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Home , Clear Creek Trail, North Kaibab Trail, Plateau Point, Tonto Trail

March 18 – 22, 2004

Jeff and I left the Fruita-4 place at about 8 AM and tooled west on I-70 to exit 202 at UT-128 near Cisco, . We drove south on UT-128 through the canyons to US-191, just north of Moab. We turned south and drove through Moab on US-191 to US-163, past Bluff, Utah. US-163 veers southwest through Monument Valley into and the little town of Keyenta. At Keyenta we took US-160 west to US-89, then south to AZ-64. We drove west past the fairly spectacular canyons of the Little Colorado River and into the east entrance to Grand Canyon National Park. Jeff had a Parks Pass so we saved $20 and got in for free. Entry included the park information paper, The Guide, which included a park map that was especially detailed around the main tourist center: Grand Canyon Village. Near the village was our pre-hike destination, the Backcountry Office. We stopped at the office and got an update on the required shuttle to the trailhead. We read in The Guide that mule rides into the canyon would not begin until May 23, after we were done with our hike. Satisfied that we had the situation under control we skeedaddled on outta there on US-180, south to I-40 and Williams, Arizona. Jeff had tried his cell phone quite a few times on the trip from Fruita, but no signal. Finally the signal was strong enough in Williams. Jeff noted that Kent had called and returned the call. Kent said good luck and was sorry he could not make the hike. He was somewhere on the road in New Mexico on his way to Texas. We quickly located the Econo Lodge in Williams. The California Clan had yet to arrive so we checked in to room 112 and then went in search of beer and a place to eat. Found a few places to eat and found beer at the Safeway. When we returned to the motel the California Clan had just checked in (room 212 … had to change it to 111, as requested when Jeff and I checked in). We drank a couple of beers and then went through the gear and packed what we would carry. We weighed the packs on the bathroom scale I had brought. It was obscene! For weeks, or even months, prior to the official deployment date of March 18, 2004 I frequently checked the Grand Canyon weather. Temperatures had warmed from the 22 ° seen in mid winter at the south rim. It warmed all the way into the 50s. Then at the beginning of March rain and snow moved into the area and the reports were a bit worrisome. We brought rain gear, warm layered clothing, plus all the other camp fixin’s: two tents, cooking and eating hardware, sleeping bags, first aid, and of course a bunch of food. While weighing packs at the Econo Lodge we wondered what could weigh so much. All the packs were close to 45 pounds. After deployment preparation we then drove over and ate at Pancho McGillicuddy’s. It was March 17 th , St. Patricks Day, and Pancho was offering your favorite beer in color green. But we had regular colored beer. Plus some good Mexican food. We had a side order of sopapillas that were pretty good. Everyone had a different entree. After dinner we returned to the motel and went to bed, probably around 9 PM. Carol, Leroy and Dad slept in room 111 and Jeff and I slept in 112. The rooms were about $50 a night for two, and about $60 a night for three. We were up before it was light and were on the road before 6:30 AM. We read mom’s pre-hike note, ate a few of her pre-hike sweet rolls, jumped in the trucks and took off. We stopped at a convenience store for coffee, and politely listened to the clerk tell us about the biggest elk in the world that like to frequent the hiway. Promising to be careful we bid him farewell and drove north on AZ-64 and US-180 to the park. Jeff and I drove first in my truck and almost smacked a deer just before entering the park. The truck definitely got a test of the anti-lock brakes. They worked. Never did see those huge elk though … or any other elk. We arrived at Grand Canyon Village and the Backcountry Office about 6:50 AM on Thursday, March 18. The skies were clear and the temperature was in the 50s. Maybe we didn’t need to carry all that rain gear in our packs. hikers must take a shuttle bus to the trailhead because no private vehicles are allowed on the short road to the trailhead. We had arrived a bit before the 7AM shuttle, but we decided take our time and catch the 8 AM shuttle. So we drove over to the Bright Angel Lodge to check out the curios. We drove past the mule corral and it was packed with mules. We were hoping that they would not be on the trail later. The north side of the Bright Angel Lodge is only feet away from the precipice that is the Grand Canyon. We walked out to look for a bit. We could see Indian Garden Campground, where we would camp

1 in three days. It looked like a long way down there. We then returned to the Backcountry Office Parking Lot and got the final pack and walking stick details taken care of. We then walked a 100 yards to Maswik Lodge and the hiker’s shuttle stop. The shuttle showed up right on time, 8:05 AM. We boarded the shuttle with about 30 others and rode about a mile or so to the Kaibab Trailhead, on the Yaki Point Road east of the Grand Canyon Village and Market Plaza. At the trailhead we dragged the packs off the bus, used the outhouse, donned packs, took one photo, said the Lord’s Prayer and started the hike. It was 8:37 AM, March 18, 2004 South Kaibab Trailhead The trail initially goes UP! But only for the first hundred yards. It then abruptly drops off the pinion and pine treed Coconino Plateau and into the Canyon against which all others are measured . The contrast of the pine and pinion Kaibab National Forest on the Coconino Plateau and the expanse and brightness of the canyon is surprising. The miles of smooth forested plateau changes in mere feet to chasms dropping nearly vertically hundreds of feet before changing to impossibly steep slopes or sheer cliffs. The sunshine illuminates the red, orange, yellow and brown canyon rock to the point of making a person squint. The canyon is unimaginably huge and deep. How the path would take us down these cliffs we could only guess. We dropped off the plateau just to the west of Cedar Ridge. The trail is very well maintained, and very heavily used. We would step down and reverse directions a thousand times on the stepped, switchbacked trail. We were the last of the 8 AM shuttle riders to get on the trail and we could hear many of the others on the trail in front of us and below us. Some of the hikers already were far enough away to look small. Most of the hikers were day hikers and would return to the trailhead later in the day. The South Kaibab Trail follows Cedar Ridge for about 2 miles, dropping 1140 feet, beginning on the west slope of the ridge and crossing the ridge to the east slope. In that 2 miles of trail are thousands of log ‘steps’, built into the trail to slow erosion. Often these steps are worn very badly on the downhill side, making 12” to 18” risers (the vertical drop of the step). These steps are torture on those with weak knees. By the time we reached the outhouse at Cedar Ridge, less than 2 miles from the top, Dad’s knees were causing him some serious suffering. Only a 4½ miles to go. Jeff made his first hike-ahead-and return-for-Dad’s-pack (HARDPack) mission to help Dad with his pack. This tack helped, but the steps were still killing Dad’s knees, even without the pack. But he kept truckin’ on. Soon we rounded the east side of O’Niell Butte and made it to some relatively flat area just before Skeleton Point. Some of the relatively new residents of the canyon were flying around O’Niell Butte: three to six endangered California Condors. I was on a HARDPack mission when the birds first appeared. They were flying quite a distance from us, too far for pictures. Not to fear, though, I had my trusty zoom lens. But as soon as I stopped and got the zoom lens out of my pack the big birds disappeared. We didn’t see them again for two days. We took a long break at the Skeleton Point rest stop. Quite a number of day hikers and backpackers, maybe 50 to 75, were on break at Skeleton Point. Skeleton Point has a small outhouse, but no water. But it offered some spectacular views, including a view over the Garden Creek Canyon to where we would camp on the way back up, less than 2 miles to the west, but over 8 miles of trail and 3800 feet of elevation changes. We rearranged some of Dad’s gear in hopes of helping his knees. Of course we took in a good amount of electrolyte (Gatorade) and trail munchies at Plateau Point, from South Kaibab Trail Skeleton Point and then took off toward the

2 Tipoff, or the junction, about a mile and a half further down the trail. We had heard stories of the number of mules on the trails in the canyon. In fact the published backcountry information talks about the rules of the trail, relative to mules. But we saw only one mule train, a supply mule train for , returning to the south rim. Two wranglers led about six mules each. They said nothing and looked at nothing. They did not look like they were having a real great time. Maybe it was just work for them. Most mule activity in the canyon (supply trains and private stock excepted) had been put on hold while the trails were repaired. Over the years the wear from the mules and from the summer rains had made the trail tough for the mules. It seemed to have worked on us too. The trails were under repair throughout the winter of 2003/2004. On March 23, the day after we hiked out, mule rides for hire would again start up for day rides to Plateau Point Overlook. On May 1 mules would begin to ferry people to Phantom Ranch for overnight trips. We took another break at the Tonto Trail junction. This is another major rest stop for hikers. This stop is located on a pretty good sized flat area on the Tonto Plateau. It has a multi-stall outhouse (a mansion of an outhouse, as are all the outhouses so far). The outhouses use no water. Instead they employ some sort of compost method. We ate more munchies, including sausage, cheese and crackers. And of course, electrolytes. The Tipoff was not as crowded. There were only a couple of other groups resting there. Including Black Bridge and the Colorado River one group with a few of teen aged guys trying to and the switchbacks chase a lizard out of a yucca plant. So far we had seen a lot of hikers on the trail. By now we were seeing hikers who had come down the and were on the way back to the top on the South Kaibab Trail, all on the same day! The Tonto Trail parallels the south rim on Tonto Plateau and provides for a four mile walk from Indain Garden Campground to this rest stop. But the round trip day hikers were hiking the full 7 miles, all the way down to Phantom Ranch and the Colorado River and then back up the South Kaibab Trail. After the long lunch break at The Tipoff we again donned the packs and started down the South Kaibab Trail. From The Tipoff to the river are even more trail steps than we had seen so far. This was not what Dad wanted to see. But we made it down to the river. Just before the river we passed through a 100’ cave directly onto the Kaibab Suspension Bridge, or Black Bridge, across the Colorado River. The river is wide and the bridge 1 is long. It takes a couple of minutes to walk across it’s 440’ length. The bridge is suspended about 50’ above the water, which was a muddy red-brown. The sides are made of steel, and, of course, suspended by cables that are anchored in the 1.7 billion year old granite rock walls. The floor of the bridge is made of wood, covered with a tough rubber mat. The rubber allows mule trains, as well as people to walk across. The bridge is strong enough to support a loaded mule train from one end of the bridge to other, even if the mules stampede. It is wide enough to easily allow access to the mules and their loads, yet not allow the mules to turn around on the bridge. In 1928 the bridge was carried down to the river in pieces, on the backs of At Black Bridge

1 An interesting story about the Kaibab Suspension Bridge can be found on the web at http://www.geocities.com/shioshya/bridge/bridge.html

3 mules and on the backs of men. The suspension cables were carried down the Kaibab Trail in one piece by a team of men being paid an extra dollar a day, in addition to their $30 a month pay. This was the second suspension bridge built here. The first, which swayed wildly in the wind and often capsized, lived for only 7 years and was replaced by this bridge. Before the suspension bridges, Rust’s cable, a suspended cable car, took beasts and men across the roily Colorado River. The half a mile walk from Black Bridge to Bright Angel Campground seemed a lot longer than a half a mile, even after the brutal 6-mile hike down from the rim. We all arrived in campsite 23 at about 2:35, six hours after we started the hike. The first thing we did (after getting the packs off) was set out a mattress pad for Dad to lay on. He was pretty bushed and sore legged. He immediately went comatose for an hour or so while Leroy, Carol, Jeff and I set up camp. The campground is sandwiched between the west side of Bright Angel Creek and the canyon walls. The trail comes up the east side of the creek to a steel footbridge at the end of camp furthest from the Colorado River. The (on this north side of the river) continues past the camp and the bridge to Phantom Ranch and 14 miles further to the north rim. But we crossed the footbridge over Bright Angel Creek to the north most of 31 campsites. We then had to walk back toward the Colorado River to find a empty campsite. Each camp site has a picnic table, a small concrete cooking pad on the ground, two metal lock boxes to store food, and a metal ‘tree’ to hold backpacks out of reach of critters, and enough flat, clear area for two or three well placed small tents. A restroom with lights, running water and regular toilets, located in about the middle of the campground, makes the campground a little less rough than expected. Outside of the restroom are two spigots for drinking water. Cottonwood trees line the creek and provide shade to almost all of the campsites during mid day. The canyon walls offer morning and afternoon shade. Bright Angel Campground was full of hikers. Quite a noisy place in the late afternoon, but as the evening advanced the only sound was the constant sssssshh of Bright Angel Creek, less than 50 feet away. We later learned that both nights that we were camped at Bright Angel Campground, all campsites were full. 180 hikers were in the camp each of the two nights. But for all the hikers the camp and area was remarkably clean and tranquil. The South Kaibab Trail was equally clean. After getting a bit of relaxation at camp we began to explore the area a bit. Further down the campground trail from our site were a couple of big group sites. No groups were camping in either. Jeff and Mitch visited Phantom Ranch. The canteen, the subject of many conversations before and during the hike down, was closed for the guest dinner. The Phantom Ranch guests had hiked in too. Each group sleeps in small rock and wood cabins ($80 a night per person), or in dormitories ($30 a night per person), which are really just bigger cabins. The Ranch is covered with large cottonwoods, many planted just after the turn of the century by David Rust 2. The trees provide nearly constant shade. Showers and meals are available for the guests. Non-guests can reserve meals at the dining hall. Steaks were $32 and stew was $22. Breakfast was $19 or $25, depending if you ate the early (5:30AM) or the late breakfast. The dining hall is also the canteen, which was closed for guest dining. We still didn’t know how much a beer cost. The ranger station at Bright Angel Creek is situated between Phantom Ranch and the campground. On the way back to camp we stopped by the ranger office, which had a closed sign on it, but the two rangers inside asked us to come in and talk and they proved to be a wealth of information. We had read that ranger presentations were offered twice each evening at Phantom Ranch. But the rangers informed us that the presentations do not start until April. After a short gab we returned ¼-mile to camp. Dad was up and everyone was back. We still were not real rambunctious. One of us was rambunctious enough, though, to get up from the picnic table, a major chore, and get the binoculars out of the tent. We scoped out the ridge to Camp at Bright Angel

2 A nice historical story of Phantom Ranch is available at http://www.phantomranch.com/history1.htm

4 the east of the camp, on the other side of Bright Angel Creek. At the ridge were some big beavertail cactus with stickers about 5” long. The ridge rises about 600’ nearly straight up from the creek bed. It was nearly consumed by the shadows from the 1200’ ridge behind us. But the cactus were still in the sun and attracted our attention. Scoping out the ridge further yielded a number of other the beavertail cactus as well as a pretty hefty sized barrel cactus. Across the Colorado River we scoped out the 1600’ ridge that topped out at The Tipoff. Back at camp Dan & Theresa Spaid, Jan’s cousin and his wife, happened by. They had came down Bright Angel Trail on their mules that morning. She said that she had counted 180 hikers on the way down. They were to go back up in the morning. All of us wanted to, but none of us asked for a ride. We heated water, prepared and ate our chili-mac and beef stroganoff, drank tea and tang, cleaned up and went to bed. The night sky was clear, had no moon, and was filled with stars. But we did not see many of them: nobody had any problem falling asleep at 7:30 PM. We brought two tents. Carol and Leroy slept in the two-man tent. Dad, Jeff and I would sleep in the four-man tent, although Jeff slept outside of the tent. It was cool Friday morning, March 19 . Not even close to freezing, but cool. Jeff and I were up first and heated water for coffee and breakfast about 8 AM. No rush to get up, that was for sure. The coffee was good. Everyone was up within a half an hour, all still moving slowly. We were especially slow after sitting at picnic table for over 5 minutes. Whenever someone got up, everyone else chuckled. For breakfast we had the bagged eggs, one kind with bacon and another kind with ham, just add boiling water! Tang, coffee, tea … it wasn’t Denney’s, but it was good. Most of the campers had left by the time we finished breakfast. Apparently most camp only for a night and then truck on. The camp was well over half empty the when we finished eating and cleaning up. After breakfast Jeff, Dad and I walked to Silver Bridge. This bridge has not so much history as Black Bridge, apparently. In fact, I could find no information even on the internet. But it is an aluminum bridge of about the same dimensions as Black Bridge and provides a crossing for hikers over the Colorado River just downstream from the campground. Silver Bridge’s name is influenced by it’s aluminum structure. We walked across it’s metal mesh floor looking at the river rushing 50’ directly under your toes. At Bright Angel Creek, the Colorado River has a relatively large dry shore on both sides. We explored the rocky dry high-river bed area just downstream from Silver Bridge.

Silver Bridge

5 The Colorado was not running high, but had enough water flowing that made one believe it could carve this canyon. It was muddy red-brown and flowing wide and quick. Visibility: zero. A good swimmer may be able to swim across, but would end well downstream, if he did not hit a rock. But no rocks showed on the surface of the swift water. We then started walking the , which traverses a half a mile of the canyon wall on the south side of the river. The River Trail provides a route from the Bright Angel Trail to the South Kaibab Trail, without using Silver Bridge. It is unlikely that mules would go over Silver Bridge because of the meshed floor. So the mules can take the River Trail to Black Bridge and cross there. Dad, Jeff and I started east on the River Trail. The river trail has a good number of trail steps too. Jeff recalled that it met with the South Dad on Silver Bridge Kaibab Trail at a point that would still include a lot of steps back down to Black Bridge. So Dad elected to amble back across Silver Bridge, and save his recovering knees for the next day’s hike. Jeff and I continued the walk to Black Bridge. In the early 1930s the trail was carved in and through the granite cliffs between Silver and Black bridge by the Civilian Conservation Corps. We ran into one of the two rangers when we returned to the campground and we talked again for a half an hour or so. She lives at the ranger station there at Bright Angel Campground nine months of the year and at the South Rim the other three months. We commented how clean the area was, especially considering so many people use it. She said that the rangers do very little cleanup and that the cleanliness is due mainly to visitor’s care for the area. The other ranger was from Loma, Colorado, or at least he had lived there for awhile when he was younger. Jeff felt nearly related. With no pre-planning we all met at lunch-time at camp and ate lunch. After lunch we all did our own thing again. Leroy, Mitch and Jeff walked up to the canteen and finally found out how much the beer was. $3.75 for a cold can of Bud. They also sold Tecate. We bought the beer, of course, only to find out the price (to kool to ask). Since we had it though, we decided to drink it. And we did. And then another one. After the beer Leroy headed back to camp and Jeff and I started toward Ribbon Falls, six miles up the North Kaibab Trail north of camp. We would meet back at the canteen at 4:30 PM. We walked only a short distance up North Kaibab Trail and then turned east onto the . We walked up to an overlook on a ridge above Phantom Ranch on one side and above the Colorado River on the other, took a few pictures and walked back down. The overlook includes a chair made of flat rocks, which we estimated to be 1.7 billion year old granite. The chair and the trail were constructed in the 1930s by the same Civilian Conservation Corps. It is unclear if the chair has been maintained, but it is in excellent shape. It is a four man chair with a backrest, and fairly comfortable. From the overlook we could also see the South Kaibab Trail that we had come Jeff at the Clear Creek Trail overlook down the previous afternoon. No wonder we were tired! We walked past the canteen at about 4:30 and met Dad walking up to it from camp. Leroy and Carol were close behind. So we took in the canteen and a couple $3.75 Buds again. The rock and wood building has nearly corner to corner windows on three sides, most open for ventilation. This made for comfortable lounging, even with the temperatures outside at over 85º. The canteen had four long blue tables with

6 enough chairs for probably 10 – 15 at each table. The chairs were lightweight wicker chairs, handmade, and pretty flimsy. But they were comfortable enough. At the west end of the canteen were curios for sale, at an even higher than normally high National Park prices. The t- shirts available at the Phantom Ranch canteen are available nowhere else on earth. They sell a lot of stuff hikers may need too, like aspirin and other pain relievers. Most importantly, of course, they serve cold beer, and soda for the lightweights. The walls of the canteen hold a variety of memorabilia and photos, including a story about Black Bridge that I had read to Jeff and Leroy on The Phantom Ranch Canteen our first canteen visit earlier in the day. An interesting story, and, it can be found at the website mentioned earlier. We had to leave after the second beer because they were closing to serve the evening meal at Phantom Ranch. The dinners have to be reserved well in advance. I looked into reserving a dinner or breakfast in November of 2003 and they were booked. After beers we returned to camp. The canyon walls had been providing shade for the camp for a couple of hours by now and it was comfortably cool. We used the binoculars to settle an argument about the condor that seemed to be perched on the canyon wall behind us. The condor, which had moved at least a couple of times, turned out to be a rock. We heated water for dinner: lasagna and macaroni and cheese with canned tuna. We cooked one of two packs of raspberry crumble, a dehydrated desert package that was pretty good, but not everyone ate a lot of it. That evening we were much more chipper and stayed up at least until dark. However, the fact that campfires are prohibited in the canyon encourages an early bedtime. Once again, we didn’t make it to the serious star gazing, even though it was a warm clear night. Saturday, March 20 we were up at about 2 nd light 3. We ate bananas and rice cakes and had coffee or tea while breaking camp and getting ready to hike up to Indian Garden Campground. We were packed, cached with water and on the trail at 8 AM. Apparently most hikers from the campground must have been up at 1 st light, we left after they did. We walked across Silver Bridge and started the feared hike to up Indian Garden. Dad had taken off first, then Leroy and Carol, then Jeff and finally I took up the rear. At the end of Silver Bridge I shifted my walking stick from one hand to the other and the stick bumped my camera lens, knocking the lens cap off. It hit the meshed floor, teetered there long enough to give me thoughts about retrieval … had I not had a pack on … and fell through the mesh to Leaving Bright Angel Campground the roily Colorado River where it immediately disappeared. I never did have a lot of use for walking sticks. One of the rangers had told us that the hike to Indian Garden was relatively easy, with a fairly constant 17% grade, and in the shade nearly the whole hike. But after the hike down we were wondering if she was telling the complete truth. The first mile parallels the Colorado and heads southwest, downstream, much like the River Trail we had walked the day before. But it is nearly flat, overall. Pretty easy hiking. We saw a quintet of rafts down at the river getting ready for another day on the Colorado. But we saw only a trio of people. We puzzled how three people piloted five rafts. The magic of the canyon!

3 2 nd light is sometime after 1 st light. 1 st light is really early in the morning.

7 At one point Leroy and I stopped to get something out of a pack. While putting my pack back on a downhill hiker commented “that’s a hefty load you got there, Dad!” I think that’s the first time I have ever been called ‘Dad’ by someone other than my kids. I must have been looking pretty old. The hiker then walked past and returned to jogging! He was neither the first jogger nor the last jogger we would see. It turns out that quite a number of folks run from trailhead to trailhead (15 miles), or even from the south rim to the north rim (20 miles). Bright Angel Trail turns south at the confluence of the Colorado River and Garden Creek. The River Resthouse, one of three on Bright Angel Trail between Phantom Ranch and the South Rim, lies just west of the trail after the trail turns south. A couple of hikers were in the rest house, but we walked right on by. So far every step was in taken in the shade. The canyon carved by Garden Creek looked shady too. The trail was relatively easy compared to South Kaibab. So far the ranger was accurate.

Garden Creek Canyon, looking south

Carol, Jeff, Dad and Leroy (L-R) Near the top of the climb out of the lower canyon (Granite Gorge) onto the Tonto Plateau at about 3000’, looking north from Bright Angel Trail, is the peak in the distance

8 Garden Creek, which is joined by Pipe Creek about a mile from the Colorado River, has a steady stream of water flowing in it. At that confluence, the trail leaves Garden Creek and follows Pipe Creek. The Pipe Creek streambed has sparse, but constant vegetation. The canyon walls on either side are not as steep as the canyon walls around Phantom Ranch, but it is still hard to imagine how a trail might ascend to the plateau above. That riddle would be answered about 10 AM. Most of the 4.7 miles from Bright Angel Campground to Indian Garden Campground was easy hiking in the canyon. But a little over a mile from Indian Garden the easy trail turns into switchbacks and trail steps, ascending 600 feet in a tough quarter mile. The views back into the inner canyon at this part of the trail are pretty spectacular. The trail then flattens out and parallels Garden Creek again. Before it tumbles into the lower canyon Garden Creek flows through some white rocks, forming some bath sized pools of clear flowing water. Maybe we would come back later for a cold bath. After meeting Garden Creek the trail again flattened to an easy, shaded hike toward Indian Garden. As we came closer to Indian Garden the vegetation began to show flowers. Spring had arrived at Indian Garden. We arrived at the campground at about 11:30 AM. Indian Garden, the campground and the area, was populated. People everywhere. Most seemed to be taking the noon break on their day or overnight hike. We hiked past most of them to the campground, which lies at the top of Indian Garden. Like Bright Angel, the campground lies in the shade among imported cottonwoods. Indian Garden has a storied past, originally inhabited and cultivated by the Havasupai Indians, then owned by a miner turned tour guide. He built most of the Bright Angel Trail and planted the trees before Grand Canyon was a national park. But, according to the stories on the National Park information boards at the campground, he allowed the area to become very dirty and cluttered, even unhealthy and eventually was run out by the US Government and replaced by the Park Service. Indian Garden is no longer dirty and cluttered. The area is as clean as Bright Angel Campground. Still a surprise, considering the number of people who frequent the place. The campground has 15 sites, none are large group sites. We selected an empty site in the shade of trees, close to the outhouse. At times, the wind and proximity to the outhouse made the site selection less than optimum. But the shade was nice. It was over 90º, a record. The next day would be nearly 95º. Only about 11 of the 15 sites had campers that night. Each site has a covered picnic table area, enough room for a Carol, Leroy and Dad few small tents and, of course, the metal trees to in camp at Indian Garden Campground keep the packs out of reach of critters. For lunch we ate sausage, cheese and crackers, topped with candy … all washed down with electrolyte and tang. For the afternoon we roamed around on our own again. One of the rangers, aptly nick-named Happy Pants by Jeff, seemed to be annoyed by our questions as to the location of the canteen. But Indian Garden has no canteen or guest cabins. There are a few empty cabins for park rangers and workers, styled much like the rock and wood cabins at Phantom Ranch. The ranger station is located a few hundred yards up the trail to the south of the campground. The south rim can be easily seen from anywhere in the campground. Through the binoculars we could scope out many folks at the south rim overlooks. We could even follow the route of the trail, but not all the way. It disappeared close to the top. The National Park signs at Indian Garden told a lot about the Garden, it’s wildlife, and of course, it’s rules. The chuckwalla lizard was supposed to be the common crawler here. We saw plenty of lizards, fence lizards and spiny lizards, but no chuckwallas. Of course the have-to-see wildlife was the California Condors. We had seen three of them hanging out just below Plateau Point when we were hiking up the Bright Angel Trail. But we saw none at camp. Deer are plentiful around the camp. By far, though, the most common animal is people. But again, considering it’s popularity, the area is remarkably clean.

9 We ate dinner a bit early so that we could walk out to the Plateau Point Overlook at sunset. The overlook lies a mile and a half to the north of Indian Garden and overlooks the Colorado River, 1400’ below. Dinner was good. Again it was easy cookin’: pour a cup of boiling water into the dehydrated meal package, stir, wait five to ten minutes and dig in, either right from the package or put it on a plate. We had chicken and rice, chicken teriyaki and gorp. And of course tang, tea and electrolyte.

Mitch, Carol, Leroy and Jeff on Plateau Point

After dinner we started toward the Plateau Point Overlook. It was still hot. The Plateau Point Trail meets the Bright Angel Trail at the north end of Indian Garden, the end we had entered. About half way out to the Plateau Point Overlook Tonto Trail takes off west across the Tonto Plateau. To walk east on Tonto Trail the pedestrian must walk a bit north of Indian Garden on the Bright Angel Trail. The Trail Tonto Trail cuts across the Tonto Plateau toward the South Kaibab Trail, where they meet close to The Tipoff, four miles away. Tonto Trail continues east and west nearly the length of the canyon, though we were told that the further it gets from the two “corridor trails” (Bright Angel and South Kaibab) the less obvious Tonto Trail becomes. At the ends of the Grand Canyon the Tonto Trail is hardly discernable and does not exist at all in places. Carol, Leroy, Jeff and I walked out to Plateau Point. Dad stayed around camp. The Grand Canyon is really a canyon within a bigger canyon. The north and south rims abruptly drop off a couple thousand feet onto the Tonto Plateau. Splitting the Tonto Plateau is the Colorado River, which has

10 carved an even steeper canyon below the Tonto Plateau, called the Granite Gorge. Relative to the rim walls and the river walls, Tonto Plateau is flat. But the Tonto Plateau is anything but flat, particulary if one is to walk from the base of the rim wall to the edge of Granite Gorge. But the plateau is generally as flat as the Colordo River as it parallels the river through the canyon. The trail to Plateau Point may be the most flat trail in the Grand Canyon. Dad missed out on some good views. The overlook definitely offers some splendid views of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Quite an impressive drop to the Colorado River. It is not straight down, but it is close enough. The river flows about 1400’ down and 1400’ north of the overlook. The view of the river was a bit surreal, the river was fairly close as a rock falls. We could easily see the muddy water flowing downstream, but it could not be heard. Across the canyon we could see endless buttes peaks and smaller canyons. The immensity of it is astounding, even now on our third day in the canyon. The overlook was not crowded. When we arrived, a small group was leaving for the hike back to Indian Garden. A young couple had arrived just before us. When we left another small group had arrived. The young couple had perched themselves on a rock, below which was nothing for maybe a thousand feet. The girl was dangling her feet over the edge. None of us wanted anything to do with that! They were students at The University of Colorado in Boulder. They had jogged down from the south rim and were planning to jog back up before the end of the day. It was already 5:30 PM. They would not get back to the rim until after dark. We stayed and watched the sun set behind the canyon walls and then walked back to camp. We arrived just as it was getting dark. Dad had carved memorabilia on some of the walking sticks. Again, the lack of a campfire had us in the tents just after it was dark enough to see thousands of stars. Jeff was still sleeping under the stars. Sunday morning we were up well after it got light. Probably 4 th or 5 th light. A lot of campers had already left. We heated water for drinks, bacon and eggs, and oatmeal. We were beginning to eat more so that we would be out of food on the hike out. Why carry extra weight in our packs what we could carry it in our stomachs? After another good breakfast we all did our own thing once again. Jeff and I filled up with a quart of water, a quart of electrolyte and some food and struck out to Salt Creek. One of the rangers at Bright Angel Campground had informed us that two condors had nested in Salt Creek and had raised a fledging in the wild, the only known such occurrence in the world for that endangered species. A group of biologists were to be camped out there observing the condors. Being the true environmentalist (Jeff) and photographer (me) we had to go out and see that! Salt Creek is crossed by the Tonto Trail about six walking miles west of camp. As the condor flies it is about two miles. The trail winds around The Battleship, the ridge just to the west of camp, and then back away from the Colorado to the point where Horn Creek ceases to be a nasty canyon, back out toward the Colorado around Dana Butte and then, finally, back into the point where Salt Creek ceases to be a nasty canyon. Both Horn Creek and Salt creek drop from the Tonto Plateau to the Colorado, about a thousand vertical feet. The hike was not difficult though. Horn Creek had a small, but constant trickle of water in it. Salt Creek had almost no water. Salt Creek would seep from the sand and rock in places, but for the most part was non-existent on the Tonto Plateau. As we walked into the Salt Creek canyon we may have saw a chuckwalla lizard. It was hard to tell if it was really a chuckwalla (known to most folks as the Sauromalus Obesus) because the lizard screeched right under Jeff’s feet, freaked out (both the lizard and Jeff) and then

11 immediately disappeared in the rocks. But he was easily 15” long, and moving fast. We arrived at Salt Creek at about noon. A campsite is located at both Horn Creek and Salt Creek where Tonto Trail crosses. Both camps are small and totally undeveloped, save a sign at each creek. As we arrived at the Salt Creek camp we met a trio of gals who had hiked in from Hermits Rest, probably 12 miles to the west and at the south rim. They had arrived a day late, having reserved the camp at Salt Creek for the night before. The hike from Hermits Rest had turned out to be much more difficult than they had anticipated, involving climbing over boulders and through washouts across the trail. They appeared glad to lose their packs. We could relate! They knew about the condors but not about the biologists. They had seen the condors earlier in the day. Jeff and I hiked up the dry Salt Creek bed looking for the biologist’s camp and for condors. We found neither. We found some shade and ate lunch. Jeff hiked up to where Salt Creek turns into the Hopi Wall, a 1000’ cliff formed in a huge cove between the ridge called The Alligator, to the west, and the ridge that reaches out to Dana Butte, to the east. There he found some dripping water and doused his hat and shirt. Mitch explored around the area and found nothing. We walked back down the sandy bed of Salt Creek, bid farewell to the female trio, and then met a family of three, resting in the shade of a small ledge along the creek bed, just where Tonto Trail crosses. They were from Ft. Collins, Colorado! I felt almost related. They were going to hike to Horn Creek and stay there that night. They would need to fill up on water at Salt Creek because Horn Creek flows out of the Lost Orphan, an old uranium mine just below the south rim, and that water is not drinkable. Jeff and I estimated the water contained only about 25 micrograms of uranium per liter, but the EPA estimates 40 micrograms, which is just over the maximum contaminate level for human consumption. Being good environmentalists and photographers we refrained from drinking the Horn Creek water. I walked a bit further down the Salt Creek bed to a place where water was seeping out of the ground and soaked my shirts and hat. We then climbed out of the creek on the trail and started back toward camp. We were low on water by then so we had to ration it, only drinking at Horn Creek and when we finally got back to Plateau Point Trail. We took a break at the Horn Creek campsite. It had made it to 95º, as predicted on one of the bulletin boards at camp. We finished the water at Plateau Point Trail and then walked into Indian Garden where we filled up on water from the faucets.

Horn Creek Canyon on the Tonto Plateau

Carol and Leroy had explored the area around Indian Garden. They had walked down the Bright Angel Trail looking for the pools we saw on the way up. Though they walked quite a ways, they never came to the pools. So much for our baths. We could have used a bath too. Dad had been exploring too, but where he was and is national security information. He also continued carving on the walking sticks. All the sticks were now permanently engraved with memorabilia of the hike. We had talked about another walk out to the overlook at Plateau Point, but decided to chill instead. We ate the last of our dehydrated dinners: lasagna, beef stew, pasta primavera and raspberry crumble. We then

12 cleaned up and prepared for another early bedtime. That night the wind blew pretty hard. In the tent I was wondering if the tent would blow away. I was also wondering if Jeff would blow away. He was sleeping under the stars again. But we and our belongings were all there in the morning. The magic of the canyon! We were up at sunrise. We had a few packs of oatmeal, corncakes and tea and coffee. We packed quickly and were on the trail at 7:30AM. The trail climbs gradually along Garden Creek for the first mile. Then we hit first of the nearly constant switchbacks to the top. The trail switches back and forth up the steep grade for over three miles to Grand Canyon Village, at the top. It follows Garden Creek nearly the whole distance, but Garden Creek had no water in it above Indian Garden. Once we hit the switchbacks we took a lot more breaks. The trail is not supposed to be any steeper than 17%, but it sure seems steep when you are hiking up. Quite a few hikers and walkers passed us on their way down. We began to count them. By the time we made it to the top we had counted 370 people. We took a longer rest at Three Mile Resthouse. We did not actually go to the resthouse because it is a hundred yards off the trail and we were conserving our energy. Three Mile Resthouse is three miles from the trail head at the top. The views of the canyon behind us were, again, spectacular, The view looking up was a bit different. Probably more like overwhelming. We could see people on the trail nearly all the way to the top. But those closer to the top were mere dots on the wall. At Mile and a Half Resthouse (yes, these names were under discussion many weeks before they were finally agreed to) we took a food break. This rest house is very small, but right next to the trail. We found some shade and ate and drank. Water is available at both of the rest houses during the summer, but it would not be turned on for another couple of weeks. No matter for us though, we had plenty of water. The ample drinking water in the canyon actually comes from Three Mile Resthouse Roaring Springs, almost at the top of the North Kaibab Trail on the north side of the Colorado River. The trans-canyon pipeline 4 brings water down the North Kaibab Trail, over the Colorado River on Silver Bridge, along the Colorado and Bright Angel Trail and up the canyon to the Indian Garden, where it is then pumped 3700’ up to the South Rim. Since 1970 the pipeline has supplied drinking water to Cottonwood Campground (on the North Kaibab Trail), Phantom

4 From the NPS webaiste at http://www.grandcanyontourguide.com/gc/32.htm

13 Ranch, Bright Angel Campground, the River Resthouse, Indian Garden, and the two rest houses above Indian Garden on the Bright Angel Trail. A most peculiar way to get water to be sure, but the rock formations at the south rim make drilling wells impractical. We talked to some of the people walking up and down. Jeff talked to the family from Ft. Collins we had talked to the day before. They mentioned that just down the creek from where I had doused my shirt and hat lay a dead bird. Maybe we needed to bathe in the pools at Garden Creek more than we had thought! There were quite a variety of folks walking the Bright Angel Trail. Some just walking from the top to the first good view, and some walking from the south rim to the north rim. I talked to one older guy who was only on a short hike down to The Tipoff and then up the South Kaibab Trail. He was not in a hurry. He had hiked rim to rim seven times in the past. Often with a pack, but he said he does not do the backpacking thing anymore. He was wearing shorts, boots and carried some water. We talked to some folks who had camped across from us at Indian Garden. This family included of a 7-year old girl, her ma, pa and grandpa. We passed them, they passed us. The evening before ma and grandpa had hiked from Indian Garden Campground down to Phantom Ranch and back (without packs). They had returned to Indian Garden after dark and had a chance to get a good picture of a rattlesnake on the trail below camp. We were struggling up the trail, to be sure. But this was not nearly as bad as coming down the South Kaibab a few days earlier. Jeff made it to the top first. Carol and Leroy followed a bit later and Dad and I brought up the rear. Dad and I stepped onto the pavement at Grand Canyon Village, just outside of the Bright Angel Lodge, at about 12:30PM, Tuesday, March 22, 2004 . Jeff walked to my truck and brought it the trailhead and we loaded the packs into the back. With Leroy, Carol and Jeff riding on the tailgate, I then drove over to the backcountry office parking lot and Leroy’s truck. There was still some cold beer in his cooler! So we took care of that along with the sweet rolls remaining from mom’s At the pavement! pre-hike gift. Sometimes there is nothing better than beer and sweet rolls … but not usually. We transferred gear to the right owner, and then headed for the showers near Mather Campground. The shower was nice after five days of sweating. Probably warmer than the pools on Garden Creek too. After the shower we said our good byes and hit the road, Leroy, Carol and Dad heading south to I-40, and Jeff and I heading east to Cameron. The outing was over. But driving along the south rim the Grand Canyon was still quite a sight. The huge canyon still seems to be illuminated and unreal.

14 The Participants

Carol Leroy

Ken (Dad) Jeff Mitch

15