I heard a faint hint of a chime as I was driving down the road. I had received an email, a text or some other notification. Could it be? Was it possible? My heart raced at the prospect. My palms grew moist. Ok, I made that last part up, but I was excited. It felt like one of my first days of online dating. You hear a chime, wondering if you just got "liked" by some total babe. I digress.
I had been on the Grand Canyon hikers Facebook page and had read that folks had been receiving letters from the Backcountry information center, about permit requests. Some were happy, and others not so much. It had been almost a week and I hadn't heard anything. No news is good news, I guess.
I'd hoped that I hadn't just received the proverbial "Dear John" or "Dear Josh", email as it were. After what seemed an eon, I arrived at my destination. I quickly scanned my phone and saw that I had an email from the BIC. Boom!! I closed my eyes and quickly realized that I would soon be backpacking in the Canyon!
Now, Bianca and I had been banging out paddling, camping, cycling, and backpacking trips for much of the spring and summer, whenever we could. But, what I was really waiting for was the Granddaddy of them all, in my opinion, Grand Canyon National Park. We'd done some incredible day hikes in the Canyon, but I hadn't backpacked the Canyon in a couple of years. What with tumors, surgeries, radiation, Covid and forest fires, either I had been physically unable or things had been all but completely shut down at the park. I hadn't backpacked in the Canyon since early 2018. I hadn't been in the Canyon at all, since completing an awesome, long day hike of the Hermit Loop, in October 2020. That was an entire week ago! Our November 2020, three day Phantom Ranch trip had been unceremoniously cancelled, and no new permit requests were being received. Even trips that were already permitted were being cancelled. Mather CG on the rim was closed down to new permits, as well. Well, crud!!
Not letting such obstacles get in the way, we'd made do with excursions to other excellent destinations. Bianca has informed me on a number of occasions that it's actually ok to explore places other than GCNP and that exploring other states is ok, too. Wait, what? We'd had some serious exploration of the Colorado River, in a few different locations. We'd explored a chunk of Northern Arizona, here, and a swath of Northern Arizona, there, and the cooler summer climes that it offers. We'd hammered out a trip or two on the Mogollon Rim. We'd had a ton of fun. We had no less than six additional trips on the books for the rest of the summer and into the fall. Still, something was missing. My heart strings felt a constant tug, much like a fishing line with a giant bass hooked on it. I don't know, tractor-beam like, if you will? That tractor beam was pulling me, and my backpack, towards the Big Ditch.
After what seemed like an eternity, my daily glimpse at the GCNP website indicated that new permit requests would be welcomed, shortly. I knew that I'd get my request in as soon as possible. I needed to figure out what area I would seek a permit in.
I knew that there were probably thousands of folks also seeking a permit, so I didn't want to have anything to do with the corridor trails. I've done them a ton of times and didn't feel the need to try for one of those permits, as the majority of folks would be seeking them. Many of the other areas that I wanted to seek out required more than a weekend, in fact many of them would require 3-4 days at a minimum. In short, I needed a quick trip to fill a weekend, that would pack a punch. I came up with the perfect solution. Cape Solitude would be it. I had been meaning to get there for years, and this was the perfect opportunity.
Cape Solitude is at the far Eastern end of the canyon and abuts the Navajo nation. It is rarely visited. The hike actually never leaves the rim. It's a 15 mile hike to the rim. When one reaches Cape Solitude, one has an overhead view of the confluence of the Colorado River and the Little Colorado River. It's an incredibly beautiful site and is a sacred area to the Native tribes in the region. I'd been fortunate enough to visit the confluence in person on a river trip in 2005 and came close on a backpacking trip in 2017. We'd had to abandon the attempt a few miles short, on the Beamer trail, due to poor planning on my part. It's a two day trip to get there and a two day trip to get out. We just didn't have enough time budgeted. Some day, I'll get there again, via the Beamer.
In this instance we'd be camping on the rim above the confluence with the place all to ourselves. We'd hike in early one morning. We'd set up camp and enjoy the views and explore a few vistas on the rim. The next morning we'd hike out. We'd have to carry all of our water for the entire trip, as we'd encounter no water sources on the way. This would be a true wilderness experience.
On the big day, we loaded up the rig as as soon as I got out of work, and hit the road. Thankfully, the trip to Williams, yeah that Williams, was uneventful. Bianca was in charge of our accommodations and thus we were not in the L'hotel de Fleabag, as I had been the previous weekend.
Dang, we actually had in-room coffee! While it wasn't anything special, it surely was serviceable. We awoke at the rather civil time of 5:00 AM, versus the 3:00 AM wakeup that I had last weekend. We'd be able to drive straight to the trailhead and wouldn't need to take a shuttle, thankfully. By the time we got on the road, McDonalds was open and we were able to acquire additional coffee and some hot breakfast sandwiches. Hallelujah!
We got to the trailhead around 8:00, much later than I would have preferred, by about two hours. We geared up and eventually hit the trail around 8:45. I was nervous about such a late start as that would put more of our hiking in the heat of the day. Though the forecast only called for highs in the low 70s, it still felt pretty warm. I later learned that temps were 6-8 degrees higher. Ultimately, that would combine with a couple of other factors to seal the trip's fate.
The first three miles of the journey would be on Cedar Mountain road. That extremely rough road would take us to the actual Cape Solitude trailhead. Some folks use a high clearance vehicle to travel to the trailhead. We walked. After the initial mile, we encountered a series of switchbacks over several miles, which took us down to the platform that we'd be spending the balance of our journey on. Cedar Mountain, a flat topped mountain became visible. That mountain would be a constant companion for the first half of our journey.
We left two water caches on the way in. We left 1.5 liters at the beginning of the toughest part of the final climbout as we thought that we might need to tank up prior to taking on that challenge. We left an additional 1.5L at the base of the switchbacks. Sadly, though I shed about 7 lbs of water weight, I still had over 50 lbs on my back. It was a heavy load and made for quite the challenge to put my pack on after taking it off. This would also be a contributing factor to our primary trip objective not being met.
Finally, we made it to the end of the road and to the Cape Solitude trail. I was a bit alarmed as it had taken an inordinate amount of time to get to this point, which was just three miles into our fifteen mile day. I wrote off my concerns, as sometimes it takes time to build up momentum on a trip. You're stopping and taking more pictures and adjusting your pack, etc. I figured we'd speed up and "catch up" to where we'd be back on track.
For the first five miles of the trip, we were in a Juniper tree forest. I've always loved those trees, especially the big, thick, gnarly looking ones. The trail was easy to follow in some areas and pretty obscure in others. We had a map and a GPS track we were following. That made it pretty easy to get back on track if we lost the trail.
A lot of the trail was gnarly and rocky. We didn't realize it until the next day, but we were traveling, gently, downhill for most of the day. That gentle downhill, coupled with very heavy packs, was a contributor to our slow pace. Heavy packs and downhill hiking hammers the knees.
The first five to six miles of the hike were spent in the aforementioned Juniper forest, as well as being mostly in a dry creek bottom. This was a unique hike for me in terms of Grand Canyon experiences.
We began to emerge into a different environment of rolling hills covered in prairie grass and sage brush. The sage had a wonderful aroma. The scenery a tad more pedestrian. Yes, I know, I'm sort of a Grand Canyon snob.
Working our way around Cedar Mountain.
As the day wore on, my right big toe began to feel as though it was on fire. The last thing I wanted to do what shed my pack and sit down in the middle of a prairie devoid of anything but grass, take my shoe off and use up even more precious time addressing the problem. However, the problem would only get worse and I'd end up with a nasty, misery inducing blister if I didn't deal with it. I took the boot and sock off and cut a piece of leukotape to cover the hot area. I then rubbed the whole foot in Aquaphor. I put everything back together and we continued the journey. The problem was immediately resolved, thankfully.
We went over a small rise, and way off in the distance we could see the rim of the Canyon. We were not able to see where Cape Solitude was. Anything we could see seemed days away. It was slightly discouraging.
We eventually made the approach to the Navajo Nation. The trail enters the nation for a short while and then comes back onto the National Park. A permit is required to enter the Nation. I didn't have one. I had heard that you could just follow the fenceline until the trail reentered the Park. We did just that.
Taking a quick break near the Nation. I was really starting to feel pretty physically hammered at this point and we still had around five miles to go.
As the miles, slowly, ebbed away, my concern about our pace was definitely back at the forefront. I was concerned about our water situation. I hadn't budgeted enough water to last as many hours as we had been and were likely to be out there. Not that we could have possibly carried more. If tomorrow was the same as it had been today, we'd be in real trouble. All of our meals needed water in order to be rehydrated and we'd also hoped to enjoy coffee in the morning.
As we hit the 12 mile mark, a scan of the map and the GPS unit indicated that we had about three miles left, which at our current pace would have been two hours. It would have been two more hours of increased water needs, as well as six more miles of travel to get back to the car. Three miles to Cape Solitude and three miles back to where we currently were.
The prospect of continuing to move forward, possibly digging whatever hole we were in even deeper, didn't entice me. After soliciting Bianca's thoughts, I made the decision to abandon the effort to get to Cape Solitude. I felt like it was my duty to make the best decision to keep us safe. Could we most likely have survived had we pressed on? Of course. However, I wasn't comfortable with the margin for error or enduring what I was sure would have been a miserable 24 hours or so, until we reached our water cache.
Bianca was disappointed, as was I. It sucks to fail. It's always better to live to fight another day, though. We'll have another shot at it, if we are so inclined.
We found a place to set up camp, right next to the trail. It wasn't exactly what we had in mind, but it would do.
Within minutes, camp was setup. I started preparing dinner. We were both famished. Mountain House Chili Mac was on the menu. I had carried in half of a baguette to accompany the meal. It really hit the spot. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset. At that point, the sleeping bags were calling. We had nothing else to do. We were asleep by 7:30 despite a pretty strong thirst. Unfortunately, I woke up just before midnight. I drifted in and out of sleep until 5:00 AM at which point I'd had enough. I knew that it would be an hour until daylight and I intended to be hiking at that time.
I roused Bianca from her sleep, feeling a bit guilty, and let her know the plan. She was less than thrilled, but gamely got up and got to work. We didn't say much as we broke down camp and probably each contemplated the day ahead. It's at times like this where you truly appreciate a partner with a positive outlook on life. We both downed a chocolate mocha caffeine infused Clif bar for breakfast and 1/2 liter of water each.
The sunrise was absolutely spectacular! Wow! The temps were in the 30s and it was pretty breezy. We didn't dilly dally and were making tracks a tick or two past 6:00. Despite my overall dehydration and a bit of soreness/stiffness from the previous day's efforts, I felt strong and ready to crank out some serious miles.
We enjoyed a beautiful morning. All of the previous day's frustrations were put behind us. With temps 20-30 degrees cooler, as well as a significantly lighter pack due to our decrease in water and food, we were flying and doing 2.5 to 3 MPH. This was what I had envisioned the previous day.
Within seemingly no time, we were once again approaching the Nation. We were definitely a couple of hours ahead of yesterday's pace. It felt great! Within an hour, we'd hit our first cache site. We arrived to find our water and it was really cold. For the first time all weekend, I drank with abandon, and deeply. It was very satisfying.
Reaching the end of the trail and knowing we had just three road miles to go, was a great feeling. I knew that we had a cooler full of ice cold drinks in the car. I was looking forward to that. I felt incredibly energetic and could have run those last three miles.
It was great to reach the car. We quickly changed clothes and got on the road for Flagstaff. We made an intermittent stop in Tusayan for some Starbucks! We were in serious need of caffeine. Next stop would be Flagstaff for some grub!
If I had known on Saturday that we'd have such an easy time of it on Sunday, it might have changed my decision to stop. At the time, I just didn't know, so I definitely don't regret the decision. I could only make my decision based on the day we'd just experienced. In the end, it was still a great adventure, we just didn't get to the piece de resistance.
If we do this again, and I'd like to, I'd so some things differently. I'd choose to go in late November or December, to guarantee that we'd hike in cold weather, therefore reducing water needs. I'd consider the rental of a high clearance vehicle to haul all of our water and gear to the end of Cedar Mountain Road. From there I'd hike in the day before and cache a bunch of water or even possibly set up a spike camp. I'd really like to go back and get this done!
Although we didn’t make it to the end we still had an adventure!! Team BJ adventures are the best!!💜
ReplyDeleteYes, they are!! Now that we've recovered I'm dead set on doing this again. I have some ideas.
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