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The Circumambulation of The Powell Plateau

Twelve Days in the Grand Canyon

story and photos by Bruce Grubbs

"The glories and the beauties of form, color, and sound unite in the Grand Canyon. It has infinite variety. You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view. You have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths. If strength and courage are sufficient for the task, a concept of sublimity can be obtained, never again to be equaled on the hither side of paradise."

- - Major John Wesley Powell

RESOURCES

USGS Topographic Maps
King Arthur Castle, Tapeats Amphitheater, Powell Plateau, Fossil Bay, Topocoba Hilltop, Explorers Monument, Havasupai Point

Books
Hiking Grand Canyon Loops, by George Steck, Globe Pequot Press;
Best Loop Hikes Arizona, by Bruce Grubbs, Mountaineers Books

Permits and conditions
Grand Canyon National Park Backcountry Office
P.O. Box 129
Grand Canyon, AZ 86023
(928) 638-7875
www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/backcountry.htm

Bruce Grubbs is an active outdoor writer and and photographer with 20 books in print. His “day job” is flying air charters. His web site is www.brucegrubbs.com.

The rushing water grabs at my feet, threatening to spill me and my pack into Tapeats Creek. Thankful for my walking stick, which turns me from a shaky biped into a slightly less shaky "triped," I work my way downstream, feeling for firm footing among the gravel and slippery boulders of the stream bed. It'd be crazy to drown while hiking in a desert.

My two companions and I are a few days into a classic backcountry hike in the Grand Canyon - the river-level loop around Powell Plateau. In his guidebook Hiking Grand Canyon Loops, George Steck provides a colorful history and description of this great hike. He found the perfect term, "circumambulation," to describe this rambling route around the many arms of Powell Plateau.

Powell Plateau honors Major Powell, who led the first scientific expeditions down the Colorado River and through its canyons. Most park visitors see Powell Plateau only as the western limit to their view from the South Rim vista points, but this giant mesa would define our world for the next dozen days.

The rim-level plateau is six miles long, separated from the North Rim by Muav Saddle, an 800-foot-deep notch. From Muav Saddle, it's possible to descend Tapeats Creek along the north and west sides of Powell Plateau to the west side of the Colorado River, and ascend Shinumo and White Creeks along the east side of the Plateau back to Muav Saddle. But the difficulty is in the details of the Colorado River, a must-do hike along its bank in order to connect the loop. In particular, the majority of the banks of the Colorado River are impassable, because sheer cliffs fall directly into the water.

The only feasible route is on the Tonto Plateau level at the top of the Tapeats sandstone. In the eastern Grand Canyon, the Tonto Plateau is a broad, gently sloping terrace, but below Powell Plateau it is a steep, but passable, talus slope, which is generally one hundred to a thousand feet above the river. And there's the third catch - water. With the Colorado River usually inaccessible, the would-be circumambulator faces miles of walking between reliable water sources. During the extreme heat of summer, this loop is dangerous.

Pioneer Grand Canyon explorer and climber Harvey Butchart worked out most of the routes in the Powell area during a series of short explorations of many years, but it was left to Steck to find the last pieces of the puzzle and put the loop together. A devotee of long Grand Canyon loop hikes, Steck attempted the trip several times before literally finding the keys. On a trip on the south side of the river, he spotted a descent ravine in the middle of the critical southern part of the loop that turned out to be a new route to the river. On a later attempt to do the loop clockwise, he and his companions found a small spring along the east side of the route that was so important they promptly named it "Key Spring."

For some perverse reason, we didn't start from Swamp Point - instead, we started from the head of Crazy Jug Canyon, miles to the north. Jim and Art muttered something about needing to get more lines on their maps. Anyway, this added three days to the trip, for a total of 12. We would cover about 64 miles and do nearly 25,000 feet of elevation change. And this is one of the easier big Grand Canyon loops? We planned the trip for fall to take advantage of cool, stable weather. Also, water would be low enough in Tapeats Creek so that we could get through the narrows.

* * *

On a fine October day, we parked just off the Big Saddle Road and hefted our packs to start cross-country hiking through the rim forest to the head of Crazy Jug Canyon. In less than half a mile, we reached the rim and turned east looking for an old cowboy trail that was supposed to descend through the rim cliffs of Kaibab limestone. We found the badly overgrown trail (which probably hadn't been used much since this area was added to the national park in 1975) winding through the pygmy forest of pi�on pines and junipers, and followed it along the Toroweap formation, which forms a narrow terrace at the base of the Kaibab limestone. The next barrier cliff below is the Coconino sandstone, which forms a persistent cliff about 300 to 400 feet high through much of the Canyon. The old trail led us down a break in the Coconino and down on to the easier slopes of the Hermit shale, where the trail veered southeast. Below the Hermit shale, the Esplanade sandstone and Supai formation often form a series of 50- to 100-foot cliffs, but in Crazy Jug Canyon it is easy to descend cross-country northwest into the bed of the canyon, and follow it downstream. A short distance down the bed, we found a seasonal flow of water, always a happy sign in the desert. As the Supai gorge in Crazy Jug Canyon opened out to the south, the walking became very pleasant. On this note, we ended the first day's hike by camping on rock ledges above the bed.

* * *

Weight is critical on long desert trips, where you may have to carry a lot of water in addition to the usual gear. So we use a lot of homemade gear to cut weight. My shelter is a one-pound tarp made from silicone-coated ripstop nylon, and Art and Jim use an ultralight tent designed and sewn by Art. Unless rain threatens, we usually sleep under the stars. We all use self-inflating foam pads, which are so comfortable we can sleep on rock slabs - which are the best desert campsites. My pack is a commercial ultralight internal frame, while Art and Jim both use ultralight frameless packs, again designed by Art. Art succeeded in getting his starting weight down to 37 pounds, including two liters of water. Jim and I each had 48 pounds. I guess we eat more food than Art, but I still felt pretty good about getting my load under 50 pounds for a 12-day trip.

* * *

Continuing south down Crazy Jug Canyon, we soon encountered the Redwall limestone. This rock layer is about halfway down the mile depth of the Canyon, and it's 550-foot sheer cliffs are a formidable barrier to travel in the Grand Canyon. The Redwall rim winds in and out of side canyons for a thousand miles along the length of the Grand Canyon. In that distance there are only 200 known routes through it. Most of these Redwall routes follow natural fault lines and were used by prehistoric people. Modern hikers still find the carved rock steps and cut, leaning logs left behind by the native travelers. Some modern trails were built by drilling and blasting through difficult sections, but most trails in the canyon still follow natural fault routes.

We don't have a trail, let alone blasting powder, so to avoid the sheer pouroffs in the main canyon, we have to follow a cross-country route out of the bed to the west, along the sloping terrace above the Redwall rim, and then descend back to the bed via a fault-broken slope. All this takes time, and half the day is gone by the time we regain the bed of Crazy Jug Canyon. There is water in the bed, a good discovery since we plan to camp here on the way out. Dropping our packs, we explore upstream in Crazy Jug for a ways, and also walk up Timp Canyon. When we continue downstream, we pass the end of Saddle Canyon, which descends from Muav Saddle and will be our return. This confluence is also the start of Tapeats Creek and the beginning of the loop. We boulder hop west down Tapeats Creek for several miles until we find more seasonal water and a good campsite.

The third day we pass the Tapeats Spring arm of Tapeats Creek. The spring, which bursts out of a cave in the Redwall a mile up the side canyon, is the source of Tapeats Creek. Just downstream lies the narrows, which I have been worrying about. I was stopped at the narrows on a late fall solo hike, when the water was just too cold to wade. So it's a relief to find the temperature is bearable and the level passable. After the tricky footing of the narrows, we're in and out of Tapeats Creek quite a bit until we reach the mouth of Thunder River. Another huge Redwall spring bursts out of Thunder Cave half a mile above this confluence, creating the shortest river in the world. It's a spectacular desert stream and a popular Grand Canyon spot, reachable by a trail from the North Rim. Hikers and river runners have beaten a good trail along Thunder River and down Tapeats Creek to the Colorado River. We squelch along the trail in our soggy boots to a final creek crossing. Here the main trail continues along the west side of the creek to the river, but we cross the creek one last time and have lunch on sun-warmed rock slabs just inches from the cascading stream. Then we set out on a fainter trail along the east side of the lower gorge of Tapeats Creek. Soon the trail rounds a sharp point and comes out above the Colorado River in Middle Granite Gorge. The walking is easy on a good river-runner trail all the way to Stone Creek, a popular destination for boaters stopped at Tapeats Creek. There is a seasonal flow in Stone Creek, so Jim and I walk up the canyon for a look at the falls near its head. It's also an easy walk down to the river, and we camp on the beach where we are lulled to sleep by the roar of rapids.

For the next couple of miles upstream, we can more or less stay alongside the river - except for a few cliffs that we have to climb around. We reach Bedrock Canyon at the Colorado River and Jim takes off to explore up-canyon while Art and I lounge about in the shade. By the time Jim returns it is once again time to camp.

Upstream from Bedrock, Middle Granite Gorge begins in earnest, and we have to climb until we are on top of the 200-foot cliff formed by the Tapeats sandstone. The gorge below rapidly deepens to more than 600 feet. We meander south down a giant trench in the earth, bounded on both sides by the vertical and overhanging cliffs of the Redwall, and above that by terraces and cliffs in shades of maroon, red, buff, gray and white rising more than 4,000 feet to the west rim of Powell Plateau. Below us the river boils through a somber, 600-foot deep gorge of dark, twisted Vishnu schist - the ruins of an ancient mountain range. But it's a fine hike through cool weather along a gently sloping terrace with few side canyons to detour. We are hiking in almost a straight line, virtually unheard of in the canyon.

We have lunch on a beautiful slab of Tapeats at the crossing of Hundred and Twentyeight Mile Canyon, where a small seasonal stream trickles over the rock. In the afternoon, more easy walking through the giant corridor of stone gets us to Hundred and Twentyseven Mile Canyon and a scrambling route down to the river, where we find marginal individual camp spots about 50 feet apart.

In the morning, we're each packing up our gear when I decide to go fill up my water bottles. I'd been snacking on a bag of homemade jerky. I'm maybe a hundred feet from my pack, when I turn at a shout and see a raven swoop down and neatly pluck my bag of jerky from the top of my pack. About half an hour later, we walk by a boulder a quarter mile from camp where the opportunist and his raven buddy are just finishing off the last of my jerky. Luckily for me, I have another bag.

An easy walk up the bed of Hundred and Twentyseven Mile Canyon gets us back on the Tonto Plateau level. Gradually, Middle Granite Gorge comes to an end as we head southwest toward Fossil Rapids, where the Tapeats sandstone dips to river level. Beyond the rapid, we are forced above the river bank again by nasty, jagged outcrops of travertine rock. For a half mile the going is slow and tedious, requiring careful scrambling, but then we can drop back to the river and walk along sidewalk-like slabs of Tapeats right next to the river. Turning east, we enter Conquistador Aisle, through which the river flows between 3,000 foot walls of rock. Camp is one of the finest of the trip, on perfectly flat rock slabs next to the river.

In the morning, easy river-bank walking quickly leads us to the mouth of Hundred and Twentytwo Mile Creek. We attempt to explore up this canyon but are soon stopped by a high, dry fall. Continuing upstream along the river, we walk the top of the Tapeats cliff about 100 feet above the river until reaching Blacktail Canyon. Here there is an easy scramble down to the river just west of the bed. We explore up Blacktail Canyon to the base of the Redwall but it's sort of a ho-hum canyon. Maybe we are getting jaded by continuous exposure to scenery on a such grand scale.

The route upriver from Blacktail Canyon to Hakatai Canyon, a solid two days of walking, was the most critical portion of the loop in terms of water sources when Steck first did the loop. Now, with his route to the river at the south tip of the loop below Explorers Monument, and Key Spring, we're not concerned. And in fact, the Canyon gods favor us. The going is pretty easy on traces of old animal trails along the Tapeats rim. As the afternoon wears on and the river turns south into Stephen Aisle, we occasionally find water pockets in the bedrock of small, unnamed side canyons. While looking for a place to camp on the sloping terrace, we spot a broad ledge below us in the Tapeats sandstone, and while investigating this for a campsite Jim explores some ledges and chimneys and succeeds in getting to the river.

In the predawn twilight we are awakened by a few drops of rain. Having camped in the open, we quickly pack up and scramble up to an overhang where we have breakfast. Cool and cloudy weather persists during the morning as we approach the southern end of the loop. Although we don't need water, Jim decides to check out Steck's descent ravine below Explorers Monument while Art and I hang out. It takes Jim several hours to go to the river and back, so it's quite a detour. We continue upriver along the Tapeats rim as the river swings north into Granite Gorge. We locate Key Spring but the water is pretty salty and the flow minimal. We're happy we don't have to depend on it. About a mile north, we stop for a break in the shade of an unnamed side canyon, where there are a few water pockets in the bed. Jim and I decide to explore the little canyon downstream and succeed in finding a previously unreported route to the river. We resume the hike above the Tapeats rim and find the going slower on the steep terrace leading into Walthenburg Canyon. Because Granite Gorge is getting steadily deeper below us, the side canyons are getting bigger and require longer detours. We run out of daylight before crossing Walthenburg and camp in a small side canyon with marginal ledges but some good water pockets in the bedrock.

In the morning, we find we still have to go a mile upstream in Walthenburg before we can find a way across. Then it's a mile and a half of rough, slow walking before we can turn east above the river and head to Hakatai Canyon. Hakatai Canyon was part of the mining and exploration that William Bass carried out in this part of the Canyon in the late 19th century. His main access to the area was via a trail he built to the river from the South Rim. He also had a trail to the North Rim - the North Bass Trail that will be part of our exit from the canyon. Normally, he used a ferry boat to cross the river, but during the spring flood he used two tramway cables strung across the river, one connecting the foot of the North and South Bass trails, and another here at Hakatai Canyon. Though the cables have been removed, we walk down Hakatai Canyon and find a short trail to the north terminus of the Hakatai cable, a spectacular spot on a ledge several hundred feet above the river. As we enjoy the view, a river party in kayaks and rafts floats by below.

After climbing out of Hakatai, our plan is to follow the traces of Bass's old trail from Hakatai Canyon to Shinumo Creek, where Bass had a camp on a broad terrace next to the perennial creek. But we find no traces of the old trail and the walking is rough and slow. Darkness catches us before we can start the descent into Shinumo Creek, so we make a dry camp on the terraces above.

In the morning, we easily reach the creek and enjoy breakfast next to the clear stream. Now we have a trail, of sorts, to follow. The North Bass Trail has the well-earned reputation of being one of the roughest of the old Canyon trails. It's hard to belief Bass actually brought tourists on horseback up this trail to the North Rim when he turned to guiding to supplement his mining income. Shinumo Creek shows evidence of major flooding, probably from the big storms during February, 1993. It rained nearly every day for the entire month in northern Arizona and triggered widespread flooding. We follow the well-cairned but little-used trail north out of Shinumo Creek and over a ridge into White Creek. From here we walk up the dry wash about three miles to the base of the Redwall, where the trail reappears and climbs through the Redwall cliff by connecting a series of marginal ledges and terraces. It is not at all an obvious route and we're glad to have the trail. After the Redwall ascent the trail winds in and out of side drainages along the west side of White Creek. Once again we fall short of our goal, which was to camp on Muav Saddle and end up camping in a grove of Gambel oaks just below the final ascent to the saddle.

After breakfast, we follow the North Bass Trail up the steep climb to Muav Saddle, where we check out Theodore Roosevelt Cabin. This small two-room building was built in the 1930s to support trail work by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The cabin has been recently renovated and named in honor of President Roosevelt, who started the 20th-century conservation movement by protecting large tracts of federal land, including much of the future Grand Canyon National Park. The CCC improved the North Bass Trail from Swamp Point down to Muav Saddle and built a good trail west onto the north end of Powell Plateau.

We fill up on water from a small spring at the base of the Coconino sandstone, and head north past the cabin to start the descent of Saddle Canyon. At first we can walk directly down the bed, but near the bottom of the Supai formation we are forced out of the bed to bypass a couple of dry falls. There is a cairned route along the brushy ridges to the west which we follow back down to the bed. Soon the bed of the dry wash enters an ominous narrows in the Redwall limestone, and we have to climb out on the left to bypass a dry fall. Downstream, there are several chockstones, but nothing too difficult until near the bottom of the Redwall. Here we encounter a steep chute in the rock that drops into a cold plunge pool. Named the "Slicky Slide" by Steck, who found it could be dangerously slippery when wet, we are lucky to find it mostly dry and have no trouble climbing down. The key to crossing the pool is for everyone to note where the first person crosses, because once the mud on the bottom is stirred up it's impossible to see the shallow areas. Below the Slicky Slide, we bypass a final, high fall via easy ledges on the left, then pass the mouth of Stina Canyon, and finally reach Tapeats Creek to complete the loop late on our 11th day in the canyon.

In the morning, we climb up the route through the Redwall on the west side of Crazy Jug Canyon that we used at the start of the trip, but instead of retracing the route up Crazy Jug we follow a long Supai ridge west of Crazy Jug Canyon. There's supposed to be an old cowboy camp and an old trail to the rim. We find the old camp, but no traces of a trail, so we complete the hike by climbing the very steep but straightforward slopes west of Crazy Jug Point to reach the Big Saddle Road. It's an easy walk of a couple of miles back to our car, marred only by insane clouds of biting gnats.

Bruce Grubbs is an active outdoor writer and and photographer with 20 books in print. His "day job" is flying air charters.