark is located. Another observation was a cave or bridge just below the top of the Redwall to the east of Royal Arch. I believe it's a miniature keyhole because there is a well defined notch right above this black slot. There was no light showing, but this may be because the hole down from above is quite small. I would estimate the mouth of the cave or slot as being 15 feet wide and about 40 feet in the vertical direction. It would be interesting to look down on it from the air to check whether it goes clear through. It may be a job for expert rope climbers to reach the rim above this formation on foot.
Going back to the car through the woods from Apache Point seems to be a jinx for me. The first time I did it, I hit the road over a mile to the southeast, and the two times I did it recently, I went more than a mile to the northwest even when I was using the compass. Perhaps I had better take the trouble to blaze the trees. It is surely disconcerting to get from the car to the point in 85 minutes and take 120 to get back.
I had given Allyn the plan for the five days, and only two were allocated to the Royal Arch area. If it hadn't been for that, I would have carried food down for several days and really visited the bridge and the bench mark. There was a real easy burro trail along the top of the Redwall and now I think I could reach Royal Arch from the car in less than the eight and a half hours it took the first time. I left a cairn to mark the trickiest place to find in the Supai. Allyn had thought he would like to join me Friday morning to go down into Fossil Bay for the rest of the time, but he didn't show up. Our agreement was that I was not to expect him until he showed, so I didn't wait to get started walking Friday morning. This time I built a cairn at the break in the rim where you can start down into Fossil. The footing is so precarious here that I'm still surprised that I call this a route. Between the scree here and lower down in the Supai, I didn't fare very well on this trip. I slipped three times and in checking myself, I skinned various spots on my hands. I'll have to be more careful or give this kind of thing up. Right now I'm in the mood to swear I'll do my walking along the Muir Trail or something as well defined.
The nights were mostly unpleasantly cold even though I was taking two sleeping bags, but the days certainly gave me more vigor than I had last May. Allyn and I both thought that there should be a shorter way down the Supai on the west side, but I had luck to find it at all, and trouble in locating it. The ravine I had picked out before from below and from the rim turned out to be impossible unless one wanted to take a chance of a fatal fall, but a neighboring ravine to the north gave one a chance to get below the first almost continuous cliff. Then I had to follow a rough talus around the point into the next one to the south. Here I could make it down another fourth of the way, but I had to follow the talus still farther to the south before I could go the rest of the way to the horseshoe indentation in the Redwall where we thought the Indians might have been able to get down. A short rope or a ladder would land on a steep slope of consolidated clay and rocks. Erosion has cut away the bottom of this to vertical walls, so I feel pretty sure that the Indians couldn't get down there now without two ropes, and the lower one would have to be fairly long. I just took a picture or two and came away. My night down there on top of the Redwall was quite comfortable and I found water in potholes other than the one where the main arm reaches the Supai, the place I have camped before. This time I spotted another sign that whites had been here, an old rusty can which would hold more than a gallon. It was quite near the main pothole. I also ran into another mescal pit, but no bighorn sheep.
Saturday night was so cold by the car that I finally decided to drive home or at least into the village. It was a good thing I did, because the bright moon turned into a snowstorm and I just made it to the pavement when it began to come so that I had to stop the car and wait for quite a while. I don't think I'll attempt anything as remote as this for a good long time.
Sincerely,
Harvey Butchart
I stopped for Allyn Cureton without giving him advance warning. By the time we were heading down the Hermit Trail, it was 11:30 a.m. We were rather surprised to see quite a few tracks of hikers who had pretty well packed down the snow for us.They all went towards Dripping Springs instead of on down the Hermit Trail. When we were eating a late lunch north of the drainage below Dripping Springs, we waved to a couple of women hikers who were returning from Dripping Springs. The trail along the Hermit slope was quite easy to find and follow almost all of the time. There was no snow along here, but we got into it when we had passed Yuma Point.
There were deer tracks all the way along here through the snow. I began to wonder whether we were going too far, but I was correct in my recollection of the place where we should turn down through the Supai, it seems that the level trail comes to a natural end, at a shallow ravine. I saw the rocks I had placed on the end of a stump, and I saw for the first time a fairly large cairn on a large rock just beyond the turn in the trail as it starts down through the Supai. Deer tracks led down a little way to the overhanging rock, but we didn't see any lower. I tried again to photograph the place where steel bolts in the rock are all that is left of the trail construction. Below this first cliff, I couldn't remember whether we should keep up at a fairly high elevation or scramble down lower. The snow here obliterated direct evidence of any trail. We went lower almost immediately and later learned that we should have stayed up near the base of the top cliff. We did recognize quite a bit of the trail over to the west rather close to the main ravine. The going was simple when we finally came down to the top of the Redwall, and we thought there was time to climb Whites Butte. We left the packs near the break in the Redwall as the trail starts down into Boucher Canyon and went to the top of the butte and back in 37 minutes. There were no signs of previous climbers. We left a very small cairn at the top. I estimated that it would take us about an hour to go down the Redwall and the other formations to the mine shaft. I was only about three minutes too optimistic, but darkness hindered us at the end. We had to do some guessing and scrambling without feeling sure that we were near the official trail. When we hit the Tonto we recognized it, but I wasn't sure which way to follow it. After a few steps in the right directions, and a few in the wrong, we turned around and went in the right direction. I remembered pretty well where to look for the shaft, and we were soon busy with our fires.
Boucher Creek was running above ground just a few yards away although only a few yards below the bend in the creekbed it went underground. There was more debris lying around the mine than I had remembered, a shovel, a number of large bottles, some pans, and a big can. Unfortunately, for warmth inside the shaft, it slants slightly downwards, and when the air is colder outside, a draft goes in along the floor and out along the ceiling. I used both sleeping bags before morning and they were more than adequate.
On Monday, after inspecting the rock cabin and the smaller structure to the southwest on the edge of the creek, we got started walking towards Slate about 8:30 a.m. It was cold until we got started up the Tapeats from Topaz in the only sunshine we saw all day. Incidentally, the roast turkey I brought along kept fine. During the warmer time of the day, I kept snow in the plastic bag with it. The trail was quite easy to follow along here. We saw about eight burros over toward Slate. It took about two hours to walk from the mine to where the trail crosses Slate. We noticed that there is a break in the Tapeats near the river that would let one get down into Slate on the west side. We figured that one could also make it down through the schist. Allyn called my attention to a mescal pit just southwest of where the trail crosses Slate.
Within about 15 minutes of our start up Slate, we began to find water. Most of it was ice which made it very pretty and different appearing from that of the usual dry streambed. There were quite a few seep springs with some water actually flowing. We reckon that they would give a year round supply. The most water seemed to be from about the middle of the Bright Angel Shale, but higher there was another section that had pools and ice.
There were a couple of places where chock-blocks in the narrow bed forced us to do a bit of climbing. There was still burro manure above the harder one of these. I don't think the burros could have gone up right where we did, but maybe they have a longer way to do it. Finally, just after we passed the fork where one branch goes toward Jicarilla Point, we came to the real dead end. We figured we were already above half of the Redwall.
There were four holes that seemed like possible caves. We began checking the southern ones first. The two in the promontory between the two arms were duds. Allyn went to check the western one of these. He wasn't sure, but he thought there might be a way to the top of the Redwall here. There were deer signs along the approach.There were a couple more cave possibilities that we thought were inaccessible. This area shows a lot of fracturing which may explain why there are so many holes around. Our third inspection likewise turned out to be nothing, but we went on around a spur then up (downstream from the fork) and found two more caves. The lower one was just a good shelter from rain, about 20 feet deep and without even a level floor big enough to sleep on. However, I thought the roof was smoke stained and there was a piece of charred juniper at the entrance. Only a few yards higher was the payoff, a fine cave. You go right into a chamber with a level floor thickly covered with fine dust. It is about 100 feet by 40 feet by 12 feet high. There are no big rockfalls to mar the even floor, and there are a number of good stalactites but more fine stalagmites. The cave seems perfectly dry at the present time. We noticed a piece of wood well back in the cave with no signs of having been burnt. Behind this room, there were about 80 more feet of passage ways. This part of the cave had many rockfalls in it, and a rather wide but low passage led down and outside. One could scramble back to the mouth of the cave along the slope outside this exit, but we preferred to go back by the interior route. A hole in the ceiling might go up quite a bit farther than we could see.
We went back to Topaz Canyon without further incident. Since it was still only 5:00 p.m. we hurried down to see the river. It was surprisingly clear. From above, all the quiet stretches were a deep green, and the white caps in the rapids were really white. One could see a dirty stick a foot under water, and I think one could have seen something that was shiny and twice that deep.
After another comfortable night in the mine, we returned by the Tonto and Hermit Trails. I hadn't remembered how rugged this part of the Tonto Trail was, especially in heading Travertine Canyon and going out around the point just east of Travertine where it follows a rather steep and rocky surface. The location of large deposits of travertine quite far away from the present streambed seemed odd. There are some very fine views along this route. One can look down out Hermit Rapids and also have a clear view of Boucher by turning the other way. It took us just under three hours to go from the Boucher Mine to Hermit Creek where we ate an early lunch. The walking over the snow covered rock slides in the Supai sections of the Hermit Trail was pretty discouraging. We had snow for miles along here, and we concluded that we could have returned faster by the Boucher Trail. In fact it took four and a half hours for us to go from Hermit Creek to the car.
In Slate Canyon, I collected a fossil that Dr. Allen thinks is coral.
I just missed the take-off of the college hikers because I couldn't get the old car to start. I couldn't make up my mind how to spend the day, but about 8:00 a.m. I invited Jay Hunt and John to go with me to the canyon. We stopped to call and arrange for someone to take John's paper route, and we also inspected the Little Colorado River Gorge at the two viewpoints.
It was about 10:15 a.m. when we finally started down the Tanner Trail. Jay and John were plenty fast going down the trail, and they were also very good on the talus where there was no trail. Jay couldn't find his regular hiking and climbing shoes so he had to go in a pair of very heavy shoes shod with tricouni nails. They were fine on gravel, but he slipped on the solid slabs of limestone.
We found the going along the southwest side of Escalante butte just difficult enough to be interesting. There were no bad spots but we had to watch our footing. Across the saddle on the Redwall ridge there is a small butte of Supai rock which for obvious reasons we call the Wedding Cake. There didn't seem to be any easy way up it, and I probably would have passed up the chance to do a first ascent, but Jay was more optimistic. He insisted that we could do it all right, so I went ahead at the place he had picked for a route. It was about as difficult as anything I have ever done, except for Courthouse Butte below Sedona, but I made it all right ahead of Jay and John who were helping each other. We built a small monument on top of the Wedding Cake. We used two belts fastened together on the descent, or at least Jay and John did. One of the belts broke when I was trying to give support to Jay, but he was almost down to the ledge when it happened, and the consequence was nothing serious. On the way up to the end of the Redwall promontory, we came to a place where the limestone had left only eight inches of width of level rock. If one lost his balance here, he would probably not catch it again in falling to either side. Jay and John walked easily across here, but I got down and walked along the side holding to the fin of level limestone. I could see that they are not as cautious as I am. On the way back, I walked across here but I really put one foot forward and then took a sort of jump to clear the bad place. There were several places where the top of this fin is only eight to ten feet wide. The view from the end is really something. Unkar Rapids is in full view as well as all the wide part of the canyon upstream. You can see a short piece of the river at 75 Mile Rapids and you can just see the beginning of Hance Rapids. On the way back we went to the south of the Wedding Cake where there seems to be a regular deer trail. When we were nearing the Tanner Trail, about 15 minutes scramble, I would say, I noted two rathe large cairns at the top of the Redwall.
It was 2:30 p.m. when we were ready to start up Escalante butte. John stayed below to fix a blister that was just beginning to form. Jay had shown at the end of the climb back to the trail that he wasn't going to be a very fast climber to the top of Escalante Butte, and when we were about a fourth of the way up it, he got a cramp just above his knee and had to drop out for 10 minutes to massage it. He then continued up a climber's route to use his arms rather than his legs. When I had reached the top, I was frustrated by not being able to get to the top of the summit rock where someone had built a fine cairn. I might have made it if I had been willing to jump across a five foot span from a companion rock to the summit block. Instead I gave it up and started down. When I saw Jay coming up, I waited for him and he let me climb from his shoulders to the top block.
The return was uneventful. We found that John and I could keep up a much faster pace on the long grade than Jay could.
I arrived at Soap Creek in time to drive out to the rim and take a picture from above the rapid. About 10:50 a.m., I had my pack on my back and was looking for a way to go down the creek. I purposely didn't inquire for directions as I thought it was more interesting to do my own exploring. I went down the draw that is seen just east of Cliff Dweller's Lodge, not realizing that there are two major arms of Soap Creek. There were numerous places where the bottom was rather muddy and what surprised me most were long stretches of soggy ice at this low elevation. At one place, about 100 feet below the rim, it was touch and go as to whether I could get down from a ledge and safely count on getting back. I saw a place where someone had been piling rocks for a step. Only a little farther I came to a great cliff, possible 200 feet high. Just before the stream reached the cliff, it starts cutting deep into the sandstone making some fine falls in the narrow cleft. There is a good chockblock across the last narrows above the cliff which a person can walk across as on a bridge. From here I could see that there was another major arm coming from the west and I judged that it must offer the promised way down to the river. I wasn't sorry for this delay, for as it turned out, the falls in the clefts and the abrupt cliff were the most interested features that I saw the entire day.
After I'd retreated a bit and climbed out to the west, I went southwest until I came to a tributary of the main, but dry, arm. There was a spot or two near its end where the climbing required both hands, but I found a small rock pile in the main bed which indicated that someone liked this route. There were quite a few places lower down at the bottom of the Kaibab Limestone which called for two hands, and I found a fixed rope fastened around a smaller rock wedged between two big ones. One could have bypassed this place in the bed if he were willing to go quite high on the right side and climb a talus, but the rope is a real help. The walk from the rope to Soap Creek Rapids on the river takes abut 70 minutes.
It was sprinkling more or less steadily all the time I was getting to the river, but as it was beginning to rain harder, I decided to head back to the car. In fact, when I came to a fine overhanging rock, I ducked under it and read the Readers Digest for a while to let it stop. The next day promised fine weather, but still I drove back to Flagstaff Saturday night.
I saw some peculiar fossils, some that resembled white rings arranged like vertebrae. There were many rocks of quite a green color and many slabs of limestone that weathered with a knobby surface. I would allow about two and a half hours to go from the highway to the river and about the same time to return. It's an interesting trip, but I like Jackass Canyon better, the one to Badger Rapids from the left side of the river.
Dan Davis had told me that you can get down the ravine which slants down west of the promontory at Desert View, but I had put off trying it myself. The hiking club decided to go with me, but we had the usual troubles getting off when we had intended. We made it away from town about 7:00 a.m. One thing that I was not too happy about was that a new hiker showed up to go along, a man who was definitely on the heavy side, but by his own account, he was experienced. We took a little time to see the Little Colorado River Gorge at the scenic view. The wind was blowing so hard here that some of us thought that we should steer away from the rock climb until later in the day when I thought, according to the weather man, it would be better. We compromised by saying we would look it over from the top and decide whether to go ahead with the scramble down the ravine at the start of the day. The ravine was protected from the wind, and we decided to go ahead. There were minor delays such as getting one of the boys away from the curio counter at Desert View, but we finally started the scramble at 9:15 a.m.
There were at least two ropes along as well as food for two meals. At the top of the ravine, we encountered about the hardest problem in route choosing. However, there was no need for using a rope. I had misjudged the difficulty from my view of the ravine from the top of Escalante Butte. This was somewhat of a let down for the boys who were recent graduates of Bill Buck's technical rock climbing school. One of his students was frustrated even before we started. On the very day before the hike, Sid Wilson had tried to fall to see how it feels to have the belayer stop you and had sprained his ankle quite badly doing it.
The heavy man and one other member of the club who hadn't done much hiking that I knew about, soon showed that they weren't going to be able to keep a good pace. We had a bit of a pow wow and decided to escort them back to the top. There was no resistance to this idea on their part. The heavy man said he had donated a pint of blood the day before and that might have affected his strength. He had quite a time following Allyn back up to the trail. I had thought Allyn was going to show them the top of the Tanner Trail, but the two preferred to stick around Desert View or do a bit of driving in the car.
There was quite a bit of trouble with loose rocks. One person could go up or down here with never a care, but shouts of warning to the ones below about rolling rocks were quite frequent. Most of the rocks didn't pick up much speed, but a time or two, the misses were too close for comfort. On the whole, this is a practical route rather than just a good stunt. I believe I'll use it for future trips to the river. It seems shorter, but I suppose it isn't actually any faster than the Tanner Trail. One very real advantage is that it leads one right by the only good water hole in the entire area. I remembered where it was from my trip down the Old Tanner Trail which comes down from the rim nearest Cedar Mountain and across below Desert View along the top of the Redwall. The water hole is in the Redwall near where the wash makes the big dive. The water was rather black when I was there in early October, 1959, but now it is quite clear. However, it was only about a foot deep, and I wouldn't guarantee that it's permanent. I hadn't remembered the soil and gravel that partially fill it. Possibly this silt had been lift since I was her before. I've considered the possibility that the hole I saw before was a bit farther down the wash, for there was room for another hole before you reach the drop-off. However, I rather think that this was the same place I saw before.
We ate an early lunch by the big rock where the trail curves into the bay between Escalante and Cardenas Buttes. Allyn had walked around this and had found the good overhang, a snug shelter from rain, and we sat here to eat our lunch. I remember that when we stopped, the sun was shining, but before we went on in about 40 minutes, the pellet snow which had been starting and stopping most of the morning began again in earnest. Several of us found bits of pottery here, some of it painted. I also found a bit of obsidian. This made us think that it was a favorite camp of the Indians and not just a place where white men had gotten tired of carrying pottery fragments from across the river.
Our second main objective was Cardenas Butte, but by the time we were ready to start on, it was really snowing. I had already picked the route, so we had no real trouble on account of poor visibility. I probably took them to the top by a little more strenuous route than would have been necessary. At a couple of places we had to use our hands, and once we had to go around a corner on a narrow ledge. There was no view from the top but we had glimpses of the ridge from time to time, and we were reasonably sure that we had reached the real summit. There was no rock pile in evidence so we built a small one ourselves.
We had thought we would climb Escalante too, but the weather continued quite bad. Finding the trail with two inches of snow over everything was a bit of an experience. For once I could see the use of the cairns. Places where the trail had been obscured by slides of shale didn't show at all, but we knew that the walking would have been much slower if we had lost the trail for good. Just about the time our clothes were beginning to feel rather wet, the snow stopped. In fact, we got a fine view down the canyon from the ridge of Supai at the head of 75 Mile Canyon. There was no doubt about following the trail from here on to the rim. I led the procession at my fastest comfortable pace and did the last steep part in 52 minutes, par for me I imagine. Besides the three inches of new snow, at the top there were still banks of snow filling in the trail.
The map seemed to indicate that it would be about the same distance from the highway to the place where Rider Canyon begins to have straight walls as it would be from the Cram Ranch. I elected to go in and park the car at the ranch because that would let me see what sort of affair the ranch is in. A car was turning off the highway just before me, and I met Sherman Jensen, the present owner of the Cram Ranch who lives in Fredonia. He led me into the ranch, and we had a little visit. I mentioned the Finicums and he fold me about a place along the rim above the Colorado River where a piece of the rim has split off. He thought you could go down to the river there, and he also told me about the rock piles at regular intervals along the rim.
When I got out of sight of the Jensens, I stripped to my underwear because the weather was already rather warm. I followed the wash down to the first big swing to the north. Here I got out on the south side and tried to follow the most nearly level ground. The plateau along here has no troublesome bushes on it, and the walking is quite easy. I seemed to drift farther south than I had intended, and I came to the end of a car track at an empty cattle tank. When I went south across here, I came out on the rim with a fine view of a side canyon which my map told me was North Canyon. There was a little water in it, and the part I could see before the last bend near the river, made me think that one cannot go down it from the rim to the river. I had come out to the rim above the Colorado on purpose with the idea that it might be easier to go down where Jensen thought one could. As I turned left along the rim to go towards Rider Point, I passed a fine view of Boulder Narrows. The place where one can get off the rim is just a little north of the direct line of the river as it goes past Boulder Narrows. I had very little trouble getting down to the last 20 feet of the Coconino Sandstone, and the rest of this would have been easy with a rope, but as it was I had to climb back up really feeling both the heat and grade.
The series of rock piles were farther along quite close to Rider Point. There seemed to be nothing comparable to the place I had started down near here, so I believe the place I tried was the one Mr. Jensen had told me about. The views down to the river and into Rider Canyon were really something. As I followed the rim of Rider to the west, I could see the canyon become much narrower although it retained most of its depth. Close to the gooseneck, the canyon is terrific, like something out of Dante. Finally, I was able to get down to the bottom about a quarter of a mile south of the place where Emmett Wash joins Rider Canyon. There was good water here in rain pockets, so I had a good night. I slept under a shallow overhang to avoid accumulating dew on my bag.
I started down the canyon quite early the following morning. There were tracks of more than one person in the sandy places. The canyon is an interesting one with many overhangs and huge blocks which have fallen down leaving the route only a tunnel under them. After two or three quite steep drops where one has to look a little for the route, I came to the beginning of the gooseneck where the canyon deepens sharply. Very shortly I was stopped by a chockblock. The most feasible route was down a hole behind this block, but the ledges didn't seem inviting. If I had gotten down, I might have had a time getting back. I tried the talus along the left, but it seemed to stay at one level while the canyon was getting deeper all the time. I didn't check the talus on the right, but it seemed to offer no better luck. I should have had a rope with me. There was a two by eight board about five feet long nearby, and I could have put this across the hole to tie the rope to. The tracks in the sand seemed to turn back here too. There were songbirds about, and quite a few flowers were blooming. It was a good trip, although I was a bit too cool in bed and a bit too warm hiking in the day.
Mrs. Baker at Cliff Dweller's Lodge told me a lot of things about the area, such as a prospector named Haines was working up and down the cliffs with ropes and a boatswain's chair. She told about a cavern near the rim on the left bank somewhat upstream from Tanner Wash that could be entered from above and offered an access to the river from the second entrance. (I later found out that this was false. The cave is called Piate Cave and is at Mile 22.7 and there is no lower entrance.) She also mentioned a Yugoslavian who had come down the river to Lee's Ferry in a one man rubber boat and bought a few provisions before attempting to go on to Bright Angel Creek. He was never heard from again. She also told about the man with Elmer Purtymun who drowned in Glen Canyon. His wife wasn't satisfied with the amount of money he left her and suspected that he had survived and was living in Mexico under another name. Also about a family who went fishing at the mouth of Soap Creek and lost a youngster when he slipped into the river. She also told about a man named Red Wolf who had lived in a shack at Lee's Ferry. He said he had walked over the Grand Canyon from one end to the other. She also reported that Paul DeRoss had spent the summer after the plane wreck in grave robbery, although he had never been caught at it.
We saw the Reilly party leave in their plane for home about 10:00 a.m. A few minutes later I was on my way to try to finish finding the hoped for route down into Marble Canyon a couple of miles below Rider Canyon. This time I drove to the Cram Ranch and then turned southwest along the road which soon swings east on the level ground between Rider and North Canyons. It was only seven and a half miles along this road to its end at the dry cattle tank. From the parked car, it was about a 20 minute walk to the break in the rim. After leaving the valley with the tank in it, one crosses another draw which shows on the map before he comes to the break. It is about one-fourth mile south of the angle where the rim starts curving east and north towards Rider Point. This angle is at Mile 19 of the river and the ravine cuts down through the Supai to the river. It's the first one below Rider.
I went off the rim just as I had before, slanting down the broken part of the Kaibab to the south. Below this on the talus, without thinking it out, I went farther to the north than I had the other time. In fact, I passed the big almost cubical block which seems to be perched so precariously near the bottom of the talus where the Toroweap Formation begins a new cliff. After just a bit of trail seeking in this region, I not only got as low as I had before, but I found two breaks in the lowest part of the Coconino, the part that had stopped me before. I was carrying the rope, but there was no occasion to use it.
Below this you want to work down the talus with some traversing to the north so as to get into the ravine which cuts through the Supai. In fact the entire 1500 feet of the canyon divides very well into thirds: getting down below the Coconino, then down to the top of the Supai, and then down the ravine through the Supai. It took about 67 minutes to get from the rim to the river with a few minutes used in route finding. Going back up took 68. On the way back, I was not too sure of the right place to hit the Coconino, but I concluded that I should keep to the north of the steep place where the Hermit Shale is showing so well, and I was right. If there were any deer or other animal tracks up and down this route, I didn't see them.
When I got to the river, it was still quite early and I decided to walk upstream at least as far as Boulder Narrows. The day was cool even at the bottom of the canyon, and the only disagreeable feature was the wind which lifted the sand into my eyes. It seemed to me that the river bank was easier to follow than it had been from Deer Creek to Kanab. I had to do a bit of crawling through holes under the big rocks at Boulder Narrows and in one place I had to let myself down while holding with just my hands, but even while I was taking pictures, I needed only 75 minutes to cover two miles along the river, and 60 minutes was all it took to get back. There were birds and rabbits as well as a sea of flowers in bloom up on the Marble Platform, but I saw no life down along the river. My progress along the bank here makes it seem not too hard to walk down from Soap to this route then up to the rim. I would still like to study the possibility of getting up and down Rider itself. This occasion was the third time I had missed a good break in the cliffs the first time only to discover it on the second attempt. I have had this experience before in the Supai above Royal Arch, on Picacho Peak, and here at Mile 19. Allyn Cureton and I stopped at Cliff Dwellers for gas. I also hoped to get a little more of a line on Ralph Haynes' activities. I had the good fortune to meet the man himself. He seems to be quite outspoken and intelligent. He did not bear out the report that he casually gets a boat now and then and goes down through the entire Grand Canyon to Lake Mead. He says he knows the river only as far as Nankoweap Creek. He has gone past Saddle Mountain and down the Nankoweap Trail and has made a complete circuit of Chuar Butte (this in itself is a very difficult trip). He did this to look for minerals along the Hermit-Coconino contact just 10 days before the great plane collision. Haynes bore out my conclusion that you can't travel down Rider to reach the open part. He also says that there is nothing to the idea that a corral was ever built on the bottom, down near the river. He pointed to a place near the junction of Rider Canyon with Emmett Wash as the location of such a corral. However, he said it's possible to climb down into Rider and checked the place on my map, just a bit west of the place where the line one mile west of the east edge of the quad map meets the south rim of Rider. A number of fins of limestone have been split away from the rim. I noticed this place when I was here during Easter vacation, but I didn't spend any time checking the lower ends of these cracks.
We parked the car at the end of the same road I used when I went down to the river at Mile 19. We got to the rim of Rider by heading a bit west of north and then following along the rim. We could see one of Haynes' 100 foot dry falls at the end of the narrows where the canyon starts to widen out. We soon noticed the great blocks split away from the south rim. Some of the cracks thus formed ends where the wall is still high and steep, but the last one to the northeast looked like a promising one to go down. Near where it opened on the canyon wall, there were two chockblocks where the only good route was through holes under them. The second of these was so small that a big man might have trouble. Allyn was feeling the worse for the Spanish dinner we had the evening before so he lay down in the shade while I headed for the river.
There was one obstruction in the part I had not reached from the river last August. It's near the top of the Supai. I could have jumped the seven or eight foot drop in the middle of the wash, but I knew I should find a way to return before I did that. The ledge on the left looked inviting, but there was no way down. During my trip along the left side, I saw a way to get down from the ledge on the right and went back to proceed with that route. The three or so other places in the narrows near the river where one has to bypass falls required no study. You do the only thing possible and that is the right way to pass them.
The river was high enough to back water into the sandy channel. Only a few boulders were uncovered below the mouth. I saw at a glance that I probably could not go back down to Mile 19 along the beach as I had just three weeks earlier. One would have trouble landing to bypass rapids at this stage of water flow. I hope that the two faculty men thought better of their idea to go from Havasu downriver in a two-man rubber boat. Houserock Rapids itself shouldn't give an experienced boatman too bad a time at this stage. The big water was really roaring, but it was all over at the left wall and there was quite a bit of swift but almost smooth water to the right.
On the way from the bed of the wash to the rim, Allyn threw up and naturally took far longer to get out than he normally would have. If we had been walking steadily, I believe it would have taken me about two and a quarter hours to get from the river to the rim. This fits rather well with Dock's information about men leaving the river and coming out in three hours when they were preparing to bring Nims away from the river. The figure of eight hours to locate the route is also consistent, so we should go back to Rider as the Nims evacuation route. Ropes would have to be used to raise a stretcher along this route to get it up the outside of the chockblocks and also down near the river where a climber needs both hands for a few yards. Along the route at Mile 19, I feel that the stretcher bearers could carry it better without ropes.
Just as we were ready to enter the crack where the rim was shattered, Allyn showed me something he had noticed on the way down, a couple of vertical cracks from a few inches to a foot wide. Air which seemed a good 10 degrees colder than the rest was blowing out of these cracks at what seemed to be about 10 miles per hour. A rain was coming the next day, and I presumed the barometric pressure was falling. The cold wind was just as strong at 5:00 p.m. as it had been at 1:00 p.m., so there may be a whale of a cavern underneath.
We camped beside the main gravel road just south of North Canyon Wash. We had intended to study the possibility of getting to the river at Mile 30.4 next, but we had passed the road to Buffalo Tanks without seeing it. Instead we arrived at Buffalo Ranch in time to talk to a group of men who were putting up a new fence. The young boss said that an observer from the air who thought that one could go down from the rim along the north side of South Canyon must be wrong. He said that the only place to go down was about 1.2 miles due east of the ranch and that the best way to reach it would be to drive to their dump about two tenths of a mile north of here across a small drainage. He insisted that we would need a 50 foot rope to do it even here. We thanked him and drove to the dump. We could see what he was talking about, but when we got there we found a nice crack between the rocks where we could walk down. From here we angled north into the bed of the wash, a minor ravine which hardly shows on the map. From here to the beginning of the Supai, there was nothing to report except that we found a seep rather close to the place where we hit the bed of the wash. Reilly's report that there was more water at various places was absolutely correct. We also observed places where the north rim was broken. This seemed to be true of the rim for about a fourth of a mile, but we couldn't tell from below where the best climbing would most likely be. We also noticed a place where one could climb through the Coconino and Toroweap in Bedrock Canyon where it comes into South Canyon. We couldn't see how to complete the trip up to the rim, but now I can see how it could be done. One could go along the top of the Supai, or even higher, until he reached the break in the rim where the 30.4 Mile Fault reaches the rim.
The Supai and Redwall in lower South Canyon presented of number of puzzles. The bypasses sometimes required a bit of thought and guesswork as to which side would allow a decent that was not visible from the fall in the middle of the wash. At one place in the Redwall, one had to go along a not very level ledge by friction alone and come down when a break occurred, but the last two obstacles were the real worries. They were chockblocks where there was no chance of going up and around. With just a bit of slipping and jumping, we managed the first one with the assurance that if one of us braced the other, we would be able to climb back up. At the second, I fastened the rope with knots tied in it to help my grip on the way back. Allyn was able to climb up both sides of the block without the rope, although I would have been unable to do it. We saw sneaker tracks of someone who had come up this far from the river. It was only about 300 yards from the beach, and Allyn noticed that the block is visible from the cliff near the skeleton. On the way back, I had to take off my shoes and wade through a pool which I had jumped across on the way down. Allyn showed me a wrinkle he had either just thought of or possibly had learned in his climbing course this spring. He arched his back and kept his hands on one wall and his feet on the other with his face down and was able to side-step his way across the 20 feet of this difficulty. His extra height helped. I probably would have fallen on my face in the water when I was halfway over it.
At the river, we first explored the Stanton Cave by the light of matches because we had forgotten the flashlight . We tried to get clear across to Vasey's fall, but the rock was too slick and the water was fast below it. We ate at the first greenery with a little trickle coming from the corner of a rock where we could fill our canteens. I'm sure I didn't touch the poison oak, but I contracted a mean case of poisoning just when I thought I was through with some I had gotten previously in Oak Creek Canyon. Before starting back, I showed Allyn the ruin and the skeleton.
On the return, we took the way out to the north side of South Canyon coming out about by the number 30 on the quad map. There was much bad footing both of loose rock and places where the grips were poor. Right at the top we did some climbing that was about as precarious as I ever want to tackle, but we saw a much better place around another point. With more experience here, we could come up quite handily. The total time from the car was nine and a half hours.
The 30.4 Mile Fault:
We had a bit of trouble locating the road leading toward the rim for the inspection of the 30.4 Mile Fault route, and we ended by driving through the wild flowers and low brush at 10 miles per hour until we came right out on the rim. We were northeast across some ledges from the slump block. It was not clear from a distance whether there was a good route off the rim, but when we got there after a short search, we found one that required both hands for only a few feet and then was a simple walk down to the Supai. One has to go right at first below the top cliff to get down the Coconino and then turn toward the fault which shows so well on the map. The complete breakdown of the Redwall at the river is striking on both sides of the water, but try as we might, we couldn't locate a route through the Supai. We checked out about five ravines in the zone of fracture, but each time after we had descended 100 feet or so, there would be a series of impossible cliffs. Our failure was especially mysterious when Allyn found a bit of broken pottery and a not very old can near each other just below the top cliff. As I said above, this may have been an old Indian route down to water in South Canyon rather than a route across the river at mile 30.4. (It's possible to get through the Supai farther north of the main fault, however Jensen says that one of the ravines we gave up on is better.)
One observation that was most impressive from the top of the Supai was the trail leading down to the water on the left bank of the Colorado, and we could see very clear trails along the bench at the top of the Redwall going both up and downstream. Climbing the Supai on the left side of the river looked perfectly possible, but it didn't seem possible to get through the top cliffs anywhere near the cave. We gave up the search for a route down through the Supai after an hour and a half and had lunch back at the car.
After our frustration at Mile 30.4, there was time to go to the north rim and do a bit of scouting for Clubb's route to Wotan's Throne. We found a way off the top, right near the seats in the naturalist's lecture area. When we couldn't go any lower at this place, we turned to the left and Allyn unnerved me by proceeding out on a narrow shelf looking for a break. Just as I was about to give him strict orders to come back, he yelled to me that he had it made. When I followed, I had to crawl on my hands and knees for a couple yards to get under an overhang where the ledge only made an open tunnel less than a yard high. Just as the ledge was giving out completely, there were some holds and a groove that allows one to descend. Then we angled down and to the right until we were near the top of the Coconino. This ledge continues, with a convenient window at one place to walk through and around to the head of Clubb's chute.This is just east of the fin that points toward Wotan's Throne. We came back in the morning with two ropes and water and food for a long day's climb. There was an immense chockblock at the very top of the chute. Allyn scouted for a bypass while I prepared a rope to let us down a hole behind the block. When I had finished tying the knots for stirrups and hand grips, we started down. I discovered that one could do this without the rope by bracing his back against one wall with his feet against the other. I had thought that this was the place Clubb had used the only rope in his entire descent, but I was in for a big surprise. The going was easy until near the bottom of the Coconino where there were two big steps left, each of them about 50 feet straight down. We decided how Clubb did this. We could get down a few feet farther by going out of the chute to the left. There is a pinyon pine on the rim of the rock here, but I didn't have either the experience nor the guts to take on the climb back up a vertical 100 feet even with the prussic slings we had brought. Allyn's 120 feet of nylon rope went unused. Mabe I'll practice going up a wall like that and come back for another crack, but my respect for Clubb and the Walter Wood party, who climbed Wotan first in 1937, went up 100%. I wish I had asked Merrel how he goes up a rope.
It was still early when we reached the car, so after lunch we went back for another crack at what I had bungled last fall, finding Art's way down through the Coconino near Kibbey Butte. The afternoon before, we had decided which way it should be from Point Imperial, but it was easy to think that every ravine through the brush should go clear down. I had to restrain Allyn's desire to go down before I thought we had reached the right place. When we came to the one I thought was right, there was a good deer trail down it. Below the Coconino it was easy to proceed to the top of Kibbey. One wonders why such a minor point has a name at all. However, the view from here is fine and I was impelled to take pictures in four directions. We could see that we had come down the only feasible way through the Coconino. It's interesting to speculate on why the north sides of these promontories are the only places where the Coconino is broken through. (The route goes down the Supai and R-W south of Kibbey.) the route at Point Imperial and here are twins, both are out near the end of a point and facing north. The one which can be used to go below Point Atoka is back near the angle but also facing north. I suppose the explanation has to do with the decreased evaporation and more abundant plant growth with the roots splitting the rock. The only snow patches we saw in this part of the park were down here in the woods and the largest were at the very base of the Coconino.
Art had reported unmistakable signs of trail construction here, and I was about ready to admit that we were not going to verify that observation. However, on the return I tried to follow the best established deer trail I could find. At one place near the base of the Coconino, the trail seemed to disappear when I noticed that it went up a ramp separating two small cliffs. As it rounded the outward pointing corner, there was a small but definite retaining wall. I believe the explanation is connected with the big wooden gate we noticed lying across the old wagon road along the rim here. There was a lot of rusty iron nearby which evidently had been a cook stove. I figured that a toll gate keeper lived here and constructed a burro trail down to a seep somewhere below the Coconino. (I found out latter that this was not 100% true.)
On my way to Bass Camp, I stopped and had quite a good visit with Lynn Coffin at Park Headquarters. He told me two points of interest. First, Doug Schwartz was going into Nankoweap Basin by Helicopter and was going from there to Hance Rapids by rubber boat, looking for ruins along the way. The other point was that Dan Davis had broken the narrow bone in his lower leg on the Grandview Trail but had walked out with only help from a stick he used as a cane. Coffin was interested to learn from me that one can walk the bank from Nankoweap to the mouth of the Little Colorado River.
They have been doing something at the head of the South Bass Trail. There is now a register for hikers, and down the trail a short distance is a sign saying that hikers should consult the rangers before going down. I wonder why they don't have that information at the register itself. As I went down, I noticed the usual points of interest: the old dams in the bed just above the top of the Coconino and the old granary a little farther on.
While I was skirting the head of Bass Canyon, I got the impulse to start down through the Supai directly instead of taking the big detour formed by the horse trail. The best descent seems not to be at the most southerly arm but rather directly above where the trail crosses over and starts down the last half of the Supai. The hardest place to get down is almost at the top, a ledge about eight or ten feet high. I noticed that deer seemed to go to the east and almost at the end of the ledge there is an angle where the drop is not much and where a couple juniper logs have been placed. On the way back, I noticed that they used to form a ladder as they still have large nails in them, although the rungs are gone. Down below where you join the regular trail, there are some good shady overhangs just off the trail to the east. A scoop is lying here also.
My pack wasn't very well planned. I had too many gingersnaps and even my lightweight sleeping bag was much too warm. I shouldn't have been starting with 28 pounds not counting my gallon of water. However, I made good enough progress and reached the copper mine before 4:00 p.m. after having started down about 10:00 a.m. I was gratified to see that I still remembered where the trail leaves the rim and gets down into Copper Canyon. Allyn found that place for me on our first trip to Elves Chasm. I had the feeling that I was making considerably better time than I had on that occasion. For one thing, I already had the pictures of this trail and area. There was no water in the pockets in the creek but there was still plenty in the vertical mine shaft. I used the string I had brought to lower the saucepan for water. After filling the canteen, I carried the pack on to a place near the bench mark below Hakatai Rapids. Hakatai Rapids seemed a bit unusual in that the major waves occurred above the mouth of the incoming creek. They seem to bear out Pat's idea about the cause of the rapids: the deepening by rocks brought down the side canyon rather than those rocks forming a dam.
By the time I had finished breakfast on Wednesday morning, I was a little dismayed at the small amount of water left in my canteen. I thought a bit about going down to the river near the Hakatai Cable for more, but I decided that I ought to be able to reach more in Garnet Canyon before there would be any dire situation for lack of water. Actually, I reached Garnet a little after 8:00 a.m. from a start around 5:50 a.m. Again, I felt that I was making better progress since I was by myself. I had looked at the scenery and taken pictures on the previous trip. One major difference this time was that the barrel cactus were starting to bloom. We had noted at Christmas vacation that the barrel type was more common along here than it is at any other part of the Grand Canyon that we knew about. Possibly the burros migrate to this plateau at this season. I heard a few bray, but I only saw one during the entire trip and that was up on the Esplanade near the top of the Bass Trail.
When I got to Garnet Canyon, I missed the way down to the bottom. It's easy to do it when you're on the higher version of the Tonto Trail. There's a lower version that leads to the rim and then shows trail construction over the edge and down to the bottom. I should have remembered this place where the canyon is quite broad and open. When I began looking over the edge, it was higher upstream and was quite narrow. I must have walked a quarter of a mile beyond the right place to get to the bottom before I found another way down. From here there were some impediments in the bed that made the walk a bit difficult, but I came to rain pools, or perhaps they were pools formed in the night from a seep. I filled the canteen at 1:00 p.m., using Halazone of course, and then I took a bath and shaved. Just below was another slightly deeper pool that held something I had never seen before, a dead frog floating in the water. Lower down the bed there are some quite clear pools with a bit of permanent water trickling through them, but to judge by the incrustation of minerals around them, the water may be bad for drinking.
When the statement is made that one cannot go down Garnet to the river, one is thinking of the direct drop in the bed at the lower part of the Archean. There is an impassible fall, but a marked trail takes off to the south along the upper part of the Archean and within a mile or so, there must be places to reach the river. I would estimate that the marked trail dwindles out to about nothing one-third of the way from Garnet to Elves, and the last burro manure seems to be about halfway between them. From here on you'll be on bighorn trails if you are on any trail at all.
When I came within sight of the slump block, I got excited. From my angle the place looked like a simple walk-up. I left the pack at the river and climbed up to look at it closely. Even with no pack, this climb made me realize how much the heat had taken out of me. It was a real effort to go up there. In fact, it took me a bit more than an hour to go up for a close look and return to my pack. When I was only 30 yards from the possible place, I could see what Pat meant by calling it impossible. (We have done this coming down with a rope. Gary Stiles went up here without a rope and then fixed a rope for others on July 7, 1979.) I agreed that with my climbing ability and by myself, it was not for me. Still, the bighorn trail I had been following went right ahead to the most nearly possible place for a climb. I wonder whether the critters come down there in great leaps checking themselves on the ledges too narrow for a real resting place. If they do, I would surely like to witness the fact. I would still like to come back in cool weather and bring a rope to make the descent safe. There may be some connection between the hazard of this descent and the bighorn skeleton I found down rather close to the river. Possibly the ewe broke a limb and then couldn't make it to water.
Even with this detour of over an hour, and in spite of my general state of near exhaustion, I reached Elves Chasm shortly after 3:00 p.m. I feel more certain than before that if one got an early start down the South Bass Trail and had cool weather and good shoes, he could get to Elves in one long day. Before I had a chance to get into the cool water for a good soak in the nude, Don Harris came along with his power boats. I was surely glad to meet him. The heat and the solitude had me in a rather dismal frame of mind. He showed us the best way to climb up to the swimming pool below the ferny falls. I noticed how one could climb around and get above this level, but I didn't attempt it. Don also told me where to find the register. Staveley and Georgie White have parked under the overhang, up against the cliff on the southwest side rather than under the big rock. The boat party stayed about 40 minutes and then went on to reach their campsite at the mouth of Tapeats Creek. I was a bit surprised to learn that some boaters don't regard watertight compartments necessary. If one of the Harris boats should capsize, it would fill with water and be rather hard to manage.
Beyond Elves, the walking was easy for a short distance and then it became discouragingly difficult. After I had climbed up and down a couple of times with a full pack, I began to look ahead to see if there might be a way down to the river coming up shortly. A few hundred yards beyond two large travertine crags, I saw a chance to go down to a small beach and decided to call it a day at about Mile 117.5. The first night I was there, a bighorn sheep came down to drink. I didn't see the animal, but I saw fresh droppings.
By this time my feet were getting sore and the going was obviously difficult the rest of the way along Stephen Aisle. I practically decided to retract my objective for the trip and settle for a view along Conquistador Aisle. In fact, when I started on without my pack on Thursday, I had resolved to turn back either at 9:00 a.m. or when I got a view along Conquistador, whichever came first. The view down Conquistador came first, but then I thought I would proceed until 9:00 a.m. anyway. By then I could see that the way was smoothing out for me and that I might get to Forster Canyon by going ahead. In fact, I reached Forster before 11:00 a.m., and in another hour and a half I was at the mouth of Fossil Canyon. I had seen two things that had been put there by men, some tanks of heavy metal, each about a yard long, that had obviously been dropped from a plane at about Mile 120.5 and a rock pile just below high water level a couple hundred yards upstream from the mouth of Fossil. There was also the Kodachrome can and the note left by Bob Euler at the rock shelter under the overhang of the cliff facing the streambed on the left bank of Fossil Creek. I had taken about six hours to come to Fossil and I wouldn't get started back until after lunch about 1:00 p.m., so I decided to give up the main project of exploring Fossil. Of course now I wish I had taken the chance of getting caught overnight without food or a bedroll. The bedroll would hardly have been missed as I regularly had been lying on top of it until after midnight, and I could have done without food a little longer than usual. Now I'll have to go back for another trip to Fossil. It will probably be a descent by rope. Incidentally, I noticed another possible route through the Redwall at about Mile 124. There's a good chute cutting through the lower part of the Redwall where the top also appears rather broken. It might be awkward to bypass the cliff below the Redwall, but I think it should be possible. I'll have to go back in cooler weather and investigate it.
The walk back to my pack took a half hour less than the trip away and I had plenty of daylight. On Friday, I got back to the copper mine about 2:30 p.m. and loafed in the coolness of the shaft on one of the cots reading while my feet got a chance to recover. On Saturday, I was out to the car a bit after noon.
Both Wednesday and Thursday evenings, I found ticks starting to bite me.
I got away from town by 1:45 p.m. and reached Bass Camp by about 5:00 p.m. For a wonder, I found a young couple prepared to camp right near the center of the grounds. After a few minutes of conversation with the young man, I started on towards Toltec Point. However, I learned from him that an airplane had been sent out to look for a hiker who was overdue on the South Bass Trail a few days before. I supposed that the hiker would have been Merrel Clubb who was two days overdue when he came out. I had a compass in my pocket but the sun was shining so I used it for direction. This time I had left my map at home, but I remembered the angles in the rim and hit the rim about where I was supposed to have, halfway from Chemehuevi Point to the angel east of Toltec. It took me 80 minutes to walk to Toltec from Bass Camp.
The ruin was all that Clubb had led me to expect. It was separated from the rim by a notch several yards deep. There were about three distinct lines of breastwork on this spectacular platform whose only approach was about a yard wide. Bob Euler isn't convinced by this ruin that there was much actual warfare involved. He thinks that these defensive measures were carried out against a threat that failed to materialize. I slept in an ideal setting on the needles dropped by a juniper quite close to the rim where I could stand in bare feet and look at the brilliant sunset. From the same angle, I could watch the sun come above the horizon in the morning.
After as good a sleep as I have ever had in bed at home (my bag was just right for this summer night on the rim), I got off at 5:40 a.m. for a memorable day. First I wanted to investigate a possible descent to the seep spring. A talus covered half the Coconino just west of Chemehuevi Point, and there is an obvious descent down to the top of the Coconino. Getting through the Toroweap was interesting but the solution was just around an angle facing Huethawali Point. Just below the Toroweap promontory there is a deep notch in the Coconino. I had to inspect it at close range before I could tell what it was like. A bighorn sheep could have jumped a few yards, and a man could make it feasible by propping a pole at the critical place, but I gave it up. I also inspected some cracks just north and decided that the route would be possible if one were determined to take a chance, but again I gave it up. (Both Packard and Walters have done this route.)
It was still early when I reached the car at Bass Camp so I decided to pick up another named point, Fossil Mountain. I left the car one mile east of the junction connecting the Signal Hill Lookout with Bass Camp. On the return, I arrived at the fork just north of the Lookout where the road branches from the Havasupai Point road, and I decided that this would be a better starting point. There are fewer valleys to cross and one should be able to walk it in less than an hour. The route up Fossil Hill is simple, but the outside face is spectacular and the view is at least as good as that from Havasupai Point. The latter is one of the prime attractions from Fossil Mountain. There was an old cairn at the very top of Fossil Mountain.
From the map I estimated that I should drive from three and a half to four miles east along the telephone line road to reach the head of Turquoise Canyon and proceed from there around Piute Point. I believe I walked a bit east of north after stopping four miles east of the Pasture Wash Ranger Station. I hit the rim at the base of Piute Point. The walls below the rim all along the extent of Turquoise seemed unscalable. I could see game trails either at the top of the Coconino or below that. One sure way to reach this area would be to start from the South Bass Trail and keep coming around. If that is the only way to reach the bases of Pollux and Castor Temples, I would predict that it will be a while before they are climbed, but the ascent of both temples doesn't look impossible. (Al Doty found a route off Walapai Point and Jim Ohlman got all the way down through the Redwall and said there were Moki steps in the Coconino.)
I was expecting a break in the walls of Piute on the Sapphire side, but the most hopeful place was around the bay just south of Jicarilla Point where a talus covers most of the Kaibab. There's a small ravine breaking the rim for a few yards down near the base of Piute. A good burro trail goes below the rim here and comes back on top about 50 yards further along. I was about to conclude that only burros ever found this spot attractive when I noticed about the best preserved granary I had ever seen. The construction is rather neat and thin with clay covering all the rocks. The door is precisely outlined by long thin rocks. The whole thing is no bigger than a card table.
From here I made good time around the rim and investigated the place near Jicarilla Point where I thought you might get down below the Kaibab. At one place I could go down easily for 50 feet and then I had to crawl along a narrow place using hand and toeholds above that made side stepping possible. (Some of the college boys later went down a rough place without using the crack.) From there one could go down a jamb crack, but the step at the bottom seemed a bit high for comfort, and I didn't make it. A juniper pole or a couple of flat rocks at the bottom would have made it quite easy. I may go back and do this sometime and then study the possibility of getting down the Coconino. The best possibility seems to be on the east side of the fin that sticks out from below Jicarilla Point. (I found out that it goes.) If this can be done, I feel almost sure that one can get down through the Supai and about sure that this must be the route used by the shipwrecked rivermen to reach the rim between Boucher and Bass Canyons; the climb that W. W. Bass called impossible. (I found out that this was indeed the route.) About 100 yards north of this break in the rim, but still at least that far south of the point itself, there is a shallow draw. Fifteen feet out from the lip of the dry fall is a previously unrecorded natural bridge. The opening inside it is roughly 25 feet long by 15 feet wide and the span under the bridge itself is something like 40 feet. The drop below is the spectacular feature, probably between 100 and 150 feet. The bridge is about as interesting as the one near the head of the Redwall in White Canyon. There is a juniper stub propped up by rocks at the end of Piute, but I didn't notice any marker at the end of Jicarilla. It surprised me slightly to find axe hewn trees and limbs in the featureless woods both on the way to Toltec and also south of Turquoise and Sapphire Canyons. I even found a surveyor's stake where there seemed no reason for one.
I had been cagy when I parked the car at the place where the road switched from going along the south of the telephone line to going north of the line. I came back to the road as I had expected, east of the car. There was one more thrill, unmistakable bear tracks in the dust of the road. I hope my black and white pictures show the tracks.
After I had driven more than three miles east I noticed the temperature of the coolant going up and then I noticed that the oil gage showed zero. I had cracked the oil pan. I was glad it was still early, only 2:45 p.m. I decided to walk to Hermit's Rest rather than back to Pasture Wash to phone because if I were at Hermit's Rest it would be easier for a car to get me. The Ken Todds took care of me with a good meal and about four glasses of lemonade and four of water before I got over my dehydration. The Gibsons brought Roma up to the canyon since Jim and Cynthia had our other car. After three more cups of soup near midnight, I still weighed only 122 pounds, the lightest I have been for years. However, I felt fine by then. We got the car by driving up with the '55 and a gallon of oil and a piece of soap on Monday afternoon. The soap finally held the leak to a very slow drip. It was a day to remember - a rope route below the Coconino at Chemehuevi, Fossil Mountain, a fine granary, a route down the Kaibab at Jicarilla, a natural bridge, bear tracks, and finally a broken oil pan.
After another good visit at park headquarters, I got going down the Red Canyon Trail about 10:30 a.m. David Hunt had told me about going up to the base of Coronado Butte, so I decided to do likewise. The butte had been climbed before 1900 (see my logs for April 4, 1971), but it looks plenty tough. I checked the crack that faces southeast and separates the south tower from the central one. I stopped at a place where the step is about 10 feet high. There is a dead log leaning against a live tree which projects almost horizontally higher up. It was wet and slippery from the intermittent rain and I decided that I would turn back. I also climbed around near the crack that faces south and poked a bit up several other places, but the one with the dead tree seemed to offer the best chance of getting into a high notch. From the flats near the bottom of Red Canyon, the wall leading up from this notch seems rather smooth, and I would guess that the climb would need hardware.
After a late lunch where I had left the pack near the saddle connecting Coronado with the rim, I started on down through the Supai. Some people do follow this trail, because I'm sure that there are more cairns along it than there were in say 1954. Some of these were put up by misguided people and they succeeded in misguiding me. I tried Davis' route down the Redwall nearer the end of the valley through the Supai. I came down a slightly different route than the one I had used in going up about two years ago, and this time it was harder and slower. Walking along the stream at the bottom also seemed worse than I had remembered it, and I decided to use the historic route up the trail on my return. I might note here that the walk along the top of the Redwall on the return was rougher than I had remembered it with more of the trail obliterated by slides, so now I'm not sure what I really favor. I believe I would vote in favor of working out the best way down Davis' route.
My impression that you can find permanent water in the Muav below the Redwall in the creek was born out by the flowing springs. There were also rain pools that were obviously temporary. In fact there were rain pools lower down than I had seen before, just about anywhere that the bedrock showed. The only part of the bed I had to bypass was right at the top of the Tapeats. A little north of here is where the Tapeats, the Shinumo Quartzite, and the Hakatai Shale come together at an interesting angle.
There were fresh burro signs along the wash, and I saw two on the return. Even though the Supai Indians rounded up and removed a couple hundred during recent years, there are still enough to keep up the population.
Any ambition I had to cross the river and sleep in Asbestos Canyon was put aside by my late arrival at the river, 6:00 p.m., and I was wearier than I had expected. I did take a cooling dip and looked around at the larger rocks to see whether I could find a nearby shelter from rain in the night. While doing this I found the canned food cache that Dock had invited me to raid. On Sunday before starting back I got a can of tomatoes and one of tamales. The tomatoes were fine but the can of tamales was bulging at the ends, so I didn't dare to eat any. The labels were off the cans and the cans themselves were mostly rust. I'll probably eat some span the next time I come down here. I still intend to cross the river and try climbing Sheba and Solomon Temples and the Tabernacle. The latter should be no problem but it will add to my collection of named buttes. Sheba and Solomon seem as if they might or might not stop me. About 8:00 p.m. it started raining and I finally had a chance to test my substitute for a tent, my plastic sheet. I was on sand where rain didn't run underneath me, and the sheet shed water and kept me dry. The noise on the sheet right above my ear was enough to keep me awake during the rain, but it was over in less than the time it often takes to fall asleep, and the few ounces of plastic sheet was certainly less of a burden than the lightest tent. Warmth was no problem. A light cotton blanket was not even necessary for several hours. Then I used the blanket, and finally for about three hours before daylight, I put on a nylon jacket which was entirely adequate. There was no more rain and I enjoyed a fine night.
The main project I had in mind was to go upriver to test the idea that one could get from Hance Rapids to 75 Mile Rapids at the low stage. Owens had evidently done this in his bare feet two summers ago. The walking was mostly very easy. Mostly in sand, but there are stretches where boulders and pebbles would have been pretty bad, and there were a few places where it was necessary to go behind thickets of willows and clamber over some rather uneven rocks. just west of the mouth of Papago Creek, the cliff comes right into the water. I climbed the talus just west of here far enough to see that it ended 40 feet away. I went in without clothes or camera prepared to swim if necessary. It was only hip deep so I carried my stuff across and continued easily to 75 Mile Canyon. This is where Owens was finally picked up on the last pass of the helicopter. If the water had been as low for him as it was for me, and if he had tried it before he became too weak, he could have swum past the next cliff. I tried this with no trouble. It meant about 200 yards in the water, but a slow sidestroke was all I needed to carry me past the rocks. There were many handholds in the cliff where I could have rested if it had been necessary, and I broke the swim by walking along a sandbar. This time I landed without shoes or clothes, so I merely visited my former campsite where I found the two rocks I had used for a cooking fire and a pile of wood that I had left. I feel sure that there would be little trouble in going upriver with an air mattress along here. If there is no slack water on one side of the river, there is on the other. One would walk wherever possible in going upstream. I noticed the large pole still upright where 75 Mile Wash comes out on the beach. There were three mooring poles in the sand near the quiet water below 75 Mile Rapids and I saw a couple of cairns perched above the first bluff above the beach between 75 Mile and Papago Canyons. The principal objective of this jaunt was to get into Papago Canyon. Access from above had seemed impossible when I had skirted the rim in going from Tanner Rapids to Red Canyon. (Later students from NAU were able to get down at three different places.) I assumed that it would be simple to enter it at river level, but it is almost another Mystery Canyon. You can enter it from the east as I did by going up on a bench and around the corner into it. There appears to be only one way down from the bench to the bottom of the wash just before the ledge cliffs out. On the west you can climb straight up a few yards with lots of holds to bypass the dry falls in the very end of the bed. High water in the river might put a boat above these falls. After only about a five minute walk up the bed, you come around several sharp turns and face an immense chockblock. There seems to be only two ways to climb past this obstacle, both on the west side. Above here you can walk without obstruction up to the fork in the canyon. The map makes the west arm look slightly the more impressive, but from below the east arm looks longer. The west arm would stop a walker in short order (however, later Ken Walters got out here), but I got around a drop into the east arm and continued for more than five minutes until the bed narrows to a slit and you meet more dry falls. There seemed to be no break in the lofty rim of Papago, and I don't think a burro could ever get into it. I would nominate it as the side canyon of the Grand with the fewest visitors over the years. Ives words "lonely and majestic" apply with special force here. (Later, Jim Sears and others have climbed south in the east arm.)
After visiting with Merrel Clubb all Sunday morning, I drove along the Cape Royal road south of the Two Rivers Viewpoint and parked the car at the first chance on the east side of the road after I had passed the low place 1.3 miles south of the viewpoint. It was already 2:00 p.m. and I had my doubts as to the possibility of getting down by the Hartman Bridge before time to make camp. Going a bit east of north, I came right to the bay where a deer trail goes through the Coconino, but I checked by going out on the spur of sandstone to the left of the ravine before starting the long descent. I knew from experience that there are many places that go more than halfway down the Coconino. At the bottom, I checked to see whether the little spring a few yards to the west was still flowing. It was.
Following the Hermit Shale to the east means bucking locust thickets, other thick brush and alternating between picking your way through all sizes of tumbled rocks and trying to step safely along the shale slopes. The latter is the easiest place to progress. Pushing through the dense prickly locust is about the worst, and there are other sorts of brush that were more effective in tearing my shirt and trousers. I was gratified when I got from the spring to the saddle between Kwagunt and Lava in two and a half hours instead of the three and a half I had needed in 1958. On the return, however, I used three and three-quarters for the same leg, possibly because I was more intent on following deer trails in the hope that they would show me how to avoid the thickets.
My previous impression had been that the Supai below this saddle down into Lava should offer no real difficulty, but I was very unsure of the feasibility of the Redwall. I started gaily down the streambed from the lowest part of the saddle, but about 200 feet down into the Supai, there was a 30 foot wall that seemed to be continuous. After going along the ledge to the east, I saw a good prospect around to the west. A talus came far up on the wall. When I got over there, the highest part of the talus was seen to lack about eight feet of being enough. Still farther to the west, about 20 yards, there was a break in the ledge which led down to a shelf connecting with the talus. This seemed to be the neatest problem encountered in the whole two and a half days. The talus and another slope across one ravine to the east solved the problem of getting down the rest of the Supai.
My impression obtained when I had been at the Hartman Bridge in 1958 was that the hope for getting through the Redwall lay to the east of the center of the draw. As I circled in this direction, I found ways to drop lower and I got to the bottom of the draw before I had intended. There were deer trail bypasses for several impossible drops in the bed. I could see that I was already below a lot of the Redwall and I began to hope that the relatively level bed was going to lead right out of the Redwall. Just as I remembered, however, there was one more cliff, the biggest drop of all. My first impulse was to go to the left, but there were no deer signs in that direction, and I couldn't see whether the narrow ledge went on around the corner. (As it was, I returned on this east side.) When I was out on this shelf, I could see that there was rather certainly a way to go through an overgrown bench on the right and descend, perhaps a bit beyond the bridge. Since I wanted to go up under the bridge anyway and get some more pictures, I elected to camp where I was and proceed in the morning when there would be more light.
The night was clear so I didn't regret not being at the Indian ruin overhang where I had planned to spend the night. I was a little afraid that my one cotton blanket wouldn't be warm enough at the higher altitude so I pulled a big drift log into place and got enough small wood together to light it. The blanket, augmented by a nylon jacket towards morning, was just right.
The route through the woods to the right was somewhat rough and overgrown, but I had the encouragement of a well established deer trail. At one draw, I was pausing to decide whether it would pay to start going lower when I happened to glance up. There, only 50 yards away, was the Hartman Natural Bridge. It looks better at close range, more shapely than the Kolb Bridge, but only about two-thirds as wide. The space behind is roughly as far to the wall as the bridge is long. My way of measuring the span was to pitch a rock a bit bigger than my fist under the span of the bridge. As yet I haven't calibrated this measurement. I also checked to see how easily I could climb to the top of the bridge. The north end would be the better one to try, but it would involve some risk for one who is not an expert and I passed up the chance. A spring makes a series of small pools just below and a bit south of the bridge, so that a trip from the rim to the bridge would form an easy two day backpack. (One day using the route from the rim above Hartman Bridge.) To bring burros down the route I used would require considerable trail construction, and I found no such signs. I don't believe this is the answer to the question as to how McDonald reached his mines with pack animals. However, this route is not only more direct but it is probably easier than my other way up near Hubbell Butte. No wonder I found no signs of a deer trail on that climb. McDonald must have used this route to the rim when he was traveling with his animals, so we can safely conclude that Hartman was not the first white man to see the bridge.
There is one seep above the mouth of the side canyon which comes down from Hubbell Butte and a good shower-bath spring is only a short walk below. There's another good seep a little below the short western arm of Lava. You can go from here right up to the north against the overhang to the ruin. A hundred yards or so downstream is the big spring that keeps Lava Creek flowing for several miles.
The ruin was about as I had remembered it. The intact ruin was only about three-fourths standing. There were more signs of other rooms than I had thought, about six in all. Before I left, I happened to glance up and saw what appears to be the only petroglyph around. The artist must have stood on the roof of a hut that has since fallen down, because it would now take a scaffold to reach the place. The marking looks like an H but with two crossbars instead of one, or you might call it a square with curved handles. The evening and some of the night was slightly rainy so I was glad of the shelter. Other things liked it too and my sleep was marred by rodents scampering around, and I seem to have a few chigger bites from my night there. My light blanket was actually on the warm side, so I didn't sleep as well the second night as I had the first.
As I previously implied, I reached this spot in the middle of the forenoon and after some food and rest I was ready to move on by 9:30 a.m. I had assumed that the logical route would be up the streambed in the south arm of Lava.The time spent in going over to enter it was wasted.The Tapeats forms a 100 foot fall, but it is easy to go up a slope directly opposite the ruin. I dropped down into the wash upstream from the tributary that leads to the Lava-Unkar pass and had to fight more brush than I should have when I discovered where I was. There was a good talus of assorted blocks on the lower and middle parts of the Redwall, and towards the top I came on a well established deer trail. Clubb feels that he can distinguish a pure deer trail from an aboriginal trail that is now deer maintained. I feel that this trail up to the top of the pass and also the part where the steeper slope into Unkar begins should qualify as a man improved trail. It took over two hours to get from the ruin to the top of the pass and only a few minutes over an hour to come down by the best route.
After lunch I faced the decision as to whether I would rather climb Juno Temple or go down Unkar and connect with my other trip up Unkar. I elected the latter although the way up Juno looked plain enough. The Supai cliffs are uniformly small ones and I was rather sure I saw the route. On the way off the pass to the south, I was amazed not to find a very sharp line between the slope of the pass and the Redwall. It just gets a bit steeper. The faulting that makes a descent into Kwagunt and the north arm of Lava possible is more pronounced here. This was the part of the trip which held the most mystery for me. I know I couldn't see this from the top of the Tapeats when I had came up Unkar, and I don't believe I could see it from the rim near Cape Final. The climb out of Lava had turned out to be quite straight forward where it had seemed barely possible from a distance. However, the descent into Unkar beat about anything I've seen in the entire Grand Canyon. You could almost say that there was no limestone to be seen. Even the high Redwall exposed under Cape Final is sloping and rounded like a dome in Yosemite. I believe one could walk up this 45 degree slope. I want to come back and try another approach. There is a deep notch in the Coconino that left me only about 60 feet from the bottom, situated a short distance north of Cape Final. If I roped down this vertical section, I believe I could be down to the Lava-Unkar pass in about three hours from the rim.
There were no more problems for the day. I had been wondering what had happened to my rattlesnake average, about one sighting per year. It had been over two years since I had seen one. Near the old Indian trail down from the pass, I saw another one, rather close but not where I might have stepped on it. The rest of the trip was rather a study in timing and scenery than a study in route finding. It took me about an hour and a half to walk from the divide above Lava to the Tapeats in Unkar. Going from the ruins in Lava to the mouth of Unkar to other aboriginal sites would take about six hours. I believe I would now use this route in going from Nankoweap to Bright Angel Creek. I think I would also prefer going from Kwagunt into Lava Canyon over the pass right under Point Atoka rather than along the Butte Fault Route near the river.
Most of the time on this trip I was studying the view with an eye to route finding, but especially on the way out it occurred to me that this is certainly an outstanding area for scenic values. There are more towers both up along the rim and also down in the Redwall than you usually see. There are also numerous caves, however, all that I noticed were inaccessible. I also noted a possible Keyhole Begay, a place where a large pothole seemed to connect with a vertical slot below. There was another larger feature, a thin roof of limestone over a vertical hollow. There are water stains on the back of this hollow, so I believe that there is already a start for another bridge. The Hartman Bridge and the numerous water holes would make this a popular place for a visit, but it appears to be well guarded for some time to come by the difficult approaches. The shortest way here is down from the rim just above Hartman Natural Bridge, but the easiest way is from the river, about a five hour walk up the bed. However, there aren't too many river tourists with even that much ambition.
The way out of Lava to the north needs more study. I didn't do it as well as I did on the way in, although I had to finish in the same way, the only route. The Hermit Shale below Atoka also gave me more trouble than when I was coming in, possibly because I tried following deer trails slavishly instead of my own judgment. When the deer come up to a mass of locust, they seem to follow Abe Lincoln's maneuver when he was in charge of some volunteers on the march -- Break ranks and fall in on the other side.
There was nothing unusual about the trip down the Tanner Trail after a leisurely start at 9:45 a.m. Without trying to hurry, I made it from the rim to the river in a little over three hours. I wanted to see Reilly's old copper camp on the south side of the river just below the Basalt Creek delta, so I branched to the left and went down into Tanner Wash. I got too close to the water too soon, and in order not to detour back and up, I blew up my mattress and floated a few yards past an outcrop of consolidated rubble. I guessed that the camp would be well back in the mesquite but still on the sand, and I had the good luck of walking right into it. There was a wide plank supported by rock piles at the ends for a bench with a five gallon kerosene can nearby. About 50 yards west was a long ridge pole supported by four uprights which might have supported a tent or tarp. Its age was shown by a big mesquite which had grown under one end of the pole.
The river seemed a bit swift for this time of year but I was able to cross with room to spare above the next riffle. By this time I had decided to do my climb of the Tabernacle the next day. It seemed like a good idea to go downstream from the mouth of Unkar Creek and camp where I had two years ago in late September, but this time I couldn't make it along the bank. With the higher stage, I had the choice of pushing off into some big swirls eight feet across and a foot deep or going back and trying another route. I felt sure that these whirls would not have carried my mattress and me down, but I like to have things under better control than that and I turned back and went up the bed of Unkar to the nearest spring, about 50 minutes walk from the delta.
I left all but my lunch and canteen at that campsite on Saturday and went upstream almost to the large tributary coming from between Jupiter and Venus Temples. From here I could see a good route up through the Tapeats. Walking towards the Tabernacle from here was direct but slow in spots. It took about two hours to get from the bottom of Unkar to the base of the Tabernacle, a much more direct route than the one I used in the afternoon for the return. Climbing the Tabernacle was a simple walk from the west except that I used my knee on a ledge at the very top. What complicated things was the strongest wind I've ever felt under a clear sky. I had to crouch most of the way up, and on top I didn't stand at all. I built the summit cairn while sitting down. I decided not to tackle Solomon or Sheba Temple in that gale. I did go over to the north end of the saddle north of Sheba and inspect the ravine which seemed to lead to the top of the Redwall. It's a perfectly simple route to the north of Rama and Vishnu Temples. One might approach Wotan's Throne from here, but the distances would be discouraging. From here I went and looked down in the upper part of Asbestos Canyon which is cut off from the lower by an impasse in the Tapeats. (I found out latter that an old trail bypasses to the west.) I couldn't get down near where I was standing, but one could on the west side, and I believe there is also a way farther to the south on the east side. The map shows a spring beneath where I was, but I couldn't see any signs from my distance. (The spring is shown incorrectly, it is actually southeast of here.) The return was by way of the north end of Sheba, between the Tabernacle and Solomon. You must go down the Tapeats at my spot from two years ago, far down into the valley and over the shale hills to the lower part of Unkar.
Saturday evening I lay under my plastic sheet through two hours of gentle rain. Then it got clear and cold and finally about midnight I had to build a fire. Four hours of fitful sleep didn't seem to hold me back on Sunday, however, and I made it up Unkar past the Tapeats fall on the right and on to the pass between Unkar and Lava Canyons. By 12:30 p.m. I was ready to attempt Juno Temple. The way up didn't seem as obvious now as it had two weeks earlier when I had just thought about going up. There were three almost continuous walls in the Supai, and I may have found the only non-technical routes through them. The lowest was about the hardest, over a bit to the right of the depression leading down to the south end of the pass. Then I angled to the north for the next wall and found a break that is pretty obvious. The highest wall is only a little above the second, and the route behind a huge block that is leaning out is simple when you finally find it. The air was crystal clear and Navaho Mountain looked green rather than blue. I noticed that the top of the Coconino on Vishnu Temple was exactly projected onto the top of the south rim. I built the first cairn near the highest part of Juno, a fairly broad flat place. There were no deer signs that I could see on the top. At the very south end, there were a number of good depressions several inches deep in the flat rocks. Quite a few held four or five inches of water from the recent rains.
Jupiter Temple would have to be approached from below the three walls and it would have to be regarded as a separate climb. It took me two hours to get from the pass to the top of Juno and back to my pack, so I would allow at least four for Jupiter. The Supai and Redwall to the west above the pass are well broken down. There is a notch northwest of Cape Final where I could get to within 60 feet of the base of the Coconino, so now I would like to tackle Jupiter by prusiking down a rope at the base of this notch and see whether I could make the top of Jupiter in one day from a car parked on the Cape Final fire road.
In dropping off the pass into Lava, I had to guard against a tendency to start down before I had gone far enough to the left. The deer trail should be followed to the head of the talus. I slept in a clearing across the wash from the Indian ruin so as not to pick up more chiggers, but I was prepared to reach it in the night if there was more rain. There was plenty of dead cottonwood where I stopped and I was glad to keep a fire going all night. In the morning I was scattering the coals to put them out and I must have flipped one onto my blanket. Before I noticed it, there were two big holes in it, and in getting the coal off, I singed my air mattress. If I had burnt a hole in it, I would have had to walk out to the north rim, a long way from home. I had planned to check a possible route up through the Tapeats and the Redwall right behind the ruin to reach Poston Butte, but now I figured I'd had enough solitude for a while and headed for home down Lava Creek. When I was well out of the narrows to the forks under Naji Point, the terrace to the south looked as though it would be a welcome change from walking the wet creek bottom. At the edge of the first terrace about on a line from the nearest projection of Redwall below Juno to the south profile of Chuar Butte, I ran into an interesting two room ruin. I brought out sherds from the ruin near the forks of upper Lava and also from this ruin. Dr. Colton and Dr. Euler identified these as being Walnut Canyon and Black Mesa black-on-white, respectively. They date from about 1170 ad and 100 or more years earlier. These terraces extend for miles sloping uniformly to the east matching the slope of the stream. Water worn boulders and pebbles cover the shale hills many yards deep offering quite a contrast to the bare shale hills to the north of the creek. If the climate was once moist enough to allow farming on these flat terraces, the Indians must have had hundreds of acres of arable soil, by far the largest farming area in the present Grand Canyon. A few men with simple tools could clear a landing strip for light planes and the whole area is one big heliport without further preparation. A few deep arroyos spoil this succession of terraces as a perfect route for foot travel, but even as it is, this is much faster than following the bed all the way. I reached the river from the upper forks in about three hours, going downhill of course. Lava Creek Rapids looked a bit different from my previous low water recollection. There were about four large rocks showing at the beginning in a line about at right angles with the river, and towards the bottom, there was a still larger rock well out of water with about two-thirds of the river flowing to the west of it. The waves were quite choppy although they were only about three feet high. This is not the stage I remember when the water shot through with only smooth swells, an impression I had acquired another year at the low stage. There was no difficulty in crossing below the rough water and above the next riffle.
That the present stage was low was clear from the fact that the big island was connected with the left bank both at the top and at the bottom with a lagoon of almost clear water between them. This island is subject to flooding since there are drift logs clear across it, but at the very lowest end a clump of mesquites are holding their own.
The bars seem to be changed slightly at the angle just before you come to Tanner Wash and the travel is easy over the sand. I was able to go along the base of the bluff except at the very end and here I needed only a short climb to get around the place where the river comes to the cliff. The trip up the Tanner Trail was routine with the weather cooler than usual for this time of year. I tied my best time of five hours and ten minutes.
The principal accomplishments on this trip were the identification of Reilly's mining camp, climbing two buttes, checking another route up the Redwall (to Rama Temple), and locating an Indian ruin. From a distance the ravine from the north up between Freya and Vishnu Temples seemed worth investigating, but I have a feeling that the lower fourth of the Redwall is impassable. (Latter I found out that the west branch goes through.)
Roma and I took the Stevens for their for their first visit to the north rim of the Grand Canyon on Sunday, September 10, 1961. We looked out at the usual places: Bright Angel Point and the viewpoints along the Cape Royal Road. I noticed something from Vista Encantada that I didn't remember having observed before: a large window through the Redwall. Ray Stevens agreed with me that it was actual rather than an optical effect caused by overlapping overhangs. I wanted to get down closer to take a picture. It must have been seen by many people, but apparently the light must be just right for the background to be distinct, The hole is lens shaped with the vertical dimension the longer one.
At Point Imperial, I looked for the mouth of Silent River Cave which Clubb told me is visible at the head of the arm of Nankoweap just north of Kibbey Butte. I'm pretty sure that I recognized it, but I was a bit surprised that it seemed rather accessible. I'm not sure that it was the same thing Art Lange had in his color slide. The thing I saw would be worth a closer inspection .
Another project I thought would fit with our trip with non-hiking guests was to take a little time to inspect the Indian ruins which Clubb had told me was on the promontory about a mile north of Angel's Window. The Hunts had also visited this, and now there is a big parking lot right near the place where you can begin the walk. Ray went over with me, or rather he started over. We noted a deer trail starting down on the north side of this promontory. According to one report, you were supposed to climb a tree to get on top of the Butte, but there was also supposed to be a way to climb up the rocks. I preferred to look for the route up the rocks. In fact, I didn't see any real good tree to go up. (Later we went up the tree.) You work your way up on a ledge on the north side of the island which is still 20 feet below the top. There are several equally difficult places to do this, but there is little danger. Then you go out to a place on the east end where there are some fairly good holds to make it to the top. The catch is that the exposure is impressive. A fall would take you at least to the bottom of the Kaibab Limestone. The ruin is back near the west end of the top, about a dozen rooms still easily recognizable. There is still quite a bit of broken pottery lying around. I'm glad the display case at the parking lot says nothing about this ruin. It's an interesting one for those in the know, and there would be repercussions from frustrated tourists if many tried to climb to the top of this interesting butte. This would be a fine temporary citadel in the ravine west of Cape Royal and if the raiders knew about the spring, they would have no trouble conquering by siege.
On the night of the 15th, I slept by the car prepared to get an early start down the cliffs at the same place to try to go to Wotan's Throne and back in a single day. Clubb had pointed out the two breaks in the Coconino southwest of this same promontory and said that one of the them could be negotiated without the use of a rope. He had used this route on his first ascent of Wotan, but he thought the work of traversing the Hermit Shale to get around below Cape Royal was discouraging. Since I'm interested in ropeless routes, I wanted to do it this way. He couldn't pinpoint his exact route through the Kaibab after so many years, but he did say that he thought the rope could have been left behind.
I tried starting down the Kaibab in a ravine very close to the promontory. I succeeded in getting down possibly a fourth of the way but then there was a continuous cliff. This convinced me that I should try the deer trail on the north side of the butte in the hope that I could go around the base to the west and reach the ravines through the Coconino. This worked perfectly and I was pleasantly surprised at the safety of this route. From Angel's Window, it had seemed dubious that you could get clear around here. There are three parallel breaks in the sandstone, but the first one is so abrupt that I dismissed the possibility of getting down there. The second looked good. There was one place in the middle of the gully where the safest way down was through a chimney for a few yards. There was no difficulty except that my rucksack tended to jam in the crack. If it had been larger, I would have needed a short rope to lower the pack. There were no real difficulties except for the need to be alert for loose rocks. Now and then one had to go to one side of the gully or the other to find the best way down. When I seemed to be four-fifths of the way to the bottom, I was dismayed to discover an almost sheer drop of about 50 feet.
Next, I tried the ravine farther to the west parallel to the first. If there was any difference, it was in favor of this last route. Near the lowest part, I needed to get over to the left and out of the ravine itself to get farther down, but still when there was about 50 feet of vertical descent left, I was stopped again. Maybe Clubb thinks that the Indians could get up and down at one of these places, but I doubt that it could be done without using ropes. I would like to see him do it without a rope, but with a rope it ought to be quite simple. The drop appears to be much less here than it is below Cape Royal in Clubb's trough.
When I was on my way back, I ran into a wrecked car (actually two cars) at the bottom of the Kaibab Limestone. It was remarkably scrambled and yet it was almost all in one place. The license plate seemed to be NJ for New Jersey #VO 352, 1952. I seem to recall a newspaper story about a car rolling off near Cape Royal with no one in it. I got the impression from the article that it had gone farther down and was completely inaccessible. I went back up the way I had come down, by the deer trail. From the railing guarded point at the parking lot, I thought I saw a way to go lower than I had succeeded in doing by getting out of the east ravine higher up and then going down to the east of the bottom. This time I tried going down through the Kaibab directly to the wrecked car. There were no sudden drops in the gully, and it makes a much more convenient route than the deer trail detour. However, when I tried the slope to the east of the bottom, I couldn't even go as low as I had been before.
All this reconnaissance had taken the morning. In my frustration, I decided against using the rest of the day for some minor objective and got in the car to go home in time for an evening of bridge.
We had a social engagement Saturday evening which kept me from a two day weekend in the canyon at this ideal time of year. For a time I had been thinking that there were no more interesting one day trips for me on the south rim, but Marshall Scholing has recently pointed out a couple, the Crystal Forest Cave below the west side of Horseshoe Mesa, and the unusual approach to the east arm of Cremation canyon along the top of the Redwall from the Kaibab Trail. I also wanted to follow up on my discovery of a route through the Kaibab Limestone just west of Jicarilla Point. I decided to take a chance on another accident to the oil pan and find out what was possible below Jicarilla.
From the map it seemed that driving four miles west of the drift fence across the Telephone Line road would be about the right distance. Actually, I turned the car around and parked about 0.1 mile east of this position to place the car at the top of a rise so that it would be visible from some distance along the road. I knew from experience that the most annoying feature of a day is not being able to locate the car. I started away from the car at right angles to the road and hit the bay between Piute and Jicarilla Points a bit far to the west, so that I concluded it would have been better to stop the car about three and a half miles west of the drift fence.
The natural bridge was easy to locate. The draw leading down to it impressed me as being deeper than I had remembered, and the hole behind it seemed bigger this time, probably 50 feet long by about 20 feet wide. The break in the rim is just past one angle to the southwest. I scrambled down to the narrow ledge and tiptoed over to the crack where I soon fastened the rope and easily climbed down the ten feet using the crack for my toes and the knots in the rope for grips. From a distance it had seemed possible to climb on down to the bottom of the Kaibab Limestone directly below this first break, but I soon discovered a small cliff that would be nasty. It was easy to go around the corner below the natural bridge and go on down with no trouble. Also the view up at the bridge was quite interesting.
The walk to the ridge below the point was simple, but I was disappointed in thinking that I would be able to walk out along the projection towards Pollux Temple. There is a deep drop down to the top of the Coconino and no way to climb up beyond. (The ridge toward Pollux Temple is a route down on the east side, through the Coconino.) It was quite easy to get down into this notch to investigate the possibility of descending the Coconino either to the west or east of the notch itself. The west side appeared to be more promising. After careful study, I was able to go halfway down the Coconino here, starting down a bit to the north of the center of the ravine. However this promising start ended in a sheer cliff with about half the Coconino still to go. (However, the east side goes all the way.)
Just before I started down this ravine, I found something that was the high point of the day, some fine petroglyphs. They are pecked in a nearly horizontal section of reddish rock which appeared to be at the bottom of the Toroweap Formation. There are two main types, scrolls, and lizards. They're also a few other minor designs. I looked in vain for any sign of ruins in the neighborhood. Bob Euler tells me that it is quite common to find petroglyphs clear away from any habitation. From what I learned in a negative sense during the rest of the day, I would also say that these are away from any logical route to anything of importance. The ravine to the east of this notch became abrupt almost at once, although it is just barely possible. However, a clear deer and bighorn trail leads in both directions along this bench below the Kaibab. It was mostly relatively easy walking to the east. I wanted to investigate the possibility of getting through the Coconino in the ravine west from the notch between Diana Temple and the rim. There were a few places along here where the brush was a problem, but it was not nearly the nuisance it can be in the shady places below the north rim. Before you go very far to the east, you have to decide whether to stay up on the main talus slope or whether you want to follow the narrow bench separated from the upper by a low but nearly continuous cliff. The lower bench seemed to be more free of vegetation, but the lower trail did not seem to be so well established. I kept to the upper.
I had left the car about 9:50 a.m., and it took about an hour to get to the point at the bottom of the Kaibab below Jicarilla Point. I reached the rim from the road in only 15 minutes, but I had spent a bit of time looking at the bridge again, and naturally using the rope delayed me some. I did not begrudge the time it took to investigate the ravine to the west, especially since this led to the discovery of the petroglyphs, the first good ones I had found for myself. By noon, I was below the first bay to the east of Jicarilla. As I was looking for a suitable place to sit and eat, I noticed a peculiar chamber near the top of the Kaibab in the cliff to the east of this indentation. The mouth of this chamber is in an overhang, and is completely inaccessible. The hole widens as it deepens and I would guess its mouth to be about 15 feet across while the interior is about 25 feet across and 35 feet vertically.
Something else noticeable from where I stopped for lunch was a window not far below the rim near the deepest part of the indentation in the rim. I thought it might be another bridge until I went over to it at the end of the day. It was only a window through a projecting fin of limestone. The hole was about 10 feet in the horizontal direction by five vertical.
From a distance I could see that a talus covered most of the Coconino west of the notch separating Diana from the rim, but when I got there, I found that the steps near the top were too high for comfort, more than ten-feet high. I was about to run out of time, but I wouldn't attempt the climb down here without a rope. Perhaps if I were coming up and knew that my life depended on finding a way, I could climb this, but I intend to take a rope back there and see what the descent is like. (Allyn Cureton has done this climb without a rope.)
The return was by the same route except that I followed the lower bench near the top of the Coconino for about a fifth of the way. My time was less for the return from Diana to Jicarilla, a little less than two hours. When I was ready to leave the rim near the window east of Jicarilla, I used the map for orientation and the sun for a compass. I wanted to be sure to hit the road east of the car and know which way to walk. It took 22 minutes for me to reach the park boundary road and another 20 to reach the car. My speedometer told me that I had covered just a mile on the road. The only break in the monotony of the junipers was a porcupine a few feet away.
I cooperated with the hiking club by taking a load of hikers up to the head of the South Kaibab Trail. Jerry Bortle was eager to go with me and I was glad to have someone along with his experience in rough hiking. The trip was over the same ground I had covered two weeks ago, but this time I would photograph the points of interest, and I also hoped to get down through the Coconino with my long rope by the Prusik knot method.
As usual, I was careful not to speed on the bad road. In fact I almost never shifted into high gear. This time I parked three and a half miles west of the gate and we reached the rim quite near the natural bridge. We looked at it and I took a picture and then we proceeded down the route in the notch to the southwest. The bridge definitely looks more impressive from below. Jerry waited for me on the ridge directly under Jicarilla Point while I went down to the petroglyphs. To get down, you have to stay just west of the ridge because there is a vertical droop to the bottom of the notch, but it's easy in the ravine. The petroglyphs are just across the saddle and to the west. Three shots got about all the good designs.
I was able to follow the deer and sheep trail more efficiently this time. We started away from Jicarilla at 11:10 a.m. and got to the ravine below Mescalero at 1:00 p.m. We had eaten our lunches precisely where I did on the other trip, about one-fourth of the way over.
Jerry wasn't much interested in trying any Prusiking, so he went up the Kaibab cliff to see whether he could find a way to the rim. He didn't think much of the walking along the deer trail, and he thought he could find an easier way to the car. I thought he would soon strike an impossible place and I asked him not to go on anything that he couldn't descend, but I told him that if he did get stranded on a ledge to shout for help and I would see what I could do about it.
When I got down to the top of the Coconino, the way down the middle of the ravine looked bad from above, and as the talus seemed to reach up quite a bit higher at the base of the perpendicular cliff a bit to the north, I hitched my rope around a live pinyon tree and started down. There was quite a bit of difficulty in getting the Prusik slings over the edge of the rock. On the return, I avoided this trouble by getting my feet out of the slings and pulling myself over the edge. The process worked all right although it was slow. The process was slow for me, but in less than a half hour I was down 40 feet to a ledge. After stepping out of the slings, I went down another 12 feet with a few toe holds gripping the half-inch rope for support. It was easy to go on down through the Coconino on the talus and a bit of bedrock. There were unmistakable signs that deer and bighorn sheep use this route. On the way back, I tried going up the broken ledges near the middle. If I had been willing to take a bit of a chance, I believe I could have gone up here without a rope. There were some narrow, outward sloping ledges that weren't very comfortable, but I believe that Clement and Tadje could have done it. (Allyn did it.)
In the meantime, although I shouted to Jerry that the way ahead of him was clearly impossible, he went ahead to see it at close range. He found the going quite difficult, but he kept going up until he finished climbing clear to the rim using a chimney climb. This agrees so precisely with the story of Clement and Tadje that I feel we can conclude that this is the place. They found water in the canyon below and were able to get up the Redwall without too much difficulty. They went up a crack at the very top for the most difficult climbing of the day. Furthermore, they took the stock back to the boat down the Boucher Trail in preference to the South Bass Trail, which would indicate that the boat was not farther downstream than Agate at the most.
When Jerry suggested that we go out his route with the rope to pull up the packs, I had qualms about the safety of the method. I might go back by myself and study that route, but I thought we had taken enough chances for one day. Jerry reported that he had been on a worse rock climb than that at two places above Supai, but I would rather not be responsible for a student on this route a bit west of Mescalero Point. However, I thought it odd that Clubb and Wing had decided that there was no feasible route to get off the rim to climb Diana Temple. This place is certainly near enough to be an obvious approach for expert rock climbers.
On the return, I was able to follow the bighorn trail back to Jicarilla Point more continuously than before, and instead of taking an hour and 50 minutes, it took us only an hour and 25. It was odd that Jerry felt that we were in greater danger of hurting ourselves on the loose rocks of the trail than he had been when he was inching up the cliff on narrow ledges and chimney climbing. On the return, I detoured directly under the natural bridge to get what I hope will be an impressive shot of the sky through the hole. We came out to the road about 10 minutes walk east of the car but still made it in two and a half hours from below Mescalero Point.
Marshall Scholing had told me about visiting Crystal Forest Cave. He had told me that you follow a trail at the base of the Redwall for about a half mile north of the trail coming off the west side of the neck to Horseshoe Mesa, and then you climb up a simple scramble to the caves. Pete Huntoon wanted to locate all the caves in this area, and I figured that after we had located the lower caves that would be new for me, I would leave him and a caving companion to study the big cave just below the rim of the mesa while I took the other two guests off the east side of the mesa and up the climb to the west side of the saddle connecting Sinking Ship to the rim.
To begin the day, I figured that we would all go down the bed of Cottonwood through the Redwall where Allyn Cureton had come up by himself. I remembered that he had needed a tree trunk to help him up a step of over six feet, but I figured that we would be able to go down everything fairly well, especially since Pete brought along his climbing rope. Almost at once in the Redwall we ran into a chock block. We used the rope to go to the east side of this block. I figured that this must have been the place where Allyn used the pole, and we gaily pulled the rope down after us. Then we thought about the method of going up if we ever would want to. Jim McCann, the other caver, almost showed us that he could climb to the west side of the chockblock, and Pete did enough on the broken rocks of the west wall to assure us that a route went up there. Only a short distance to the north, we saw a possible cave to the east and found that the climb to it might be possible but it would have involved some risk. George Miller went to the top of the talus opposite and came to the conclusion that there was small likelihood of it being 50 or 60 feet. Pete soon found a possible descent over to the east, but at least the first four or five feet at the top were very uncomfortable. I called off the attempt to go down the rest of the Redwall. When we retraced our steps, we climbed out by the west wall about 20 yards below the chockblock. Jim McCann and Gary Taylor seemed to feel rather insecure at one stage here and Jim asked Pete for a belay before they came up.
Scrambling back to the trail was rather time consuming and Jim showed that his overweight was going to be a drawback to our progress. He slowed us down again as we were going along the slope below the Redwall north of the trail off Horseshoe Mesa. The main trail seems to go along the bottom of the Redwall here and I didn't discover until later that we missed the trace of a trail leading to the caves. We went around the first bulge in the wall and noticed a couple holes above the first cliff to our right. It looked improbable that we could reach them, and Marshall had said that the cave mouth was invisible from the trail below, so I considered this to be not far enough. I had a mental picture of a talus in a fairly narrow ravine, and nothing seemed to match this. We went at least three times as far as those first holes, and I finally concluded that we must have gone too far. A ravine ahead seemed to offer some interesting climbing so I went up it while the party rested below. I could see some chockblocks in the narrow upper part of this ravine, but when I got to them, it was not too hard to get by with good holds and no loose rock. I went up on the mesa far enough to determine the position of this route, about 200 yards south of the dip in the prong of the horseshoe. I knew that the main cave was south of here. When I had come down, Pete told me that Jim and he would like to give up the search for Crystal Forest Cave and go up my route to visit the big cave above. I thought I had made myself clear as to how to find it, and we parted.
As Gary, George, and I retraced our route along the base of the Redwall, we went up the talus at two or three spots so as not to miss the caves. From a south facing projection, all of us saw the mouth of a possible cave in the bay that turned out to be the one we had suspected and given up in the first place. When we got to the entrance, we found that there was a good trail along the ledge to the two cave entrances we had seen from below. We spent about 15 minutes in Crystal Forest Cave without exhausting its possibilities and only a few minutes in the next one which is apparently interesting only to pack rats, to judge from the prevalence of droppings. However, someone built a wooden door to this cave like the others at Crystal Forest and White Cave above, and the 1904 sign was still tacked to the door saying that this area had been withdrawn from development by private interests.
It was already rather beyond a normal lunch time, but we were short of water and I wanted to get the boys to a good supply before we stopped. They balked at the thought of dropping clear down to the spring in Cottonwood, and I had suggested that the spring below the Redwall east of the mesa neck would be on our way. However, by the time we got up to the mine buildings on the neck, we could see that they were in no shape to attempt the entire route I had set for myself. I went down the Redwall to the spring and brought them a gallon of water which was supposed to last for the rest of the trip out. Pete had agreed to bring water for himself and a friend, and I was to furnish the water for Gary and George. However, Pete brought only one quart, and both Pete and Jim used water from my gallon on the way down until they parted from us. By the time I had come back with the full canteen, Pete and Jim had joined Gary and George. Pete had failed to find White Cave, which was just as well, because it was now 2:45 p.m. I took Pete back on a 45 minute detour just to show him where White Cave is while the others started up to the rim. Pete and I overtook Jim near the start of the steep switchbacks near the top of the Supai. Jim was in bad shape. He and Pete had shared one can of beans for their lunch, and Jim had thrown up. The other boys had my pack up ahead, and all the food I was carrying was one individual portion of raisins, which I gave to Jim. There was still some water in the quart canteen which Pete had refilled from my gallon, and we gave this to Jim.
I went on ahead and overtook the other two rather near the top. George and I reached the car about 5:00 p.m. and I got a refill there to take back to Pete and Jim. Pete was walking out ahead of Jim and he had not thought to relieve Jim of the climbing hardware and piton hammer. After Jim had eaten some bread and quite a few pieces of taffy and had all the water he could use, he recovered some strength and we were all in the car by 6:00 p.m.
The moral of this mismanagement is that just because a boy talks about a lot of trail accomplishments, Thunder river, etc., I shouldn't assume that he knows how much water and food to carry. Jim had supposedly had plenty of hiking experience in the Chiracahua Mountains in Southeastern Arizona, but I could guess right away that he would have trouble on the Grand Canyon Trails.
We did learn a little from this day's work -- how difficult the Redwall is at the head of Cottonwood Canyon, where the lower caves are located, and a possibly new route up the Redwall to the top of Horseshoe Mesa.
After two previous trips below Mescalero Point from Jicarilla, I figured we were ready to go down below the Redwall into Slate Canyon and back in one day. Jerry Bortle had shown that one could climb up and down the Kaibab Limestone and I had seen deer and bighorn tracks leading to a break in the Coconino. I decided that with ropes, these two hard places could be negotiated with plenty of safety. I was glad that Allyn Cureton had agreed to come since he had a long nylon rope, and also because we know each other's ideas about hiking.
This time we parked the car 1.9 miles west of the drift fence gate (pole 355), and steering by the sun, went almost at right angles with the road. Our hunch in direction finding was unbeatable, for we came to the rim less than 50 yards from the top of Bortle's Cairn route down the Kaibab. I don't blame Clubb and Wing for overlooking this place. You have to get down below the top 30 feet or so before you can even inspect the rest of the way, a vertical fall everywhere except here. The place you go down looks different from the other places, but you still wouldn't bet a nickel that it would be possible all the way. After you've climbed down the second rim from the top through a notch, you are on a slope back in a small bay that supports some vegetation including a well placed pinyon tree. (I should point out that this bay is several hundred yards west of Mescalero Point and is just east of an angle in the rim where the rim takes a turn to the south.) Jerry insisted that we go around the angle to the west and then climb down over about the worst place I could imagine a person going who cared for his life. I declined and was willing to hurry over to Jicarilla Point and come back below, but Allyn pointed out that we could rappel down from the pinyon without taking Jerry's risky route. Actually, there was no reason to follow Jerry anyway. The way down directly below the pine was better anyway. There is an angle here with the limestone broken into a lot of very small steps. The uncomfortable part is that there are no good finger grips, but a person with rubber soled shoes should be able to go down and up. The rappel was easy with most of the weight being carried by one's toes almost everywhere. It gets quite steep just above a lower ledge, but here there is a crack a little more than a foot wide so that chimney climbing is easy. About 12 feet above the talus below, there is a vertical drop, but one can go over to the east and climb down a detour. All of this climbing would call for the greatest care and plenty of nerve,but it could be done by men coming up without a rope. Jerry had used the harder way when he did it. We left the rope in place and came up hand over hand with our feet in the minute steps. I had a hard time up the 12 foot vertical near the bottom. In getting over the upper edge, I had to tie loops in the rope for steps.
On the slope below this steepest part, I found old bones too big to be from deer. They looked like horse or cow bones.
We were able to go down and to the east to get below one definite drop. This was easy when you wait for the best place.The next drop required more searching. Evidently, Jerry had either not found a good place before, or he had forgotten what he had done. He and Allyn tried going down a place that both of them finally gave up on. They came farther east to where I had found a break that required some agility but was quite safe. There seemed to be a deer or bighorn trail at the foot of the steep, long descent, but I lost it down here. It would be an amazing sight to find a bighorn coming up or down this break in the Kaibab.
We fastened my long Manila rope to a juniper tree a little to the north of the bottom of the ravine through the top of the Coconino. We used the rope for a grip and walked backwards down the steps of the Coconino. Coming up and down here without a rope would be difficult and dangerous, but all three of us agreed that it would be quite possible. The going became quite simple through the upper part of the Supai, but when we had reached the lower Supai, we saw about three quite persistent cliffs. We passed the first bad spot in the bed of the ravine in two different ways. Allyn jumped down several feet after I had fastened a rope to a small redbud tree and saw that we could get back up that way. Jerry also came down using the rope for a slightly long step. When we went around to the south where we saw we could go on down, we discovered that we had missed the easy way, a broken slope that the deer use. A bit lower, we came to more of a problem. Two sandstone cliffs continued as far as we could see them. I elected to go around on the ledge to the south. We ate our lunches on a point before we could see any good way to go down.
A bit after 1:00 p.m., when we had finished eating, Jerry decided against trying to go lower as he thought he would have a harder time on the climb out than Allyn or I. He volunteered to pick up the rope I had left tied to the redbud tree. Just as he was climbing over the edge of the rock, holding to the rope, the little tree came out and he was dropped six feet. Fortunately, he landed on his feet in a balanced position, or he might have fallen 30 more feet. Allyn and I didn't know about this until we joined him at the car, but we did notice the tree lying on the lower ledge.
Allyn and I decided to go farther to the southwest and try to find a way down to the Redwall. A perfectly easy route was just around the corner in the next ravine. At the bottom of the Supai, on our return, we noticed two overlapping mescal pits. The old time Indians got around. There were no cairns anywhere in this region, so the prospectors may not have been here. When we reached the edge of the Redwall gorge, we first went to the north side of the tributary we had been descending, and from there we could see both entrances to the cave we had explored last winter, right across from where we stood. We could also pick out the break in the Redwall where we had almost finished climbing last December. It would be quite a detour to go around the head of the set of canyons from the east side to the west, but even though we saw that we would probably run over our allotted time, we decided it was too interesting to miss.
On our way around, only a couple hundred yards south of the descent, we found a small cave beneath the top layers of Redwall. The mouth was low and it had retained a lot of warmth, but we thought we had it about explored after going back about 50 feet. The descent is on the west side of a promontory which separates the main (south) arm from the arm coming down from the notch north of Jicarilla Point. I remembered just where it should be and went right to it while Allyn went out on the point for a look. The way down the Redwall was neat, although quite steep with perfect holds. After only about 30 feet of this, we reached the broken ramp which both of us had come up to check a possible cave last winter. I feel sure that this must have been the route followed by Clement and Tadje, but I'm still amazed that they were smart enough or lucky enough to head for the only possible break in the Coconino after they got above the Redwall. I think they probably climbed up a short distance on the west side of the bowl in this amphitheater and from there they saw the possibility of going out near Diana. (I found out that it is also possible to climb out towards Jicarilla Point.)
Our return was uneventful. We were at the top of the Coconino by 3:45 p.m. and on the rim by 5:07 p.m. I determined what I thought was the best direction in relation to the setting sun, but whenever Allyn got ahead, he shifted us to the east. Before long we were getting our direction only from a bright part of the sky in the south, and it was a relief to find the road before it got totally dark. We had the foresight, due to the suggestion of both Jerry and Allyn, to look for numbers on the telephone poles, and we came to the road 13 poles east of the car, much to Allyn's surprise. Jerry had made the same mistake as Allyn, and he reached the road 28 poles east of the car.
With two fixed ropes, one near the top and the other in the Coconino, about 120 and 75 feet long, respectively, this route is both safe and most interesting. On the return, I had to tie loops in the rope for steps up the first ten feet of the steep part of the Kaibab, but Jerry and Allyn were strong enough to pull themselves over this edge. I want to go down here again with more time.
The attraction of this project for me, in addition to fine views of Havasu, Mooney, and Beaver Falls from the Redwall rim; was that it would be closing the next to the last link in a project I have been working on for quite a few years -- going from the northeast boundary of Grand Canyon National Park to the southwest boundary altogether below the rims of the canyon. My other goal is a three mile stretch below Great Thumb and Tahuta Points, which would also require a two day period as long as I can't get closer than the Topocoba road.
We left the campus about 3:30 p.m. with a party of five adults from the staff and about 15 students. I stopped at Williams to see Allyn Cureton and discovered that he was just waiting to be asked to go. He assembled his gear in a little over 30 minutes and we were off, changing from the first car in the train to the last. The others were waiting for me at the turnoff from Highway 66 and invited me to lead along this road in the dark. I had the idea that a better place to sleep Friday night would be near the old warehouse before the road goes out along the side of the canyon to the exposed parking at the end. We had counted on the sleeping being rather cool and we were not disappointed. My new down bag was just about right.
In the morning, Allyn and I got off quite a bit earlier than the rest. One feature of the trail that seemed different this time was a pool of water at least a foot deep. The easiest bypass was to stop and go under a leaning rock. I noted the usual landmarks: an overhang in the Coconino where there is always shade on a hot summer day, another sheltering projection near the top of the Supai, shade under small trees where we had rested on my first trip down here in 1947, the mining machine that was abandoned, the tall rock with the telephone line support out in the middle of the canyon, and the place where the bed drops sharply and the trail goes along the left side. One wonders where Lieutenant Ives was stopped by the 40 foot drop. (He was stopped right above the valley floor.) If he was coming down this trail, he certainly used his imagination in making it sound difficult.
Allyn and I used a few extra minutes in talking to Earl Paya, an Indian named Johnny, and the resident missionary, Ardin Rourke. Johnny said he had gone across the Esplanade to the Great Thumb, but he had no knowledge of Keyhole Bridge. He said he knew about the South Bass Trail, but he knew nothing of Royal Arch. I showed him my color slides of these places in a hand viewer.
After an early lunch at the creek crossing near Havasu Falls, Allyn and I climbed up to the top of the Redwall at the break by the cemetery west of Havasu Falls. I knew about this place from a former trip, and I had refreshed my memory by reading Wampler. Incidentally, I looked at both travertine columns south of the village, and I don't relish Wampler's route to the top of the Supai along here. It looks like a technical rock climb. I asked a Supai youth about other routes out of the valley besides the Apache Trail, and he was unaware of any others on the east side.
There are so many cairns along the top of the Redwall that it's really funny. Some of them may date back to the prospectors, but I suspect that others were built by Wampler's hikers to mark picture possibilities. They are mostly before you get to the best place for a picture of Mooney Falls. We noticed something we had heard about, the window right above Mooney. There were small cairns marking the trail out to the river, but not really enough to do much good. The trail around the point and up Beaver Canyon is quite recognizable and in many places shows retaining walls. Beyond the head of the Redwall is Beaver, there was a trail now and then, but it was more like a deer trail than a horse trail. However, Jay Hunt tells me that someone by the name of Parsons, I think, got some Indians to take a pack trip out here. There were a number of places where a horse would have to be led. We noticed droppings from burros north of the junction of Beaver and Havasu, but none at the very end. Deer droppings and bighorn scat were common.
Hikers in good condition can make each of the four legs of this trip, from Havasu Falls to the junction with Beaver, from there to the head of Beaver in the Redwall, out to the junction again, and from there to a point above the river, in about one and a half hours. By the time you stop to eat and take a few pictures, you probably should allow seven hours for the trip. We were at the start of this trip along the top of the Redwall at 11:30 a.m. and we got to see the river about 6:00 p.m. with about the last ten minutes in semidarkness. We could just make out the river below, and it looked a long way down. People who rave about the view from Cape Solitude should give this trip a try. In the morning we were able to feel the significance of the terrific drop both into the river and into the narrower gorge of Havasu Creek. I believe the impression is more startling from the top than it is from the bottom. At the bottom, there's some grading back before the straight walls begin, but from the top, you first look straight down for eight or nine hundred feet. The narrowness of Beaver Canyon for its depth is still more striking. Right at its mouth, Beaver is dry, but for a good part of a mile there is quite a flow that seems to be from a spring and hence perennial, something that is not recorded on the map.
There had been a light rain over this area a few days before we were there and we found rain pockets almost every time we crossed a ravine that exposed the bedrock. There were a few cottonwoods growing a quarter of a mile up Beaver above the top of the Redwall, and Allyn checked that there is a pool in some gravel. We feel that this is a seep which could be trusted in the dry and hot months, but the trip is much better under our present conditions, weather cool and shortly after a rain.
There were some oddities of erosion on the left side of Beaver. We went right by a hole a few yards back from the rim of the Redwall that led into a widening tunnel to the bottom of the canyon. This was just below the first point of the Supai rock north of the junction of Beaver with Little Coyote Canyon. Another that we saw from the right rim but missed as we were passing is almost surely a sizable cave with the roof caved in. It's about one-third as large as Keyhole Bridge. When we returned, we noted its location for future reference. It's just a few yards to the north of the main draw coming down from the largest bay in the Supai, about two-fifths of the way from the head of the Redwall to the junction with Havasu.
Something else of interest I picked up on the return, right on the trail about halfway from Little Coyote to Havasu on the right side of the canyon, was a fossil of a trilobites in a piece of the Redwall. The geologists here call it a rather uncommon find.
We went from the river to the car in almost exactly the same total time that it took on the way down, 11 hours.
Allyn's sharp eyes caught two other things of interest. Not far from the turn into Beaver on the way out, he saw a heavy walking stick free of bark with the name Ralph Paya, 1952, carved in it. On the leg between the mouth of Beaver and the rim above the Colorado, was the name Edward H--, the last name being hard to make out. From the flourishes in writing the name Edward with the corner of a soft stone on a block of Supai, we figured that it was an Indian name.
Years ago Art Lange had told me that one could go down the ravine west from the saddle of Sinking Ship and get below the Redwall, but that he and Ray DeSaussure had not actually done it. I had looked this route over from a distance and I agreed with them, but I had not seen the Redwall clearly. From an aerial view, it seemed that there is a promontory somewhat north of this area where one could go up or down. I had intended to combine going up to the rim by this route with my trip to find Crystal Forest Cave on the west side of Horseshoe Mesa, but it was impossible that day for lack of time. This time C. R. Wylie, chairman of the mathematics department at the University of Utah, had agreed to take a hike with me, and I was glad to have the companionship of such an experienced climber on this bit of exploring. Jerry Bortle asked me whether I would take him saying that if his recent bout with the flu slowed him down, he would start back to the car rather than ask us to wait for him. With this understanding, I agreed that he could go along.
I spent a little time visiting headquarters and picking up my collection of logs of former trips. Bud Estey was there and we chatted about a few places, so we didn't reach the paved parking area for the picnic grounds near the Sinking Ship until 10:00 a.m. There was more snow in the shady northern slopes than there had been around Flagstaff, and we were rather surprised to find foot prints preceding us out toward the Sinking Ship.They were on an old trail that I hadn't remembered distinctly from my other trips out there. I thought this trail looked a bit too clear and well designed to be only a deer trail, and on the way back I found the proof, and old log chopped in two. The cut was so weathered, I thought it could have dated back to the days of John Hance around the turn of the century. I could easily imagine the guests at his nearby ranch strolling out to the base of Sinking Ship, or the Three Castles as it was then called, to watch the sunset. The footprints we saw were fresh enough to have been made just the day before. They were made by a large man and a small child.
At the lowest point of the saddle we found it quite simple to go down and to the south into the ravine.There were no climbing problems other than the ever present need to watch one's footing on the loose slabs of Coconino Sandstone. Near the bottom of this formation, Jerry announced a prediction that there was going to be a bad drop. When we came to it, however, it required almost no study. The way down was obvious. About the same thing occurred near the top of the Supai. Detours around thickets of brush were much more common than detours around small difficulties in the walking and climbing.
When we reached the top of the Redwall, we found no trouble in going down the first 60 feet but then we came to a place over to the left where it would be possible, with due care, to descend to the next level in the streambed. However, there appeared to be a strong possibility that around the bend ahead we would encounter a sudden impossible drop-off. We probably should have proceeded to get a clear view of this obstacle, but I thought that it would be more certain and efficient if we would go back up out of the ravine and go to the right or north. We spent some time going far enough to get a view to the next promontory to the north, but the best way down seemed to be clear around to the south. We ate our lunches here while we thought over the next course of action. Time was passing, and in order not to make any more false moves, I voted for the break in the cliff south of the ravine we had descended. Dr. Wylie picked out a good landmark above the place we had in mind, a block of Supai Sandstone with two white streaks in it. As we were starting the traverse back around to this place, Jerry decided that he had enough and started back. In due course, Ray and I made it around to the break with the talus leading up to the top 50 feet of the Redwall. While I was hesitating at a place where the foot and handholds seemed a bit far apart, Ray went on down and showed me how to do it. From here it was an easy scramble to the bottom of the wash. Most talus slopes in the Grand Canyon are impressive examples of Grand Canyon amphitheaters. The walls come down with few interruptions almost 3000 feet from the rim to the bottom of the Redwall. The effect is better when one is almost to the bottom, and if there were a running stream through here, I would match this spot against any in the entire park or just about any other beauty spot I can think of.
Ray was quite interested in the burro signs we found below the Redwall. Some of the manure was quite fresh, but we didn't see the animals nor hear them. We started back for the rim at 1:30 p.m. and reached the car in an even five hours. As we were approaching the climb at the top of the Redwall, I studied the drop in the bed shelf on the north side which would lead to a bypass. This possibility is worth a future investigation. If it would go, it would save several minutes of scrambling over small ridges along the top of the Redwall. I probably should have tried this route in the first place. However, the way we did get down was interesting and we all agreed we had a good workout.
Getting over the route to Indian Gardens, then west along the Tonto Trail beyond Dana Butte, and along the base of the Tapeats on the right until I was facing the river, and then to the bottom of Epsom would be a long single-day trip. In order to save time, I trotted most of the way to Indian Gardens and covered this lap in an even hour. Three years ago I was in good enough condition to do this clear to the river, but after 40 days of inactivity, it was a mistake. By 12:30 p.m. my knees were giving me fits.
Turkey tracks in the muddy trail just beyond Indian Gardens reminded me that I have seen turkeys there before. I don't know of any other place below the south rim where they are to be found. I wonder if this is because they find scraps left by the litter bugs? Of course I have seen plenty up on both rims. Possibly they come lower for the winter.
Again I was impressed by the telephone wire along the Tonto between Indian Gardens and Hermit Camp. Much of it is still in place, but most of it is down. There is even a good sized coil lying on the ground as if someone were getting ready to salvage it. This is surely the cable that mystified Coffin at Monument Creek.
This has been a wet winter, and the spring shown on the map in the east arm of Horn is now running. One would have to dig a hole in the gravel to make a pool deep enough to fill a canteen, but there were a couple pools in the bedrock in the branch that joins this east arm right where the Tonto crosses it. I filled my canteen here on the return.
Just before I reached the angle where the trail turns south beyond Dana, I noticed what might have been a couple rock markers right near the rim. After investigating, I concluded that these were pure coincidences, rocks fallen and balanced on other bigger ones. There was no way through the Tapeats unless one were prepared to wedge arms and legs into a long crack farther east. A good climber could come down here and be quite close to the descent into Epsom, but I decided to go on around and go down the rock slide where I had been before. The timing of the trip in was easy to remember: one hour to Indian Gardens, 50 minutes to the crossing on Horn, 70 minutes to the descent into Epsom, one hour along the base of the Tapeats, 30 minutes to go down to the bottom of the creekbed, and five more to go out to the river.
There were plenty of fresh bighorn signs along here and good hoof prints on the sand at the mouth of Epsom. The beach was interesting, about 200 yards long mostly upstream from the mouth. I couldn't get down or up beyond this beach, and there was no sign of any cache that I could see although parts of the talus were clearly above high water.
On the return I yielded to the impulse to see whether there was a safe way to climb up below the fall that had stopped me on my first trip here. After a couple false starts right below the fall, I backed up 20 yards and climbed on the south side. It was about as difficult as going up from the mouth of Horn, but by climbing above the level of the fall and then coming down where I had been before, I made it. I figure one could save 20 or 30 minutes by using this method in the future.
The ticks were quite plentiful again, and I removed seven or eight before they had time to dig in. Epsom was flowing more of a stream than I had seen before, but it was still too strong and bitter to drink. I found my old campsite near the top of the Tapeats on my way out. My left knee was giving me so much trouble that it took 140 minutes along the Tonto Trail to get to Indian Gardens. Doing the rock climb to the top of the fall was slow this first time and I took 50 minutes just to come from the river to the top of the fall. The rest of the trip to the Tonto Trail required 45 minutes. I ate and rested for 20 minutes at Indian Gardens, and I was in such bad shape that going from Indian Gardens to the rim after dark in mud, snow, and ice took me three hours.
I brought home a sample of the red rock where Epsom makes its last bend before reaching the river. Incidentally, the descent here is not as tricky as I thought on the other occasion. There are three ways to get down the small drop here. The two geologists on our college staff were as interested in the anomalous rock, soft, deep red, with cracks filled with calcite, as I was.
When I reported to Phil Iverson that I had finally come out at 9:20 p.m., we talked a little mentioning bighorn sheep among other things. He said that one of the rangers had seen one down in the Hermit area, so apparently they are making a comeback over quite an area.
Milton Wetherill once told me that Art Lange and Ray DeSaussure had taken him down into Grapevine Canyon from Grandview Point. At the time I had thought that he must mean Cottonwood, but last October I was down the Grandview Trail and I noticed that it would be easy to get into the upper end of Grapevine from the trail. Furthermore, the Coconino seemed quite possible and the Redwall looked even easier from that distance.
I had told Jerry Bortle that I was going and he asked me to take him. We had to contend with snow more than knee deep near the top of the trail. Sometimes we could see no difference between the trail and the natural slope, but we managed to keep to the trail by noting the switchbacks and where the lane through the trees led. Some of the trail has fallen away just since last fall. There is one place where a log still marks the edge of the trail, but a hole has opened up that might be dangerous at night. Only about a foot of bedrock gives a good step on the inner side.
We left the trail at the divide between Grapevine and Cottonwood Canyons, not at the head of Grapevine. We had crusted snow part of the time and soft snow covering the slabs of sandstone the rest of the time. All in all, it was definitely more difficult than it would have been in the summer or fall. There were a few places where we had to scout out the best way past obstacles, but there wasn't any real difficulty here. One had the feeling all along that if one route proved difficult, he could find an easier one. Brush was more of an obstacle than the gradient. We even went down through a third of the Redwall on a gentle slope through the trees. Just as we were thinking that there would be nothing to it, we came to a fall of more than 100 feet. There was rather clearly no good way right down the face, but it looked barely possible to work from the lip of the fall down and to the east. Jerry looked this over and rejected it. I went up a broken slope to the west hoping that there was a way down around the corner on that side, but we saw that this was out of the realm of possibility too. However, from here it looked just possible to go up the slope to the east of the fall and descend on that side.
Jerry climbed up here just a few yards back from the lip while I retreated abut 50 yards before going up. To get over to where he was, I had to side step along a ledge that was as chancy as anything on the climb. I made a false move that he had already rejected, trying to get around the corner at the highest ledge below the straight cliff. Around the corner there was a sheer drop. He had already gone past the angle at a lower level and he left his pack to come back and guide me. The exposure here was something not to think about, but I have often taken just as difficult a climb. After a short walk on talus, we came to the most awkward part of the whole climb.We could go down five feet to a small platform with our packs on our backs, but next came a short chimney that was too narrow for the packs. We had to pass the packs down here by hand. f one were by himself, he could let the pack down on a 20 foot rope into a juniper growing at the bottom. There were two or three other places below that required a bit of looking. I was leading once when the ledge I wanted to follow had no handholds at the right height. I solved this difficulty by stopping across at a level a couple of feet lower while holding to projections at the level of my former footing. Several of these difficult spots seemed to have the distinction of being the only route through. At the bottom it appeared that we might still be stopped, and we would have been if it hadn't been possible to walk across below the waterfall to the other side where a simple talus let us go down. We found burro manure here so we knew there were no more obstacles below. A fine rain pool in the limestone just below the fall had six inches of water in it covered by a half inch of ice. There was one more difficulty caused by a house-sized block in the bed. I chose the right side around it which was wrong. I got down by care, but on the west Jerry was able to walk down.
About 15 minutes below the fall we found the reason for the name of the canyon, a large tangle of grapevines marking the location of a spring. More water was added to the first for the next quarter of a mile and we were forced up on the talus to get by at all. There is a good stream at this time of year, but lower it goes under the gravel. I would count this as permanent water, but it's quite far from the Tonto Trail crossing. I noticed that the map shows perennial water for almost a mile along here and also in the narrow canyon farther down but still above the Tonto Trail crossing. The spring shown on the map east of Lyell Butte was also flowing, but the pools are a bit shallow for filling a canteen. Another drawback was the prevalence of burro manure. I preferred to dose the water with Halazone after dipping here.
The trail here is near the rim of the Tapeats above Grapevine which is already quite deep in the granite. Around the bend southwest of this spring, I noticed a detached castle of sandstone and from a distance it seemed possible but improbable that one could reach the ravine which led down to the bottom of the bed. I checked on this and found that there was a good way down to the saddle and from there to the bottom there was no question. It involved a vertical scramble up a crack for about six feet. I doubt whether burros can do this. I would like to go back with more time and explore the bottom of Grapevine to the river or possibly follow the base of the Tapeats around to the east and go down some ravine to the river.
One of the pleasant contrasts between this section of the canyon and that from Horn Creek west is that there seems to be no ticks. There are plenty of burros still, but perhaps the bighorn sheep are missing. They may serve as the host for the propagation of ticks. I saw no bighorn signs in this area in spite of my sighting in Red Canyon in 1954.
On a second trip, we could do the rock climb more quickly, but it took from about 9:15 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. to get from Grandview point down below the Redwall and until 3:15 p.m. to reach the spring. I needed about an hour and 35 minutes to go from the spring around to where the Tonto Trail crosses the main arm of Cottonwood. We spent the night here and walked out on the trail to Grandview Point in about four hours. Thus, it seemed just about as quick to use the trail to reach the descent into lower Grapevine Canyon as it is to come directly down the long arm the way we did.
Something that I must have passed numerous times but hadn't noticed until now were the mescal pits on the west side of Cottonwood Creek about halfway from the main spring to the drop down the Tapeats cliff. We also noticed a couple of mine shafts on the west side of the neck leading to the mesa which I had overlooked before.
I couldn't get away before noon because I had to give a mathematical talk at the high school, and Allyn Cureton also had to work through the forenoon. We didn't get away from the rim at Grandview Point until about 3:50 p.m. We spent a little time talking to a man named Ball who was seeing the country in spite of a cast on his leg that forced him to walk on a projecting metal strip with his toes bare. He had been in a party of amateur rafters from Denver who went through the Grand Canyon in 1957. The water was high and it took them nine days.
All the deep snow had melted during the previous three weeks and we could see what poor shape the Grandview Trail was in. Besides the hole behind the log, there's a place where the trail has been washed out by a stream with a narrow notch missing. However, it will be a long time yet before it's as hard to follow as the Hance Trail. This time we left the trail right at the ravine at the head of Grapevine Canyon. The going was easy until we were near the bottom of the Coconino on the left. There is an obvious fault here with the west side probably 80 feet higher than the east. We could have backed up some distance until we could work our way around to the east where Jerry and I had gone down the first time, but rather than climb back that far, we crossed on some fairly difficult ledges and went to the bottom in much the same way as before. I noticed this time that to get through the sandstone you have to go back towards the center of the ravine right near the Coconino-Hermit contact on the west. At quite a few places in the Supai, we found the going better to one side or the other. Near the top, we were generally to the west of the wash, and judging by the difficulty of our return on the other side, this was better.
This time at the drop in the Redwall, I noticed a pile of rocks at the bottom of the first high step up from the wash. I'll have to ask Milton whether he and the cave boys put them there or whether they are prehistoric. The descent still seemed pretty impressive to me. We essentially repeated the route Jerry had found, and Allyn went down the place Jerry and I had removed our packs without taking his off. I tried letting mine down by a rope and got it stuck so that Allyn had to climb part way up to take it down for me. On the return both of us kept our packs on while going up this crack. When I was down, I remarked that I didn't think well of this sort of climbing and that I would prefer to go around by the trail. It was too bad I didn't keep to this resolution because on the way up I swung my right leg over into a cactus. Apparently no stickers were left in the skin (it was not a prickly pear), but the ankle and lower leg have been lame these last three days and have forced me to give up the idea of taking a super hike during the vacation.
Right below the Redwall, the redbud trees begin. There must be more of then than cottonwoods, and they were all in profuse bloom. Out on the Tonto Plateau, there were also many Mariposa tulips blooming along with a few less conspicuous flowers. Cactus were blooming down in the inner gorge, and it was a good time of year to be there. Our bags were uncomfortably warm when we slept beside the water about a 15 minute walk from the base of the Redwall. There were very few mosquitoes also.
In the morning, it took us about an hour to carry the packs to the break in the rim of the Tapeats just southwest of the spring shown on the map. We saw some signs that burros can go down this break and many signs that they go along the bottom of the creek below. However, there seems to be ways to get down into the bed from the west also, so that one could cross Grapevine much as one can cross Hance without following the Tonto all the way around. I don't think the saving in time would be as great in Grapevine as it is in Hance and besides, I haven't actually made sure that one can go up the west side of Grapevine.
Walking along the bottom of Grapevine Canyon is easy although there are impressive narrows in the Granite that remind me of Clear Creek. Following the base of the Tapeats along here seems pretty useless and difficult. There is one unusually straight stretch that seems to be governed by the fault that guides the entire lower part of Grapevine Canyon and goes across into Vishnu Canyon. We could look down this corridor and pick out the talus where the fault went on as the creek bent to the west. I decided to try to reach the beach at Mile 80.1 by means of this slope. A little farther down the creek, about half a mile from the river measured along the winding bed, we came to the first real fall. It was a difficult climb to the west to get around it. Unlike the procedure in Hance and Cottonwood Canyons, we started the bypass right at the brink. We had to ascend quite a few feet above the bed to find a break in the smooth slabs, but coming down was easier. There was one more small fall at a chockblock which we could bypass without trouble by going to the right. When we reached the place where we could look through a narrow gate at the river, we were still 15 feet above the mud bar separating the clear lagoon from the muddy torrent. The rock was smooth and straight down. When we returned, I tried to find a safer way to bypass the upper fall by going still higher and looking down the other side of the spur ridge. What I saw was not encouraging and we used the former route. This place is so risky that I was glad Allyn stood by to tell me where the best toeholds were.
We ate an early lunch in the shade near where the fault goes over toward the mouth of Vishnu Creek. This didn't seem to be the place I had picked out on the way down, but when we went on around the next bend, we saw that it was the best route over to the river. It took 20 minutes to get to the top of this ridge and then we went along the crest to the highest point of the promontory toward the northwest. We were disappointed in the hope of seeing Grapevine Rapids because the cliffs below cut off the view. It was an easy scramble down the ravine to the beach. We could have gone quite a distance upstream, but we had only a limited amount of time to spend here and we elected to go down in the hope of getting some pictures of the rapids. To get around the first point, we had to walk in some sand only a couple of feet wide. If the water had been a foot deeper, I doubt whether we could have done this. Before we got to the close viewpoint above the rapid, there was one place that required using our hands. While I was working with my camera, Allyn went ahead and got right above the lagoon at the mouth of Grapevine, but again there was no way down to the water.
At the top of the ridge above this beach, we found newspapers anchored by rocks shaped into the letters NO. Near there, under an overhanging rock, a cardboard box was cached containing extra clothing, mostly shorts and shirts. There was also a couple of pop bottles nearby with the lettering, Property of Kist Bottling Company, Holbrook, Arizona. We conjectured that someone was giving up further travel on the river here and was trying to tell a searching plane that no help was needed. The newspaper was dated May 26, 1961.
We left the river about 1:25 p.m. and reached the spring in upper Grapevine about 4:30 p.m. I elected to rest here and finish all my food. It took almost an hour to go to the base of the cliff and 25 minutes to do the climb up the cliff. It got dark while we were in the middle of the Supai, and I had a rough time in the Coconino by moonlight. We must have missed the best way out because it was 8:30 p.m. when we reached the trail and after nine when we got to the car. I must have been weakened by lack of food.
I tried again to meet Bob Vaughn at Cliff Dweller's but he was up on the platform with his cattle.
Randy Morgenson and I turned off the main Buffalo Ranch Road at the right place, just south of Kane Ranch. When we came to a gate through a fence, I made the same wrong choice that I made last year, the road along the south of the fence going east instead of the road to the south or a bit west of south. Last year when I had come back along the road from the rim with Allyn, I hadn't realized that we had passed a tank different from the one where we had slept. This time I got everything straight even though it took a lot of driving across country to do it.
When we had passed the wrong buffalo tank, we headed southeast until we came to a road. My first project was to inspect the rim at the cove opposite Tiger Wash where Pat had suggested a good climber might get down through the Kaibab, Toroweap, and Coconino Formations. However, we went clear past and parked on a rise that looks down on the stock tank shown on the quad map out toward North Canyon Point. We walked southeast to the rim and looked down on Stanton's Marble Pier, upstream a mile from Cave Springs. We returned to the car and this time we drove the cars close to the rim after getting south of the fence. After one or two more approaches, I was reasonably sure we had found the right cove. There were some promising looking cracks in the Kaibab wall, but we couldn't get down the one place we really looked at. The Coconino didn't look a bit good. It seemed that one could get down the Toroweap, but our best observation made us think that there was at least 50 feet of straight Coconino wall below. After some more cross country touring in low gear, we reached the road that parallels the rim of Bedrock Canyon and camped beside the car on the road. It was cold enough for my down bag to feel good. A little shower woke Randy in the morning.
Again we came out on the rim too far northeast and had to back away from the rim to get the car into position for a descent at the fault leading down to the river at Mile 30.4 where Allyn and I found a way to the top of the Supai last year. We did this without a hitch except that the way I went through the bottom of the Toroweap seemed harder than it had before. It was in an angle where perhaps last year we went down at the end of a projection. The walk around to the west at the top of the Supai was slow and precarious with a lot of loose stuff and many small ravines to get past. My choice for a route was mostly near the very bottom of the Hermit Shale. When we had rounded the corner and were leaving the river, we could see that the Coconino and Toroweap were well covered by talus a little to the east of the point that projects above the junction of Bedrock with South (Paradise) Canyon. It didn't seem impossible to get through the Kaibab also, a little farther to the east. When we were passing it, I resolved to try this shortcut on the way out, but when we were actually returning, I reversed myself because I thought an extra hour with certainty was better than the gamble. After we were out, I went over and inspected the descent. I'm sure that it is all right and in fact it may be easier than the one we have been using. It would shorten the trip to the mouth of South by an hour and a half.
My observation of the way down to the bed of Bedrock last year was not absolutely sure as part of the way was obscured by a projection, but I was gratified to learn that it is merely a good scramble with no handholds needed. The only discomfort I experienced on this two day trip was that the soles of my feet got a little sore. Both days were unseasonably cool and at supper and after, I was wishing that I had brought my jacket. We had more than half of our gallon and a half of Flagstaff water left when we reached the river.
The main object of the trip was to learn how Stanton had left the river. We had said that they followed the top of the Redwall (Marble) around into Paradise Canyon. I was also on the watch for a 12 foot ledge of mineral deposit that he had observed between the marble and the sandstone. I didn't see this, but when we were about 300 yards back from the mouth of the canyon, I noticed sunshine coming through a sizable hole near the top of the Redwall on the south side. It was another keyhole formation, a cave that had fallen in. The pit was big enough to see from the plateau above but one would really have to be watching closely to see it from a plane. The size of the opening in the canyon wall was smaller than the one near the Shinumo Trail but larger than the one in Beaver Canyon.
Randy was getting pretty tired about the time we came out above the river, and I thought I would encourage him by telling him we would reach a campsite by the river within 45 minutes if we were lucky and one and a half hours if we weren't. I had picked a notch in the Redwall that shows on the map as the one Stanton had used. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a good break leading down to the river only about 200 yards upstream from the mouth of Paradise. At one place for about ten feet, both hands were needed but the rest was a walk down.
While Randy bathed in the river and sunned himself with my Time magazine to read, I went back to the top of the Redwall and continued upriver. I satisfied myself that there was nowhere else to go down to the water before you come to Mile 30.4, the place Allyn and I were trying to reach last year. This access to the river is a major obstacle to continue travel along the top of the Redwall, but I could see that I could go up to the base of the higher cliff and still continue. In fact, from what I have seen, one could follow the top of the Redwall indefinitely. It would be slow, about a mile an hour, but quite possible to go all the way to Cave Springs. I know I didn't have time for this so I returned for a rest with Randy. We had our suppers in a slight drizzle. We thought it would be worth the effort to spend the night in Stanton's Cave. It was ideal except that there were some mice running around and nipping at my crackers.
There are three or four Indian ruins up on the terrace about 30 feet above the river near where you come down through the break from the top of the Redwall. There was very little pottery around, and one wonders what brought people into this small area with practically no farming possibilities.
We returned to the car by retracing our route. Perhaps I should mention the drop in the bed of South Canyon just after the junction with Bedrock. You go along a ledge to the right for several hundred yards and descend where a short side canyon enters south from that side.
Jay Hunt was taking seven year old Peter Marshall back to his parents after a year in school at Flagstaff. For some time he and I had been wanting to learn about the way up from Supai village over the travertine and then up near Manakacha Point, so he invited me to go along. We left Flagstaff about 4:50 a.m. and filled the tank again at the park service station just after it opened. The road out to Topocoba Hilltop was worse than I remembered it. It required low-low gear for the pickup in quite a few places, especially near the end. On the return, the wheels often spun rocks out of the way instead of gripping on the steep grades.
We got started down the trail about 8:30 a.m. with Pete in the lead. He set us a fast pace, but occasionally Jay would give him a short ride on his shoulders, especially towards the end. He took the walk in good spirits even though his parents had taken the view that the short trail to Hualapai Hilltop was too much for him. The Supai Indians are not enthusiastic about walking. I noted one seep with water still in it, but another one right in the middle of the wash that normally kept water in some tandem bathtubs apparently was dry. So were the potholes just upstream from Rattlesnake Canyon. The wet late winter has not carried over and travel along the Esplanade would not be any more favorable than previously.
I definitely wanted to look for the pictographs just inside the mouth of the canyon below Rattlesnake. Of course this is actually the main canyon and Lee Canyon is the tributary, but from the straight course of Lee Canyon one would not think this. I had no difficulty locating them, about 100 feet in from Lee Canyon on the east wall of Havasu. There was room enough behind the trees, so they were not hidden. The most obvious ones were geometrical designs of circles split into quadrants. In charcoal on the same wall was a statement that these pictures were over 200 years old. It was signed and dated, August 15, 1900, but I didn't note the author's name.
After I had taken a couple pictures here, I was about to leave when I glanced at the wall a few feet father south. Here were the controversial ibex pictures that Hubbard of the Doheny expedition liked so well. They are certainly very interesting.
The day was cool and pleasant with the birds singing and the willows in full bloom. I'll have to ask someone what this willow is called, the one with the large purple blossoms. I kept a fairly good watch for the giant mummy or petrified Indian on the ledge, but I was unable to locate it.
Jay showed me the big triangular rock in the middle of the canyon about three miles from the springs that he likes to climb. He went up it again and I found that I could do it as easily even though my shoes didn't seem as well designed for that sort of thing.
After we had taken Pete home, we talked to the men who were taking sweat baths. They told us that the Manakacha Point route requires two ropes and that they are now so old that they should not be trusted. They told us how to find the route up the travertine. It's the one to the south as I had supposed, but you go up about where the travertine meets the wall on the northeast side of the deposit.
Our walk back up the Lee Canyon Trail was uneventful except that Hunt was successful in catching horses two different times. He fastened his shirt around their noses for a bridle and was able to get the horses to take him bareback up the trail a little faster than I could walk. He rode in all for 25 minutes.
Allyn Cureton was waiting for me when I came into the North Rim Headquarters. We had lunch at the campground and then I drove out to the parking area 1.4 miles north of the end of the road at Cape Royal. Last summer the two of us had found our way almost to the bottom of the Coconino in the ravine right next to the bridge between Cape Royal and Wotan, and I had been back later to look over the ravines that are below the parking where we are now stopped. I now think that less rope climbing would be necessary by the northern route, and also that less time would be required to get down to the place where the rope would be used. I disagreed with Clubb in the opinion that at this northern route no rope would be needed. (Clubb said that no rope is necessary at one of these places and it turns out he was correct for the southwest one.)
It was 2:15 p.m. when we first started down. I was carrying 10 pounds of rope 150 feet long and one and a half gallons of water as well as the usual sleeping bag and food for two days. Allyn had a heavier pack and five quarts of water. Right away I showed how easy it is to forget details. I couldn't remember which of the breaks between the small promontories connecting the rim with the outlying Indian ruin butte one should use. You have to go down about 150 feet to find which are dead ends. We missed twice and it was slow to get our heavy loads back up to the rim. We even went back to the car for a good drink before we set out again about 3:15 p.m. This time we were at the right place, about the closest break to the parking lot. When we came to the car wreck at the top of the Coconino, we were sure we were in the right ravine. Last year I had also checked two other ravines, one to the east and one to the west. The one to the west goes just as easily as the center one, but there are bad spots near the top of the other.
We soon came to the crack in the center of the ravine that I remembered from last year, where the packs scraped against the walls. Right near the bottom we came to some chock blocks that seemed to me to stop us. We tied the rope above this place, but when I went out to the side and looked down, I could see that the rope would not reach bottom. Allyn found that he could climb up at the east side of one of these blocks, and I found that I could too. In fact, I'm quite sure I did this last year. There was a convenient small tree below, and now the rope had 30 feet to spare. Allyn brought out his carabineers and rappel sling and we went down in style. The operation of coming down from the car to the Hermit Shale had required one and a quarter hours, not bad compared to one whole day for the Wood party in 1937. Of course they did their route finding as they went along, but we wasted 15 minutes tying the rope too high up at first.
It was now 4:30 p.m. and we had ahead of us the part of the trip that Clubb had called about the most miserable bushwhacking he had ever done. Finding the best way through the brush patches and testing footholds on shale is time consuming. One who has been over terraces like this knows that you often have to go up or down to bypass some large rocks or some especially difficult place in a ravine, but if you don't have to stop for rest and are not always trying to settle which is the easiest route (but are willing to proceed without wasting time), one can advance steadily. It took us a bit over an hour and a half to get below Angel's Window and about two hours to reach the bottom of the chute that Clubb recommends. It was nearing 7:30 p.m. when we arrived at the talus leading to the top of the Coconino on Wotan. We had to decide whether to try for the top that night or even the bench above the Coconino, or camp at the base. It was not altogether clear from below whether we would be able to find the way among the ledges and slabs of the Coconino at the top of the talus, although I was rather sure what was the best route. Just to make sure, we went past this place and checked a couple of cracks that might be talus filled ravines to the top. They were no good, but we found an excellent level sandy place below an overhang while we were doing this and decided to make our camp there. The night was too warm for my down bag and there were a few mosquitoes. The result was that I slept only a couple hours.
We got a fairly early start, a bit before six and arrived on top by 8:30 a.m. As we had thought, the Coconino gave us some problems. We left our packs at the top of the talus, or rather Allyn took his up with only some food and his camera in it. I was carrying two quarts of water with my camera in my pocket. In general the plan for getting through the Coconino is to leave the top of the talus and follow ledges left or right until a way appears where we could climb up. There are plenty of places where you want to be careful, but there are no exposures above a sheer precipice as on Shiva Temple. At one place we had to look carefully for any way up, but when we found it, the way was both easy and safe, up a crack with plenty of steps. Rather near the top of the sandstone, I saw a good bivouac spot under an overhang. Two parallel lines of building stones showed that I had been preceded in this observation. It appeared to be a rock shelter built by the prehistorics.
The low cliff above the sandstone is unbroken as far as you can see to the south. Until you get right up to the top of the Coconino, it's not clear how you could proceed, but right there in front of you is a fine gate leading around to the northwest. You turn left and go along this bench, but you can tell that before long it will pinch off into a sheer cliff. Just before this happens, there's a broken place that allows you to scramble directly up for 25 feet to the main bench that is unbroken clear around the Throne. This is well forested but we saw no signs of deer at this level except one foot print in the dust just below the upper cliff and it wasn't at all surely recognizable. I did see several prints that might have been made by a coyote. There were plenty of signs of rodents and we saw a number of lizards. Walking along the steep slope through the woods was difficult so to expedient the walk, we followed the very base of the main cliff most of the way west. Clubb had told me that there are three ravines with considerable vegetation in them around on the northwest side, as I had seen also from Cape Royal. There was no doubt about passing by the first one. Impassable ledges near the bottom stopped us from considering it. There were two projecting rock ridges, but I wouldn't have thought that either one invited climbing as mentioned in the Andrews article on the first ascent. In fact, the description of their going up a projecting ridge more easily than they had come down from the Cape Royal rim using ropes is the part of their account that looks extremely suspect. The way we went up was in the widest of the forested bays on the northwest side. It was no more than steep walking in the dirt until we reached the very top where there is a 12 foot cliff. After a little inspection, we found some holds and went up quite easily. I marked the place with a stick put upright in a bush, and then we went along the rim to the southwest abut 50 yards to a place that appeared even safer for the descent. It did look better, ad I wasn't too surprised to find a substantial cairn here, probably built by Clubb.
Coming the long route from the parking area 1.4 miles north of Cape Royal, it had taken us an seven and three-fourths hours to go from the car to the top. If we came the short way, one could avoid carrying a bedroll and do it in one good day. With only one meal in route, not so much water would need to be carried either. I'm rather eager to go again.
We were on top from 8:30 until 10:15 a.m. Andrews mentioned finding a mescal pit on top, and Clubb has a picture of a very poorly preserved rock shelter. In fact, some scientific person to whom he showed the picture wouldn't consider it as of human construction. I also came across one that might be controversial, but I found and photographed another which is about as clear as any prehistoric structure can be which is not protected from the elements, walls still about 15 inches high in a perfect rectangle with the door very clearly shown. The occupants might have lived here for protection or perhaps they considered a trip to the top of Wotan's a status symbol.
Just as we were getting going Saturday morning, a large stone slipped under me and threw me downhill. I bruised my hip and elbow which took some of my strength, but we were back to the car right after six. I had Prusiked up the rope.
Allyn and I sat around resting and eating on Sunday. He wanted to try to beat Willie Steinkraus' record of four hours and 47 minutes for the cross canyon trip on Monday morning. (He did break the record with a time of three hours and 56 minutes and again with an incredible time of three hours and eight minutes.) Bob Powers and I saw him off at 5:05 a.m. after which I set out to see Saddle Mountain and various points in the Nankoweap Basin. At first I had planned for it to be a five day trip, but I finally decided to spend three days at it. As I get older, I seem to be getting less self-sufficient, and between loneliness and my shoes coming unstitched, I turned around after spending one day going to the bottom.
First I drove outside the park and tried the road marked Saddle Mountain. I moved one fallen tree out of the way but I soon came to another that I couldn't budge. In trying to drive around it off the road, I got the car stuck and had to jack for at least 30 minutes to get it loose. I drove through some very pretty country but the road didn't seem to be taking me close to Saddle Mountain. In fact, from certain signs, I got the impression that it was going off the plateau down towards South Canyon. I turned around and went back to Point Imperial. I believe that I came to its end after an hour of walking from Point Imperial.
The huge burn has made the foot travel easier out this way. You don't slip on the pine needles, and you can see where you are better. However, the second growth aspen shoots are coming up and in a few years this will be almost impenetrable. I was careful not to climb the two outlier mountains of the main rim. I made the mistake of going too far to the north just before I was to go down the Coconino. However, I made the pleasant discovery of water in a ravine that seems to be the main beginning of Buck Farm Canyon. It's running so slowly that it probably dries up later in the summer. In getting down the correct ravine for the descent to the saddle, I also found a little water. There is a clearly man-made trail down into Houserock Valley, along the north side of Saddle Mountain, and also going down the south side of the saddle about 100 feet below the top of the Supai.
One of my objectives was to climb Saddle Mountain. After an obscure region of manzanita, I was gratified to come to a clear and helpful trail up the most logical place for a trail to go between the outcroppings of Coconino Sandstone. With this help, I reached the top in about 45 minutes. Surveyors have left a large rock cairn and also a board marker on top. The Summit is very different from the same elevation on the main plateau. It is only 8400 feet high, but it shows signs of timberline struggle with the gales. The pinyons look almost like bristle cones and are twisted and gnarled with many dead limbs and trunks showing great age for their height. The views of the canyon and desert were all that could be expected. That trip would be worth a hike anytime. I believe that driving into the burn on the rim makes the closest approach, but it would be very interesting to go from the end of the road in the buffalo range.
After lunch I took off down the trail into Nankoweap. Boyd Moore and I should have looked around before we headed out along the Hermit Shale. The head of the trail is in a small alcove at about the lowest part of the saddle. Much trail construction is still in evidence and no difficulty is encountered for the first third of a mile. Even a few tree limbs have been trimmed, possibly by the man who told Dan Davis he wanted to take dudes down to see Goldwater's bridge. Abruptly the trail changes. For the next three and a half hours you're going along a trace where you often must test a foothold before you shift your weight. In a way this route takes more guts than climbing Wotan, because you are constantly exposed and know that one slip would be your last. I know just where the Las Vegas dude explorers lost one of the packs. I didn't remove my pack, but I got down on my hands and knees to get under an overhang. What amazes me is that the scientists in 1882 ever thought that they could build a horse trail along this narrow ledge, and it's something else that this ledge never quite pinches out for so many miles. (Actually, in 1882 the scientists went down the head of the valley, not this route.) If anyone wants evidence of current erosion, he only needs to notice how many tons of rock have fallen across this trail since the days of the horsethieves, or even since 1937 when McKee and others took stock over this trail. It's obviously impossible now. About one-fourth of the way along, below the top 100 feet of the Supai cliff from the saddle to the top of the Redwall at the head of Tilted Mesa, the walking is fairly easy. On the east side of the bend at Marion Point, there are some good overhangs that would be protection during a storm. In fact, there are signs of a rock windbreak and some charcoal here.
It was 4:30 p.m. when I got to the upper end of Tilted Mesa so I thought I would undertake the second of my projects for the trip, going down Tilted Mesa and try for the top of Barbenceta Butte. I had been able to keep going steadily since morning with almost no rest, but on the way back I at last felt quite weary. The drop in altitude was almost as great as going to the level of Nankoweap Creek directly below where I left my pack. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera on this detour. Barbenceta is an interesting residual of Supai. Unfortunately for my project, the cap rock is overhanging slightly all the way around and the one crack I could see would only accommodate a single finger. Since I'm not that sort of climber, I built a small cairn ten feet below the top and went away. Two people with a rope could sling it over the top and one could climb the rope while the other held the other end. The rock is only about eight feet wide and ten feet high. I was tempted to go to the bottom of the Little Nankoweap Wash above the drop-offs that stopped me on a previous hike and walk up to my pack. There is a good talus slope at the upper end of the valley, but since I had taken one and a quarter hours to get to the top of Barbenceta and I knew it would take somewhat longer to go back, I withstood that temptation. I might have camped at the top of the Redwall, but it was rather chilly in the strong wind, and I knew I would be short of water as well.
I started down the trail through the Redwall at 7:15 a.m. Only a few years ago this part of the trail was well preserved, but before long I was merely guessing where it was. In order not to waste the little daylight left, I quit trying and went down to the top of the Tapeats cliff. After following the top to the south, about the third notch that I inspected went through all right. This was a different route than I had used before. I was down into the main wash coming from the east side of Marion just as full darkness was closing in. All afternoon I had been thinking more and more about Boyd Moore, and my melancholy was another factor in persuading me to go home the next day. It was seven years and a week since he and I had been down here with high hopes for a fine trip.
In the morning I started up the slope intending to get into the wash that comes down from where the map shows the trail ending on the east side of the spur ridge. By accident I got farther east and rather than cut across some rough blocks and ravines to get where I had intended to go up, I headed farther east to a point where the Tapeats is broken. Quite soon I found a well constructed trail, obviously the lower end of the old trail although not shown on the map. It's quite distinct and easier to walk than any other part except the very beginning at the saddle. Just near the end above the spur ridge, it becomes unrecognizable. It seems odd that Evans and Matthes missed this. Above this point on the Redwall talus, I got tired of trying to connect the scraps of trail that are still noticeable by crossing steep ravines that seem to have formed only in the last few years. I decided to go right up where the walking would at least be firm. Before long I came to a very clear deer trail and I followed it to the rim of Tilted Mesa. It's so much better than the present residue of the horse trail that I marked its head with a small cairn, and this deer trail will get my business if I ever come back here. Even though I had cut my trip short and had let Nankoweap Mesa and Nankoweap Butte go as well as the window in one arm of the creek, I had learned quite a bit new to me about the various parts of the trail.
Bob Schley was enthusiastic about the idea that we could go back to Wotan's Throne in one day and still have about three hours to scour the top for more Indian ruins. To make it this fast, we would have to use the route directly down from the lecture station at Cape Royal. From a distance along the Hermit Shale, Allyn and I had thought that the drop where a rope would be necessary was not much greater than it had been at the place we had come down three weeks before.
The Schleys took me to Cape Royal on Saturday evening early enough so that I had time to go down and review the route Allyn and I had scouted the year before, essentially what Merrel Clubb had told me about. This time I carried a can of green spray paint and sprayed arrows on the rocks to indicate the more elusive turns. Allyn arrived about 1:00 in the morning to go with us.
I had taken Bob and our other companion, David Krebs, out to the top of the promontory near the parking area 1.4 miles north of Cape Royal on Saturday afternoon. David came right up all the hard spots, but Bob hesitated quite a bit and was puffing harder than I when we finished. Right then I began to wonder whether I hadn't gotten him interested in something that might be too difficult for him to do in a single day. Still when we were ready to go down the slope and tackle our project, he was game to go until his better judgment would say he had gone far enough. He got across the narrow ledge where you have to crawl under the overhang and got down the place where the holds are poor. He followed us over to the head of the chute through the Coconino next to the bridge towards Wotan. We tied knots in a double rope and used it to descend the 25 feet behind the chockblock at the head of the chute. Then we came to the place where we had to tie the rope to a stout juniper and throw it over the edge. The rock sloped steeply toward the edge so that the only way we could tell whether it had reached the bottom was to hold onto it and lean out. Allyn and I tied rappel slings around our middles and prepared to go down using carabineers. David and Bob watched with interest, but at last Bob decided that the place for a beginner to practice was not right here where there was no alternate route back up in case the Prusik method proved too difficult. He and David stayed there until Allyn and I were down. To go down from the shelf where we landed to the talus, we saw that we would need another rope. The men above followed our request and untied Allyn's nylon rope and threw it down. Actually a 50 foot rope would be plenty for this high step at the bottom, or two men could probably help each other make it with no rope at all. Just as we got off the rock ledges, I saw my first rattlesnake for this year.
Since Allyn and I knew how to get to Wotan's and we didn't think that we would have any more time to explore it than we had three weeks ago, we elected to tackle another project and climb Freya Temple, the one that Merrel Clubb had passed up as being a simple walk-up. It took us about one and a half hours to go from the bottom of the rope to the top of Freya. We built the first cairn on it, thus extending my list of named summits climbed to 16. When we had loafed at the top of Freya for 45 minutes, we came down and went out on the ridge that extends towards Vishnu Temple. The climb up Vishnu doesn't look any easier as you get closer, especially the part above the Coconino. I don't think that Clubb will have to share that one with me. While we were out on this point, we looked down into the arm of Unkar heading below Vishnu and saw what looks very much like a good way through the Redwall and Supai.This may be the route used by the prehistorics when they climbed Wotan. The ravine in the Redwall below the southwest corner of Vishnu leading down into Vishnu Creek didn't look good. The top cliffs of Supai are remarkably continuous all around the Vishnu Creek drainage, but I'm pretty sure that there is a breach southeast from the highest part of Freya. The lowest part of the Hermit was better walking and we made good time on the return. Prusiking up the rope took me 45 minutes and I had to tie a sling above the top edge of the rock. We got to the top rim by 4:30 pm.
We came to the Grand Canyon to show the park to our institute participants. Nine of the boys wanted to hike to Phantom Ranch. I figured, somewhat erroneously, that 17 year olds who had gone up the San Francisco Peaks and had climbed Sunset Crater in less than 25 minutes could do the loop down the South Kaibab Trail and up the Bright Angel Trail without any supervision from me. (They managed to make a mistake when they found that the orange drink in their lunches had soaked through the cardboard cartons and had reduced their sandwiches to a soggy mess. Most of them threw their lunches in the garbage can and had only one orange apiece for the whole day. As a result they dragged themselves out after 8:00 p.m. in sad shape.) In the meantime, I did a little visiting and then went to see whether I could find the ruins that Bert Hunt had told me were along the northeast base of Sinking Ship.
As usual, I found the trace of a trail from the notch in the rim out to the Sinking Ship. I have always thought that this was one of John Hance's improvements that was a convenience to his tourist guests who desired to see the sunset from the west side of Sinking Ship. I went along the east base of the cliffs and came to the metate under an overhang, which I had noted on several previous trips. I passed by the place where Marshall Scholing and I had climbed up through the notch separating the north tower from the middle. North of here I had been clear around the base, but I had descended too low. This time I kept on near the vertical cliff. At the notch separating the middle tower from the north and lowest tower, I found the three ruins. The first to catch my eye was the one farthest north but facing south. It is merely a granary. Then I saw two more on a higher ledge a little to the south and farther west. These are big enough to allow a small man to lie down in them. There are a couple of well constructed doorways and the Indians used juniper logs to widen the ledge where there was a break in the shelf. I noted one corncob still here, but there didn't seem to be any obvious pottery fragments.
Above and to the north of these two rooms, one can go up through the V separating the middle castle from the northern one. From the top of this notch there is a not too difficult route to the top of the middle castle. When I got to the top, I found a well built rock pile. I couldn't see any sign that the north castle had been climbed, and when I followed its base north to the end of the promontory, I didn't discover any practical route up it. (Ken Walters climbed this north tower.) On my way back along the west base of the whole formation, I tried going up a long break in the wall of the south castle. (Reider Peterson and I got up the south peak starting some yards south of here. We used a rope and came down here.) A daring climber, who had a companion, could have gone quite a bit higher than I did, but I saw no positive assurance that the summit block could be climbed even from the top of this break. Maybe I'll get Allyn Cureton to come back with me when we can belay each other up this break.
After inquiring at Jacob Lake, I drove to Big Springs by the canyon road that leaves the north rim highway just south of Jacob Lake. It was quite all right and much more interesting than the route from the north below the plateau. By this route, Big Springs is only a four and half hour drive from Flagstaff. Don came along well before noon and we drove to Indian Hollow in his new pickup. They have worked on the road down Indian Hollow as well as improving the Thunder River Trail, and there was no difficulty in going right to the rim by this route.
After a lunch near the truck, we got started down the trail about 1:30 p.m. It took five and a half hours to reach our campsite on top of the mesa, but part of this time was spent inspecting Walapai Johnnie's Bean Cave (an overhang where there is an orange crate for shelves and some supplies lying around). We were also expecting to find some rain pools along the way and we did a bit of checking for them. There were a few very shallow and temporary pools and one deeper one. This had rather foul water which is a good sign that it lasts a couple weeks after a rain. It's in a ravine just before you go over a ridge and see the route over the saddle to the north side of Fishtail Canyon. I'm not sure, but I think Bean Cave is a little farther east. There is also a mescal pit a bit to the west of this water. We were glad we had carried enough for about 24 hours so that we wouldn't need to use this uninviting fluid. Progress along this part of the Esplanade is a lot easier than that across the river for some reason. There are pretty definite signs of a trail in most places, and the part up the long talus to the top of the pass is very distinct. Don had done little or no walking for a couple years and he really felt out of condition. When we reached the saddle, we even considered the possibility of his staying there while I went on.
We were glad you don't have to go very far around the mesa before you come to the place to go up. We followed the trail down for a few hundred yards, but then we decided it would be better to keep our elevation even if the footing was poor. The route up is easy to identify, a large bay filled with unstable rock slides with here and there some sage or other vegetation. Don had to take very frequent rests along here, so I went on to make sure that the route really lay to the west above the loose rock. We found that this hunch was correct and that if we kept on to the west at the very top, there was practically no need for hands.We found ourselves on a promontory near the northeast corner of the mesa. To get a flat spot near timber that would allow us a fire, we crossed the minor saddle and went up near the east rim. We could tell that we might be short of water on the return unless we dipped into the buggy stuff I had seen, so we decided on an early start in the morning. I had carried six quarts and Don brought five. In order not to entirely miss the chief purpose of the ascent, I left Don on his blanket and started to hike the length of the mesa. I started well after 7:00 p.m., so I'm afraid my attempts at photos will be failures, but I did shoot toward Mount Trumbull and took a minute exposure in the direction of Granite Narrows. I reached the south end of the mesa, already marked by a pile of rocks supporting a stick, about 8:15 p.m. It was rather dark but I could make out the branches of 140 Mile Canyon. Mount Sinyala seemed large and close. I regretted that there was no chance for pictures and also that I couldn't go along the west edge and see into Kanab Creek.
My trip back was uneventful. I've done some very rough walking after dark so I figured this mesa top would be a breeze, and that I couldn't lose my way if I kept the east rim in sight. It wasn't as simple as I had thought because I would walk into the small limbs of fallen juniper trees and many times I stopped to pull cactus spines out of my canvas top shoes. Once, I got too far away from the east rim and came up against a cliff ringed valley. I had been steering by the stars, but in backing away from this false rim, I found myself going due south. Even with all that confusion, the entire return required less than half again as much time as the trip by daylight. I was very glad that Don had a good fire going at 10:00 p.m. and that he shouted just as I arrived in the vicinity for at that time I was again veering too far away from the rim.
When we tried to get to sleep, there was a strong wind blowing. I had thought we would be sleeping down on the Esplanade and I had brought only a cotton blanket. I had to use my plastic sheet for a wind break, and it whipped around so that I didn't fall asleep until the wind died about 1:00 a.m. After that the night was quiet and cold and I built up the fire for warmth. The return was uneventful taking five hours to the car. Don had to press himself to make it up the final grade. His condition was not imaginary either since he threw up the juice and water he drank after we reached the truck. It was obvious that he couldn't take five more days of rough hiking especially since he also had some bad blisters.
Judging by the time we made even with Don so out of shape, I would say that Fishtail could be done in one day if one were to camp at the end of the road and get an early start. It would mean a long day if we walked the length of the top before returning, but one would not need so much water or a bedroll. The last grade would be done after sundown.
When Don couldn't go on with me down to Thunder River for some investigation of Stone Creek and the bed of Tapeats above the flow of water from the main source, I felt at loose ends and almost started for a visit to the coast. After I talked to Jerry Bortle, I decided to stick around the canyon. He had no transportation to start him on any hikes. If I would think of some way to spend the next two days, he could go with me on Saturday and Sunday. One minor project that would fill in was to go to the source of Bright Angel Creek.
I had been up the Old Bright Angel Canyon Trail and I had seen the source from the rim of the Redwall above, but I had never been along the creek to it. Allyn Cureton had rather impressed me with the difficulty of the feat, because he and a friend had given it up when they saw how slow the travel was. On the other hand, a faculty member from Flagstaff, McCreary, and two fishing companions had made it. In order not to have a near miss, I took my sleeping gear and enough food for a second day down the Roaring Springs Route. It would have been more direct if I had gone down the Bright Angel Canyon Trail, but I didn't give this route a thought until later.
The seep springs along the Kaibab Trail were showing more activity than I had seen before, proving that there had been more snow last winter than normal. When I was above the junction of Bright Angel Creek with the tributary from Roaring Springs, I scrambled down to the creek and left my blanket and hiking shoes and other extraneous gear. I walked up along the creek in my tennis shoes prepared to wade wherever it seemed more expedient. With only one crossing, the old trail took me about two-thirds of the way. After that I was on deer trails most of the time. It's a beauty spot with many small cascades and dells of maple and fir. Beaver felled trees often slowed one. Most of the cuts seemed rather old, but there are still runways from the bank down into the water, and one white fir, although completely girdled, was still entirely green. Many fine pools held numerous nine or ten inch trout that were making no attempt to hide.
At a couple places, there are small falls that necessitate slight detours. Still it required only two and a quarter hours to go from the junction to the source. I found the source not as interesting as it had seemed from the top of the Redwall. Water gushed out from about six different places within 50 feet of each other. The flow does not arch down into the pool free of the wall, and the orifices are only about four feet above the surface of the pool. Still, it makes an interesting sight to see half of all the water that flows in Bright Angel Creek originate at this one interesting place. I had seen minor springs along the way up, and the side canyon to the west where the old trail is leaving the main creek has a fair flow and a fine fall (called Emmett Fall) about 200 yards back from Bright Angel Creek.
I followed the dry bed above the source until I was stopped by the Redwall. Even here it appears that one might bypass the drop by going around to the west. I did a little steep climbing here and could have descended to the bed above the dry fall, but I could tell that the final obstruction was just beyond, so I was content with a picture. (I learned latter that I missed seeing a window.)
After a swim with three fellows who had come down to spend the night by Bright Angel Creek, I went up from the creek to the head of the South Kaibab Trail in three hours.
Ever since I heard that Merrel Clubb had taken Emery Kolb down from Point Imperial to see the bridge that Goldwater discovered from the air, I had intended doing it myself. When I was down below the Coconino to go around Mount Hayden, the route had looked quite easy. This project seemed like a good one to fill a little over half a day.
Right near the top I fumbled by starting down the Coconino at the wrong place. While I was getting down the Kaibab Limestone, I angled too far to the east. I really remembered that there is at least one well established deer trail in the right bay. As it was, I got nearly to the bottom of the Coconino before I had to come back and descend in the larger bay to the west.
This is below the area to the west of the rest rooms.
In the deep woods near the rim I flushed out a couple dusky grouse. They flew up into a tree. On my return at about the same level, I had a fine view of a female about ten feet away. It was in no hurry to leave. If it had been in the boulder field on Long Peak, I would have called it a ptarmigan.
I arrived at the Redwall near a rounded bay but I knew that the bridge was not in this one. It can be seen from some distance down the canyon and this bay is off to the side. When I had gone around to the ravine that is straight with the lower canyon, I had to go right down to the brink before I could see the bridge. If Jack Roak saw the bridge from above in 1920, he probably didn't get his first view from this position. Out on the promontory that leads to Bourke Point you can get a good view of the bridge, probably the place where Roak first spotted it. From this ridge, you can also see a good route down the Redwall. There is a good break down through most of the Redwall leading to the southwest end of the bridge, and you would need to rappel only about 80 feet at the bottom. This might be the most convenient method to get from a car down into Nankoweap Basin.
When I was trying to follow the same route back, I caught myself drifting too far to the southeast while going through the Supai. Of course it is tiring going up through the loose soil and brush, but the entire trip should take about six hours. I recall that Dale Slocum said that the Life magazine party were below the bridge with their cameras in position only two hours and 40 minutes from their car.
After my trip down to the Goldwater Natural Bridge, there was still plenty of time to drive back to Big Springs before Jerry Bortle was through work. We had some more chess that evening and I enjoyed a shower and an indoor bed again. In the morning we took off early and were ready to hike down from Swamp Point by 8:30 a.m. Jerry was in better hiking shape than I at any time last year and he could more than keep up with me all day.
We checked the modern cabin at the saddle and found that it was open and would make a convenient place to camp that is out of the rain. We could still find something of the old trail leading from the saddle to Powell Springs, but beyond there the streambed seemed to be the best walking. It also was rather overgrown in places. There were a couple of drops in the Supai that made us look a little for the bypass. Either side is all right, but after we had done both, we concluded that the northeast side is less brushy. On our way down, we were on this side, but we continued on around into the next drainage, although we saw later that we could have gone down a crack quite a bit sooner. This nameless draw on the right really has a bigger wash than Saddle, the one we were following. About where the first Redwall shows, there are so many about equal valleys coming together that it would behoove one to look back at landmarks and remember them. We were glad to get the assurance of finding our own foot prints when we returned.
When we looked up at Steamboat Mountain from below, we were sure that it could be climbed. This might be done in one day if one camped at the Muav Saddle or at Powell Spring. The latter is pretty insignificant now. It seems much weaker than it did about five years ago when I first saw it, and now it's above ground for only about 30 feet.
The fault through Saddle Canyon is about the most amazing that I've seen anywhere. The Redwall shows about 400 feet deep on one side when you can still see Supai on the other. The creek erodes impressive slits through the Redwall and then comes out to the Supai again two or three times. Right at the start, we had to go around an impossible drop but the detour over some Supai let us get back to the bottom of the wash again. We were so deep into the Redwall that Jerry was quite sure we had made it when we were shocked out of our optimism by an impossible drop. Just before the end, I sounded the depth of a muddy pool and then waded across to check the impossible fall just ahead. (The fall is not impossible - see logs for May 21, 1974). Here Jerry insisted in trying a climb around a corner to try to get to a shelf below. It looked impossible to me. While I was putting my shoes back on, Jerry remarked that maybe I would have to help him back up. I didn't take this too seriously until he said, "Doc, would you kind of hurry." He had slipped somehow and was helpless to get back. If he had fallen, he would have been able to break the fall on a shelf a few feet below and then go on to a gravel bar about six feet lower. If I hadn't been along, and if the water had been too deep for climbing out, he could have been in real trouble. I have never seen Allyn in a jam like that. I was able to brace myself and use two hands on one of his wrists to get him up.
I hadn't really tried what I had at first intended, to go along the top of the Redwall to a place several miles farther northwest before trying to get down the Redwall, but travel here would have been so slow that this would have been out of the question for a one day operation. When we got back to the saddle, we filled our canteens at the good spring to the east, and Jerry announced that he couldn't go with me around the top of the plateau because his shoes were shot.
Doctor Joseph Hall, a mamalogist who teaches at San Francisco State, looked me up to hear what I knew about climbing Shiva Temple. He had just spent four hours trying to leave the north rim, and had finally worked out the right place to leave the rim. At first I said I would go with him up Shiva, but then I thought it would be interesting to see more of Powell Plateau than I had before. It was really better country for this work, the study of the Kaibab squirrel. There are few or no ponderosa pines on Shiva Temple but about three-fourths of Powell Plateau supports a fine forest.
We drove out in Hall's VW microbus and were ready to hike by a little after eight. It took us just over an hour to get to the top of the plateau. Just before we reached the top, we disturbed a big fat rattlesnake that was sunning itself on the trail.
After passing the toll cache we turned to the northwest to go to the point nearest Steamboat Mountain. There are tool surveyor markers a few yards apart at this point, the only bench mark on the entire plateau. Joe was properly impressed by the view from here. We wanted to expose film in all directions. I really intended going down along the west rim next, but in my effort to keep away from the head of the trail up from the saddle, we went east. We followed the blazes for about an hour and I figured that if I wanted to keep to the west of Dutton Canyon, I should be careful to go more to the west. Here, Joe left me to spend his day among the big trees to the north where he had seen more signs of squirrels.
I had intended to keep just west of Dutton Canyon and go up Wheeler Point first by following the east rim when I was sure to be south of the big valley. I goofed again and I must have gone rather close to the west side of the plateau in the sagebrush area before I set my course definitely for the east rim. It seemed that I had to cross just about all the ravines there are on Powell Plateau before I hit the rim about one mile north of Wheeler. We saw very few signs of civilization on the plateau, two old corrals within a mile or two of the north end, and the bench mark. However, there was a little horse or burro manure near the extreme south end. I also saw five fine bucks with wonderful antlers. Three were in sight at one time. I also saw about three does. It would have been easy to go down through the Kaibab Limestone at Wheeler Point, and the clearest deer trail I have ever seen, led along the base of the limestone pinnacle that is south of the point. This bare crag could be climbed rather easily, and I was sorely tempted to see what I could from the trail that leads to the south of this final crag. I had hopes of seeing the Royal Arch, but I had told Joe that I would be back at the head of the trail by 6:00 p.m.
Next I went north of Wheeler, along the west rim. The ravines tallied with the map all the way to Newberry Point and I hit the rim only a few hundred yards to the east of it. I went around the angle until I could see to the west, but Stanton Point still showed much better than Fossil Bay. East along the rim from Newberry Point, I was rather sure that there is a place where one could descend through both the Kaibab and Coconino Formations. I hurried back to the tool cache and arrived just on the dot of six. I was surprised to have to pull a couple ticks from my legs after this day.
When I heard that a friend was taking some scouts to Supai intending to return to Flagstaff on Monday afternoon, I decided on the spur of the moment to float on my air mattress from Pipe Creek to Havasu Creek with food for six days. Roma thought I was about to take off for the North Rim for a longer period until I phoned her after she had gone to work about my change of plans. The Braleys had agreed to drive my car back from the canyon after I had started down the Bright Angel Trail. I was on my way down by 3:15 p.m. and reached the river by 5:45 p.m. Something I noticed for the first time was a bit of trail construction to the west of the Bright Angel Trail just a little below the bottom of the Coconino cliff. Possibly this once continued on to the mine east of Powell Point (the Orphan Mine). Another thing that I considered for the first time was the possibility of reaching the Battleship from the Bright Angel Trail along the top of the Redwall. This would be shorter and walking would be easy until you came to a wall of Supai. I didn't see a way through it, so perhaps this would not be a shortcut.
There were no observers at the mouth of Pipe Creek, but I still elected to walk around the corner below the rapid before taking to the water. The river was quite low, about as low as I have ever seen it, and I feel rather sure that I could run a rapid such as Pipe with impunity. One advantage of walking up around this corner was that it gave me a good look at a riffle downstream. I decided that it was entirely safe. I took the center of the current here with the mattress crosswise and had a fine ride. From here on to Horn Creek Rapids, the water was exceedingly calm. There was little or no tendency for any back eddies to form, evidence that I was on a lower stage than when I went down to Horn the other time.When I landed at Horn on some sand on the right, I found that I was a few yards too far upstream and had to go back in the water to get past a rather smooth fin of rock. When I found a good level spot of sand for the night, I noticed that it had taken almost an hour to go from the mouth of Pipe Creek to Horn Creek Rapids.
The rocks at the head of the rapid stood out farther than I had remembered them from other visits, and the projecting part of the bedrock on the right about halfway down stood considerably higher above water. However, the rapid was still kicking up quite a roar and from the foam all the way down, rocks must not have been buried very deeply. The chief difference between this and higher stages of water is that the waves die faster in the tailrace. When I proceeded on Wednesday morning, I noticed that the surface was rather calm by the time I came to the access ravine from the left. The logical way to let excess passengers return to civilization from Horn, as long as you still have a boat, is to row back upstream for 300 yards. This could be done except at flood stage if you stay close to the right wall. Then the passengers could be put ashore on the left where they could easily walk to the foot of the Bright Angel Trail. The ravine below the rapid would also be a possibility, but they would have a rougher walk up to the Tonto Platform and over to Indian Gardens.
A feature of my night beside Horn was the warmth all night long. I was comfortable all night on top of my blanket. Another thing I noticed was something crawling over me at numerous times. There were no bites, and I finally concluded that small frogs were taking liberties. At least they were climbing over me the next night at Hermit Creek even before dark. The most interesting memory I have from that noisy spot next to the head of the rapid is seeing the first ringtail cat I have seen away from a zoo. As I was packing to leave, it looked at me from under a rock about 12 feet away. I didn't think of the camera, but as it was before six, I am sure it was too dark for a good picture. As luck would have it, the very next day I found a dead one near the top of the Hermit Trail.
The trip by water was fairly uneventful. The water was reasonably calm farther upstream that it had been the year I went up to the north rim between Shiva and Isis Temples. As I passed the ravine on the right where you can come down to the river from the bottom of the Tapeats, I thought about the report given me by Pat that Stanton had left some instruments at Horn. I wondered whether the upright pole in a rock pile a short distance up this ravine had anything to do with this cache. The water was very quiet between the rapids and the riffles. I kept paddling all the time, but still I must not have been going along more than two miles an hour. However, the scenery through this stretch of river is marvelous with so many of the streaks in the schist almost vertical. Small islands appeared two or three times. I got out and walked the beach past Salt Creek Rapids. The mouth of Salt and Trinity, for that matter, looked intriguing, but at that time I hadn't decided to quit the voyage at Hermit, and I thought that all due haste was the order of the day. The next time through, I'll shoot down the tongue at Salt since there are no rocks in the channel. I did shift the mattress crosswise and shoot two riffles, one of them being the lower part of Monument (Granite) Rapids. I can't place the other, but I know I walked past the upper part of Monument. It's really roaring against the right wall in a very narrow bed. I walked at another riffle where the current bore hard against projecting rocks although the waves were not so fierce looking. With these slowdowns to walk past three rapids and getting out to look at a couple others, I averaged only a mile and a half an hour. Even if James White had come through shooting all the rapids, he couldn't have done any better since he couldn't have paddled the raft forward or even enough to take advantage of the best current. When I got to Hermit Rapids, I looked at the watch and took stock of the situation. If I could average 15 miles a day, I would either just miss or just catch my ridehome from Supai. I was also thinking of counter attractions, such as visiting in Los Angeles or going somewhere over the weekend with my wife. To cap it off, the frame of my pack was beginning to hurt my right shoulder, and I decided to abandon the project and leave by way of the Hermit Trail while I had a good chance.
It was only 9:15 a.m., but I thought I wouldn't bother going home that very day when Roma was expecting me to be gone for six days. Something that I had thought about for more than 10 years was to see the source of Hermit Creek. One thing that surprised me on my way up the old trail to Hermit Camp was to note footprints of about three hikers. The marks were so fresh they could have been from the previous day. I checked my time and it takes about 45 minutes to go from the river to the camp. Leaving the pack where the Tonto Trail crosses, I hiked on up the creek among thickets and the finest display of red mimulas and horsetail rushes I have ever seen. Judging from other springs in the canyon, I was expecting the source to be a short way below the base of the Redwall, but Hermit is different. The main springs are above the lowest fifth of the Redwall. Right above the last spring (not one that is conspicuous) there is quite a wall in the main bed. I was able to climb it, and at the top I found a conspicuous cairn. At a couple of places lower down, I had seen a stick supported in the center of a rock pile and another cairn. I had already given this effort more time than I had intended, but now the going was quite a bit faster without the dense brush. I had to see whether one could go out above the Redwall. It was no trick to climb the heaps of broken Supai blocks and get out at the end of the east branch. The hard job would be to go up the Supai, but it might be possible if one were to backtrack along the east side of the gorge. (Dripping Springs is above the Supai to the west.) On the way back I found the old trail along the east side below the Redwall which was used to service the pipeline carrying water to Hermit Camp. The round trip had taken about three and a half hours.
On Thursday I climbed out to the rim in an unhurried five hours. I enjoyed shade most of the way. The night by the creek had been quite cool for one cotton blanket. After a lunch at the head of the trail, I walked to Bright Angel Lodge by the trail through the woods, a route that must be a couple miles shorter than the road.
From the tongue projecting from Freya towards Vishnu, it appeared that one might be able to climb the Redwall in the east fork of the arm of Unkar that rises toward Vishnu Temple from the north. From the top of Freya Temple, I thought I could see a good way to climb Krishna. Checking out these guesses seemed like a good three day project from the south rim. The first night bivouac was to be at the spring downstream from the mouth of the branch of Unkar which comes down from between Jupiter and Venus. Going down the Tanner Trail, floating and walking down to the mouth of Unkar, and going up Unkar Creek to the spring would not be a long day, so I didn't try for a real early start. It took me just under three hours to reach the river at the swing to the south just below the mouth of Basalt Creek. After eating, I pushed off on my air mattress, but I got out for every riffle and sometimes I got out because the current was too slow. With all these interruptions, I took longer to go downstream to Unkar than if I had walked the bank until I came to a good place to cross once and for all. This was a contrast to my first float in 1954. On that occasion, we didn't get out of the water until we saw that we were arriving at Unkar Rapids. This time I was more inclined to worry about scraping over rocks.
At the upper limit of the Unkar Delta, I walked across to intercept the creek higher up. There was more broken pottery on the red sandy ground than I had seen on other parts of the delta. There must have been a lot of Indians around at some time to scatter so much pottery. The afternoon was warm and I didn't hurry up the dry wash. I was a bit dismayed when I came to the first spring I had marked on my map from two previous trips. Reeds were still growing on the bank, but no water showed. I decided that if there was no water running at the next place, I would quit and go back to the river. About an hour's walk from the river, I came to the place where I had camped before, but there was no water there this year either. However, a short distance upstream, I came to a continuous surface stream. It got bigger as I went farther up until I came to the main source. A reed grown bank was a little farther on in the middle of the bed. The night was warm at first, and a small frog climbed on me as I lay on top of the blanket. By morning I was a little chilly with my one cotton blanket.
It was cool enough for good walking when I set out at 5:45 a.m. on Wednesday. I hadn't brought the map along, and I didn't recognize the mouth of the arm of Unkar Canyon that I wanted to follow. For a half mile, it parallels the main bed only a few yards away. Finally, I noticed that it was time to leave the main bed if I wanted to go up the valley to the south. I climbed over the low ridge and almost at once found that the Tapeats bars the way in the bed.
Fortunately, there's an easy bypass to the east of the fall. As you come near the base of the Redwall, you find that I was fooled by appearances when I looked down from the Freya projection. The fork to the east looked hopeless. The way ahead looked better. Everything went well until the last 20 feet. I had to go up by bracing my back against one wall while finding footholds for my feet. I don't see how deer could get up here.
It was only a short scramble from here to the saddle between Vishnu and Freya Temples. Right away I became interested in knowing whether one could go down into Vishnu Creek from the saddle. All went well until I was four-fifths of the way down, but then there was a sudden drop. I decided to see what the ledge to the west would bring, especially since some deer tracks led in this direction. Shortly after rounding the point, I came to a continuous talus right up to the ledge. Within a few minutes, I had added two more routes through the Redwall to the eight I had previously found in the entire park.
Travel along the top of the Redwall over to Krishna Shrine is relatively easy. I headed for the saddle between Vishnu Temple and Krishna. My hopes were well founded. The talus which covered the upper slope of Krishna came down through a mere notch of the lower Supai cliff. I couldn't tell at a glance about the feasibility of climbing the summit, but I have turned back before, and I could do it again. Near the end, I had to leave the pack below and climb a vertical crack. There were plenty of footholds and there was no danger. I withheld my elation until I could see whether a single summit block would finally turn me back, but this did not happen on Krishna. I had the pleasure of building the first cairn on the highest point. The particularly fine view from Krishna is right between Angel's Gate and Wotan's Throne. Zoroaster is almost squarely in front of Shiva. The view of Vishnu Temple does not tempt me to try that one. The separate summit towers seem too sharp for words. It is amazing that Clubb could do it. On the way back, I decided to look at the ravine in the Redwall into Vishnu Creek directly west of the saddle. From the top of Wotan, Allyn and I had thought it looked like a real possibility. Here again all went well until I was about four-fifths of the way down. Again there was the sudden drop with slight ledges on either side. I went out on the ledge to the south to see whether there might be any future there. The ledge on the north soon dropped vertically 50 feet. From the end of the southern ledge, there was a crack leading down. It looked most improbable, but it continued down to the talus, so I had logged my eleventh break in the Redwall and had climbed my nineteenth named high point in the Grand Canyon, all in the same day. This third break in the Redwall for the day gave me the most satisfaction, because I had so nearly turned back thinking that you can't win them all. I returned to my bedroll by the same route except that I used the bed of the wash until it came out to the main bed of Unkar Canyon. Just above the Tapeats, I flushed a fine big buck. They are rare down here at this time of year.
When I got to the spring, I packed hurriedly and moved camp down to the river above the rapid. The calm water reflected the sunset glow on the cliffs and made me think that they don't have rivers like this in Illinois. The white sand and some rocks for steps down into the water formed an ideal site. I took a quick bath while soup was heating.The river was the cleanest I have ever seen it at this time of year. While I was stirring the soup, something happened that put me out of a happy mood into one of depression. A plane came over only about a 1000 feet up. Furthermore, the propeller was turning slowly, but the motor was not firing. The pilot glided the machine over the hill behind Unkar Rapid and then suddenly dipped downwards toward the ground. I concluded that he was trying a forced landing on the sand east of Cardenas Creek. I thought about dumping the soup and using the little daylight that was left to see if I could help. After some thought, I decided that I couldn't do anything in the dark and proceeded with supper and a rather broken night.
In the morning, I got away at 5:25 a.m. and went along the north bank until I was far enough to cross well above the wall on the left side. I went out of my way to search in the willows and on the fairly level ground above the dunes, but there was no wrecked plane anywhere. Perhaps the pilot was just seeing what it would be like to have a forced landing at the best place in the canyon, and he simply switched the motor on at the last minute.
The return up the Tanner Trail was uneventful. I had the good fortune to notice for the first time in 20 odd passages over the trail, a natural bridge near the top of the Redwall in the promontory about two-thirds of a mile west of the one the trail uses. In about 40 extra minutes, I could have gone over to it and returned, but I was more interested in getting home. This will do for a destination for a college hike. I would estimate that the bridge is about 25 feet broad by 15 feet high. There is a small drainage leading through it, so it is a bridge rather than a window.
Since I had no classes Friday afternoon this semester, I could take off as soon as I could get organized on Friday after noon. This turned out to be about 2:00 p.m. and I had to hurry down the Red Canyon (or New Hance Trail) to get settled by daylight. No matter how many times I cover the Hance Trail, it always seems to have some surprises for me. On the way down through the part at the bottom of the ravine through the Supai, I believe I followed the trail better than I have hitherto. At least I stayed out of the streambed. The trail seems to cross the bed only three times. First you are on the left, than on the right, then on the left again, and finally on the right. The disturbing part about finding where you should be at all times to follow the real trail is that I was unable to do as well on the way back two days later. I missed parts of the second and third legs.
When I was taking the contour part above the Redwall over to the descent through the Redwall, I consciously left the trail to inspect the way down that Dan Davis had found. This is less than half as far north as the standard route. If the real trail had gone down here, they would have had permanent water in the creekbed. On the other hand, it would have been difficult to build the trail here and the creekbed is far better for a man on foot than it would be for a pack horse. With all the slides along the top of the Redwall, I'm afraid it would now be impossible to get a horse across this leg. The route down the Redwall also needed review. It is quite clear, but it didn't look altogether as I had remembered it.
I would defy anyone to positively identify the old trail very far below the Redwall. I believe it goes over toward the biggest side canyon which enters the main canyon well down in the Hakatai Shale. This time I followed the trail which stays out of the stream bed below this junction for a half mile. It climbs a bit and I decided not to use it on the return. Down in the narrows a half mile above the river, there are large blocks that have made walking down the middle of the bed very difficult. This may be the first time I followed the old trail around these obstructions. After a few feet out of the bed to the left, the trail crosses and stays up in the mesquite to the right for quite a distance. It was still dark when I came through here on the return, and I didn't try the trail. One thing that caught my attention on the way back, since the night had threatened rain, was a good shelter. About a quarter mile below the junction of the two canyons, a huge block rolled down and lodged about 20 yards up from the bed. A smooth and level spot, big enough to sleep three, has been hollowed out beneath one corner. I noted a similar shelter up Unkar above the branch coming down from between Jupiter and Venus Temples. Unfortunately, one would have to carry water to both of these bivouac sites. It took me just under three hours to get from my car to the river. I crossed just before dark and had to find my way among the rocks beside the river in the dark, slow going. With my recollection of the trail to the mines in Asbestos Canyon, I was able to recognize it when I came to it, really more luck than sense. I wanted to reach one or the other of two mine shafts because I thought I might need the warmth and I was looking forward to an evening of reading by candle light out of the draft. It was good that the trail remained fairly intact until I came to the first shaft, which is only about 15 feet deep and is cluttered up with three wheelbarrows. I lit a candle and maneuvered the wheelbarrows aside to make a large enough space for my bed, but what I didn't discover until I noticed that the air mattress was slowly leaking is that there are some cactus spines on the floor of the cave. I moved my bed outside to the flat area formed by the tailings and had to blow it up again every 40 minutes during the night.
Shortage of sleep doesn't seem to affect my hiking strength and I was away by 6:25 a.m. I had been over this trail twice before, but this was the first time I felt that I had time to explore the large tunnel with the prominent tailings, easily visible from Hance Rapids. It's bottom is clean and smooth, and it would be a fine place to spend a rainy night. However, it wouldn't be cozy because it is cut right through two windows on the other side of the spur. I scrambled down to the trail across the tailings and then discovered that there is a trail on a shelf outside the spur that would have been shorter and easier as a route into Asbestos Canyon. From the window on the west, there is a fine view of the fall through the granite in the bed of Asbestos Canyon.
There was water running in the last quarter mile of the streambed above the fall. I was counting on it to fill my gallon canteen. Just after I found a fair pool where I could dip with a pan, the stream went dry. There were a few rain pools, however, in the main bed and also in the steep ravine which I followed up to the base of Sheba Temple from the area of the old miner's shacks. It took me about an hour to go from my campsite to the shacks and another 50 minutes to climb up the ravine. In 20 more minutes, I was in the wash that leads up to the passage through the Redwall east of Rama Shrine. I saw a harmless snake on the flat below Sheba.
From a distance I had noticed a talus sloping up to the south end of Rama. This route worked out all right. If I had come over to its base first, I wouldn't have had any problems at all until I arrived near the summit cliff. As it was I found some interesting and safe cracks through the cliffs. The cracks in the highest of the Supai cliffs were around to the east. I built a summit cairn from a disintegrating pile of red rock that was about two yards from the highest point of the shale. The views were magnificent in just about every direction. I had a field day with my camera. There was no difficulty in going along the ridge over to the secondary summit at the north end. While I was coming back, I got a good look at another way to make the climb, a ravine just north of the true summit and a long talus clear down to the top of the Redwall. I retrieved my pack and descended using this route. It calls for less route finding, but it might take a few minutes longer than the other way assuming that you approach Rama by my route through the Redwall. While I was going along the slope below the Supai cliffs, I found the first artifact I have ever seen in the Grand Canyon, aside from pottery fragments. It is a piece of chert flaked into a sort of burin about five inches long. It may be an unfinished spearhead.
I got down to my previous campsite by 3:30 p.m. and moved across the river in plenty of time to eat an early supper before it would do any more than threaten rain. The best shelter I could find near the river was a rock that would protect the upper half of my body. Unfortunately, some red ants also liked this environment, and after I was bitten once, I moved out on the flat sand nearby with the intention of coming back if it really rained. It finally sprinkled a few drops about 4:00 a.m. I packed and started up the wash by moonlight a little before five. It took me almost exactly five hours to reach the car.
Some white man has set up a vertical stone marker inside. It was easy to walk the beach upstream from here with only a short detour a time or two where the river was still up to a vertical part of the bank. Not far up from Cardenas, I noted a place in the river where wading across looked distinctly possible. Bars of pebbles went down into the water on both sides and the river looked swift enough to be shallow but seemed to be over a bed of small rocks that looked ideal for fording. I would estimate this to be about Mile 70.8. There was another place higher that appeared almost as good.
The outside bends to the south along here are fine traps for drift wood. I noted several timbers which came from country road bridges since they still had big iron bolts in them. Another interesting bit of drift was a life jacket which still had some of the Kapok in part of it. I didn't feel that I had the time to look for the Lantier Mine workings, but I saw the only unmistakable section of trail of my trip going from this area up some draws to meet the Tanner Trail about a half mile from the river.
I had heard that the Park Service approves of burning piles of driftwood to try to diminish the nuisance of logs in Lake Mead. There was a beautiful pile about a quarter of a mile below Tanner Creek, about three feet thick by eight wide and fully 60 feet long. There was a lot of small stuff caught in with the large, so I set fire to it. I got the thrills of an arsonist without causing the damage. I got a picture from several hundred yards as I was about to go out of sight when the fire was only about ten minutes old and another from the level of the Muav Limestone when it had been going for over an hour. The flames must have been 20 feet high by then, but it was about two miles away and the picture I took may not show the fire very well. The climb out showed that I still have what it takes. At least I more than matched the five hours and ten minutes it took me two years ago in fairly cool weather. I felt fine at the top after a few minutes less than five hours from the river to the rim including 25 minutes for some lunch.
Doctor Hunt took Hayden Green, Allyn Cureton, his son Jeff, Pete Marshall, and me to Temple Bar Friday evening. After about four hours of sleep at the campground, Allyn's alarm went off. The boat planed along at about 30 miles an hour and the distance to the Grand Wash Cliffs went by quite fast. It's 33 miles to the lower end of Grand Canyon. The water level was only about six feet below the high mark.
I was carrying the river map along, but there were relatively few places that I recognized for sure. We noticed a nice little waterfall in a sort of angle on the left side of the river and I think it may be at Mile 274.3. I believe I would get along better with quad maps of the region clear back from the river. The distinction between major canyons and mere alcoves isn't always clear from the river map. The next location we recognized for sure was the cable at the Bat Guano Cave. This is not shown on the river map, but I think it may be at Mile 266. We stopped here and the others had a late breakfast. I had eaten my bread and raisins at the campground before the others woke up. This gave me time to precede the rest up the trail and up the ropes to the mine. At first I thought the rope might indicate a difficult shortcut and that there would be an easier way if I followed the base of the cliff farther to the east.There was a ropeless route over this way, but I'm sure it's no easier than the route where the ropes are fixed. Allyn went up where the ropes are placed without using them, but I was glad to hold tight to the middle rope. The other two were extra as far as I was concerned. The top part of the scramble is made much easier by fixed ladders, mostly steel. The discoverer of the deposit must have been a very skillful and bold rock climber to get into this cave. (Beck says it is easier to go up over to the west.) The big cable from the south rim across the river must be about two inches in diameter. Doctor Hunt told us that a jet plane had cut the lighter cable which was used to pull the car back and forth. His version of the story was that the plane returned to base with no damage.
From here we tried to keep track of the side canyons, but Allyn and I were thoroughly confused for some distance. At last I saw an unusually large side canyon on the left with a sharp angle in the river a short distance upstream. At last I felt that we knew we were passing Spencer Canyon. After the right distance northeast, the river turned abruptly to the right toward the southeast, and I knew we were approaching Separation Canyon. Doctor Hunt said that when he and Joe Felix came down here on their rubber boat, they had kept track of their location at all times. He didn't do as well when he was piloting the boat, because he frequently asked Allyn or me if we could tell where we were. My call that we were arriving at Separation Rapids was immediately verified when we saw the plaque. After landing here, we continued on past a place where the water had some swirls and then a couple miles higher, we saw the first real rapid. It didn't look bad with waves not more than two feet high. I thought it would be fun to shoot this one on my air mattress, but the others wanted to get located to swim, eat, and fish; so I didn't press the point. We dropped back to the place where there is an old shack up on a bench as well as the burnt remains of several other buildings. These must have been the quarters where surveyors lived when they were working at the Bridge Canyon Damsite. The buildings must have been quite comfortable with piped water and screens. Allyn and I followed the trail up to the level above the inner gorge and I observed that one of them follows the contour upriver into Bridge Canyon before there is a chance to go up the Redwall. After this hour on foot, I took to the water on the air mattress to see how effective the current is at this part of the lake. I could cross the river without being carried downstream, but the current was steady and I think I covered over three miles in the hour I was on the mattress. When boats came by and the waves got me wet, it was cold enough to make me get out on the bank for warmth.
We had a slow trip back to Temple Bar with a sluggish motor. The waves were high by Sandy Point and we got thoroughly splashed.
This was a Jeep trip with the Gibsons and my wife, Roma. We took about two hours to get from home to Grand Canyon Village. Ellery went into headquarters with me and we had a short visit with Ranger Womack. I was interested in hearing that a couple men were at the bottom of the Blue Springs Trail preparing to take a sample of the water with the idea of tracing ground water flow. Womack remembered well the place where Bob Schley and Rock Mullens had balked. He also told me about some unmistakable trail construction in the Supai quite far from the bed of the wash. I called his attention to the fact that the government mappers had shown the trail in the direction he mentioned, and it was my thought that it was not a different trail heading somewhere besides the bottom. Womack thought that from the care with which this part of the trail had been constructed, someone must have thought that they could get stock down the trail. My thought was that if stock could formerly get down the trail, there must have been walls built up for 60 or 80 feet to hold the trail near the top. It surely is a mystery why the trail should look so well constructed at the very top and also down in the Supai but should seem so impossible in between.
It had been quite wet for the previous four days, and there were places along the road to Topocoba that were mud holes holding water. We stopped a couple of times to inspect a bypass before we proceeded, and our speed wasn't much. It took us over two hours to reach the park boundary sign. While we were eating lunch, I wondered whether we would have time to do justice to the Enfilade Point Ruin and still get back on the blacktop by daylight. At the turn-off to Great Thumb Mesa, we stopped and changed to the four-wheel hubcaps. The road up the draw was negotiated in low-low gear and still it felt a little precarious to tilt the car at such steep angles. There are places before you get up on the mesa where you don't see how any tires can come through without being wrecked, but we felt a lot more secure going along with lots of power at a crawl than I did when I drove the family car up here. There are almost no places to turn around and you wonder how it would be to meet a vehicle coming the other way.
Just after you pass the turn to Manakacha Point, taking the right fork of course, you come to another fork. A bit of brush has been put across the right hand fork here to keep you from going that way, but I thought that this track might take us quite close to Enfilade Point. I never have accounted for this track. We had gone out to the bench mark west of the upper end of Forester Canyon, and I wondered whether this track was left by surveyors. It simply quit after two tenths of a mile, but I think we must have been rather close to Enfilade. I chose to go back and carry out the approach I had planned, follow the road until it made the next close approach to the rim and then walk south to the point. This is a pleasant route even for Roma who doesn't like much upgrade. The point is easy to locate since it's lined up with the river through Conquistador Aisle.
Roma watched while the Gibsons and I climbed up to the top of the rock. It was just a bit difficult for Maxine to get up the last part of the scramble and we braced her heels. The ruin was obviously constructed for defense with breastworks only on the side toward the rim. There are also some rooms outlined by walls all the way around and there were a few small pieces of pottery, both plain and black on white. This ruin has attracted attention at least as long ago as the Doheny Expedition of 1924, so the pottery must have been previously studied. Just north of the center of the living area, a wide crack goes down on the west side which wasn't hard for me to get down using the chimney technique.
This trip was planned especially for Francis T. Worrell who had read my article in Appalachia and wished to avail himself of my general invitation to hike with me to unusual parts of Grand Canyon. I had at first suggested that we study the possibility of a ropeless route down through the Coconino south of Cape Final and then try to climb Jupiter Temple. He had demurred at the idea of a first ascent and he preferred my next suggestion that we fill in the four miles below Points Tahuta and Great Thumb to complete my traverse of the entire southeast side of the river from one limit of the National Park to the other.
He came up from Phoenix about noon on Saturday to go out with me on Great Thumb Mesa in my four-wheel drive Jeep station wagon. We left home about 1:30 p.m., but we lost time at the service station just outside the park when we found that the motor had overheated. After blowing a geyser, it took almost two gallons of water and then behaved itself thereafter. We changed to the four-wheel drive hubcaps at the turnoff to Great Thumb Mesa about 5:30 p.m. and it was dark before we had come to the really bad ledges. A number of times, Francis jumped out to move a few rocks before I took the vehicle up some seemingly impossible slope. He also got out to search the brush for former wheel tracks and finally we decided that it would not pay to proceed in more darkness for fear of becoming totally lost in unbroken brush.
The evening around our cooking fire was pleasant and we found many mutual interests. Doctor Worrell is only eight years my junior and has had at least as broad a background in travel and hiking. We enjoyed a few minutes of sky study assisted by Reilly's present to me, the light weight clamshell glasses.The night was cold, but our bags were entirely adequate and I slept far better than I often do. We had some tense moments trying to get the Jeep to start, but Francis succeeded after I had failed. We drove on past the first surveyor's pole fastened in a juniper but not as far as the second. We gave up the motorized transportation when I suggested that we were making only a little better time than we could on foot with less wear and tear on the car. A further advantage of walking was that we observed more. The first consideration was to locate our position so that we would not miss the car on the return. When we looked over the rim, I noted that we were in the angle formed by two ravines which go into Fossil Canyon rather close together. We watched for the place I had left the rim to descend into Fossil Bay and found it and the cairn I had built near the car track. We parked the car just south of the knob marked 6270 on the map.
Francis and I are about the same height and although he outweighs me by over ten pounds, we like the same steady pace. We followed the horse trail while I watched for the place where I could first see the cliffs of Tahuta. It is about here that one can go down a draw to the northwest and find the shortcut into the Olo Canyon bay. In what seemed a short time, we were looking over the rim into the bay formed above 140 Mile Canyon. I could see by now, about 10:00 a.m., that we could not hope to fill in the gap along the Esplanade from the Great Thumb Trail to the terrace below Great Thumb Point, so I elected to lead the way along the top to look down on the same area. We hit the rim in the bay between Great Thumb and Tahuta Points where we found a stick in the middle of a cairn. There is a fine view of Deer Creek Valley from here and one is struck by the amount of green. It seems possible to follow the talus from the mouth of Tapeats Creek to the mouth of Deer Creek. The Redwall rim cuts off the view of Deer Creek Falls.
We then proceeded to look for the beginning of the Great Thumb Trail. There are two ravines leading down to it, and we entered it from the northern one. There is a barb wire fence near the lower end of this gully. The trail was in good shape and I felt that the Supai had done trail work since Allyn and I went down here five years ago. We observed two places where you should be able to go from the Esplanade up to the rim between here and Gatagama Point. I also thought that I should be able to go down the Supai Formation to the top of the Redwall on the east side of 140 Mile Canyon rather near its mouth.
I owe apologies to Dan Davis for trying to get down the cliff near the telephone line. He had told me that it is impossible, but Jay Hunt and I had talked to the Supai who seemed to be saying that there is a descent route requiring two ropes somewhat to the left (south, as we understood it) of the line. We hoped to combine a trip down from near Manakacha Point with a descent of the travertine deposits as detailed in the Wampler Guide. A large party from Flagstaff would be down at the campground and we would join them. I thought that I would be down early enough to get in a visit to Horsetrail Canyon.
Just the day before we were to go, I met Norman Thomas who works at Lowell Observatory, and he asked me what I was about to do and could he come along. I invited him since he has had considerable camping and hiking experience and said he also knows his way around on cliffs. I picked him up at six and we got Hunt and his duffel at Grand Canyon Village where he had been attending a scout meeting. We left the village in my Jeep and got to the end of the Telephone Line Road at the rim above Supai about noon.
By 12:30 p.m. we were through lunch and were resolved on being down to the village of Supai by 3:30 p.m. We could see various game or horse trails going down the valleys on either side of our ridge. Right away we had three heads working on the problem, and I began to get the feeling that any one of us would have done better than the team. I was figuring from the map, which I had looked at without bringing it along. Hunt was trying to remember the exact advice given us by the Indians, and Norman was taking turns following my ideas and Hunt's. If I had brought the map with me, I believe I would have given up on this locality immediately and driven back to a branch road that had gone to the north. I would have known from the proximity of Mount Wodo and the position of the mouth of Hualapai Canyon, that we were too far south. As it was, we spent all the time we had allowed to get clear to Supai in getting down to the cliff formed by the continuous Toroweap-Coconino contact and following game trails along it to the north and the south. We found a pile of surveyor's stakes and a cairn on a point about 200 yards south of the telephone line, but we should have known better than to take so long here.
When we were going to the car, I was carrying a ten pound rope as well as about 24 pounds of pack and canteen, and I really pushed myself. Norman couldn't keep up with Hunt and me. When we got to the car, Hunt wanted to try again by going off to the south and looking at the rim beyond where I had reconnoitered. The idea was that he would get back about the time that Thomas caught up, and I loaned him my watch so he would know when 15 minutes had passed. Norman and I got a bit worried when he actually took an hour for this solo jaunt. Again I thought that going by myself has some advantages.
Hunt was obligated to join the group at the campground since he was sponsoring both college organizations. I took him over to the head of the Topocoba Trail which he had covered several times previously, and he expected to make the campground in five hours, by 10:00 p.m. I would have gone with him except that Thomas was quite sure he couldn't go 16 miles to the campground that night. If he did, he was more certain that he could not get back to the head of the Topocoba Trail by a little after noon on Sunday, and I had promised my wife to be home by 6:00 p.m.
After we parted with Jay, we started home. What I should have done so as not to feel that the trip was more or less wasted was to go back out the Manakacha Point Road and this time take the turn to the north that is rather far west. I now feel rather sure that if there is a way down, it's from the end of this road and not from the end of the Telephone Line Road.
Jerry Bortle, my companion on this trip, wanted me to help him locate Silent River Cave. I pointed out what I thought it to be from Point Imperial. This was his first chance to see the Point Imperial-Cape Royal area, so I took him down to Cape Royal before we tackled my first project. Clubb had told me that there is a way to get down through the Coconino without a rope in the region of the Promontory Ruin 1.4 miles north of Cape Royal. I had tested the two ravines to the south of this promontory, and I thought I should investigate the region just north of the promontory before concluding that one must use a rope to go down through the Coconino Sandstone. Jerry and I got to the top of the Coconino and assured ourselves that there is no way down along here. (I found out that the right hand ravine does go without a rope for a determined climber.)
We next drove out the Cape Final access road and easily found the big ravine northwest of the point. I had scouted this five years ago and knew that one would need a rope to get down. The details of the route down were vague in my mind. There is a cliff at the very top of the Kaibab only about 10 feet high. Several breaks get one through it, and then you skid down through the soil under the first and other trees until you are well started down into the Coconino. One 30 foot drop in the sandstone can be passed by some easy scrambling over at the west side. There are no more difficulties until you come to the bumping off place, about 180 feet above the bottom of the formation. We were about to give up the idea of rappelling down here when we noticed that the descent is broken by two shelves wide enough to support vegetation. It appeared that the lower shelf led right to the lower forest to the east.
Both of us had carried ropes down to this point, and in order not to waste this effort, we each rappelled down our own rope. When we had passed the upper ledge and arrived at the lower, I found that we would still need a ten foot rope to get down to the forested slope to the east. I fastened the Prusik slings together and tied this improvised rope to a small tree growing in a crack. This was enough help to put us on a narrow shelf that really did lead away to the forest below the Coconino. I had some difficulty getting my pack down through the bush to which our rope was tied, and on the way back, we ran into real complications. We both climbed up past the bush or small clump of trees. Jerry was able to pull his rather flat pack past the obstruction, but my fatter pack would not make it. Jerry finally got my pack past by using a knife on the obstructing inch wide trunk. Also on the return, we found it unnecessary to begin the Prusik from the lower shelf. By using the two ropes for support, we were able to stop on some small ledges and get up to the higher shelf where the real Prusik began. It was about 30 feet up from here, and the rope was tied in such a way that it was possible to slip the knots past the edge of the cliff at the top. Jerry went up first and I kept tension on the rope to help him slide the knots. When I started, I tied my pack where its weight would keep the rope taut, and my progress was better than it had been before.
We were able to follow a deer trail quite close to the base of the Coconino over to the point above the Unkar-Chuar Saddle. This leg took about 25 minutes. The way down to the saddle was rather easy, but it was necessary to do a bit of looking for breaks in the Supai cliffs. These are only 15 feet high, and from a distance they seem negligible. The rule seems to be to stay rather close to the ridge forming the north edge of this slope. We went from the car down to the saddle in a total of two hours. Less than one more hour was needed to go down to the familiar route to the Indian ruin that Reilly had called the Juno Ruin. This morning we made it back from the ruins to the car in five hours and 20 minutes.
I found a piece of pottery at the top of the saddle, thus confirming this as a prehistoric route.
I got a leisurely start from Flagstaff on Saturday morning figuring on camping in the Jeep station wagon on the rim. It took me two and a half hours of four-wheel driving after leaving the Topocoba Road. The return took the same period, and this time I noticed the breakdown. It seems to be about 12 miles of driving to reach the rim above 140 Mile Bay and the first six miles to the place where the Jeep track goes down a sort of crack between limestone outcrops on both sides takes me about 40 minutes while the last six take almost two hours. The slow time for this part is explained by my having to get out and scout for the track on four or five occasions. There are sharp turns among the trees where I would have to back to make the angle, and while I was by myself, I became careless and backed into some limbs that cracked the safety glass in the rear window and also split one of the side windows. If the Park Service would cut a few trees and mark the route with plastic ribbons, it would be a big help. At present, I would about as soon walk from the halfway point.
Since I reached the rim before three, I had time to go down to the top of the Toroweap and walk west to see what the descent is like, the one that Reilly used in going to Keyhole Bridge. I'm not sure there is a safer approach than the one I used, but when I came to the broad talus through the Toroweap and Coconino, the going was relatively safe and easy. There are signs that horses come up here rather high, and I can believe they can come out to the rim also. After getting below the Coconino, I followed the talus east to the two broken areas that also pierce the usually impossible formations. These are rather close together, but they are separated near the base of the Coconino by a difficult ravine. I went up the first one I came to and had no trouble going on to the rim a bit farther east. There was still time to follow the rim west to Gatagama Point although it was six-twenty when I got back to the car by the last light of day. Sunset had occurred just before I reached the point where I noted a fallen pile of rocks that formerly supported a large juniper stick. The views up Kanab Canyon and west over the path of the Colorado River were terrific. I was glad I had taken this detour although I was groping at the end of the walk back and I felt rather lucky not to miss the car.
Three sleeping bags plus newspapers for insulation under my air mattress were supposed to be sufficient protection from the cold. I spent a comfortable two hours reading Time by the light of the gasoline lantern. After sleeping an hour, I woke up too warm and got along with only one bag for the rest of the night.
My ambition for Sunday was to go down the Great Thumb Trail and follow the talus below the Coconino around to the point east of Great Thumb Point. It was a long assignment, so I started from the car at 5:15 a.m. and found the moonlight quite a help in reaching the beginning of the trail. I lost the horse trail about halfway to the trailhead and went down and up the other side of all the draws next to the rim. It was daylight when I was about halfway to the bottom of the Great Thumb Trail and I headed around to the east rather high on the talus, which was probably a mistake. When I was below the angle west of Tahuta, I found a well defined trail at the base of the talus. This trail is better than most parts of the Tonto Trail until you are directly north of Tahuta Point where it peters out. Horses go around the point a little way into the bay between Tahuta and Great Thumb but then the going becomes much rougher, and the only further tracks I saw were bighorn. There were also plenty of deer tracks before this rather abrupt boundary.
I wanted plenty of daylight to drive the Jeep back to the Topocoba Road, and the allotted five hours for the outbound leg was obviously not going to suffice for my project. I killed some of the time by going out on a point of Supai just north of Tahuta to look down at the river. It seemed especially low and the oblique light brought out the riffles from the mouth of Tapeats Creek to Granite Narrows. I noted that a traverse from the mouth of Deer Creek to the mouth of Tapeats would be about impossible if one were to try starting from the river level at the bottom of Deer Creek Falls. (Some have now done this up from the river first.) I'm pretty sure it would be feasible although slow walking if one left the Deer Creek Valley above the formation through which the creek cuts the final gorge to the river. (Right, an Indian route.) On the return, I stayed low and made better time. I checked the spring where Allyn and I had camped at the end of May in 1957. I'm rather certain I found the right place, below a grove of cottonwoods, but it was now bone dry. What was rather sinister was a dismembered skeleton of a horse as if it had died of thirst and been taken apart by vultures or coyotes. I wouldn't count on this as a source of water in the future although it may flow for several months after the winter storms. There were two horses near the base of the Great Thumb Trail, so there must be some water somewhere, although I saw none. (There is a spring shown on the 1962 map.) My route to the rim was up the third talus which cuts through the Coconino, the place just east of where I had gone up the day before. It has about the best developed animal trail of the three. It comes out on the rim exactly where I had arrived by the other route. If I try this project sometime in the future, I'll go down here and carry enough water for a day and a half away from the car. The same route will be used on the return which will help by allowing the caching of water for the return.
Just to the west of Tahuta Point, a talus almost goes to the top of the Coconino. It would be possible using about 100 feet of rope to descend here.
I was invited to go with Jay Hunt and Don Kimball to Supai starting Friday evening with the express purpose of getting down to the river and back. Don is the new scout executive and Jay wanted him to see the proposed hike that the boys would be taking sometime in the future. Because of various last minute car repairs, we were delayed in getting to Hilltop until about 10:00 p.m. When we were about 20 miles from the end of the road, it started snowing, and by the time we arrived, it was coming down about as thick as it can. Don had no chains for his car, and I was afraid it would pile up deep enough to keep both cars where they were if we didn't get back to the highway without delay. It went against Hunt's desires to do this, but we headed for Peach Springs. By the time we had gone halfway to the highway, the snow had stopped completely, and from the amount we found on the ground the next morning, it stopped at Hilltop too. After getting more gas, we camped a few miles north of 66 on bare ground where there were some junipers for firewood. By morning, the temperature must have been close to zero. At least my ears couldn't take it with no protection.
We got a late start down the trail and it was 1:30 p.m. by the time we reached Horse Trail Canyon. I felt rather sure that we were not going to try for the river this time, and I went up this tributary canyon which is the first one on the west as you walk north from the mouth of Hualapai Canyon. I left my pack and canteen at the fence and soon found a trail. Right away I noticed a broken wagon wheel and a heavy iron pump lying there for what purpose, I wouldn't know. Just beyond on the south side, there was a rather fresh looking grave profusely decorated with artificial flowers. This canyon is much steeper than Hualapai and there are many large obstructing rocks in the bed. The trail goes around these places by some most ingenious twisting and obscure bypasses. Several tributaries come in from the north. I doubt whether one could even scramble down the first one, but the others look possible. I rather think that Jerry Bortle and John Day came down one of these instead of going farther west and using the trail. At the main split there is a gigantic mushroom rock that would be fine in a picture, but I had left my camera in the pack below. The trail leaves the creekbed most of the time and eventually goes out and up on the south side. It even doubles back to the east to get above a ledge and then comes back to the bottom of the wash where the bed levels off even with the Esplanade. I reached this level in 40 minutes and went back down in 30 staying near the bottom of the wash instead of using the easier but longer trail. I would recommend this canyon trail as being one of the most interesting I have seen.
I ate a belated lunch as I walked to the campground and found the party, except for Hunt and Cureton, busy starting a fire and preparing for a still more belated meal. Hunt was talking to the Marshalls, the parents of the Indian boy who is living with the Hunts in Flagstaff. I used my time to go down and see Mooney Falls and inspect the mine shafts along the way from Havasu Falls to Mooney. The unusual feature of the falls at this time was the amount of ice. Navaho especially had festoons of ice hanging from the red travertine. There was not much beside Havasu, but the spray from this fall had blown over and put a heavy coat of white on a large area to the northwest of the cataract. Mooney had both, a fine frozen fall on the vertical block and also a large sheet of frozen spray on the ground. There are three mines beside this trail, the one nearest the campground being the largest and having the most branches. After I showed Jay how much warmer the interior was, we all slept in this shaft and had a fine night's rest.
Allyn bunked near me rather close to the entrance. As soon as he was awake, I told him what I wanted to do with my time, follow Wampler's tip and go up on the Esplanade between Havasu and Navaho Falls and then keep to that level right around into Hualapai Canyon. We ate breakfast and told Hunt what we wanted to do. We got to the top of the Redwall where we had gone up a year ago last November, just south of Havasu Falls. On our trip to the top of the Redwall above the mouth of Havasu Creek, I had noticed the place where one could climb to the top of the Supai, but I had not looked at Wampler's description recently, and I became confused. I took Allyn north along the top of the Redwall instead of turning to the south. We got as far as Mooney Falls without finding the break and then returned to camp. We did review the location of the small window through which one can see Mooney Falls. It's directly above Mooney and not on the north side of the next bay as I at first thought. An Indian dog had been following us ever since Allyn had gotten his breakfast at the campground. On the return we put our packs down at the top of the Redwall and came down Ghost Canyon just north of the campground. I'm rather sure I went part way up here about 1946 on my trip to Supai, but the details had been forgotten. Quite close to the top, there is a ten foot drop that must be negotiated with hands as well as feet. The dog refused to jump down here. I noticed that the miners had improved on nature here since I saw a drill hole for blasting. There are also numerous artificial steps at other places along this route and two iron pipes and a wood ladder in position at the very bottom. After telling the rest that we couldn't find the way to go up on the Esplanade, we agreed to go past the village and order the horses for the removal of the duffel. Then Allyn and I were going to go up Horse Trail Canyon and parallel the trail through Hualapai Canyon on the upper level. We were going back to the village by the route west of Navaho Falls.
As soon as I got to where we had come up the first time, I saw Wampler's route up the Esplanade. In order not to break our agreement with the rest of the party, Allyn went on to the village to order the horses and go up Horse Trail Canyon while I proceeded up to the top of the Supai. At the top of the long talus, there were a couple of places where it seemed that one might get through the lower cliff. One was around a corner in a ravine, so I relied on the one I could see best, directly up from where I was walking. As it turned out, this was quite difficult for me with my pack and canteen, but on the ledge above, I saw a row of cairns about 20 feet apart, so I knew I had missed the easy way up. There has been enough traffic up here to make a pronounced trail, and there were no more difficulties in getting to the top of the Supai. The route is interesting, however, since it finds the only practical way. This would be the time of year to make long treks along the Esplanade. There were numerous places where the ice was melting on the flat rocks. Progress is about as slow along here as one learns to expect of the Esplanade. I took just over three hours of walking time to go from Havasu Falls to the head of Horse Trail Canyon. Allyn was there to meet me. We required about two more hours to go from the head of Horse Trail to where we could easily drop down into Hualapai Wash. We could follow horse tracks or an actual trail for almost all the way. Along the Esplanade north of Horse Trail Canyon, I came to two gates through short barb wire fences. The view towards Manakacha Point was not reassuring that we will ever be able to climb down here. If there is a chimney through the cliff, it doesn't show at this distance. The view up Havasu and Lee Canyons was most impressive. I was familiar with Mount Sinyala, but I got a better impression of Mount Wodo than I previously had, and the snow on the promontories lined the main branch of Havasu to the southeast was a bonus that was most inspiring. This route out of Supai is about twice as much effort as the usual way, but I heartily recommend it.
Marshall Scholing and another ranger had given me the idea of following the top of the Redwall east from the Kaibab Trail. At first their ambition was to climb Pattie and Newton Buttes, but they had decided on closer inspection that these climbs are for the bolt and piton operators. They had gone down the Redwall into the upper end of Cremation Canyon on the east side and had returned by the Tonto and Kaibab Trails.
I left the Kaibab Trail where it has already cut down through the highest of the series of Supai cliffs, just below the large fossil footprints. You then go to the south to get a break in a rather persistent small cliff. An indistinct deer trail can be followed most of the way to the east. It follows a contour which on the average is about 50 to 100 feet above the top of the Redwall, but when it crosses ravines, it often comes right down to the top of the limestone. The going is pretty rough, but there are not so many thickets of brush as there are on the north facing slopes of the north rim. One can make fairly good time and get around to the east side of the east arm of Cremation about two and a half hours after leaving the Kaibab Trail. I was out on the point northeast of Pattie about three and a half hours after leaving the car.
From the west rim of the long arm of Cremation, one can see breaks in the Redwall on the opposite rim. Marshall Scholing and his friend descended one of these. I had noticed one of these in 1957 when we visited the figurine cave in Cremation. These breaks don't appear to be so possible when one is directly above them. I really intended going down as far as the talus on this trip, but when I was on my way back, I decided that there wasn't quite enough time. Another point of interest was a well built cairn right along the deer trail below the northwest corner of Newton Butte. This may mark the place where Scholing decided to turn back. I had lunch and took a couple pictures from the point northeast of Pattie and then went over to the longer one north of Pattie. The river is out of sight from both of these, but there are impressive views of the rugged Schist through which Clear Creek runs, of Zoroaster Temple, and of the whole canyon both to the east and the west.
One could easily climb the lower half of Pattie, but the two upper tiers seem to be unbroken verticals. (It is possible.) On the return along the west side of Pattie, I flushed a deer. There was time for either an inspection of the climb to the saddle south of Newton or of the way down through the Redwall. I chose the former and found that there are ways through the two walls of Supai that seem to bar the way. The way through the lower cliff is directly west of the worst part of the saddle and the deer trail through the upper one is a hundred yards farther south.
An observation that surprised me somewhat was to note how relatively high in the Redwall the caves are. When we climbed into the figurine cave, I hadn't realized that it is about three-fourths of the way from the bottom to the top of the Redwall. The other cave farther north on the west wall looks more impressive from a distance, however, I think that it's harder to reach. I can't remember whether Art Lange has explored it also. The return was without incident except that I seemed to be more weary than I should have been after a relatively short hike. I reached the car by 5:30 p.m.
Henry Hall arrived from Phoenix about 9:10 Friday evening and by 9:20 we were off in the Jeep. A rather chilly and short night was spent at the roadside park some miles south of The Gap. In the morning, the car started without trouble and we moved up to the road west from Cedar Ridge before Henry built a fire and ate breakfast. Mine was raisins and bread eaten in the car. We got gas at the trading post and I asked for directions to the trail head. They gave me some help, especially the direction that the road went south of Shinumo Altar and then turned to the north slightly. We found the way with no real mistakes although there were numerous chances to choose between equally likely forks. Directions for reaching the trail might go as follows: after going over the hill west of Cedar Ridge, pass by the turn-off to Cedar Ridge Corral and keep to the north side of a long ridge of Moenkopi. Just beyond the end of the ridge, go past an outlier butte and angle northwest toward Shinumo Altar. You can skirt the south side of the Altar on a minor track and pick up a better road beyond that takes you on to the old Tramsite. About a mile before you reach the rim, you turn to the right and reach the head of the trail in about another mile and a half.
We had been told to go clear to the rim of the canyon at the Tramsite and then turn north. We were not sorry to see the views from the tram anchorage. We could see just beyond Vasey's Paradise upstream and a lesser amount of the river downstream. Next we followed a track to the north and got out on a point from which we had a fine view of the opposite rim, including the routes I had used to get down into Bedrock Canyon. We saw that we were still some distance to the south of Shinumo Wash. After backtracking along the road, we decided to take off cross country to shorten the route. This turned out to be a mistake, because we had to drive slowly and furthermore, I broke the wire to the tail light. Eventually, we reached the road that leads to the trailhead. We found a big cairn which we assumed was at the trailhead and then drove on to a point which gave us a fine view both up and down Shinumo Wash. We couldn't see the river, but we got a good idea of the way the trail leaves the rim, a really spectacular operation. The trail at the very top is marked only by a row of rocks as a border, but it soon comes to the rim where it drops a few feet down into a shallow gully and then goes around to what is nearly the face of a cliff. This is broken by a series of ledges which were probably connected originally by more cracks. By some use of crowbars and drilling and the use of retaining walls, the trail builders developed a horse trail. At present, however, there are some places which would be hard for a horse. The trail is quite easily recognized down to the bed of the wash. Then for a quarter of a mile, you stay in the bed. For the next quarter mile, you go up to the left and return to the bed where the Supai rock becomes a high cliff on the left. When we had been going for about one and a half hours from the car, we came to a place where the Supai forms a floor clear across this rather narrow bottom.There were water pockets here with plenty of water for camping, and the ledge along the left was under an overhang where we could keep dry in a rain. It was only 1:00 p.m., but we elected to drop our packs here and do the rest of the hike from this base.
When we were through the narrows and quite a bit more rather rough going, dodging large rocks in the bed, we caught the trail going up to the left again. This conducted us about halfway to the river. After another stretch in the bed, we reached the trail that goes around the corner and parallels the river. Progress was relatively easy and we came to the next side canyon and then the break leading down to the river.
We noted a peculiar phenomenon a few hundred yards before the trail goes around to the river cliff. I heard a distinct hissing that I couldn't account for. Henry assured me that I wasn't suffering from an hallucination. I poked around with a little stick and found that a jet of air was coming out a crack between boulders in the streambed. The crack was only as wide as a pencil and only a few inches long. The jet was strong enough to snuff out a match. I had never heard of such a small blowhole.
Another observation that had us guessing was the marks in the sand on the right bank. There were some reddish markings on the sand and then at the brink were many small grooves that were almost straight and parallel. I first thought of the marks left from boats with protecting strips on their bottom have been beached. When I went closer and thought about it, I came to the conclusion that both types of mark were caused by the melting of snow and ice. After another quarter mile, it became apparent that Henry wasn't going to be able to get along the trail opposite Vasey's in the allotted time. He agreed for me to go ahead as fast as I could and see whether I could make it in another half hour. I trotted down all the declivities and hurried all the time. It was the most interesting part of the trip for me. I noted one place south of the break at Mile 30.3 where one could get down from the top of the Redwall to the river, but downstream from here was the route used by Stanton leading away from the Indian ruins. There were two or three places along this leg where one could not walk the bench even at the present low water. Incidentally, the river did not seem unduly low. Perhaps now, all the present flow is coming through the higher diversion tunnel. The island supposed to be in front of Vasey's was entirely covered.
Vasey's looks so drab in the winter that I didn't recognize it from the rim at the tram site. It had been warm for more than a week, but there was still a small patch of ice at the base of the rock where the north facing spring puts out a small flow. Another point of interest was an artificial terrace just below the trail where two tent poles were lying. I was sorry I didn't have time to follow the trail to its end, but I had exactly reached my time limit here. On the way back up Shinumo Wash, I noted a big rock lettered BM3 with the last number covered by a rock pile supporting a stick which had carried a flag. The next morning we got out to the rim in a little over two hours from our campsite.
Doug Shough and I got a prompt start down the trail at 8:00 a.m. and reached the place where it starts down the Redwall by ten. I underestimated the time it would take to go along the top of the Redwall around the bay to the west. It took almost an hour to get behind the bridge and then find our way down to stand beneath it. Something else that surprised me was to find about three cairns along the top of the Redwall. Maybe the old time prospectors knew something that they wanted to look at later. There were none particularly close to the bridge and we built a couple a yard or two behind it. The size of this structure is not impressive. Twenty-five feet high would be a generous estimate.
While we were getting over to the bridge, we noticed that the Redwall just to the north of the bridge was pretty well broken down. When we had taken the bridge on film from all angles including using its arch as a frame for Comanche Point, we started down the scree slope that covers much of the Redwall. About halfway down, there are two or three rather continuous small cliffs. After a bit of study, I found a ravine that cut through these ledges. We angled down to the south and ate lunch at the top of the Tapeats, but there is a good break in the Tapeats directly below the break in the Redwall. Indians could have come up this way from the fort near Cardenas Creek and saved several miles. After looking at the map, I've decided that if I ever want to go to Unkar Creek again, I'll follow the Tanner Trail only to the point southwest of Cardenas Butte. From here I'll go over the pass west of Cardenas and out to the place where we just went through the Redwall. I could go through the Tapeats and then go northwest around the point before trying to go father down. Basalt cliffs bar any immediate descent.
In a former log, I gave a location for the natural bridge. It's near the top of the Redwall facing east and is about two-thirds of a mile directly west of the place where the Tanner Trail starts down the Redwall. It's about the same distance north and slightly west of the top of Cardenas Butte.
The shale slope just above the top of the Tapeats looked quite steep, but just as I hoped, there was help in the form of a faint deer trail. Progress was easier than it had been along the top of the Redwall and we reached the main trail in the saddle just below the cliffs of greenish shale. We followed the trail south beneath these cliffs until it came to the ravine where it goes up. We wanted to see the seeps I'd heard about in the east arm of Tanner, so we left the trail and followed the contour to the east. Eventually, we decided to get down to the bottom of the wash not far from where the long arm comes in from the west.
This hike was less than a week after the latest snow and rain, and the clay was still muddy in many places. We weren't surprised to find some water in spots where the creekbed was shale. Above the junction of the two arms, water was dripping from the walls in at least three places. Drops were coming over the lip of a fall in a side gully on the east, and there was more water where the main bed ends at the impassable fall in the lower shale cliff. We backed away and went up an old slide of boulders and clay on the east. On this slope I found a badly weathered leather glove. The narrow ledge to the south and the scramble to the top of this cliff led us back into the bed and two more seeps. I wouldn't count on these sources during the dry part of the year. One would have to leave pans and cups under these drips for several hours to harvest a gallon of water. We reached the car at 6:00 p.m., after walking for the last mile through four or five inches of snow.
Three students: Doug Shough, Steve Windward, and Margaret Puckle, went with me to the end of the cable across the Little Colorado River about ten miles west of Highway 89. We noticed that there was enough water in the river to kick up some small rapids that were easily audible from the rim. We got out the map and figured that we were at Mile 46.7. On the way to the Damsite Trail, we had to cross a slight gully before we came to the major faulting at Mile 47.5. We could tell that we were at the right place because of the angle in the river, but this can only be called a trail by people prepared to go down an 80 foot rope or ladder. We stood at the lip of the wash and looked over the walls in the vicinity, so we are sure there is no way down.
When we had climbed out of the ravine to the east, we soon hit a sort of trail or old wagon track. While Margaret rested, the three of us went over to the rim of the canyon, already quite a bit lower, and looked down to see what the Damsite could be. Along here, Mile 48.6, there's a curious inner narrows at the bottom of the main canyon. We soon sighted a foot bridge, only about 30 feet long that spanned this inner gorge which is probably 60 or more feet deep. It would be a real sight to see this part of the river at flood stage. The surveyors had also left a couple ladders at places against the wall to the north. When we had walked along the rim to the part directly above the footbridge, we found a truck road leading down to the rim, definite trail construction for a few more yards, and then some heavy wire fastened to a steel rod that must have formerly anchored a long ladder. Here the drop was not as great as at the Damsite Trail, but it must have been a good 40 feet. We could see a trail going downstream on the other side staying above the inner gorge.
When we went back to the main trail below the red bluffs (Moenkopi Sandstone I think.), Margaret joined us. Along here we found a number of pieces of petrified wood. Without even leaving the sheep and stock trail, we noticed one piece as big as a volleyball. It was easy to see where the Hopi Trail went down into the riverbed. There is no cliff left. One could recognize it turning back to the west across the river as it goes up. Three of us waded across in bare feet and wondered how anyone could stand water that cold when it's more than ankle deep. While we were returning to the car, Margaret had so much trouble keeping up that she decided not to try to follow us as we went looking for the Moody Trail.
When we started to look for the Moody Trail, I slowly came to the conclusion that I had been reading the map wrong. I had thought that the scenic viewpoint is west of Mile 38. We parked near a hogan just off the viewpoint spur and started walking. We soon decided that the viewpoint must be just west of Mile 39, and we found that we could have driven much nearer the area of Hellhole Bend. The piece of Grand Canyon Highway shown on the map is the unpaved road that still leads towards the area east of Cedar Mountain. The part we walked over is in good shape and wouldn't require a four-wheel drive vehicle. Leaving the road, we walked north and reached the rim at Mile 32.3. Shortly before we got there, Doug noticed a Navaho and went over to ask him about trails to the bottom. The Indian spoke English well, but he knew nothing of a trail in the area. In fact he said there was no chance to get down in the region just north of Hellhole Bend. He was vague about the possibility of getting down farther to the north.
There was no time to go north and west, so we decided to give the vicinity careful scrutiny even if the Navaho had assured us that there was no way down. After assuring ourselves that there was no way down where we hit the rim, we cut across the point and studied the rim south of Mile 34. Very soon we were sure that the map is wrong in showing the trail starting down from the upper rim. As a last resort, we went to the bottom of the wash which enters at the angle just above Hellhole Bend. Upon further examination of the map, I now notice that the trail is supposed to begin where a contour line bends to the west. As the wash ended abruptly above an impossible cliff, I was almost sure that there was no trail around but to be entirely sure, I followed a slight ledge around to the north where there was a further chance to descend a few more yards to a crack which seemed like a forlorn hope. Just as I was giving up, I found a heavy wire fastened around a loose block which had further smaller rocks piled on it for more security. The wire had been there a long time as it was rather rusty. There were kinks for handholds, but I would much prefer to bring my own rope. Rocks wedged in the crack below would furnish steps for resting, and only about 40 or 50 feet would have to be climbed in this way before you reached a talus that would take you clear to the river. The Indian Maid Trail across the river looked like the same sort of climb, apparently impossible near the top, but probably there is some sort of chimney to climb on that side too. The Little Colorado River Gorge is growing on me, and it will give me several projects that can be carried out in a single day. We came away from this day's looking, thinking that the gully to the west of the viewpoint seems easier than some of the places labeled as trails on the map. I want to check this route to the bottom rather soon.
So many predictions of snow had failed this year that I went ahead with plans for a two day trip down Slate to the Colorado River. I did change from the project of going out on Great Thumb Mesa because of the likelihood of snow. Doug Shough and I got to pole number 355 and shouldered our packs containing, along with the usual bags of food, two ropes and a gallon of water apiece. We had a bright spot in the overcast instead of the sun to guide by, and we hit the rim in 35 minutes southwest of the break we wanted to descend. I felt a bit of uncertainty about the place. After we had gone down to the actual drop-off too soon, I decided to go along until we were surely too close to Diana and then double back if necessary. Almost immediately I found a low rock pile at my feet and remembered that Allyn had built one here. The details of getting down two six-foot ledges near the rim had me guessing a bit, but soon we were headed for the break in the lower rim that leads to the pinyon where we would fasten the long rope. The ground was frozen with a few loose pebbles on the surface and it was covered by an inch of new snow. A slip here would have sent one down 20 feet to the main precipice, so I decided to back out. Doug is a better companion than I've had for years since he lets me go first and takes my decisions without any argument.
We got back to the car with the position of the sun for a guide. We had left the rim at quite a different place from where we hit it, but we crossed our tracks on the way back and tried to follow them. This worked for a few hundred yards, but than we lost them again and reached the road seven poles west of the car.
I was in a quandary as to how best to spend the rest of the time at the canyon. First I thought of taking Doug down the Hermit Trail and trying to go from the trail to the cleft in the Redwall at the head of the gorge, but then I thought more of some exploration of the Little Colorado River Gorge. We reported out of our trip at the visitor center, and I talked Indian ruins with Ranger Norman Messinger.
On our way east, my eye was caught by the point which I later learned is Papago. The semi-isolated island at the end would make a good site for a defense ruin. On our way along the rim, we also sighted a window. It's a careful but not difficult climb down from the main rim over to the island. There seems to be a slight residue of breastworks facing the rim but I saw no obviously artificial construction nor sherds. The views from here are among the best. Lower 75 Mile Canyon is right below, and I noticed an unusual overhang level with the streambed on the east side of one of the bends. It was a bit upstream from where I climbed out to the west. The views of Escalante and Cardenas Buttes seemed finer than they are from Lipan Point, and a small butte (our name for it is Wedding Cake) on the long ridge of Redwall north of 75 Mile seems interesting from here. The river was now down to 1000 cfs and it was running almost clear. The color was about as green as it was two winters ago.
This time we came out of the junipers about 200 feet from the car and I decided that the weather was deteriorating so that camping out by the Little Colorado Gorge wouldn't appeal. To do a little more before we headed for Flagstaff, we looked down the draw almost to Desert View on the east for the landmark, a round black rock, which Pat Reilly was told marks the head of the Salt Trail followed by the Navaho. In 15 minutes we came to the drop-off without seeing any more than a deer trail. From the looks of the basin ahead, I would say that the Navaho would have been smart to follow the route I noted west of Cedar Mountain. They could have come along the lower level up past Cedar Mountain. The rim is lower on this side and it would be easier to go down here. I saw no special rock near the trailhead, but I wasn't looking for it.
After priming me to save a date in May for a trip off Manakacha Point, Jay Hunt abruptly suggested that we do it the next Saturday. I had intended to use this weekend for completing the traverse below Great Thumb Point, but I was glad enough to switch my plans. This time there would be two vehicles for the trip. I would take Doug Shough, and Hunt would take Arvid Burnam and Francis Earl, all good walkers and climbers. I wasn't sure that I would have the Jeep for the drive up the rough road on the mesa, but Hunt was rather sure his truck would make it if I didn't have the use of the four-wheel drive.
However, I easily located Colin Fletcher in the campground and learned that he had succeeded in having the fan belt put on the Jeep and it was ready to go. While we were stopped in the village, Hunt passed through in his truck without a thought for more gas. When we arrived at the rendezvous, 34 miles from civilization, he greeted us with the news that we would have to trail him back to town the next day since his gas gage read zero. Another reason for his party to be glad nothing had been able to stop us was that the only water they had was in three small canteens, and it was very possible that there would be none this side of the Esplanade or Supai. There was no great assurance that we would make it off the mesa, so if I hadn't had plenty, they would have been in trouble.
In the morning, we got an early start and by eight we were at the end of the road, this time taking the northern branch. After more map study, I noted that the map doesn't show the road going as far as it actually does as well as not showing the branch leading to the place the telephone line goes down. One thing we saw that may explain the original need for a road here is an old reel of rather heavy cable. It surely is not extremely long, but it suggests the idea that a mining company was planning an aerial tram down to Supai, certainly a more practical method of bringing out the ore than the wagon road which was supposed to go down Lee Canyon.
There were a couple small cairns leading from the end of the road either towards a crack between the blocks at the very point, or perhaps to the semi-detached high block forming the very point itself. On top of this platform, there was a large cairn. This may have been a marker for the surveyors, or it may have had something to do with the proposed cable way. We of course thought it marked the route down. Francis was about the most aggressive in searching for a route. He had the others put him on the end of a rope and belay him over the edge below one of the chutes in a place that I at once dismissed as impossible. I told the others that if they were going to spend their time on that sort of thing, I would amuse myself exploring along the rim. That was not my sort of fun. Francis soon asked for help back up and reported it impossible below. I knew that we could have came over below this point from the south without having the obstacle of this top cliff of Kaibab. Next, Francis hurried ahead of the others around to the north side of the point and soon reported a way to get below the top cliff that only required rope work for about 10 feet. There was a fine block for tying to, and we could go down hand over hand this far. When we were on the steep clay slope below the top cliff, we scattered out to the right and left to see where there might be a split in the Toroweap and Coconino Formations. Hunt had given me the impression that the Indians had told him the route was just south of the point, so I went in that direction with Arvid for a companion. We got to a place where we had covered all the lower rim as far as where we had been on the other occasion.
On our way around to the northeast to join Hunt and Earl, we picked up Doug who had been waiting for us. Hunt was making a lot slower time across this poor footing than Earl. Even from some distance, the lower rim around here seemed more promising than where we had been, and I hurried on. Doug was keeping close until Francis shouted that the walking was better higher up, and the rest of the party took his suggestion. I could see a piece of a bighorn trail down near the Toroweap rim, but this lasted no distance. The others saw me approaching a break in this rim, so they thought that they would wait for my report. After inspecting two possible routes down, I returned and went below the first cliff of Toroweap at the first place. It was possible to go around a small point to the east and find a perfect place to scramble down below all the Toroweap. A landmark for this is a huge detached block of limestone lying at the top of the Coconino. My next reconnaissance was fruitless -- going east along the top of the Coconino. I satisfied myself that there was no route in that direction. The rim to the west looked even worse, but the others shouted for me to go around there and report. Only a couple hundred yards in this direction, I saw something that needed investigation, a steep ramp against the sandstone cliff. There was a convenient notch leading down to the exposed part. At times it was only three feet wide but after a short chimney where one had to wriggle down, it only took cool nerves to go over halfway down the Coconino. Then after a wider platform where moss covered the clay, one soon came to a water smoothed overhang of 10 or 12 feet. I realized that I could not get down without a rope, but for some reason I didn't inspect the part leading on to the bottom except to note that it averaged steeper than the part higher up.
Doug came down to the rim of the Toroweap and relayed my report to the rest who had been eating lunch where they were waiting. They came down to see even though I hadn't given a very encouraging report. When I came up from this ramp, I left my pack and continued looking farther west. For several yards here, I had the worst footing that I had encountered all morning, but I got as far as a talus that had looked encouraging from a distance and found that there was absolutely no hope over there. In the meantime, Francis had come to my pack and was considering the descent to repeat my investigation. I had said that a short rope would get us past the place where I had stopped, but I thought there were more difficulties below. Hunt, Burnam, and Shough had stopped across a small bay from here and informed us that there was no hope in getting down where I had indicated the possibility. I went over and joined them as did Francis. Hunt said that we couldn't get down to the mossy platform, and then I informed him that I had gone 20 feet farther. I also told them that I was glad they had decided not to go over and make me look chicken by going on down. That remark turned the trick. They immediately took the rope over to my crack leading down to the ramp. Francis had gone ahead and when he reached the overhang, he reported that the rest would be easy. Burnam, Shough, and Earl held the rope while Hunt went down the overhang first. Then they helped me down, and Hunt waited at the drop to help the others while I went on down to the bottom of the Coconino cliff. This ramp was very narrow, and at one spot there is an awkward long step over rocks that could have been loose. Doug stayed up to anchor the rope for the last one down and then went back to drive the Jeep to the campsite at the junction of the Mesa Road with the Topocoba Road. I led the rest down to the wash which holds the Apache War Trail leading to the fort above the chapel. We knew that it would be difficult to see where the trail left the bottom of the wash, and we stll missed it, but not for long. We scrambled out of the wash before we were boxed in the way Allyn and I had been in 1960. It took us only about an hour and 20 minutes to go from the bottom of the Coconino down the Apache Trail to Supai.
Doug went back to the rim by an easier route than going up the rope we had left. There's a walk-up through the rim about five minutes walk east of the point. This should be about where the road is shown as ending on the map. If someone would bother drilling a hole in the sandstone and fixing a ladder at the overhang in the ramp, one should be able to go from a Jeep, down to Supai in two hours or less. Of course, one could trot down the Hualapai Trail in less time than this, but it would not be as sporting. I saw bighorn droppings just below this ramp, and one of the others reported signs at the top. On a prominent block of limestone one ravine to the east of our ramp, there is a large cairn which may have been a reminder of this place. The Supai say this is not their rope descent.
I find that I can drive the first seven miles of the road up on the mesa in a little over a half hour, but after that I averaged only a little better time than a fast walk. Something always seems to happen to the Jeep on the part where I lose my way and have to plow through the sage brush to get back on the track so I have now resolved to walk beyond the clear part of the track. On Monday I reached the hill where a surveyor's upright pole with a crossbar, sticks out of a large juniper tree, less than 10 minutes walk from my cairn marking the route down into Fossil Bay. After eating by the car, I set out at 1:10 p.m. and reached the rim at 140 Mile Canyon in about 45 minutes.
The grove of cottonwoods marking the site of the spring is visible from here and I got another picture of the Great Thumb Trail which should include this grove. The deer trail off the rim is about 200 yards east of the rift where a piece of the deer trail starts down at a steeper angle. I could see no clear signs that horses also use this route to water. It was easy for me to get down to the good horse trail on the Esplanade in about 30 minutes and over to the spring in another 30. It would have taken me at least an hour to go along the rim to the head of the Great Thumb Trail, so I was clearly ahead.
I had been seriously considering taking a rope to the route a little west of Tahuta Point, so I observed it quite closely. My best estimate of distances would be that one could walk backwards holding to the rope for the top 30 feet of the Coconino cliff, and then there would be abut 20 feet of rappelling below to reach the talus. I was satisfied with the steady walking without having to retrace the route to come back for the rope. It was 4:30 p.m. when I started into the big bay just east of Tahuta Point and it took me an hour and 45 minutes to get clear across. There were plenty of bighorn signs, but I saw none on this trip.
As I was deciding whether to stop for the night when I had crossed the cove east of Tahuta, I noticed a route that appears to go right through the Coconino and Toroweap formations. There's also a fair chance that a route goes through the top of the Kaibab, but some use of a rope would make this certain. I was tempted to leave my pack here and return when I had filled in the gap below Great Thumb Point. I gave up the idea since my announced plan had been to go on and out at Fossil Bay, but this would be an interesting lead to follow at a future time. My bivouac site was most interesting, a sheltered shelf below an overhang formed by the upper layer of Supai Sandstone. The night was quite windy and I was grateful for the protection of big blocks of stone almost closing in my apartment.The view towards Tapeats Creek both in the twilight and dawn was most memorable.
Only about an hour was needed to go on around the next cove to the base of Great Thumb Point but by the time I had walked out on the projecting rims and had crossed the next shallow cove to my former farthest north, it was 9:00 a.m., two and a half l hours after I had started on. In one ravine of this bay northeast of Great Thumb, I spotted a couple potholes that probably hold water through the wet seasons. One had a fair supply, but I still had quite a little left of my original six quarts and didn't feel like climbing down for more. The water situation seemed better than I had pictured it to Colin Fletcher. The spring at the cottonwoods west of the Great Thumb Trail was flowing a precipitable trickle after going dry last fall and I noted water on the rocks at several other places. I was rather surprised to find my reliable pothole in the main arm of Fossil Bay to be about a foot below the rim and alive with wrigglers. When I reached this location about 2:00 p.m., I was completely out, but I got water from the only other hole nearby, shallower and cleaner. Only dead butterflies and bugs floated on the surface.
A bighorn skeleton, a large chunk of calcite, and blocks fallen from the Kaibab full of fossils took my attention on the return to Stanton Point. One can get down into Specter Chasm on the south side for about four-fifths of the Supai, but after that it would be impossible.
I was all set to go through the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon and appeared at six on schedule, but no one else showed due no doubt to the weather. If we had gone through by the approved route, it would have meant wading through numerous pools and swimming two deep holes over 60 feet each. Snow was still covering the ground from the storm on the previous day, and the highways were icy. A strong cold wind was blowing, and I was not too surprised to be the only hiker on hand. I had decided to invite all who showed to go with me to inspect more of the Little Colorado River Gorge, so I waited for 20 minutes then took off by myself.
I turned the Jeep off the highway about one-quarter mile east of the road to the scenic view where Highway 64 starts up the grade. Here the canyon is already about 1700 feet deep and is deepening about 25 feet per mile. The road goes only a half mile farther than we had walked on the other occasion, about three and a half miles in all. This is one of the mysteries -- why should such a good road be built that leads only to the rim of Lee Canyon and then quits. Or one should say that there is quite a bit of road building part way into Lee Canyon, and then the work simply stops. Someone must have ideas about carrying it down and across, but the money gave out. First I went over to the rim just south of the mouth of Lee Canyon and found that I was looking at the river about Mile 33. From the rim I couldn't tell whether one could go on down from the lip where the canyon ends. On the rim facing the river, there was a cairn and at the two places below, I found trail construction, including juniper logs and walls to help stock descend. From the end of the hanging valley, there was no chance to proceed lower, so I concluded that the above trail was simply to help animals get to the water in the potholes. Many shallow pools had been filled just the day before, but there were also deeper holes in the rocks that evidently had held water for sometime to judge by wrigglers and algae. I returned along the bottom of Lee Canyon and climbed out to the south when I was nearing the car. What I still didn't notice is that a good horse trail leaves the end of the road and goes down immediately to the north into the canyon. Here again is a riddle, why it should be wide enough for a truck at first but soon tapers down to a track for one horse.
After I had eaten an early lunch, I left the car about 11:10 a.m. and walked to the plateau in the northeast direction. After crossing Lee Canyon, I came to about seven other ravines of lesser depth. I looked into the main canyon about Mile 31.3 and then paralleled the rim. At one place I noticed that vehicles can come down from the higher plateau to the west. Something else that seemed a bit strange was that over much of this area there was little or no brush to scratch ones legs. Sheep droppings were almost everywhere, but the only animals seen were three horses and a newborn colt. These were even with Mile 28, my farthest north.
I wasn't sure of my map identification until I saw the gooseneck at Mile 29 with its characteristic spine of rock pushing the riverbed to the east. I could also identify the broad island detached from the east rim to the north, the one showing the 5500 foot contour. Walking this far from the road end and crossing the ravines near the rim as well as stopping for a few pictures took me 120 minutes. On the return I discovered the horse trail and made faster time, 110 minutes. My turn around was marked by a big surveyor's rock pile with a pole in the center. I was still seven river miles from the Piute Trail. The next time I try to locate the Piute Trail, I will go down by Cedar Mountain. This was a day of minor accomplishments, but the views into the Little Colorado River Gorge were inspiring and there were quite a few birds around, mostly juncos. The day was memorable for how cold it can be almost to the first of May. I wore my wool gloves until afternoon.
Peter Huntoon was still eager to see the bottom of the Blue Springs Trail after the frustration we experienced last fall. We left Flagstaff soon after five on Friday afternoon and had the Jeep ready for four-wheel driving by 7:30 p.m. at Desert View. This time we went around on the north side of Cedar Mountain and found the track quite a lot smoother. It became apparent very soon in the night driving that Pete remembered the route better than I. We found that the road had been worked on since last fall, and there were very few places where I felt that the Jeep was listing badly. The place where the main track goes to a hogan while our route turns west along a ridge caught us again, but Pete checked me before we had gone many yards out of the way. We reached the hogan east of Gold Hill in less than two hours from the highway which would have been a very satisfactory time in the daylight. We spent a windy but comfortable night here.
On Saturday morning we drove up to the old parking above the last valley before the trailhead. Pete finished eating before me and took off. When I started down the steep part of the rock climb, he was already nearing the top of the Coconino. I got down the first 100 feet and side-stepped around the point to the ravine just west of the first cairn. From here to the top of the Coconino is obvious. The main bed here is split by a spur. Both chutes drop off abruptly, and I wouldn't consider going down either, but Pete was already well down in a crack near the west half. I didn't remember the route from five years ago, but I was sure it was not the way he was taking. I should have known that I was not taking the right route when I was about two-thirds of the way down over to the west and Pete shouted that he was through and was going on. I continued down where I had started until there was only about 50 more feet of Coconino below, but it was impossible. After returning to the ravine where Pete had started down, I had wasted 75 minutes. A check of the east chute assured me that this was not for me, so I went over to a cairn leading to the west again. This time I stayed out of the west chute but only a short distance. Very soon I began spotting cairns.
The route through the Coconino goes to the west and then angles back towards the chute. In fact, there is a yellow painted arrow that directs one into the chute just below an overhanging chockblock. This particular arrow should be removed as there is little future here. Another arrow points to the west and one can descend getting farther and farther away from the chute. One has to proceed with caution at numerous places and this route, while the best is still not very good. I can think of people who might balk at going down here. At one place, a cairn directs you to hold on to some very poor grips and pull yourself up until you can get a knee on a ledge. You work you way farther and farther west and reach the bottom of the Coconino quite far from the chute. Then you have to follow the top of the Supai still farther west and reach a break to take you down to the talus. You should then angle sharply back to the chute or rather the rockslide below the double chute. The cairns and painted arrows are surely helpful, for finding the best way through the Coconino is harder than it is up to Wotan's Throne or Shiva Temple. Pete made it down to the river from this place by the bottom of the wash as I had done in 1958 and went from the rim to the bottom in about one and a half hours, although he wasn't carrying a watch to verify that.
I followed the well built trail around the base of the upper Supai cliff and it was much easier this way. I agreed with Womack in wondering who would take the trouble to build such a good trail at the lower end of this impressive climb. On the return Pete tried the east chute and wound up doing the hardest solo climb of his career. I came up from the river without incident in two hours of walking. We both took a swim at the bottom and noticed that the big springs come out of a crack a foot or more above the level of the pool instead of reaching the surface from below as in 1958. The water impressed me this time as being soda flavored rather than salty. I drank one and a half quarts on my way out.
Bill Breed introduced me to Dirk Springorum, a graduate student in geology, and I was glad to invite him along. I had thought of making an attempt to climb Vishnu Temple if Allyn Cureton had been able to go with me, but I decided to try for Hubbell and Poston Buttes and Jupiter Temple first.
Instead of going away from town at 6:00 a.m. as planned, I had to stay until almost nine when I got two flats within a half hour. Instead of taking a crack at Jupiter on our way down to Juno Ruin, we stopped at North Rim Headquarters and had a good visit. Then I took Dirk to see Point Imperial and Cape Royal. We finally got started down from the car towards the north facing notch near Cape Final about four. We rappelled with a carabineer and body sling down the 40+ foot drop followed by the 20 foot drop near the base of the Coconino and then followed the ledge east as Jerry and I had done last fall. This time we had a second rope for the end of this ledge long enough to tie to the large dead fir 15 feet above the clump of bushes you have to get by. Dirk had more trouble getting his wide pack past the brush but he put it down and reached back for it. With one of the main stems cut by Jerry last fall, I was able to negotiate this spot rather easily both going down and coming back.
We were able to follow the deer trail that generally follows the base of the Coconino to the angle in the cliff where we went down on the northeast to the top of the Supai. The uppermost wall is about the least broken. A good way to descend occurs about midway between the draw to the south and the angle north. On the return, I marked the route by a two stone cairn. We used different routes on the descent and the return, but I would say our descent nearer the draw was the easier. Lower down we worked more to the north.
We found the deer trail leaving the saddle, and this time I marked the head with a small cairn. After leaving the trail to descend the second ravine to the west, we got down through some loose rocks and brush to the south tributary of Lava Canyon. As usual we went to the west along the top of the Tapeats and then down the break to the ruin. The return from Jupiter Temple was made by following the deer trail farther to the west before descending. This trail seems to disappear as you reach a slope wooded by junipers, and the footing down here is much better. It's not so direct, however, and the gain is more evident on the climb up. Both the bed of the ravine and the juniper forest are preferable to walking up the rock slide. We reached the ruin at seven for a trip of three hours, a few minutes longer than Jerry and I had taken last fall. We took precisely the same time to get back to the car, five hours and 20 minutes.
The second day we got an early start at 6:15 a.m. and went up the tributary that heads near Hubbell Butte. Getting by the fall in the Bright Angel Shale was just as hard as I had remembered it, and this time we committed the error of going higher and staying out of the wash longer than was necessary. Near the top of the Redwall, the ravine splits and I couldn't remember which part I had taken in 1958. This time we went to the east and it went through all right.
The Supai cliff that rings Hubbell Butte is remarkably uniform, and we got the impression there is no break at all on the west, so we went around to the east side. There were impressive overhangs, but toward the southeast we began seeing encouraging signs. Dirk was in favor of going up the first place that seemed the least bit possible, but I talked him into investigating further. Quite close to the south end, but still on the east side, we found a crack. Dirk showed that he could get up the awkward ten feet to reach the crack, and after that it was easy. However, the crack was so narrow that I couldn't maneuver enough to get even a knee up to the floor of it. After some thought, I simply rolled over and sat down after which I could scoot in farther and then stand up. There was no other problem and we were the first to build a cairn on top. Dirk went down the difficult place first and then gave me real help in placing my feet on invisible projections. I believe if I had been by myself, I wouldn't have climbed Hubbell Butte. There was nothing to walking over and climbing Poston Butte, but we were surprised to find a large cairn already on it. At the south end of this ridge, it was easy to go down to the top of the Redwall to the east. Below that, I was afraid it would be steep, but we found a nice deer trail down to the saddle. We could also see that the Redwall is almost entirely covered by a rather gentle slope of brush to the north and we are sure one could easily walk down to the tributary of Lava that comes up to Hubbell on the east. We wanted to investigate the descent directly to the ruin. Through the upper half of the Redwall, it was simply walking down a debris choked ravine. To negotiate the lowest third, we had to turn to the east. Just before we were to run out of shelf here, there was an easy descent. The break in the Tapeats wasn't immediately evident, but it's just west of the end of the detached block that forms the overhang for the ruin. This block is in a class by itself. A chunk of rock a quarte mile long in the east-west direction and about half that wide has split away from the main cliff and seems to have slipped down to the south. I believe the map is wrong in showing it longer in the north-south direction. This jaunt took only six hours, and after quite a breather in which both of us read Time, we parted company about 2:00 p.m.
Dirk was down there with a vowed intention of studying the gravel terraces, so he went downstream. I had never measured the Hartman Bridge, so I went upstream. The measurement was admittedly crude, but it showed that this bridge compares favorably with Goldwater's in size. I had a short rope, seven feet long as judged by Dirk's six foot height. Under the bridge I found a dead sapling of the same length as the rope. I couldn't go straight across as I was applying my stick, but along a curve, I used the stick 23 times on the span. If we straightened this by cutting it to 20 times seven feet, we still get a respectable 140 foot span compared to my measurement of the other bridge as 147 feet across.
The third day, we started about a half hour later to try to climb Jupiter. We made the saddle in one hour and 25 minutes and after a short breather, we headed for Jupiter. The top of the Redwall makes a good route, but as we approached the notch between Juno and Jupiter, we began slanting up. There were plenty chances to reach the main ledge supporting vegetation below the top two cliffs of Supai. Some scouting was necessary to find a breach leading upward. The route was to the south, up a break, then a little farther south, up another, and then to the north to get to the shale below the final defense of the platform on which Jupiter is built. We couldn't see a break on the west side, so I led Dirk around to the east. As usual he wanted to try the first chance we came to, but I continued looking for an easier way. I was soon rewarded by a very simple scramble to the upper platform, and Dirk soon gave up and followed me.We found the ascent through the Coconino as easy as we had hoped, although hands were necessary near the top. We built the first cairn on top and were eating lunch when I noticed a yard long lath with staples in one end. It had been stuck upright in a bush at the summit. Vern Ruesch suggests that this was left by a surveyor who arrived by helicopter, and we are inclined to agree. We returned to camp at the ruin and had a good loaf and a bath in the spring. The climb out was without incident. We had hung the rope in the crack at the east end of the face, and the Prusiking could be varied by some stepping on small shelves.
We both agreed that this had been a fine trip with ideal weather, birds and flowers to watch, a campsite surrounded by terrific scenery, and 100% success on all projects.
Dirk Springorum and I had been intending to go into Nankoweap Basin from the north rim until I got word that the Reillys were at Grand Canyon Inn on the south rim. We left Flagstaff at 6:30 in the morning and were talking to Pat and Susie about two hours later. They were planning to do some more reading at the south rim and then study the Shinumo Wash area of Marble Canyon before going to the north rim. They wanted to go down from Point Sublime to Tuna and Crystal Creeks. They promised to spend an evening with us at the end of his vacation and bring us up to date on what they had seen.
I figured that after this delay, it would hardly be worth going around to the north rim before starting on foot. We ran into a further delay when I got a spike in a tubeless tire at the parking lot of the Grand Canyon Inn. We finally got started down the Tanner Trail about 11:15 a.m. and reached the river in just over three hours. The river was flowing clear at about 2500 cfs and it was easy to go along the bank. Crossing the boulders and walking through the sand is not too easy, however, and I suspect that it is still better to follow the old route at the edge of the outwash hills. We followed the west edge of what used to be the island.
Fording looked feasible about a quarter of a mile above the island. With bare feet, walking over the irregular boulders two or three feet below the surface was not simple. They're still coated with slick mud, and the cracks between the boulders are uncomfortable for bare feet. Perhaps the horsemen who used this crossing went where it was deeper and smoother on the bottom.Anyway, after I had walked about a third of the way across, I gave up and mostly swam back.It would have taken too long to do the whole river on foot.
The low stage of the river impresses me as being quite suitable for foldboating. There are three short rapids between Lava and Tanner Creeks which would be harder to negotiate without touching a rock than either of these better know rapids. These supposedly lesser riffles are found by boulder bars which pretty well cross the river. The one at the ford causes considerably more white water than Lava Creek and it is much more noticeable from the rim at Desert View. The river slides between the huge rocks at Lava Creek without kicking up so much fuss. Dirk and I looked at the swift water below Lava Creek and the wide expanse downstream where the current is less, but we settled for the deep and quiet pool above Lava Creek. It was not too wide and the only current was in the middle third. Assisted by a breeze from downstream, we crossed without drifting down at all.
We saw footprints like Colin Fletcher's along bank, two sets going north and one coming back. It was fairly late when we were through with the crossing and we settled down for the night at the Butte Fault. There was little water flowing here at this hour, and before morning it was coming along copiously. We had a good night although it was a bit cool for my two cotton blankets. Shortly after six in the morning while we were passing a couple of dubious cairns, we came to a pair of three foot rock piles marking a spot of copper ore. It was not particularly rich and the hole was shallow. The malachite was in the Tapeats Sandstone.
The profile of Lava Butte from the Tanner Trail had made the ascent seem like a simple walk-up from the west, but when we got to the highest part of the saddle, we still had a 30 foot cliff to surmount. After a bit of skirmishing, we found a talus leading to a fine crack. We first walked to the back of the crack and up a few steps. From there it was a chimney climb including getting to a meager ledge and coming back to where the crack was wider before getting out on top. Dirk preceded me here, but I feel sure I could have done this one solo. From here it was simple though a bit steep, and we had fine views from the top. There were no signs that we had been anticipated in this climb. On the way back down the Butte Fault, we came to a deeper mine digging that was partly filled with slides.
With two quarts of water apiece and our lunches in my sack, we started north along the Butte Fault about 8:30 a.m. A short walk brings you to a dry fall which you have to bypass to the east. On my trip five years ago, I'm pretty sure I followed deer tracks up the shale to a low part of the rim and avoided climbed as high as I led Dirk this time. There is a cairn where you should leave the wash to do this. As you approach Carbon Creek, you should leave the main wash and proceed to the lowest part of the divide to drop into Carbon. It still surprises me how low this divide is, only about 40 vertical feet. The gate to the final gorge where Carbon goes down to the Colorado River is impressive for the deformed strata.
With the idea of following the Butte Fault, I led Dirk out of the bed of Carbon to the left too soon. We had to climb down again after missing the dubious springs. (Melvin McCormick says this water contains arsenic.) We proceeded up the bed of the branch that lies in the fault until it was clear that a tributary came down from just north of Carbon Butte. The east face of Carbon Butte is quite broken but it is impressively steep when viewed from close below. We preferred to go up the shale to the north and then walk to the top along the north ridge. This was probably wrong since the scramble through the loose shale was so difficult. Again the views were fine and we seem to have been the first to build a cairn on top.
To the north in an arm of the tributary we had come up, there was quite a bit of water loving vegetation. To check for a possible spring we went over to it and ate our lunch in the shade of a big rock. There was enough water to convince us that this runs very well at night. We were not certain about the quality of this water so we didn't drink any. However, before we left Dirk saw some birds apparently drinking it although here didn't seem to be any well established animal tracks leading to this water.
Next we went over a low ridge and slid down a one shale exposure to the bottom of Butte Fault. It was a slow climb from here to the saddle between Chuar and Temple Buttes. It was either shale or steep and rotten sandstone. The sight of the river gorge below was rewarding, but we didn't like the looks of the Redwall leading higher on the Temple. Our water was low also, so we decided not to push our lunch and just go back to camp along Lava Creek. There was plenty of time to move our gear to the old trail site about an hour and 40 minute walk upstream. The spring water was cool and good, but as it turned out the night did not bring a sound sleep. We were fighting ants and trying to dodge mosquitoes.
In the morning, Dirk and I started upstream together; he to take samples of gravel in the terraces and I was scouting to see whether a burro could get through the Tapeats to account for McDonald's route from the rim to his mines. I left the bed quite a bit east of the Juno Ruin and found a good way to climb through the Tapeats. It's in a ravine at the top of the most extensive talus along here. For a few feet, I had to use my hands to get past a projection, but I feel that McDonald could have built trail here to obviate this. There was a fair deer trail to the east around and under Point Chiavria. I had agreed to get back to the separation point at 9:45 a.m. so I had time to go far enough to see only into the canyon northeast of Chiavria. I wanted to check again the break in the Tapeats we had used in coming down from Poston Butte, so I made the return longer. I decided that the big blocks of stone at the lower part of this break make this impossible for a loaded burro. As I returned along the peculiar trough behind the block of Tapeats which roofs Juno Ruin, I noted another place where the Tapeats has many ledges and a fair amount of vegetation. I should have walked up here but I was sure to be overdue as it was and I was content with a photo.
On the return, Dirk saw a minnow in the smallest stream of water I have ever known to support fish, Lava Creek above the junction with the arm called Chuar.
We slept that night at the bottom of the Tanner Trail and climbed out in the morning in my fastest time, four hours and 42 minutes.
Allen Sinclair came with me and we drove the Jeep around the north side of Cedar Mountain. After following the road as it swings to the south to get down east of Cedar Mountain, we took the branch to the east instead of north towards Gold Hill. We passed by a fork that would have taken us southeast. In one shallow draw we started to take the left hand track, but when we saw it heading too much to the north, we came back and went over a ridge to the east. We had to go down off this small ridge over a very rough road in low range of the four-wheel drive. If we had taken the right turn earlier, we probably could have reached the same area. After this, we kept to the left in case of a choice. As we approached the rim ,we were in a very rocky draw where the road kept up on a ledge to the north side. We came to the end of the road at a dry cattle tank.
After looking at the map and looking at the gorge, we thought we were north of the Piute Trail. In going along the rim to the south, we had to cross two or three small draws. In just under a half hour, we could see that the south side of the minor point we were on could not be the right location. We were able to identify the curves in the riverbed and we now placed the Piute Trail as about one and a half miles north of where we had parked the car. When we returned to the car, we got a refill of the half-gallon canteen. We were also carrying a gallon and a quart in my knapsack, as well as food.
When we got out of the depression containing the tank, the walking was quite level. There seemed to be more of a trail in this direction than one would expect. We looked over the rim a time or two, and the first real encouragement was the appearance of a straight ravine on the other side of the canyon similar to the one shown on the map. Soon we could see a break ahead where the east side had been thrust 50 or 60 feet higher than the west. I remarked that we would very likely find a rock pile at the head of the trail, if that was really it. A few minutes later, we could see the talus filled ravine with not one but two fair sized cairns. My fourth effort to locate the Piute Trail was successful.
The upper part was easy and safe. Towards the bottom of the Kaibab, there was an awkward place where the small cairns directed us to the west wall. At the end of a ledge, one had to turn around and slide down to some stepping stones with almost no use of the feet for five feet. On the way back, Allen bypassed this place by climbing over some looser material. The rest of the way down was fairly easy except that there was a continuous hazard of stepping on loose rocks in the talus. At other places, steep clay slopes were hard and difficult to stand on. At the very bottom, we had to go over a boulder slope to the east before we could get down the last small cliff.
Right away we settled a question that had interested me on the first Blue Springs jaunt. I found that the permanent mineral spring water begins a couple hundred yards downstream from the foot of the Piute Trail. Sinclair and I were both happy to sit in the cool water of a yard deep pool for several minutes. Walking along the bottom of the canyon was quite easy although we got into some mud. The small stream was simple to step across where the bed was boulder strewn, but just as often it was running shallow and several yards wide in the mud. The water didn't seem to taste very salty. In fact it almost seemed sweetish in an unpleasant way, but perhaps that was because in our dry condition we needed extra salt. I noticed later when we ate some late lunch that Fritos seemed to have lost their salt taste also.
We located Waterhole Canyon beyond doubt and in another 15 minutes we reached Horse Trail Canyon. This name must have come from a horse trail higher up because the only way I could see to get up the first 150 feet was by a harder climb than is needed on the Piute Trail. We timed ourselves up from the river to the rim at the head of the Piute Trail in 70 minutes (Later I found a horse trail clear down).
I wanted to get started Sunday afternoon and get an early start down the Nankoweap Trail Monday morning, but Dirk Springorum was having some sort of fling with some young people in Phoenix. Since I had promised him the chance to go with me on two different occasions, I told his cabin mate to tell him to be ready at 8:00 on Monday morning. When I looked in at that time, he was sound asleep, so I concluded that he wasn't counting on accepting my offer, and I took off for the north rim.
After a short visit at the Ranger Station to present them with pictures of Hartman Bridge and some other points of interest, I dropped in on Joe Hall who had been around a few weeks and now had the use of cabins with the minimum conveniences. We had quite a visit and made plans to start down the Nankoweap Trail together.
We parked both cars at Point Imperial and kept about 50 yards from the rim until we hit the Jeep road marked with paint blazes. Even though it winds quite a bit, it is faster to follow the cleared road than to head through the forest. We reached the burn in 50 minutes. After we had followed the road along the park boundary to the end and were a few yards into the brush, I saw a tawny coat gliding swiftly through the locust and aspen shoots across the little valley. I thought Joe was looking at it too, but his attention was somewhere else. The head and tail were low and out of sight. It went about 50 feet by in the time I could count to three and then it disappeared. Joe gave me the best suggestion as to what I had seen, a mountain lion.Just about any other animal would have been either too small or would have held its head as high as the shoulders.This is the first I have ever seen out of a zoo.
This time I hit the Coconino rim a bit too far to the south, but we were only a few yards off. I led Joe too far back along the right ravine to descend, or we would have had our choice of several good deer trails a couple of which were improved by man at some distant time. On the return we both found them and the cairns at the top. I also fumbled slightly in locating the place where the trail goes down from the saddle, but the delay was no more than a minute or two. Joe wanted to see the place where the trail, at the base of the top Supai cliff, gets bad. I took him to the spot where I used hands and knees in order not to scrape the pack against the overhang. With only a light pack, he was able to take this standing up while stepping on the outside three inches of ledge. He had recently climbed Shiva Temple and the difficulties and exposure had affected him less than they had me. I'm sure he could do any rock climb that I would indulge in.
Half an hour after Joe returned, a rain came up. I soon found a good overhang and let the water sluice down a fall a few yards away while I made myself comfortable with a magazine and my lunch. I wish I had been looking where Joe was during this rain. I was east of Marion Point, but Joe could see across the narrow gorge and was able to watch some spectacular waterfalls. A problem which I have never even tried to work on is to construct a list of the finest storm-born falls in the canyon. There must be many grand ones formed by notches in the Redwall. I missed a fine chance during this rain. I could have filled my half gallon canteen and left the gallon Clerks bottle full of water here for the return. Instead, I decided that I had more than enough for the descent, so I filled the canteen, and carried the empty bottle on down the trail.
In 1962, I had walked around the summit block of Barbenceta Butte, so this time I came prepared. I picked up a fairly stout stick about a foot long and took my 70 foot rope. When I got to the top block, I tied one end of the double rope to the middle of a stick and placed it under the overhang with the rope going up a narrow crack and over the top of the block. Around on the north side, I arranged the rope so that it hung down where there were the most toe holds. I had to tie a knot to form a stirrup and with other knots for better gripping, I was soon on top. On the return, I tried going down into Little Nankoweap Canyon. This would have been easy from the north, but there was still a 50 foot cliff on my side, and I returned to the trail up Tilted Mesa for a three and a half hour detour. I made one of my poorer traverses of the Redwall trying to stay on the trail and giving up, but I got to Nankoweap Creek by 6:15 in the evening. The usually clear stream was a richer red than I had ever seen in the old Colorado or even the Little Colorado. The soup boiled over in a rich red froth. The weather had been rather unseasonably cool and I was pleased to find that the one blanket was enough although I needed my clothes as well before morning. A jacket came in handy as protection for my face from the few puny mosquitoes.
About 6:30 Wednesday morning, I jogged downstream a hundred yards and started up the Butte Fault ravine. About two-thirds of the way to the pass, I went up to the east and found a good deer trail leading to the notch in the shattered remnants of the Redwall. It is an amazing place. An inconceivably powerful shearing force has turned the whole Redwall abruptly up through an angle of 90 degrees. To the south the Redwall shows as sheets separated by deep cracks and to the north there is a considerable solid chunk still forming a blunt tower. You soon walk through the notch after a short climb and start down into a hanging valley whose bed and east wall are the Supai and higher formations. It is the most unusual place that I have passed in the Redwall. The valley you now enter is eons removed from the shales and Redwall you left just a few minutes ago.
The trail led to the south keeping to the west side of the arroyo at the bottom of the valley. Very shortly my confidence in the feasibility of the route to the top of Nankoweap Mesa was shaken. The Supai cliff east of the wash seemed impressive. Upstream at a fork, I saw how it could be passed, either by going up to the end of the east fork where there is a narrow talus of Coconino blocks, or by going up the shattered wall between the two forks. I did the latter before I saw the more direct possibility. A deer trail showed around the top of the Supai, but on the bare rock I couldn't tell whether it went up on the ravine leading to the letters we in the name Nankoweap on the east half map, or around the angle to the north. I had forgotten which place had looked promising from the trail below Saddle Mountain, so I went up the first place that appeared possible. The bigger arm near the cliff to the south looked fine higher up, but it appeared tricky to get across above the lowest Coconino cliff, so I continued up the most encouraging, smaller branch to the north. I had to choose once more and thus got above all the Coconino. I could see that if I could get up just ten feet at the bottom of the Toroweap, the rest would be easy. Luck was with me again for there were safe hand and toe holds on the ten foot wall. I built a small cairn and made the top in a routine scramble in two hours and 50 minutes from the creek to the top of the mesa.
The views were most rewarding and I had the same feeling of being on a sky island that you get from Shiva Temple and Wotan's Throne. Of course I headed for the highest part, the rim to the southwest where I built another cairn and then followed the rim rather closely to the southeast and returned along the east rim for pictures of the river. After an early lunch, I capped the point east of where the mesa becomes a narrow ridge to the northwest. There were no signs of previous cairns but I saw a deer antler and deer droppings were common. Tracks also looked fresh in places. I think I can tell the difference between deer and bighorn droppings, and I would say that bighorns have also been quite common on the mesa and down in the basin too. After building my second summit cairn, I could see that the two quarts of water would soon be gone. I would like to have continued to the farthest reach of the northwest ridge, but I didn't want to take a chance of being weakened by dehydration on the route I had to use for the return.
Without really intending to vary the previous route, I started down from the rim farther north than I had been before. When I got my bearings and headed south near the bottom of the Kaibab, I ran into a clear deer trail and followed it down the ravine around the angle to the north of where I had come up. This worked fine until I lost the deer trail just above the bottom of the Coconino. I had to come back up and follow a ledge to the north away from the wash to make it down to the Hermit Shale. There were no further problems and I dropped down over the Supai at the talus noted before. I finished the canteen at the top of the Redwall notch and was sitting in the creek 40 minutes later. After a good rest, I climbed Nankoweap Butte, two hours up and one back. The higher summit block is easy on the east. It took me 11 hours the next day to go to Point Imperial.
The local paper carried an article about two discoveries near the trailer camp of the Arizona Power Authority on Buck Farm Point. From the helicopter they had seen a storage bin under a ledge of Supai Sandstone. It faces south and is just below the e of the name Marble Canyon on the Nankoweap Quad. Lynn Roberts had landed Euler on a platform of the ridge leading down to the saddle to the east, and they had been able to climb down to the cyst. Euler's theory was that this bin is near an old route the Indians used in crossing the river. From here they would have gone east along the top of the ridge and then climbed down the Redwall to the river at about Mile 43.1, just upstream from President Harding Rapids. Here is where the other recent find is located, in a still more unusual structure in the form of a bridge made of driftwood poles. It spans a 15 foot crevice in the Redwall 250 feet above the river. The mystery to me is that a person who could negotiate the wellnigh impossible climbing down to this place would bother to build an aid in crossing this minor obstruction.
From the map and some information I had received from Melvin McCormick, I got the idea that the prehistoric Indians would have entered this area from Saddle Canyon. I went up to the Buck Farm trailer settlement to see what I could pick up with the idea that I might go down into this whole region below the rim the same way the Indians did. Lynn Roberts, the pilot, was most friendly and cooperative. He showed me his pictures and also spotted the ruins on my map. He had heard from Bob Vaughn, an old time cattleman, about the trail down Saddle Canyon. (The trail goes up and then east before it ends.)
I parked the Jeep at the hunting camp and started with my food and bedroll for two days. The only trail to the top of Saddle Mountain still in evidence is the one heading for the saddle between Saddle Mountain and the rim. (A trail goes south and then east from here.) First I went down into the bed of the wash where the thick oaks and maples were still wet from the last shower. The slow bushwhacking and the occasional drops in the bed soon convinced me that this was not the route. About halfway to the rim of the ravine on the north side, I came to a deer trail that had also been used by cattle years ago. This was a lot better and there were occasional overhangs in the Kaibab Limestone that would be welcome if the rain returned. This followed a bench that was above the cliffs. I could see that the bed would have been absolutely impossible because of the big fall with a shallow cavern under it. Around the next point I could see that there was probably a way down. After I left my pack under a protecting ledge and put some firewood out of the rain, I went on and found that the deer had a way to the bottom. Also, there were pools of rainwater in the wash, so I would be able to proceed in the morning. I got supper where I had first stopped and then moved on to a still better overhang for sleeping.
Starting before six on Thursday morning with just my lunch and water, I went down following the deer trail. I could see another trail on the other (south) side of the canyon, but as the one I was on continued horizontally eastward, I followed it past the place where the streambed drops over the Coconino cliff. The only halfway possible route down this cliff for miles seemed to be by a rockslide across the canyon on the south side. Just as I was turning back to cross over, I saw a potsherd, decorated with black on white. I went up to the base of the cliff above without finding any ruin. Bob Vaughn had said that there was a ruin along this trail. One has to double back about 10 minutes to make the crossing.
The trail on the south was still more distinct than that on the north,, and I was quite encouraged to find deer droppings on the rockslide, an old one well consolidated with a brush cover. All was well until I was within 85 feet of the easy walking below. From here on it was vertical. A man willing to take a chance might have made it, but I backed out. It took me one and a half hours to walk to the car, and now I wish I had returned with my rope. (You can get down Buck Farm Canyon near its head through the Supai in the south tributary.)
From Buck Farm Point I had seen a place below the rim to the northeast that would warrant more study. The Coconino cliff was covered by a talus. If you could get off the rim, the rest of the Kaibab didn't seem too bad. Twenty feet of cliff at the top of the Coconino and the rim itself needed study. I walked around to it and found that I couldn't even get off the rim. The views were fine, however, and I went out on the point opposite Tatahatso Canyon before walking back to the trailers.
Here I had another good visit with Lynn Roberts and he wound it up by inviting me on a helicopter flight as his guest. He showed me the bin and then we dropped over the ridge and found the bridge of saplings. We went downstream over President Harding Rapid. I'm almost certain that one can get down the Redwall with no sweat a little downstream from Harding on the left bank. Likewise, the slopes on the south side of Tatahatso Point seem to be well covered with talus. About the next thing I want to try is to descend here. We flew along above the Redwall cliff at the lower end of Saddle Canyon and made sure there is not a way down there. A close look at what had stopped me made me think I should have tried harder. Then we swung back over the plateau looking at the buffalo herd and the ruins of the farming complex. It was a glorious and never to be forgotten flight.
Getting out to the highway was something of a problem. James Wilson, who is a state fish and game officer, was talking to the man in charge of the drilling operation, Forcier. Wilson had just helped salvage a truck that had spent the night in Houserock Wash. He said that we could get out to the highway if we turned off a couple of ruts in the fields and kept to the west of the main wash. To reach this turn-off, we had to pass a running stream where a Forest Service truck was caught in water almost covering the wheels. This left no room to pass. After some wading and inspecting of the terrain, Wilson took his four-wheel drive vehicle up over the bumps and crossed the stream a hundred feet above the road. I also had my Jeep in four-wheel drive and followed him in low range. We drove for what seemed like miles in water filled ruts. This was safer then getting out on the soggy meadowland. When we came to a truck that had stalled in the water, Wilson tried to go around and became mired. He had a chain long enough to reach my Jeep while it was still on firm soil and I pulled him out driving backwards in low range. Then he pulled the other truck out of the water. I was able to go on by myself and finally reach the highway.
At the last museum seminar of the season, I ran into Dirk and we planned a trip for him to Nankoweap Basin. At first I thought that I would go down Saddle Canyon to the ruins between Buck Farm and Saddle Canyons, but Dirk did not relish the idea of tackling the bad trail by himself, not to mention the wilderness for 36 hours, so I guided him down the Nankoweap Trail although I realized that there would hardly be time for me to accomplish anything new. We slept in the dining room at the hunting camp near Saddle Canyon and got started walking at 6:30 a.m. The trail starts down into Saddle Canyon just east of the buildings and then slopes to the west to the bottom. About one-third of the way up to the Saddle Mountain Pass, the trail can be followed, then for a quarter of a mile it leaves the main drainage and follows the divider between the main gulch and the ravine starting below the saddle. After that it becomes lost in brush and rocks. It was tough bushwhacking, but we made the saddle in one and a half hours. On the way back we kept out of the bed more and got down to the car, a 1200 foot descent, in an hour and 10 minutes.
I had carried a rope with the intention of trying the Redwall in the ravine closest to the saddle. We saw that it would be a gamble, and if we were unable to get down there, all the time for work Saturday afternoon at the bottom of Nankoweap would be gone. (I latter found out that no rope is needed.) It was rather important to Dirk since he was going back to Germany by the first of October. We hiked from the saddle to the beginning of Tilted Mesa in two and a half hours, faster than I had done it before by myself. It took six and a half hours overall from the hunting camp to Nankoweap Creek compared to eight and a half on the way out. I can't say that I am improving much at finding the best route through the rock slides. I even had some trouble leading Dirk down the deer trail which is now preferable to the ruined horse trail down the Redwall. Even on the return the next day, I still missed parts of the deer trail. We did notice something that had escaped me before. Someone has marked parts of this deer trail with cairns, especially the lower part where it is still in the Bright Angel Shale. Just above the Tapeats, we used the old route to the east and followed the good trail construction through the broken part. We camped a quarter of a mile upstream from where I had stopped before because both of us were interested in going upstream.
After lunch, Dirk went with me up to the south arm. Here he had began making observations of terraces while I hurried on trying to spot the large window through a fin of Redwall. As I passed the mouth of the arm going between Mount Hayden and Woolsey Point, I noted again that one can see the Goldwater Bridge. I wanted to return to camp by six, so I turned back at four just short of the arm that heads between Mount Hayden and Sullivan Point. I should have seen the lens shaped window if it had been in this arm. I realize now that I should have gone up the south arm. I did note that there is a good spring not far from the O of the word National on the Nankoweap Quad map. After staying on the surface for a half mile, it disappears, but a bigger spring keeps the flow permanent a little below the junction with the south arm.
The night was clear and cool but still we had a few mosquitoes. Dirk lost his can opener, probably to a pack rat. As we were crossing a low terrace near the main stream on our way out, we each saw a sherd. The climb to the top of the Redwall took us longer than it had taken me when I was by myself, but we did the rest quite a bit faster. It was seven hours overall from the creek to the saddle. There were a lot of yellow jackets along the route on the ledge of Supai, and while I was preparing to take a picture, one of them stung me on the top of the head. After I brushed it off, it kept on attacking. I got away as fast as I could. This time I saw a minnow myself in the little pool of the creek where we filled our canteens. The hunting camp is the closest approach for a car to reach the saddle. I would now like to try going down to the top of the Redwall through Saddle Canyon and then go around into Little Nankoweap from there. It would be a good two day trip to circle Saddle Mountain on foot. (I did this in 1969, in one long day - from 4:00 p.m. to 2:50 p.m.)
We left Flagstaff shortly before 5:00 p.m. and after stops at Williams and Seligman, we reached the Hualapai Hilltop and were ready to hike by nine. I had voted in favor of sleeping by the car and going down in the morning, but the club had preferred the idea of walking down to the creek first. It took us three hours and with an inadequate supply of flashlights, there was plenty of stumbling. It seemed that the trail had become much worse because of the August rains, but when we returned by daylight, we could see that it was only because we had taken the worst way over the rocks. After getting to sleep about 1:30 a.m., I awoke about 5:30 a.m. and felt weakened all day because of the poor rest that night.
Most of the party took time getting ready to move on to the campground below Havasu Falls, but the five who had agreed to see the rope trail were on their way fairly early. We were by the south travertine deposit by eight. Jay Hunt knew just where to start up, about 50 yards northeast of the travertine itself. You climb the talus and follow a trace of a trail until you come to an angle in the wall. Someone, perhaps Wampler, has scratched an arrow on the rock pointing up. You then walk over to the travertine and walk northeast following cairns to the Esplanade. You head for the butte in the Hermit Shale labeled 4540 on the west half map. It's easy to swing around it to the south and then go a few yards north to head a ravine which parallels the rim above. You then angle up to the south into the only prominent ravine along the entire cliff. An indistinct trail takes you up the talus to the broken lower half of the Coconino until you see a long rope.
I was sure it was best to spread out in the rest of the climb, so when the others stopped for some breath, I went on ahead. Hunt had trusted his 200 pounds to these ropes previously, but I felt better when I had tested the first one with as good a jerk as I could give it. It is about three-fourths inch in diameter and gives a good grip. You have to go up hand over hand for only about three feet before there are adequate toe holds for a rest. At the top of this pitch, the rope is tied in a very interesting natural hole right through the solid rock which happens to be in the direct line. From below, it isn't apparent how the upper rim can be reached, but when you get close, you see a neat split in the rim about four feet wide. There is another rope to help you negotiate a chockblock, but here the chimney is narrow enough to allow a back to the wall climb. We were really careless not to have noticed this break when we were here before. I have a feeling that I looked down here as far as the chockblock without seeing the rope and assumed that there was a long drop below the block. Now the top is well marked by a cairn and a three foot finger of limestone propped in an upright position. (Built by Hunt.) The small pebbles near the top of the chute are almost impossible not to dislodge, so each climber should get to the top before the next one enters the chute.
The other four in the group: Jay Hunt and his son John, Wayne Brown, and Allyn Cureton went on up and over to the Apache descent north of Manakacha Point while I went down the ropes again to go along the Esplanade to the Apache Trail down the draw to Supai. This would be new for me. There was a clear horse trail along the base of the talus and although it had a lot of bends, it was faster then the route over the top. I was ready to go down into the draw an hour and a half after I had left the others. It took me just one and a half hours to go from the floor of the valley to the top of the rope trail, above the Toroweap Formation but below the Kaibab. The latter offers nothing but an uphill walk here.
I was able to climb down to the bottom of Apache Trail Canyon through the ravine just west of the 40' line on the map. I rested and had lunch waiting for the others for an hour. At 11:30 a.m., I had been able to shout and receive an answer. When they had not come along by 12:30 p.m., I thought it distinctly odd. I began to wonder whether they had found no fastening for the rope at the crucial place on the ramp down the Coconino and had to return to the route with the fixed rope. I went up the main wash and then went out by a tributary leading up to the ramp. This time my shouts didn't draw any answer and I thought my guess confirmed. When I got back down to the bed of the wash, they were only 100 yards behind. They couldn't hear because they were already down in the bed of the wash. We found plenty of rain pools left from the wet weather of three weeks before as we proceeded down the bed. We left the bed for the trail at the correct place, for once. The trail bypasses drops in the creekbed two or three times both to the right and the left before it finally leaves the bed to follow the ledges along the north side. There is a crude gate a few yards to the right at the correct place and a string of rain pools in the middle of the bed.
It was warm as we approached the village, but I decided that there might never be a better time for going up the Ladder Trail. The others went on with the understanding that we would assemble again at the church. I found the scramble to the top very short and easy, requiring about eight minutes, but I also felt faint from the heat and exertion. I had to lie down for a few minutes. If I ever go back to Mount Sinyala from the village, this will be my route. However, I can drive my Jeep to the rim above the Apache Trail in less than five hours from home, so I'll be more likely to use this route to investigate the possible break in the rim at Mile 148.5.
We were all back to the village by 2:15 p.m., but instead of starting for the river; Jay, Allyn, and I seemed to feel a bit disorganized. I seemed under the weather from a combination of heat and lack of sleep, so instead we fooled around the village and campground chewing the fat with the hiking club. After a good night, we headed for the river about 6:40 Sunday Morning. Hunt knew the way after five previous trips to the river in two years. There are a few places where the trail is hard to find, but if you get stranded in a mess of vines, you can be sure you have missed it. It is always better than that somewhere else. Three creek crossings are necessary upstream from Beaver Falls and five below. There are several places where you wade without crossing the creek. At one of these places, Hunt had to swim. A student named Brant Gaedge, who joined us for this hike, couldn't swim a stroke, but I was able to lead him and Allyn around near some dams and arrive back on the bank in front of Jay. We were held up a couple times when one of the party would have an idea about the route that didn't pan out, but even then we got from the campground to the Colorado River in less than two and a half hours. The trail below Beaver Falls is just as good as it is upstream, and the entire trip is a fine one. It was a great relief to find the walking so simple in contrast to my all day ordeal with the vines and wild oats in 1946. However, I did see some things then that I missed this time. In trying for the best route then, I located two mine shafts on the right below Beaver Canyon. I'm also rather sure that either going or coming back I missed the trail that goes high and descends below the falls. I remember scrambling down rather near a branch of the stream which had separated from the main flow above the falls.
On the present occasion, we went to the west of the narrows at the mouth and got down to the riverbed. It was most interesting to see the clear water of the creek, no more than a foot deep over the bar, flow into the shallow river. The Colorado was still muddy from the summer rains. Jay and Allyn went to look for the bighorn skeleton that Hunt had found when he came down the river from Hermit Creek a year ago last spring, and I took Brant back with me at a leisurely pace because I wanted to get some pictures. We missed the trail several times and needed about three hours to reach the campground. It took us four hours to go from the camp to the car, but here we had to wait a couple hours for Allyn and Jay. They had been unable to locate the horns, but they had taken a swim and palavered with the Indians before they came on to the rim.
The Jeep isn't fast but I was at Cedar Ridge by 9:30 a.m. It was almost two by the time I drove down the grade to the neck of Tatahatso Point, so I had taken four and a half hours to reach a place which is an easy hour and ten minutes drive from Cedar Ridge Trading Post. I had only the Nankoweap Quad, and I couldn't orient myself since Shinumo altar is not shown nor are the red shale ridges south of the road west of the Trading Post. Roughly, what I did wrong was to cut south through the gap between the long ridge and the outlier butte of red shale. I got south almost as far as Saddle Mountain before I concluded I was headed wrong. After that I ran around, mostly north and west whenever I could find a track, and I dead ended at a group of hogans. Finally, I decided that I would head north far enough to get on the road out to the tram anchorage at Mile 33 and then work south. Finally I located on the map where this road comes through the Eminence Break. After a bit more fumbling, I located Black Spot Reservoir and was still bothered to see the main road going right down into the water and out the other side. I had to cruise over hill and dale to come to the continuation west. All the stock tanks were well filled after the August and September rains. From here on, there was no confusion.
My impression of the walls along the south side of Tatahatso Point, formed from the distance of Saddle Canyon, was wrong. There is only one place to leave the rim, right where the road comes near the rim at the break itself. Even here only one of the three ravines at the top is easy to scramble down. After a few yards you go across to the left wall and proceed down the narrowing slot on a mixture of bedrock and talus. An interesting feature of the rock near the top is the presence of beds of crystals. Imperfect hexagonal crystals about two and a half inches long protrude horizontally from the vertical matrix as thick as bristles in a brush. They remind one of a bed of nails and there are many yards of this material weathering out. At one time there must have been cracks several inches wide filled with the mineralized water that formed the crystals.
About 50 yards down from the rim, at the narrowest part of the ravine, there is a freak bridge. At various places, I have seen single rocks wedged in a crack with plenty of space beneath, but here a column formed of two blocks each roughly cubical about 15 feet on the edge toppled from above into this nearly straight walled corridor. The blocks landed so as to form a nearly horizontal bridge with about ten feet clearance beneath. They must have come from quite a height near the rim to the southeast and it's hard to understand why the impact didn't shatter them. One would think that nature would have to try another million times before it could do the same trick again.
There was no cairn on the rim as there is at the top of the Hopi Salt Trail and the Piute Trail into the Little Colorado River Gorge, but down a few yards I found three small rock piles. I built a small one on the rim, but any that were left farther down have been obliterated by the frequent slides. After I took a couple pictures at the rim, I discovered that all the film was gone although the counter showed a dozen more. The catch was defective and I had rolled quite a few blank frames onto the spool. That shook my resolution to go down and cross the river to the bridge. I settled for a reconnaissance.
The gully is easier and safer than the Piute Trail and I would take about anyone along on a trip down to President Harding Rapids. Instead of keeping to the bed all the way down, I would recommend following a ledge below the top cliff of Supai on the left to get on a consolidated talus. The walking is easier here, but you should arrive in the middle of the bed about the place the first Redwall shows. Here where two branches join and cut through to the river, go up the small faulty gully to the south. You can go around the next slot that cuts through to the river at a higher level, on the red sandstone. A short walk to the south puts you on the edge of the final scramble down to the river. I don't feel sure what happened here, but I think a huge chunk of the sandstone slipped down over the Redwall and buried the rim of the lower Redwall on the right side of the break. At least you are able to walk all the way down to the river on this very red sandstone. It may even be the Hermit Shale that's along the top of the Supai Formation.
I checked both slots cutting through the top of the Redwall toward the river, but there are long vertical drops below the promising beginnings. To reach the gravel covered bed leading out to a view of the river in the northern most slot, I had to do a bit of climbing down some rather smooth limestone. I let myself slide a few inches at the bottom, but not before I noticed that there were plenty of rocks to pile up as a mount to help me back up later. On the return, I had to use one rock as a stepping stone. It took me two hours from the rim down to a place where I could see that there was a simple way down to the river from the top of the Redwall. By then I had decided to go home that night. It took an hour and three-quarters to go from there back to the car. I got around the south edge of Black Spot Reservoir before dark and had no trouble keeping on the right road the rest of the way along the north side of the shale ridge all the way back to Highway 89 at Cedar Ridge.
On the return up the ravine formed by Eminence Break to where I had parked the car, I picked up a very fresh looking piece of pottery. To me it looked like something the Hopi might have shown at the museum a couple of years ago. I put it in my pocket with the thought that the Hopi must still use pottery canteens. When I showed it to Bob Euler and Chuck McNutt, they were both quite excited about it. They agreed that it was Jedito black on yellow, about the finest pottery that the Hopi ever made. It was made from 600 to 300 years ago, and Bob was particularly interested because it was the first evidence he had seen that the Indians were still using this area after the main era of pueblo and cliff dwelling construction around the year 1200. This sherd showed that some Hopi had been here possibly as recently as 1600. Perhaps the bridge of poles has been there only 300 years. Bob's first thought about the poles was that they couldn't have withstood the weather more than a few decades (Actually, they're 1100 years old).
My trip down from the car and back had taken less than four hours, but I had found a fine route to the river (considerably shorter and faster than the route in 29 Mile Wash), the crystal beds, a bridge that may be quite unique, the rare sherd, and something else that would be easy to miss. I happened to pass a block of Coconino that had fallen from the cliff above and lodged in the gully although it was as big as a living room. The flat side was almost vertical and the sun was within 15 minutes of putting this face in the shade. In the oblique light I saw a couple dozen fine fossil footprints of the type I had photographed during my descent at Mile 19 from the right rim. There were two sets of the large tracks about the size of my hand. Again there seemed to be two very different shapes of feet on the same animal. Besides the large prints, there were dozens of smaller ones on the same large slab. I would guess that this is the most remarkable collection of footprints found to date in the Coconino Sandstone. I'm trying to get our paleontologist, Doctor Beus, to come with me the next time I go down this trail.
Sid Dowd, a geology student, went with me and we reached the rim at the Eminence Break about 10:10 a.m. This time I had a camera and got two pictures of the keystone arch about 50 yards from the trail head. This time we agreed that the two blocks had been standing in front so that rockfalls would be safer, but I wasn't prepared to find Sid as slow as he proved to be. He was very deliberate in his movements, but still he dislodged more rocks than I did. He took twice as long in getting to the big rock containing the fossil footprints. Here he accepted my request not to go any further when he had done all the work in getting impressions with his Plaster of Paris. I got a couple impressions with only modeling clay and also got a couple of pictures outlining the tracks with chalk. The largest tracks were about seven and a half inches long and about half that wide. On what we took to be the front half of the foot, on the inside edge, there were four protuberances which made depressions that were smooth and round. The distance between prints of the feet on the same side was 22 inches and the parallel lines through the set of tracks going in the same direction showed still more. This second set was mostly covered by pads of rock that had yet to weather away. The three or four prints that did show seemed not quite the same. In fact, Sid judged them to be from a different sort of animal. I checked the slide I had taken of fossil prints in the Coconino at Mile 19, and there is no resemblance.
When I continued down, I left the bed below the top cliff of Supai on the left and went past the peculiar rock capping a column of clay and boulders shaped like a shoe repairman's last. A little south of here I went down to the main bed and continued as I had two weeks ago. On the return I kept to the east above the Redwall and came back to the shoemaker's last without dropping down. I believe I prefer this route. I found a faint deer trail as I approached the final descent to the river, and when I started down over the red shale it was quite distinct. About three-fourths of the way down the buried Redwall, I even noted a place where the trail was bordered by rocks lined up by human hands.
The walking was very simple along the left bank of the river and in less than 20 minutes I had passed President Harding Rapid and was even with where I thought I should see the bridge of driftwood poles high in a ravine on the opposite side of the river. I checked the Quad map that Lynn Roberts had marked for me and was convinced that I was at the right place. Just to make sure, I walked on until I could see the smooth wall stretching on to the west. Just below Mile 43 were two ravines in the lower Redwall. I crossed just below a riffle near here and had no trouble going up on a ledge to the right of the ravine. I went east and entered the ravine where a crumbly type of rock or hard clay formed a chimney. I was able to put my back to the west wall and wriggle up to a shelf about 12 feet above. The ravine widened here with a large chockblock above, so the only way was to go out towards the river and around a corner. Where the exposure became severe, the ledge also narrowed. It seemed that the only future in this direction called for climbing a series of breaks with very poor holds, and I was not at all sure that the bridge was above. I backed out and descended the easy chimney. On checking with Bob Euler, I learned that this was the place and that he had been turned back by the chimney that I had climbed. He seems to think that you go along the ledge that I had reached to the bridge without further climbing (he's wrong).
Next I checked the other ravine, about 200 yards to the northwest. The ascent was equally easy up to a crack about 10 inches wide with small chockblocks to keep one from getting into it. I experimented with one elbow and the other hand in this crack and managed to go up about four feet, about half the distance seemed difficult, but twice I turned back at the same place. I know that Allyn could go up here handily. Just before I reached this bad spot, I found a shallow cave with three slender sticks placed carefully in it. Two of them were near the ceiling and had been cut to fit into crevices. I broke the third one and brought it out for possible study.
There were plenty of deer tracks along this northeast facing talus. The grass seemed especially green. Evidently the deer can come in the way I did and swim the river. I had been a little worried about the temperature of the water, but it was no colder than many swimming pools and I got across on the air mattress in a very few minutes. The walking is fine along the beach and I'm sure I could average at least 15 miles a day with the air mattress to get me past the paces where the water comes to the cliff. I was able to walk from the river to the car in two hours and 25 minutes without undue pushing. It is a fine way to the river and both the route down and the river itself are most scenic.
Starting from Grandview Point at 8:50 a.m., I reached the river via the spur trail down from the Tonto at Mile 80.8. May 5, 1958 was the date when I finally reached the river here and I found that my memory for all the details was a bit fuzzy. I went out on the spur just below the Tapeats and got my bearings. One has to drop farther down into Cottonwood Canyon than I had remembered. About 200 feet down you turn west. Plenty of trail still shows although it makes very short switches in a rather narrow ravine for a few yards then goes over a notch into the wide ravine that continues to the Colorado River. The trip from the car to the river took just less than three and a half hours which puts this trail about even with the Tanner for length. The part down to Horseshoe Mesa probably gets more foot traffic than any other non-maintained trail in Grand Canyon.
Ever since I read that the Cal Tech Party went some distance up Vishnu Creek, I had thought of the possibility of using this trail and then crossing to Vishnu as a convenient way to points north of the river. After a leisurely lunch, I blew up my mattress and paddled off. The current helped very little and I was shivering some before I made the mouth of Vishnu. I could have broken the voyage at a beach if I had felt it necessary. When we had looked at Vishnu from the ridge above Grapevine Creek, the best way seemed to be a fault line from near the base of the Tapeats going north. When I got to the mouth of Vishnu, this plan didn't seem so good. I decided first to see whether the creekbed would be feasible. Within five minutes walk from the river, I came to an overhanging chockblock that had no bypass. After backing up almost to the river, I climbed up the fault line to the east. After going over several small ridges where ravines came down, I went down and followed the bed again. After a few bends, I again ran into a fall in one of the bends to the west. This lower part of Vishnu is impressively narrow every time the creek gets away from the fault. It was a long rise and I spent 45 minutes getting to the top only to find that I couldn't follow the base of the Tapeats more than a few yards. Neither could I get back to the creekbed here, but there was a safe slope down 50 yards to the west. When I backed up and tried to follow the jagged ridge in that direction, I came to two well built cairns. Some oldtimer had solved the same problem in the same way. Making my way along here was rather ticklish with a pack, but I was careful and finally reached the simple scramble down to the creek again.
I had already found a little water flowing in the lower end of the creek, but now I walked a dry bed for quite a little distance. The bed was more open here with plenty of gravel. I was quite surprised when I rounded a bend and saw a 30 foot waterfall with an audible flow of water. Fortunately, there was a bypass to the west that was noticeably a trail. I wondered whether the prospector who had built the cairns along the ridge had improved a deer trail. The water was coming from a spring where the Bass Limestone begins. Now the valley opened up and I could see some Hakatai Shale above the limestone, with the succession of Shinumo Quartzite and Tapeats still higher. There are several ways out of this canyon to the east but the walls on the west are forbidding. I recognized the place where I had managed to get down in the spring of 1958. It had taken two and a half hours to get from the mouth of Vishnu Creek to here. I was beginning to see the futility of trying for the top of Wotan's Throne the next day, but I climbed to the top of the Tapeats to the east and looked ahead. Where I had camped on my way back from Asbestos in early April by a running stream, not a drop showed and I could see ahead to a high fall in the Tapeats, also perfectly dry. I was quite sure there would be no water above, so I retraced my steps to the spring I had just left. This is northwest of the middle of Newberry Butte. I started getting super at 5:15 p.m. and was in bed an hour later for a solid 8 hours. I slept fine but while I was making up my mind to get out and start the new day, I tried to decide how to spend it. I had noted a possible break in the cliffs of Newberry Butte around on the southeast face and I was interested in testing that route. I also wanted to go up the Redwall between Vishnu Temple and Freya Castle and then either go on down Unkar Creek or follow the top of the Redwall along north of Rama Shrine and down into Asbestos Canyon. I finally decided to give Newberry a try and then see how much time was left.
Since I had been over the saddle to the north of Newberry five years ago, I went around the south end. For some reason I passed up the chance to go up the talus leading to the lowest shelf of Redwall. Instead I made my first approach northeast of the route I had picked. Taking just my camera and canteen, I started up but within a few minutes, I decided that this was not the place for a climber like me. Back at the south end of the shelf, it was easier. There were several places where only one route seemed at all safe. When I was over halfway up, I saw to my dismay that the route I had picked for the final pitch was out of the realm of the possible for a non-technical climber. But I saw one more chance that was invisible from below, a chimney over to the southwest at the end of the shelf. I went over to it without undue hope for I could see a chockblock halfway to the top. The rest took care and one had to look for the holds, but by bracing against both walls, the ascent was safe. At the end of this chimney, I was on top, a narrow plateau covered with sparse grass and low brush. I marked the crucial chimney with a small cairn and built another at the highest point. The widest part of the top isn't much more than 50 yards across and one can walk about 200 yards to cover the length. Success in getting to the top was doubly sweet since I felt more pessimism in going up Newberry than in anything else that I could do. It takes about 40 minutes to get from the talus to the top.
After lunch and some reading of Time magazine, I decided to go out to the rims south of Newberry and look at the Colorado River. I intended to make a sweep of the rim and wind up going down into Vishnu Creek again for the return upriver to the trail. While looking down to the canyon east of Newberry, I was impressed by the possibility of making a descent to the river there. I couldn't see it all, but it looked quite promising. If I got stopped, I thought that I would still have time to go either back and down into Vishnu or over to Asbestos before dark. In going back along the rim of this canyon which can be called Newberry Creek, I noted a well built cairn. I was the second I had seen that day, the other being at the top of the knoll below the southwest end of the butte. Some cairns marked claims and many marked routes down some cliff, but anybody 's guess is as good as mine concerning cairns built where there is nothing worth marking. Perhaps they merely showed that a prospector had turned back at a certain place.
The places one can pass a uniform cliff near the bottom of the Tapeats and get down into the open bed of Newberry Creek are three that I now know. I passed by the most convenient from the west since I was not sure it went on down. I came down the main branch where I had looked for water in 1958. Again I found some in small rain pools probably left from three days before, but right below this the bottom dropped out. I had to follow the ledges to the east until I came to a break at a projecting point. From the bed I could see how I could have come down more directly from the west and I also saw a good way from the east. Walking down Newberry Creek was easy until you came to the Inner Gorge where the creek drops over a precipice. I had foreseen this and climbed a short way to the west where a long scree slope led toward a narrow ravine with a vertical west wall. When the scree gave out, it was touch and go as to whether I would be able to proceed. In the narrow slot, it was possible to brace against both walls or find slight holds. When I was only abut 200 feet above the river, the ravine made a sudden bend to the left and dropped over an impossible fall. Again it was possible to climb over a small ridge on the right, and great was my relief to see a scree slope clear to the river.
My original plan had been to cross the river here and go up the slope where the creek comes down from within the horseshoe of Horseshoe Mesa, but I had enough suspense for one day. I changed my plan to that of going downriver to the beach just upstream from where Cottonwood Creek drops over its last fall. I remembered this from 1957 and knew how to go up and down into Cottonwood and then climb out of Cottonwood to the same trail I had come down on Saturday. From a distance, it had looked like a simple beach walk down from Mile 79.8 to 80.4, but I found that there was a good deal of climbing up and down. It would have been easier for me to take to the river and walk when I came to the beaches. I could have taken that much cold water without pain. It took only two hours for me to get from the rim of Newberry Creek down to the river and then six-tenths of a mile along the bank and across to my campsite on the sand near the mouth of Cottonwood Creek.
At the present low water, the pools between riffles have almost no current. I timed a bit of driftwood at what I estimated to be five feet in ten seconds. This works out to be roughly one-third of a mile per hour. I could travel upriver on the air mattress with care, walking whenever I came to a good beach.
Climbing from the bed of Cottonwood Creek to the base of the Tapeats to the west Monday morning was considerably simpler than much that I had done in the other two days, and I was able to go from my camp to the car at Grandview Point in five and three-quarter hours including a lunch stop that took 45 minutes. The day was cool and I came out feeling fine.
I am still interested in climbing Wotan's Throne without a rope, but I believe the best approach is by way of Unkar Creek. I think it would require four days from the south rim, one to reach the last water in Unkar, two to get to the top of Wotan and return. This would also mean carrying two gallons of water. Maybe I'll give up this idea and go back to the approach from Cape Royal. If the ropes were placed one day, one could go over and back the next.
For over five years, I have been interested in the Little Colorado River Gorge. In fact I went by the mouth in 1955. On later treks I went up Salt Trail Canyon, six and a half miles from the mouth, and I also came down the Blue Spring Trail, 13 miles from the mouth, and continued down to the junction with the Colorado River. Last year, with the help of the river map, I found the Moody, Dam Site, Hopi, and Piute Trails. Going along the bottom from Mile 16 to Mile 57 at Cameron seemed like the next project. Sleeping out in cold weather isn't too pleasant, but this season would make the walking easier because only the spring water below Mile 21 would be flowing, and most of the mud would be frozen.
Ellery and Maxine Gibson took Roma to Cameron and joined me in the Jeep for the rest of the trip to Horse Trail Canyon. This is the one just south of Big Canyon and comes down to the bed from the east. The approach road leaves Highway 89 just north of the Moenkopi Wash Bridge and angles northwest. While we were at it, we drove to the end of the road near the junction of Big Canyon with the Little Colorado River at Mile 7. The road ends above Mile 9 and we had a fine view of the blue water in the Redwall trench. I could see where I had reached the top of the Redwall from the west at Mile 10.5 before I located the Blue Spring Trail.
I may not know the best approach by car to the head of the Horse Trail. After talking to an Indian at one hogan, we went on south to the next one. The people here didn't seem very communicative, but Ellery and I went on down the shallow valley until we were rather sure we had the beginning of the trail to the river. We shook hands and he returned to drive the ladies home.
The first sheer drop came about 80 feet above the top of the Coconino. After a search, I found some trail work along a ledge to the right. It led to a ravine where the trail went down by switchbacks to the valley below. I missed the trail here, but I think it stays to the left of the bed. The cartographers could have given some indication of the detours of the trail on such a large scale map. Perhaps they had not covered this trail personally. There was another abrupt fall about 200 feet above the river. Here the trail follows a ledge to the left and then descends in a crack where a block has split away from the cliff. It was not at once obvious that the trail goes north on a ledge below the fall, behind a leaning rock, to a minor ravine where the talus takes it down to the river. From where I had left Ellery to the bottom it took me less than two hours, and I had spent 15 minutes finding the trail. One who wants to reach Blue Spring without a rock climb should use this approach. It reaches the river three miles below the Piute Trail and the Horse Trail is easier besides.
I expected to be back for water samples from the springs, but I went downriver to close the gap left between my foray upstream from Blue Spring and the foot of the Horse Trail. When I had reached Mile 15.5, I knew I had overlapped my former coverage since the Redwall was definitely showing from there on, and I also remembered the upstream view as shown in a picture I had taken on the former occasion. I now had the map with me and jotted down my time at all the main bends and other landmarks. My Wednesday evening camp was at Mile 17. I broke through the ice for water which I treated with Halazone and found mesquite logs for an all night campfire. Some find the taste of the minerals in this spring water disagreeable, but when it was ice cold, the flavor didn't bother me.
There was more open water as I went upriver in the morning, but I had no trouble finding stepping stones whenever I needed to cross. There were a few soft places in the mud, but it was mostly frozen. There would be long stretches of smooth sand, some pebble and boulder bars, and occasionally real barriers of rockfalls across the entire bed. Some of the blocks were as big as rooms and boaters would find them a serious hazard. Most of these barriers would be no more than 100 yards long but one at Mile 37.5 might be called Hell's Half Mile. With the bed averaging three times as steep a grade as the bed of the Grand Canyon. A major flood must form a rapid here more impressive than Lava Falls. During Thursday and Friday, I walked rather steadily with time out only for a few pictures and for marking the progress on the map. I found that I could average about two miles an hour.
After seeing what I thought was the last of the Redwall at Mile 16.8, I was really surprised to find it showing again about Mile 24 and some was about 60 feet above the riverbed. In this limestone are two caves, one only about eight feet deep and below high water. The other was more spacious, about 20 feet deep with a clean sandy floor and a flat ceiling. The only surface sign of former occupation was a burnt stick. It would have been a fine place to camp as a campfire in the wide mouth would have been cozy. My campsite Thursday night was almost as good, at Mile 36.8 against the cliff on the south. It was at the top of a grassy slope 30 feet above the bed, but there was the biggest collection of driftwood I saw in two days of walking. I was really comfortable behind the big fire I kept going all night.
The scenery all along the Little Colorado River from its mouth to Mile 31 is terrific. It is somewhat similar to Marble Canyon but is narrower and has more spires and clefts. The low winter sun didn't reach me in the bottom until 10:45 in the morning the first day and not until 11:35 the second. The winter full moon is correspondingly higher in the sky, and the brilliant pale light on the spires was out of this world. The familiar Grand Canyon colors of the various formations seem to be progressively obscured by desert varnish as one goes upstream. From Mile 31 on there is a difficulty in separating the formations by their colors. I had trouble identifying the last of the Supai about Mile 39 because even where there were fresh breaks, the Supai didn't seem very red and the Coconino didn't seem very light. I haven't been through the narrows of Zion, but I would guess that the trek through the Little Colorado River Gorge is at least as interesting. I am surprised that I have never heard of a predecessor making this trek. (Ben Beamer did - B.B. in cave.)
On the south side of Hellhole Bend at Mile 36, I saw something new to me. Rocks the size of basketballs had fallen right in the middle of the bed which is about 70 yards across. They had buried themselves in the mud with only a pit and some rock fragments to show what had happened. About 30 feet from the south wall was the really interesting sight. A block the size of a VW car was just showing at the bottom of a crater forming a near circle 15 feet across. The feature that really caught my eye was the sharp rim of the crater that stood a foot above the surrounding riverbed. Where else could one find a block weighing several tons falling several hundred feet into soft clay? It was late afternoon and the light was so bad that I didn't get a picture. These rockfalls must have been more recent than the last good flow of the river. Besides noting that the Redwall goes under about Mile 16, the Supai at Mile 39, and the Coconino at Mile 49; I was interested in the great thickness of the Coconino. If I have it identified correctly, it appears about Mile 38 to be 600 feet thick. It had impressed me as being thicker along the Tanner Trail than farther west, but I was surprised to see its much greater depth ten miles farther east. The Coconino especially shows the stresses which formed the monocline. There are great clefts and again whole pyramids of precariously shattered blocks. Contrasting with these crushed and faulted stones, directly across the canyon at Mile 41.5 is the smoothest vertical cliff I can recall having seen. Above a short talus, the formations coalesce into one shear wall to the full height of the Plateau. The narrowest part of the whole canyon occurs where the USGS strung a cable at Mile 46.8. From below I could well believe the statement that the cable is 700 feet long where the canyon is still 1000 feet deep. The canyon rims drop rapidly to the east, and at the Coconino Dam Site, Mile 48.7, the Coconino Sandstone forms an inner gorge with vertical walls about 70 feet high. The width of the bed here is only 35 feet and the foot bridge at the top of this slit is no longer. This notch would be worth a visit during a major flood.
The bottom of this gorge seems like a world apart and still there were quite a few deer tracks as well as coyote footprints. There were plenty of chickadees also. I encountered a live porcupine near the Dam Site and before that I had found a dead ringtailed cat. There are a few escape routes that I know from the map and also noted in passing. I had been down and up the Piute Trail last summer. The Indian Maid Trail to the east rim at Mile 33.5 looked much easier from below than it had from the opposite rim last year. The oblique sun showed a promising cleft at the top. The bottom of the Moody Trail on the other side at the same place appeared to offer problems and I already knew that the top requires a rope. (I latter found a way without using a rope.) The Dam Site Trail at Mile 47.5 seemed worth another try. Possibly there is a cleft at the top which would obviate the need of a rope. The Sheep Trail at Mile 45 is the only one which has been worked over and is still good enough for a man on horseback. (There is a place near the bottom of the Horse Trail where the retaining wall has fallen and one has to use both hands to get around a corner.) There were human footprints leading from the Sheep Trail to the gaging station a half mile upstream. After walking for two days through this sublime abyss, I was relieved to be nearing civilization. Wing and Womack, when they were planning their rubber boat ride down from Blue Spring, had heard rumors of a fall in the upper part of the gorge. I encountered nothing worse than the broken rock barriers. Several of these would stop a party with horses but should be no problem for men on foot. At Mile 40.4, there is another sort of barrier. A pool of water two or more feet deep crosses from wall to wall. Fortunately, the ice was strong. Moenkopi Wash was flowing, keeping a stream above ground for about three miles. I had to wade nine inch deep water one time when I found myself on the wrong side of the stream. The low walls of the last five miles would be of interest to a geologit, but I was quite happy to see the Cameron Bridges and finally reach the car at 4:15 pm.
The Moody Trail is just north of Hellhole Bend. I had forgotten the exact approach although I had been there just last spring. As it turned out, I parked the car at the nearest place on the reservation road going north from the highway just west of the Little Colorado Scenic View. I stopped the car about two miles from the highway just after I had crossed a small but rather steep side draw. A deeper draw was just north of the parked Jeep and a trail goes north along the one the road crosses and soon meets the other one at their junction. I used this trail for a short distance and then headed toward the rim in a northeasterly direction. Before I reached the rim, I met a deeper draw and crossed it, a waste of time because I found that it was the one I wanted. It comes out to the rim just south of Hellhole Bend, and the head of the Moody Trail (as I knew it) starts north from its mouth. I finally climbed down into the cleft Doug Shough and I had found last year with a piece of heavy wire hanging down it.
In order to be safer, I fastened two ropes together and tied them to a solid projecting rock higher up. My half inch rope reached all the way past the difficult climbing. I used my rope for holds, but there was footing every two or three feet so there was no need to rappel or to think about Prusiking back. A good climber could do this with no help, but there might be some chance taking. When I was below this ravine on the scree going down to the north, I could see two slots through the rocks parallel to the one I had descended but higher and farther west. On the way back, I picked up the cairn marked trail and found that they mark the real Moody Trail. One goes up as if to enter the western one of the pair and then switches to the other. At the place to make the switch, there are some improvements on nature, some stepping stones and even a bridge made of three parallel juniper logs. I chose to use the route under the bridge which was about three seconds slower. Someone has fastened a cable to facilitate things near the top, but I found it just as easy to negotiate without gripping the cable. One goes under a big rock that has bridged this cleft right near the top. The entrance to this slot is marked by two fair-sized cairns. I am a little ashamed that Doug and I didn't find this route last year. It is about one third of the way from the top of the rim to the bottom of the ravine that we had followed out to the drop off.
On the way down I scrambled down the broken Coconino and went over several minor ridges towards the north. I really had remembered from the previous week that the best way through the Supai cliffs was farther north, nearly to the unbroken wall, but I thought I would investigate a short cut. I started down through the Supai just south of a big ravine. It was interesting to wriggle under a chockblock in a narrow crack but very soon I came to an impossible drop. On my way back up to the crack, I noted some fossil footprints, but they were so imperfect that I didn't even try for a picture. The largest print was about two inches across and they seemed to be of a type described by Gilmore.
It was already 11:45 a.m. when I reached the riverbed, so I knew I wouldn't get to investigate the Indian Maiden Trail going to the opposite rim. In fact, I ate my lunch as I walked along toward the rockfall crater. It's not as far around Hellhole Bend as I had thought and I reached it by 12:30 p.m. I took a number of pictures and measurements with a tape measure. The crater is over 50 feet from the south wall, right at the edge of the bed. The block that fell here is about seven by seven feet and a depth that I would estimate as five feet. The crater measures 23 feet in diameter and the rim rises about two feet above the riverbed. The rock is Coconino Sandstone and there is a fresh scar in that formation just below the limestone. I would estimate that this scar is at least 800 feet above the riverbed. The size of the scar would indicate that much of the fall lodged on the Supai ledges 200 feet from the bottom. The Moody Trail stays up near the solid cliff on the way to the cleft.
Ever since I found that one can come up Hermit Creek and get out on the top of the Redwall, I had intended to come down the trail and find a way through the Supai, then follow the edge of the Redwall gorge back south to where I had been. I was saving this trip for a day when nothing else would be more attractive, and when snow stopped me from going back to the rock climbing in the Little Colorado River Gorge, I decided that the time had come. Brant Gaedge accepted my invitation and came along.
We reached park headquarters before 8:30 a.m. and had a good visit with Jim Bailey. He gets around. He has been part way down the trail which comes off the rim near Yunosi Point and goes down to the place where Beaver Creek cuts down into the Redwall. Allyn and I were on this trail from Supai to the head of Beaver Canyon. He also gave me another puzzle. Jim Bailey found a piece of window glass out on the Grand Scenic Divide. His rather fanciful explanation of this was that someone had thrown a piece of broken glass off the rim at Bass Camp on a windy day and it had been blown clear out where he found it.
Brant and I had to walk through fresh snow until we were below the Coconino, and even down here there was some left in the shade. There was about a half inch clear down to the top of the Redwall. We had to watch our footing on the rockslides. Some places tempted us to start down, especially near Santa Maria Spring, but I figured that the cliffs not seen well from above would be a real obstacle. We found a good way down on the south side of the promontory which is south of Lookout Point. A spur trail is outlined towards the end of this point. The walk down the south side of this point is simple. Walking along the edge of the Redwall to the south varied. In a few places one had to be careful, but mostly it was simple side hill walking with the false sage as the main obstacle.
I had just remarked to Brant that finding an old prospector's cairn would be interesting when we saw our first for the day. We had to keep on until we were above the arm that goes to the east towards Hermit Basin before we could find direct sunshine. I dropped the lunches and the canteen here and went on to make sure I had come to the place where I had climbed the Redwall. I had indicated on the map that I had come up this east arm of Hermit Creek, but I soon decided that this was wrong. I continued to the longer arm that points toward Dripping Springs. On the way I found another cairn and, while I was returning, still another. Someone in the old days was using this route, probably to reach the nearest water. Along here I also found one horn from a bighorn ram. It looked old, and as there was no evidence of any other part of the skeleton, I assumed that someone had carried it a while before dropping it here. Although Brant had stayed with the pack and I was afraid he might be getting impatient, I continued and went down the bed of the creek until I was sure I was repeating my former route.
When Brant and I were eating, I showed him a tick. I hadn't realized that they hatched this early.
The return was uneventful. It takes about 75 minutes to go from the creekbed in the Redwall back to the trail. It took us an even hour to cover the last one and a half miles up to the rim. We noted that the fossil footprints where the sign points them out. Most of them are pretty small and unimpressive, but one set that hasn't weathered out of the rock are about as large as the ones that I found in Marble Canyon. The stride may even be a little longer. They are still all covered with convex pads of rock, so there is no way of comparing them with the one Sid Dowd and I had measured and recorded.
Dan Milton and Don Elston, two of the local astrogeologists, took me up on my suggestion that they might like to go down the Moody Trail with me and study the rockfall crater. Fifteen year old Jeff Elston came with them and three more came with me to inspect the Indian Maid Trail: Jay Hunt, Allyn Cureton, and Migs Hubbard. The latter is a college student who studied last year at Grenoble, France and has climbed in the Alps. His wind and footwork were very good and he seems like a very fine companion.
We parked at the same place I had left the Jeep on January 11 and needed 30 minutes to reach the head of the Moody Trail. I had the time estimated almost to the minute, two hours from the car to the bottom of the Little Colorado River. The geological party walked across the three pole bridge at the base of the slot in the rim, and on the way back, the rest of us followed their example. We lost track of the cairns near the bottom and wasted a few minutes finding the way through. After showing the map to Milton and Elston to help them locate the rockfall, I went over it with Hunt and the rest to review the supposed location of the Indian Maid Trail.
About ten we started up the east slope with the idea of getting back to the bottom by one since I had promised faithfully to be home by 5:30 p.m. to make our dinner engagement by six. Jay and I led the way up the draw. He kept to the bed until he came to the steep part and then took off to the north. I had the idea that it would be healthy not to be directly below him among the loose rocks and went to the south. (This guess was born out during the rest of the day. While the rest of us occasionally dislodged a baseball-sized rock that rolled a few feet and stopped, Hunt started about six landslides. On the return, I was leading down a chute about 100 feet below him. He started three rocks the size of small suitcases that passed me about eight feet away going hard enough to splinter against a big rock that had offered me a little protection. I just flattened against the vertical wall and hoped for the best. He says he worries about my safety when I'm alone, but he increases the danger for the entire party by dislodging four times as many rocks as any of the others.) Hunt's route proved better than mine, but on the way down I learned that I should have moved farther south still and I would have had the best way of all. When you reach the cliff at the head of the talus, you should go down into the bed of the wash but not continue up the main bed to the north against the base of the cliff. The best way is to follow a minor gully to the north up to a well built cairn. Here you reach a well consolidated slope with several other cairns.
These seemed to point toward the main drainage coming down from the angle east of where the Indian Maid Trail is shown on the map. I had become convinced that the map is always right, so I insisted that we use the time to check the slot through which the map shows the trail going. Hunt voted for the main draw, and I suggested that we split up two by two for the investigation. He preferred to come with me toward the notch on the map. This looks worse the closer you approach it. I went ahead while the others stopped to eat a can of peaches. Overhangs formed by chockblocks bar the main crack, but I found that one can go up quite a bit farther east of the main ravine. After doing some hand and toe work over as much exposure as I like, I waited for Allyn. He passed me and went on above by a route that I wouldn't attempt, but I found a safe way to reach his level. I passed him and went up behind a chockblock and came to a most peculiar bit of climbing. One could put a knee up on a shelf slightly far away for a good balance. By bracing against the sloping roof, one could make these moves deliberately. Allyn went up here ahead of me. He reported three possibilities ahead and went off to check one to the west. He soon gave up this route and joined me where I had gone ten yards higher to the east. I came to a place where there were no good holds and the next part would be done by friction grips. Allyn passed me and showed how this could go, but 30 feet farther around a corner he reported that he was stopped. We had also come to the time limit I had set, or he might have gone up a very narrow chimney between the two routes we had given up. This would have been safe, but the vertical split was so narrow, I didn't see how anyone could move at all in it. Allyn thought that he could just possibly go up here, but our considered verdict is that no Indian Trail ever reached the rim here. Jay Hunt and Migs had stayed below watching this operation through cracks in the vertical rocks.
On the descent, we looked harder at the main draw and wished we had discarded the map and had spent our time going up where it seemed most reasonable. You can see that one could reach a place just below the top cliff with ease. Then we are hoping that around the bend to the left, there is some sort of climbable notch. What convinced us that the whole route is no false alarm is that Allyn found pottery fragments on the part where we had seen several cairns. The geologists had found some of the same type when we were coming down the Moody Trail, so one of my questions is answered. The survey crew were not the first to find these routes. I haven't shown these sherds to the anthropologists yet, but I can say that they look more weather-beaten than any other pieces I have seen.
Hunt impressed us when we had gotten back to the bottom by breaking a thin sheet of ice and sitting down in a foot of water. Allyn took off to see the rockfall crater for himself. He thought he might be able to catch us before we reached the car. He ran from the foot of the Moody Trail to the crater and back in 40 minutes including time for a short conversation and some pictures. He reached the car four minutes after Migs and I got there. Hunt had left us to sprint to the car when we were a few hundred yards away. We changed a flat tire and got back to Flagstaff in plenty of time.
Next week when I'm on the other side of the Little Colorado River with the Jeep, I want to find the head of the Indian Maid Trail. If it is like the others, there should be a cairn at the top. An interesting question to ask the mappers would concern their basis for putting the Indian Maid Trail to the rim where they did. Perhaps they found the bottom and took the word of an Indian for the rest.
Bob Sehley took two high school students, Geofry Elston and Allen Sinclair in his truck and Doug Shough drove Michael Hubbard and me in his. We found a better way to approach the head of Horse Trail. About a mile northwest of the clay dam that is near the road after you pass the head of Waterhole Canyon, you turn left on an indistinct track. We parked just above the place where Horse Trail Canyon becomes steep-walled. Where the bed starts its steep course, the trail stays to the left at first then crosses over. This time we found old pottery which he recognized as common in 1120. This time we got from the car to the river in one and a half hours and we were able to come up the next day in less than two. The only part of the trail which is not in evidence is along the lower part of the valley through the Supai before you come to the final drop. No one hesitated in passing the place where the trail construction has fallen. Allen Sinclair didn't pay enough attention as we walked the ledge below the fall and went under the leaning rock. He came up last, supposedly under the eye of Bob Schley, but he went too high and missed the trail. He was able to climb out with his pack on his back elsewhere, but he delayed the party for 20 minutes. Mr. Schley had to wait for him and I became worried when we reached the vicinity of the rim and went back to check.
After walking about two miles downriver, we dropped our packs and proceeded to Blue Springs. Bob had a lot of trouble with blisters, and he was glad that I had brought tape. I noted a place where there was a collection of driftwood on a terrace to the left and on the return we picked up our packs and walked back to it for camping. At Mile 14.7, we came to a series of good springs. Around the bend on the same side of the river (right), there are more small springs down to Mile 14.5. There were two sand boils which kept black sand in motion. I could poke a stick down into one of these springs for several feet without resistance. The entire area is fractured and all these springs may come from the same vein of water. I would estimate the total flow as greater than that of Bright Angel Creek. One little spring comes out of a shallow cave. Bob collected some of the crusted salt which he thought tasted very much like salt he had found in Paho Cave in Walnut Canyon, salt which had been carried here and left with the prayer sticks. For several hundred yards, the Little Colorado River passes through a narrow trench of the upper Redwall, and we were forced to wade. The water was not cold although there had been plenty of ice above these springs. Just beyond the narrows along the right bank were two deposits of travertine, one old and dry and the other wet and growing.
Bob wasn't interested in the Indian Maid Trail, but Doug drove us, including Jeff Klston, in the direction of the Moody Trail. We could see the roads coming down from the highway on the south side of the river. After we had passed the rocky hills and had passed to the south of the peculiar knob of rock that looks a bit like an igneous intrusion, we had to go still farther south. Just north of a high but breached dam, we started walking west to the rim. We felt pretty smart for our first view of the canyon showed us the Moody Trail. We were within a hundred yards of the ravine where we thought the Indian Maid Trail should head.
None of the three or four slots in the rim just west of the bed of the draw looked inviting and there were no cairns visible along the rim. We went over and inspected the ravine where the map shows the trail coming up, but it was worse from above than from below where I had judged it as impossible. I went back to look harder at the other set of slots and decided to try the one which is second from west to east. I asked the boys to stay above. Only about 40 feet down was the hardest place of all, where I had to slide over a small chockblock and kick under it to find a step or two. The rest was very steep but there was always a very acceptable route. Down below in the upper part of the Coconino, the cliff in the main ravine was impossible but there was a persistent crack along the east wall. Here also I began finding a sequence of cairns. Although I was going beyond the time limit I had set, I continued until the rest of the way to where we had been last Saturday would have been simple walking. I found a pile of stepping stones in two or three places and in another there was a juniper log that served as a step.The students on the rim followed my progress and when they saw me starting back up, Doug and Migs went after the truck. Jeff Elston built a couple good cairns at the head of the Indian Maid Trail.
This determination of the trail to go through a slot different from the one shown on the map proves to me that the cartographers located the trail from hearsay. They probably asked a Navaho where it went up to the east rim and were told that it was through a slot to the west of the main streambed. They jumped to the conclusion that it was through the big ravine visible from the opposite rim and put it on the map without checking it out for themselves. It was truly satisfying to find this most unlikely trail after last week's frustration.
This trip over to Navaho Mountain was part of a complicated hiking club jaunt. Twelve people came to Rainbow Bridge by boat and eleven of them were to go out by the west trail while an equal number who came by car would return by boat. The six riding in my car were Jay Hunt, Arvid Burnam, Allyn Cureton, Joann Turner, Helen May, and I. We arrived at Navaho Mountain Trading Post about 8:15 on Friday evening and after a short visit with Mr. Cameron, we headed through the moonlit pasture towards the Jeep road to the top of the Mountain.
Doctor Hunt and Allyn had been this way before but didn't remember clearly that we should climb to the top of the ridge above the draw to the south. I should have known this from the map, but instead we wasted time trying to follow a trail that petered out in the pasture. The walking was fine and cool on the road which is surprisingly smooth but so steep in places that I wondered whether my Jeep station wagon could make it. The silhouette of the sandstone crags against the moonlit sky was unforgettable.From a distance, Navaho Mountain seems to be an almost featureless dome, but when you are on it, you discover benches and ravines. We reached the area of War God Spring in two and a half hours from the Trading Post.
We camped by the beginning of a large log lodge, but in the morning I found that the center of activity is lower to the east. It consists of a cabin with a rigid pole to support a canvas roof, a sheep corral, and a leanto like something boy scouts might build. There were patches of snow covering most of the ground, and in the time I spent looking for a spring I didn't find it. One part of the snow seemed to have turned to solid ice, and this may have been the spring. I'll have to ask someone what this spring is like. I was carrying two quarts of water, more than the average for the party, and I was rather surprised to find that it lasted until we were down in Oak Canyon the next afternoon. Allyn informed us that his thermometer recorded a temperature of 20 degrees on Saturday morning. I was warm in my down bag except underneath. When I put a layer of pine needles on the air mattress, I overcame that problem. The next night in Surprise Valley, I began the night with oak leaves under my bag. Helen May had much the lightest pack since she was carrying only a sheet-blanket combination to sleep in. She amazed me by appearing to sleep fine in what would have left me a frozen corpse. We kept a fire of large logs burning all night, and I spent some of the short night trying to warm my feet by the coals.
The road west of War God Spring drops slightly and then goes up a very steep slope. Here the switchbacks are so abrupt that I hardly see how even a short military Jeep could turn. Arvid suggested that one go up one stretch forward and then back up the next. The view is wonderful to the south from this upper series of switchbacks. The forest is still ponderosa pine below here, but above, along the less steep climb, you are in a fir and aspen combination. The summit is more pronounced than I had believed. There are two aluminum buildings, both locked, and two towers for shortwave radio. For the last mile above the switchbacks, the snow had been rather fatiguing, crusted along the road and about nine inches deep.
There is a mountain register in a rock pile on the very top, placed there by the Tucson hikers. I recognized some of the names, and I was surprised to see so many since 1961. Some of the signers had come by Jeep, and a few had gone down the north side to Rainbow Bridge.
We had come to the summit from the spring in about one and a half hours. We left the top at 9:50 a.m. and headed northwest. I broke trail through the knee deep snow. It was tiring, but we soon came to a view towards the west. We were above Horse Canyon, and it was obvious that we could have descended here. Hunt thought this was the place, but we convinced him that his directions were 90 degrees wrong. We turned north and when we got to a clearing on the rim, we could see Rainbow Bridge and all the rest of the amazing country in this part of Utah. Several stretches of Lake Powell contrasted with the prevailing red of the surrounding rocks. We could see three distinct mountain systems to the northeast. After consulting the map of Utah, I still can't be sure of the identifications. I took the nearest to be the Abajo Mountains.There was a high dome farther north, and then some snow covered peaks quit a lot farther away. I thought of the La Sals and also the Henrys, but I'll need help when I get the pictures developed. There was so much haze to the south that we couldn't see the San Francisco Peaks.
We made faster time when we started down the steep slope to the north. The snow was still deep, but the only effort needed was to pick ourselves up after stepping on a smooth snow-covered pole or a rock slab. Hunt went for several hundred yards without rising from a sitting position. I preferred staying on my feet, but we made about equal speed. Some of us had boots that kept out the snow, but snow caked down in my shoes around the heels, and when we came to a rockslide 2000 feet lower than the summit, by Allyn's altimeter, we all agreed that it was time for lunch and a change of socks. We got a good fire going, but the wind at 8400 feet was still cold. Helen May held us back on the descent as well as on the ascent, and her small pack was passed around among the men. Allyn did almost all the guide service on the way down.
After we ate, I suggested that the ridge to the west would lead us clear down, but after I had gone about halfway to it, I decided that the ordeal of reaching it wasn't worth the effort. The red slabs were particularly hard to negotiate covered as they were with three inches of snow. I saw that the ridge to the east was about as good, and much nearer to us. I shouted my advice and returned to the group. The walking down through the junipers with no more snow was ideal, far better than the party had done 15 months before, when they followed the bed of the ravine. Cliffs formed on both sides of our ridge, and I was a little worried that we might not be able to get to the bed on either side of the ridge at the end. When we were about 300 yards short of the junction of the arms of Oak Canyon, the west arm being in the red rocks and the east being light colored sandstone, I led the way down to the east. My hunch was right. We got down with very little difficulty but saw no place where we could get down the cliff farther on. We still had to fight through a few thickets. We soon came to a seep spring that increased below to quite a little brook. Near the source was a considerable sheet formed of solid ice. The other three men accepted the challenge and scooted down this slide and also slide over a five feet of ice fall below.
Not far below the junction of the two branches, the creek goes down into a narrow slot. We followed Hunt's suggestion and went over the low ridge to the east although it would have been shorter for the ones headed for Rainbow Bridge if we had crossed and had climbed the ridge to the west. We followed a minor draw where we found a couple cairns north to the main trail. It was 3:15 p.m. when we reached the trail, about two hours earlier than the three strong hikers made it in 1962. Hunt agreed that we had followed a much better route.
It was now too late for Cureton and me to learn much about Oak Canyon, so we left the others and headed for an early camp next to Nasja Creek. We had a comfortable night and started on at 7:50 the next morning. We got to Bald Rock Creek by nine and continued to make good progress. Jim David and I had followed the road, so when we had the chance, we turned up the valley just east of Navaho Begay and found the inner trail. There is more fine scenery here. When we came to a new pipeline road, I led Cureton to the right. We spent over an hour learning that this is not the road to the trading post, but we turned around and found a way past several hogans back to the road. We reached the car just after four and drove to Rainbow Lodge just in time to welcome the first of the hikers. Above the upper switchbacks on the south side of the summit, I picked up a piece of porous rock that looked like pumice. However, the geologists say that it's sandstone.
Doug Shough and I started out shortly after six, but we had to turn back after driving three miles when the generator burnt out. We took the Falcon and still got to the Lipan Point parking lot with a quarter hour to spare. Francois Leydet had said that he might see us off so we waited until nine before starting down the Tanner Trail.
The snow was deep enough to make the trail hard to find. We followed deer tracks part of the way because they use short cuts that seem to avoid the snow. Before we left Lipan Point, we tried to see which would be the best way to reach the top of the Redwall above Cardenas Bridge. The ridge is low between Escalante and Cardenas Buttes, but I was afraid there would be a lot of insecure walking on the north side, so we went over the higher place between Cardenas and the point farther east. Fifteen minutes of hard walking got us from the trail to the pass and about 12 minutes of route finding got us down to the top of the Redwall. There is a well built cairn about two feet high halfway down the Supai. Going west along the top of the Redwall was just as awkward as it would have been to come from west of Cardenas, a route that seems more direct.
I looked at the area below the Redwall west of our descent area. From above, it appeared that the Tapeats was a continuous cliff, so I decided to go through that formation to the east directly below the Redwall descent and just north of the natural bridge. We had gone off the rim of the Redwall just last spring, but the details were already vague in my mind. This time I noticed that you go north of the last of the Supai that tops this promontory and continue past a place where the Redwall narrows and shows a faulting or slump with the surface lower to the north. After getting on this slump block, you go off the rim to the east and soon find a ravine sloping northeast that takes you through the Redwall.
Directly below was an easy way through the Tapeats and from above there seemed to be a way to get through the great basalt cliff which totals approximately 500 feet here. I had seen deer droppings on my way through the Tapeats and I could even make out a deer trail in the lava scree below. I hoped to go around to the east along a ledge and hit a scree slope that would lead me through the basalt. The footing along these slopes was covered with basalt chips and was about as precarious as it ever gets. This took me around the corner into a ravine containing some good vegetation, but beyond, there seemed to be no way to continue. I wondered whether the deer, still common here to judge from droppings, visit this place to browse and then turn back. At any rate, I had to turn back. (Doug Shough had decided to leave me at the top of the Redwall and start back since he was having trouble with a sprained ankle. It had been injured at a square dance several days earlier and had seemed all right on Friday.)
After a bit of backtracking, I got to the top of the basalt and then needed only a few feet of hand and toe climbing to get to the top of the Tapeats. It was easy to go along the top of the Tapeats to the base of the Bright Angel Shale cliff and then east to the Tanner Trail. The basalt scree was interesting. From a distance it seems to be uniform, but I carried out three small pieces only a few yards apart. Some may have copper value. Several years ago, Keith Runcorn was interested in getting samples of the Precambrian lava for paleomagnetic study. At that time I didn't know how accessible this location on the south side of the river was from the Tanner Trail.
So far the trip has been mostly frustrating, crossing off a hoped-for route to the river west of the Tanner Trail. Where the Tanner Trail goes along below the cliff in the Bright Angel Shale I had noticed an old trace of a trail going up toward a place in the cliff where the talus reaches to within 25 feet of the rim above. There is a picture in an old book (National Geographic, August, 1914, page 118 and also Kolb book of 1914, second picture on back) with the caption, On the Tanner Trail. I thought it must have been taken just above this shale cliff, but I couldn't imagine a horse getting down that 25 foot drop. On the former occasion when I had investigated the switchbacks leading to the low part of the cliff, I had given up the idea that a trail had ever existed here. This time I studied the notch in the shale and hoped that there might be a way up for a man. When I got to the place, I noticed more deer droppings. There were two possibilities: a chimney climb to the south or a steep ramp a few yards to the north. It must average 60 or 70 degrees with the horizontal, but the shale leaves many two inch steps and there are some places to hold for further safety. I had to be careful, but I got up all right. Above here the walking was very poor but entirely possible. After I had gone up and to the south for 100 yards, I came to a distinct trail. When I backtracked along it, it led to the same place I had come up. The last 50 yards are gone because of the numerous rolling rocks, but I could follow it up to the south until it connected with the present Tanner Trail about halfway up the Redwall. I'm satisfied that my conjecture concerning the picture was correct. They must have built quite a wall to provide footing for a horse down the 25 vertical feet I had just climbed. The only other explanation of the trail above and below this place would be that someone had the idea of doing this but never finished the job. (Later I found the real answer. Around the corner to the north, there is a very simple scramble down. Thi was obviously the horse trail.)
I overtook Doug getting a nap at the foot of the steep climb to the rim and we reached the car by 4:10 p.m. I could still use some more time and study on the area below the Redwall to the west of the point where I came through the Redwall by the natural bridge, but I have practically given up hope of finding a better route to the Unkar ruins than via the Tanner Trail and along the river from there. (See the log from Cardenas to Hance Rapids.) The positive discovery of the day was the short cut in the Tanner Trail. Ticks are thick at this time of the year in some parts of the canyon but I didn't see a single one in this area. For the first time I did notice droppings on the Tanner Trail that looked more like bighorn sheep than deer.
Time slips by. I had been looking into Royal Arch Creek beginning in July of 1958 with further visits in October, 1959 and November 1960. I had learned that you can go down the long east arm of the creek and on through the Redwall to see Royal Arch, possibly my most interesting discovery, or rather rediscovery, in the Park. I had found the way through the Supai to the top of the Redwall southeast of Apache Point. But still there was the investigation of the route along the Redwall rim above the creek on the west and the bench mark shown on the map to the east of the mouth of Royal Arch Creek. I had seen what I was sure was an artificial cairn from a half mile away, but I wanted to prove that the mappers could have gone along the steep talus below the Redwall on the east side of the creek. (Evans came from Garnet Canyon along this bench.) I had kept this in mind and still had no realization that it was three and a half years since my most recent visit to this interesting amphitheater.
Francois Leydet met me at the Visitor's Center at Grand Canyon Village and we proceeded to the Park boundary sign on the Topocoba Road. When it was too late, we discovered that neither of us had a compass, but we hit the rim in the neighborhood of Point Quetzal and then stayed near the telephone line. We wobbled a bit after we left the line behind and wound up looking up at the rim to the west of Apache Point. Colin's cache was just where we left it almost exactly a year ago and we rather thought we were the first visitors since then. The sun was not shining steadily, but Francois figured that he could follow the rim to the vicinity of Point Quetzal and then head for the drainage we had come up from the cars. He succeeded in this very neatly while the next day when I had the advantage of the sun, I managed to get into the wrong valley and had to walk northwest after I hit the road.
I didn't break any speed records, an hour and three-quarters from the car to the cache on the saddle out to the point, 35 minutes from there around the point to the break in the Toroweap and Coconino, over an hour and a half from there to the Redwall rim above Royal Arch, and an hour and twenty minutes from there to the place where the Redwall gorge begins. In another hour I was ready to leave the bed and start scrambling along the talus to the bench overlooking the river east of the mouth of the creek. This was at the angle where the blue line comes down from the east to the letter k in the name Creek. The mile from here to the bench mark above the river took me another hour.
My memory for the route had faded somewhat, and I couldn't find the cairn I had built as a guide in getting down the Supai west of Elves Chasm. However, I think I must have found the same place that took me so long in 1960. There seems to be options to get through the other ledges, but the one about two-thirds of the way down the Supai seems to have only one way down. I used the same crack on the return. Down on the Redwall rim, the burro trail is just as distinct as it is on the Esplanade and it requires less detouring and climbing up and down. I was a little surprised that there was no water in any of the holes where the bedrock showed in the Redwall ravines. There was a little rainpool near where I got down into the main arm of the creek and I soon came to the place that had persuaded me to leave my pack behind on the first trip for it is a slight hindrance in getting down in a few places. However, 200 yards below this barrier, there's a break in the Redwall to the west where a burro could come down for a drink at the pools below. On the return, I used this route to save some distance and found manure part way down to the creekbed. There were no signs of burros further down, but I continued to see plenty of bighorn signs down the creek and out on the broad shelf where the bench mark is.
Not very far down the creek is a shallow cave a little above the bed on the west. I recognized the same burnt stick and some charcoal that I had seen before. Even if a flood could reach this cave, I believe the resulting eddy might deposit wood rather than remove it. I didn't seem to recall all the slight difficulties in detail. At one place I waded through a pool that was almost hip deep where before I was able to walk on rugosities along the east wall at a level lower than the standing water.On the return I found that I could go up to the west and follow a ledge to bypass this pool. At another place I found that I could climb up more directly. I didn't leave the bed quite as soon as I should have and had the most precarious footing of the day in crossing a clay exposure. You should be careful to avoid going along the talus immediately below the main Redwall cliff because this would not only have worse footing, but you would be too high when you come out facing the river. The walking took care but it was no worse than heading Forster Canyon along the Esplanade or in getting around below Great Thumb Point. For a short distance a definite bighorn trail was discernible. Views of Royal Arch were hard to obtain and I probably would have missed it if I had not been looking for it specifically. You could get a good view from a point northeast of the dropoff below the arch if there wasn't a fine monument standing in the way. Royal Arch is rather well hidden from anyone who is not walking the creekbed.
The bench mark itself had impressed me as being at least three and a half feet high when I was standing on the Redwall rim across the creek to the west, but when I got to it I found that I could not put my hand on the top rock. It is at least seven and a half feet high and about a yard in diameter. I left my pack and canteen by it and went to see the slump block almost a mile to the east where I had noted evidence that bighorn can get down. It didn't look as formidable from above as it had looked from below. I believe a man could get down here with a 30 foot rope, and there is a good ledge between these drops. The sheep can surely drop that far safely. However, I don't think that they could get back up. Bighorn tracks and droppings were all over the place. Along the top of the Redwall and higher, burro signs were also plentiful. I saw two burros and heard another bray, but I failed to sight a bighorn.
After a supper of salty soup and sardines, I found that there was very little water left in the two quart canteen. After sleeping for two and a half hours, I finished the canteen and then began to feel the need for more water. Rather than stew about this shortage, I packed up and used the moonlight part of the way back along the talus to the creekbed. It took me half again as long as it had by daylight, but after leaving the bench mark at 11:15 p.m., I got plenty of water at 12:40 a.m. and figured I had done the right thing in spite of some cactus I grazed against while walking in the dark. The night was clear and I slept with no danger of a flash flood. There were a very few mosquitoes at both sleeping sites and again my down bag was a bit too warm.
On the return up the talus at the break in the Coconino, I was able to follow more of the trail than ever before, and this time I found an old shovel. However, I didn't note any fresh trail construction. One more objective in this area remains for me -- to follow the trail along the Esplanade south of Royal Arch Creek. If I had someone along to drive the car from Apache Point to Bass Camp, I believe I could do this in one long day. (I eventually did this without a car shuttle.)
The start of this trip was only two days after a heavy snow had occurred in Flagstaff, 22 inches in fact, and more was predicted. I almost dropped my plans but I have seen our weather man go wrong before. The road to Hualapai Hilltop was my chief worry, but as it turned out, there was only a little snow and mud on the road when I went and none when I returned. The only hint of bad weather was on Sunday afternoon when an overcast sky cut off most of the sun, but in the night it cleared.
My first project had been to trace the trail that goes away from the Topocoba Trail up Havasu Canyon. On the way through Hualapai Canyon, I got into conversation with a geology graduate student from Stanford. He had a new temporary map of the Supai Quad including the area containing the ramifications of Havasu Canyon south of the Topocoba Trail. It is quite winding and the trail follows the bottom for almost 20 miles before it comes out west of the main arm. Since this would have used up two days, I decided to postpone it for another occasion. One concern was the probability of finding enough water in bedrock pools so soon after the storm. About a mile and a half up Lee Canyon from the junction with Rattlesnake Canyon, there is a convenient break in the Supai cliff. There was evidence that this observation was also made by the Indians for I found a bit of trail construction. Horse trails led in both directions from the top of this break. One went down into Putesoi Canyon where it is still fairly deep and I came out east of Mount Wodo. One look and I gave up thoughts of climbing this (we climbed it later). It is for the birds and the hardware experts. There was water in the holes in Putesoi and the nameless draw north of Wodo. I figured that all canyons would have accessible water, but I filled my two quart canteen anyway. In this belief I was quite wrong and I camped at a dry spot south of the point which forms the south corner of the promontory bounded by Manakacha Point on the north.
In the morning I followed the horse trail past the rope route. I knew I could get water in the major canyon where the Apache Trail goes down to Supai, but this would require quite a detour. In order to avoid this, I followed a couple shallow canyon beds several hundred yards off the trail, but there was no water. Just when I had accepted this delay, I found plenty of shallow pools on the flat rocks northwest of Manakacha Point. They were too shallow for dipping the canteen, but I tried a trick I have thought of before, sucking the water into the mouth and squirting it into the canteen. It works all right, but after you have gotten the water by that method, you can be sure your friends won't borrow your canteen. This much carried me through to the spring in the Sinyala Fault. Just south of Carbonate Canyon, I came to fresh footprints. Jim Smith, the Stanford graduate student said he had hiked along here two days before. It's nice to know whose tracks you're following. He was on a one day trip from the campground and had to turn back as soon as he got a view of Mount Sinyala.
Speaking of tracks, it seems that there are more bighorn sheep in the area I covered than there are deer. For a long time I found the old scat, but farther into the wilds I saw plenty of hoof prints. Still I made no sightings. Allyn Cureton told me today that last summer when he was on a speed test, he saw one about 50 yards away when he was at the south end of the Kaibab Bridge. They may be coming back in spite of the burros.
The spring in the fault arm of Sinyala Canyon had no more water in it that Allyn and I had found in late May of 1959. There were three pools deep enough to dip a canteen but only enough flow to wet the rocks between the pools. This is a good many vertical feet above the top of the Redwall, but there seems to be a limey stratum. Another irregularity of the Supai extending at least north from the Sinyala Fault to the exposure above the river is a considerable thickness of crossbedded sandstone. I would guess its depth as around 80 feet. It forms hanging valleys on either side of the saddle between Matkatamiba Mesa and the mainland. The tilt of the exposed surfaces is more uniform than that of the Coconino Sandstone. Another geological difference of this area is the prevalence of a shallow stratum of deep brown cemented conglomerate at the top of the Redwall. Similar material shows along the Hance Trail on the east side of Red Canyon. There is an unusually large amount of beautiful chert at the top of the Redwall and I noted one piece of this conglomerate or breccia that had been polished flat. The pieces of chert were still sharp and of various colors contrasting well with the chocolate brown of the cement. On Saturday I had no trouble getting up the fault to the east. When horses use the spring, I believe they come down from the east. A game trail shows in many places. Near the saddle I found two horse or burro skeletons. I was sure of the count because two skulls were only yards apart while the other bones had been spread down the gully, probably by storm waters. It would be very unlikely for two to die of natural death so close together. Possibly they were shot in the early days of the National Park. Only about 50 yards farther on there is a low wall high enough for a windbreak. Tucked under some of the rocks is a still legible Maxwell House Coffee can upside down over a tin cup. Inside this container was a cloth sack that used to hold salt, all of which had been extracted by small animals. On the ground nearby is a short chain of iron links, each about two inches long. Who can explain the very small cache of salt and a purpose for the chain.
During the previous day while I was following the horse trail along the Esplanade through familiar territory, my feet were sore and the pack with food for six days was making my shoulders ache. Walking by myself was lonesome and I was wondering whether I really enjoyed this type of activity. However, when I topped the rise of Sinyala Fault and looked down into the Matkatamiba Basin, the old lure of the unknown came back. It was a different world from the Esplanade above. Early in the morning you could hardly avoid stepping on the delicate white pasque flowers. There were some others in bloom also, and the humming birds were getting busy. I didn't resent the presence of wild burros, the animal that offers good trails and indicates the availability of water. Sure enough, about three-fourths of the way from the saddle to the Redwall gorge, there was some shale exposed in the wash and a seep spring. Some water was running down the moss, but where it was dripping I counted 20 drops in ten seconds. I would guess that it is permanent. It took me an hour to climb from the Sinyala Spring to the saddle and another hour to get down to the Redwall rim above Matkatamiba. Walking was interrupted by picture taking, but in another hour and a quarter, I was looking down on the Colorado River. It struck me again how deep and narrow the inner gorge is compared to the granite gorge of the tourist area.
The distance from the mouth of Matkatamiba to the slot at Mile 148.5 is short on the map, but it took me almost an hour. Of course some of the time was used in going off the burro trail to get pictures from the brink. The principal project for the entire trip was to determine the climbing possibilities through the Redwall at Mile 148.5. The very first place I looked over the edge I could see two places which would stop a climber. They were far enough down so that there were no bypasses. Later, I found another higher in the gorge. They are not terribly high, 10, 20, or 30 feet at a fall, but that is enough to cross this one out as an Indian route. Then I turned my attention to the Supai cliffs to the south. Aerials had made this look like an attractive route, much shorter than the way I had come. There are about three bands of sandstone cliffs, each not very high, which continue around the bay. I was soon above burro tracks, but I was encouraged to find clear bighorn hoof marks. By going up on the west and then after passing the first band going along the ledge to the east, I was able to find breaks in all three bands. There seemed only one easy way through the middle wall and I found a rock pile as a step here. It took me an hour to get from the Redwall to the Esplanade and after eating lunch, I got down in 40 minutes. There was a trickle of water in this bay , but I don't think it would last through a dry season.
Even with a burro trail to follow, the miles didn't buzz by very quickly. It took well over an hour to go from the slot at Mile 148.5 to 150 Mile Canyon, a truly impressive sight from across the river. In a small gully above the Redwall rim about mile 150.7, I was surprised to find a good little spring. From the clump of trees and the amount of cans around it, I would regard this as reliable. Burros may foul up some waterholes, but they also use their hoofs to deepen pools. This one had enough of a basin to dip a large canteen into and the water was clear. About the slowest progress of the day was between miles 151 and 152. The talus is steep to the rim and is a mass of large boulders. You can't see a burro trail through this chaos, and you have to go up and down to pass small ravines. As I approached Sinyala Canyon, I could speed up so I quit worrying about arriving at camp after dark. I was starting into Sinyala by 5:30 pm and reached the spring by 6:25. Along the way, I looked into Sinyala for obstructions in the Redwall. I could see at least one impossible fall. Scratch another route to the river.
Saturday had been so strenuous that when I crawled into the bag I was tempted to take the Esplanade route to Supai, but if I did that I would be canceling my second main objective of the trip. I hoped that water would be just as accessible along the Redwall rim as it had been from Matkatamiba to Sinyala. There had been rain pools in almost every wash. Before I got to sleep, I had decided to get an early start and head for the unknown. A fairly remarkable feature of Sinyala Canyon before you get down to the Redwall slit is the presence of great blocks of sandstone in the bed. I believe James says that blocks ranging in size from small boulders to the proportions of a cathedral roll into the beds of the wide canyons. I have always felt that he stretched that story a bit, but a couple blocks in Sinyala Canyon would match a country church.
I found some rain pools in the very early morning when my canteen was rather full, but after Mile 155, there were no more pools. I was carrying my two quart canteen (Anything smaller than a gallon should be regarded as a toy. -- Dan Davis) but I reasoned that it was the equal of a gallon size during the hot months. After an early lunch at the mouth of Havasu Creek, I began to worry about the water situation. I finally got my canteen full again from a pool in the canyon that goes to the south of Mount Sinyala. To reach the water, I had to climb down some rather smooth limestone. After this detour, I found some right by the trail. Another nice discovery along this canyon was a natural bridge or arch. It is near the top of the Redwall in a fractured zone about two-thirds of the way from the rim above Havasu Creek to where you can get across. The dimensions are about 40 feet broad by 25 feet high and it is obviously the result of a cave collapsing.
It is hard to get a good view of Mooney Falls from the east rim since the fall is so nearly under another rim. I took a picture while lying on my stomach for safety. There is a much better view of Havasu Falls. After the slow passage around the previous side canyon, I was resigned to a long grind to head Carbonate. I can see why Joe Wampler recommends just going around and coming back even with Havasu Falls. It took me an hour to reach the cross over and 40 minutes over the fine trail on the other side. There were no rain pools at the head of Carbonate where I had thought of stopping for the night. Instead I walked on to where the Hualapai and Topocoba Trails join. It was a long day from 5:50 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. My rations weren't agreeing with me perfectly, and I had some things to do at home, so I walked out Monday instead of checking the trail to the rim from Beaver Canyon. It was a fine trip through, cool and no ants or flies at the campsites. I did have to duck my head away from about one mosquito, and I saw two ticks in five day.
Years ago Marston had given me the idea that there should be an Indian trail to the Unkar area more direct than the Tanner Trail. I figured that I had found it when I located the way through the Redwall and Tapeats in the neighborhood of Cardenas Bridge on the east side of the promontory that goes north below Cardenas Butte. However, the basalt below the Tapeats practically cuts this possibility out. The footing along the base of the Tapeats to the north and east would make travel slow and going east requires a return to the top of the Tapeats and the use of the Tanner Trail. On the present occasion, I intended to go through the Tapeats and then north along the top of the basalt or else in the same direction along the base of the Redwall until I can get down the Tapeats and basalt.
I left the car and jogged down the Tanner Trail since the day was cool and invigorating. I was carrying a full gallon of water with the possibility in mind that I wouldn't reach the river before dark. This time I left the Tanner Trail and went over the low ridge between Escalante and Cardenas Buttes. It was much more direct than the route Doug Shough and I had used earlier this spring. The Supai directly north of the pass presented a problem. I was investigating a barely possible climb down when I found a potsherd. I gave up this first chance and followed a ledge and a faint deer trail to the northeast to the next angle directly west of the summit of Cardenas. Here it was easy to walk down to the top of the Redwall although I found no cairns as Doug and I had along the other route. When I was passing the west offshoot of the bridge promontory, I noted a gently sloping valley down the Redwall between the twin promontories. I thought there must be a hidden dropoff at the bottom, but I figured that I had plenty of time and this area deserved some investigation. If it went through, I would be an hour ahead of schedule, and if I had to come back up, I would be a half hour behind. Within a few minutes I could see that it was an amazingly simple walk-down, not even any loose rocks to avoid. I found the shale below much more of an obstacle. At first I started to the west along the rim of the Tapeats. There was no easy walking here as the shale slope came right to the brink. Here the basalt and Tapeats cliffs were continuous and I could see no improvement towards the west. There was one place around the bend to the east and north that seemed worth inspecting. Getting there along the steep and crumbling shale was precarious and a close look was needed before I found the safe way down. The top 15 feet were the hardest, but I found a crack with hand and foot holds. It also took some looking to find the way down the basalt cliffs, but it was there, north and down and then back to the south to the top of a long talus leading t the bed of the drainage without a name that goes to the river downstream from Unkar Rapids. I crossed the red shale hills of this valley and went up to a break in the spine of Tapeats that separated this basin from Escalante Creek. Near the base of the Tapeats, I saw my first rattlesnake in over a year. It was small and sluggish from the cold and failed to rattle until I disturbed it. On my previous trip across this country, I had given the cliffs near the lower end of Escalante Creek one look and then headed for the ridge leading to 75 Mile Creek. Since I was still ahead of schedule, I thought I would take a chance and do some more scouting for routes. The west arm of the creek led down to a fall but now I had deer tracks to guide me up and around to the west. The bypass was both easy and not long. I was soon down by the river, and if I had wanted to use my air mattress, I could have been to the river party at Hance Rapids in short order. In order to avoid catching a worse cold, I followed the route I already knew, along the rising ramp from the mouth of Escalante to the cliff above 75 Mile, back along the rim of 75 Mile until I could get into the bed, and back to the river through the impressively narrow gorge. There was a distinct deer trail from Escalante over to the bed of 75 Mile Creek, and in the narrow canyon leading to the river, I found some stones piled below a short fall indicating that a poor climber had come up this way. I walked the bank to the Reilly-Litton Camp at Hance Creek, using the mattress for 100 feet around a point.
I had two college students with me, Jim Griffin and another. We were still trying to locate the Dam Site Trail. My interpretation of the Little Colorado River Map made me think that it went down from the jumping off place of a deep draw. We got down the bed and then followed the bench away from the high fall. We could go down for about 15 more minutes, but then we seemed to be baffled by cliffs. I made a foolishly long step up to a shelf beneath a rock ceiling. My Kelty caught on the edge of the roof and threw me off balance. I fell backwards on the slope that went to the big precipice about 15 or 20 feet downhill. My reflex action was to throw out my arms to keep from rolling downhill. Unfortunately, my left hand caught between two rocks. When my body weight came down, it broke my wrist into a double right angle. I knew it hurt, but when I looked at my left hand in that very unnatural shape, I felt quite a bit of shock. It took me about 15 minutes before I felt like getting up and making a sling out of my shirt for the bad arm.
With a lot of care to move slowly, I got out of that area using the good arm for climbing where I had used both hands on the way down. I had to walk about 40 minutes after the accident to reach the car and then Jim Griffin drove me to the emergency room at the hospital. Roma came from home when she got the message, and then we had to wait for a doctor for about 45 minutes. I was in a lot more pain from that injury than when I broke my heels, but the wrist recovered much faster. It was stiff long after I was able to use it. In fact, I believe I could tell which wrist had been broken for almost a year, but I was limping with the bad heels for several months.
I had told the editor of Arizona Highways, Raymond Carlson, that I was willing to guide a professional writer and photographer down the Salt Trail to the bed of the lower gorge of the Little Colorado River. He set up a date with Jo Jeffers and Wayne Davis to meet me and have me drive then to Salt Trail Canyon.
When the day came, my broken wrist had only 11 days to start mending and I was carrying my left arm in a sling. It would hurt like sin as well as possibly setting back the recovery if I were to fall with my arm in the sling, but I went anyway. The plan was for Davis and his 20 year old assistant to stay down at the bottom overnight while Jo Jeffers, her husband, and I would get to the bottom and then come out the same day.
In spite of my very cautious progress, the college boy and I found ourselves getting ahead of the other three. We had to stop and wait a couple times. On the third delay, we waited so long that we turned around and went up. We found that the other three had just come to a decision not to go any further toward the bottom. This was down in the Supai, about two-fifths of the way to the bottom. Carlson then asked me to do the article on the lower gorge of the Little Colorado which finally appeared in the September, 1965 issue of Arizona Highways.
Jack Ryan, Duane Naff, and Geoffrey Elston went with me to see how difficult the Dam Site Trail is. We had found the top two weeks ago when my arm was much too weak to allow me to use it in the descent. This trailhead is located at a fault that doesn't connect with any drainage to speak of. It is about a fifth of the way down from the top of the plateau to the west down to the bed of the wash to the east. The top 20 feet can be done without a rope, but it is a harder, more exposed climb than any of the other trails into the Little Colorado River Gorge, or so it seemed with my left hand not normal yet. I took off the pack and canteen and handed then to Geoff who seemed to be about the quickest climber in the group. About 30 yards lower there is a place where the route is obscure, but a piece of cable gives some guidance. The rest is straight forward talus, but one has to be careful not to roll rocks on those below. The water wasn't running but there was enough standing in pools so that a hike through would have been quite feasible. The footing was just as good as it had been last January, and in the forenoon it wasn't too hot, especially in the shade.
I stepped off the width of the Dam Site natural gate and this time I came up with the estimate that it is only 27 feet wide and our combined opinion would say it is over twice that in height, say about 70 feet.
About 300 yards to the east, we went up to the north. We saw a place where a rod was placed in the rock with a heavy wire fastened to it. Probably there had been a ladder here, but we were able to get up without it, but again this was rather hard for me. We saw a lot more ladders and signs of the work here than we had noted before from the rim on the south side. It seemed to us that the engineers had gone wild with the idea that they should make everything easy and fun. A bridge higher on the south side made it possible to go along a higher ledge to the east, and I suppose one could climb to the north rim in that direction. A ladder to the north in the vicinity of the foot bridge across the inner gorge seemed to connect with the north rim there, and a trail led west to a break in the cliff.
On the south side was the most spectacular ladder of all. It is 60 or 70 feet long and leads up to the under side of a natural bridge. Another short ladder goes on to the rim. Inspecting this natural bridge from the south side would make an interesting short walk. The foot bridge across the inner gorge didn't look too sound to us. The timbers may be rotten. (We did this another time and went up the ladder and through the natural bridge.) Cables on either side seemed strong, but they wouldn't give the bridge any support until the bridge had fallen about eight inches at the center. We were headed for the north rim if possible so we decided not to attempt a crossing of the bridge.
There seemed to be a good chance to get up to the rim if we went west.This worked out all right. In two places there were climbs that were about as hard as I could negotiate. A pile of rocks built up for a step showed us that we were not the first to try this. A bit west of where we came up was an empty hogan which provided shade for our lunch stop.
On the way to the top of the Sheep Trail, we looked at the cable crossing, and once again I thought that the engineers did a few things for kicks. I believe it would be just as easy to drive to the head of the Sheep Trail as to come to the south end of the cable and cross by hand car. The Sheep Trail is still in fine shape and we got to the bottom in short order. We got a gallon of water which we doped with Halazone and then I took a dip in a hole. The water was only abut 30 feet across, but the center was too deep for me to touch bottom. The hike back was warm but we got up the Dam Site Trail in less than 30 minutes and reached the car before 4:00 p.m.
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Tom's hiking pages / tom@mmto.org