Monday, April 12.
TBD miles. Currently ~9.4.
Edit: yep, 9.4.
I’m sitting on a Tapeats sandstone shelf near a little beach staring at the Colorado River. I’ve been staring at this river for around 3 and half hours now. We got here at 1:30pm and it’s now 5 and no raft has gone by. If none come by, we’re going to have to wait here and hope for a hitch across in the morning. Oof.
We got up right before sunrise to try to get an early start down what we knew was going to a very slow section. In hindsight, we should have gotten up earlier.
We had around 9.4 “understated” miles to the recommended ferry point down the Colorado. We past by some of the pack rafters though we didn’t bother trying to talk to them much. Jack had already talked to them all the day before and we figured we shouldn’t keep bothering them especially since we had to get going to make the miles to the ferry point.
The first four or so miles to Kwagunt canyon weren’t that bad. There was a pretty well groomed use trail that avoid most of the thorny bushwhacking. One journal I read said that raft guides like to do a loop connecting Nankowea, Colorado, Kwagunt, and Horsethief so the use trail down the Colorado which meant the trail was pretty clear though not always straightforward. A lot of journals complain about the bushwhacking down this section but honestly it wasn’t that bad. Maybe it’s gotten cleaned up in the years since they’ve done it.
The “trail” mostly stays above the river, scrambling up and down some ridges and drainages with the occasional head scratching until you spot the cairn pointing the way. The views were excellent all morning of course. This place is one of the most beautiful and interesting places I’ve ever been in. There are massive walls all around us, billions of years old, and we can clearly see the layering of the different types of rocks one on top of another. I’ve been here before and know there’s a pneumonic for remembering the types of rock but I can’t remember it at all.
It’s also much warmer down here than above on the plateau. For the first time in weeks, I slept without my fleece on and my quilt only half on top of me (have you ever been warm at night while sleeping? It’s wild). That also means that it got pretty hot early. We spent a few hours in the shade as the sun slowly reach the bottom of the canyon but as soon as we got into the light I was dripping sweat. I had plenty of water access with the Colorado right next to us all day but I still probably didn’t drink enough water.
I popped some Ibuprofen right before hiking for my knee. Glad I did. It took us about 2 and a half hours to go the 4 miles to Kwagunt creek, not great time but also not bad for how bad I thought this part was going to be. We stopped at a little beach to filter water and take a break to enjoy the sun and water. The beach was stunning with clear water pooling near the shore. While scooping up some water, I did hit a patch of quicksand and my right leg sunk right into to my upper thigh. Since we skipped the Dirty Devil, we haven’t encountered any quicksand so far and it’s a really weird and startling feeling. Wasn’t expecting to be sucked in like that. I pulled myself out easily enough though and kept enjoying the beach.
As we were filtering, all the rafting parties we had camped near cruised by, one after the other, including the one Jack was with. We called him an aquablazer and he shouted he’d wait for us. Jack has an inreach too but I forgot to get his number before we took off in the morning so we have no way of reaching him so for all we know he’s been waiting for us all day.
There were boatload of raft parties who went by, big groups in giant rafts so we figured there was a good chance we’d see more throughout the day. Nope.
After that the miles got a lot slower. The nice well-groomed use trail was replaced by less obvious occasional deer path or rock scramble or thorny bushwhack. Everything in this section has spikes or thorns growing out of it, including the rocks, and I got stabbed, poked, prodded, jabbed, sliced, and cut up so many times. My palms and wrists got covered in little splinters and thorns all over and I had to keep stopping to pull them off.
The way down occasionally flattened out near the side canyons but for the most part stayed on a steep slope. There were a ton of rocky scrambles to get through as well though I actually really enjoyed those. Reminded me of the Sierra and bouldering hopping on the Yosemite High Route, but less exposed.
About 1.5 miles from the ferry point, a raft went by and shouted to us that they’d see us down the river. I took that to mean they might wait for us at the ferry point and give us a ride which would be awesome. Nope.
It was a little before noon and I figured they would stop for lunch at the ferry point. I actually didn’t know anything about the ferry point but I guessed it was another popular camp site like the one we camped in last night. Nope.
I wanted to make sure we’d get there before we left so I cranked the Taylor Swift and rushed the last mile to the ferry point. The section right after Sixty Mile Canyon stopped being so rocky and thorny and turned more into Tapeats Sandstone shelves and ledges which made it pretty fast to hike on. I did have to keep jumping up and down the ledges as they cliffed out but it was pretty fun route finding.
Made it to the ferry point area just after one, about an hour later than I had hoped we’d get there. The ferry point did have a small camping area but none of the wide beaches that the Nankoweap camp site had. I couldn’t see where exactly we were supposed to try to hitch so I hiked a bit south past the waypoint on the GPS track I have. Found a nice protected area with a Tapeats overhang for sun protection next to a little beach rafts could pull into. There were also signs that this was the spot people waited, little stacked rocks and footprints around.
We didn’t see the raft party that had passed us anywhere near this area. They must have kept going to the Little Colorado junction, a more popular stop for rafters. We saw a few rafts down the river, too far for us to get too though they didn’t stay long anyway. As I was looking down I heard some whoops and hollers that sounded like Jack and tried to respond. Not sure if he heard me woo back but they whoops stopped. He might still be there waiting for us or maybe (hopefully) he kept going once we didn’t show.
So that pretty much brings us to here, almost 5 hours later waiting without a single raft going by. We filtered water, cleaned our socks, patched up our liner trash bags and ziplock bags for the possible Little Colorado ford, and have just been hanging out for hours now staring at the river. We can see right across the river to where we’re supposed to be. It’s only a few hundred feet and we can not for the life of us get across. Where we’re at, the water isn’t moving too fast, but it’s pretty cold and probably moving faster than it looks. The guidebook all but screams not to try to swim across since you’ll probably be swept down quickly. I can barely swim so I’m def not gonna try to but it’s so frustratingly close.
I’m pretty bummed we missed the one ferry that went by in the afternoon. If we had gotten up an hour earlier or not taken a break in the morning or just hiked faster we might have been able to get a ride and gotten across today. It’s looking more like we’ll have to camp here and wait for the next raft groups to come by tomorrow morning.
This is not a bad spot to be stuck in but also we really want to get going. The next few days are supposed to be pretty tough and slow and longer than the route mileage claims and it would have really helped to get across today and get a few more miles in. We’re gonna have a late start tomorrow too, assuming any rafting parties come by at all and can give us a ride.
We have about 3 days of food left and maybe more than that many days of hiking left until the South Rim and our next resupply. We had planned to go up the South Kaibab trail to the South Rim but given this stupid delay and my bum knee, we might go up earlier on the Grandview Trail. My knee didn’t really bother me today (except for when a thorny branch clawed right at it) but I’m worried about the ascent to the South Rim and then doing rim to rim in a day. The ibuprofen definitely helped but it might also be masking any real problems. If we head up early, we might try heading to Tusayan, taking a zero there, and skipping the section between Grandview and South Kaibab, around 20 miles. I’ve hiked on the Tonto Trail across the ledge in the Canyon before so I’m not that upset about missing that section and Jordan doesn’t care so that might be our best plan if we want to stick to our schedule and not wreck out bodies. I can’t tell Jack our plan, despite him being maybe only half a mile away, so not sure if he’ll want to join. He’s been pretty adamant about hiking every mile (except for this aquablaze of his) so he might not want to skip. We’ll find out tomorrow.
Anyway, still no rafts anywhere and the sun is going down so we’re probably stuck here for the night. We’ll see how tomorrow morning goes but fingers crossed for an early hitch.
Plants Outside 