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Gems In The Ditch
Rewards Follow Hardship On A Loop Hike From The Grand Canyon's North Rim
"Why wilderness? Because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger."
- Edward Abbey
Getting Started
MAPS:
USGS Topographic Maps:
BOOKS:
Butchart, Harvey, and Benti, Wynne; Grand Canyon Treks: 12,000 Miles Through the Grand Canyon; Spotted Dog Press; 1998; ISBN 978-0964753020
Butler, Elias, and Myers, Tom; Grand Obsession: Harvey Butchart and the Exploration of Grand Canyon; Puma Press, 2007; ISBN: 978-0970097347
Steck, George, Hiking Grand Canyon Loops, Globe Pequot Press, 2001, ISBN 0-7627-1208-2
ONLINE REFERENCES:
Harvey Butchart's Hiking Logs: http://www.nau.edu/~cline/speccoll/images/text/txt/47693.htm
Harvey Butchart's Hiking Maps: http://www6.nau.edu/library/scadb/recdisplay.cfm?control_num=11523
PERMITS AND CURRENT CONDITIONS:
Grand Canyon National Park Backcountry Office
P.O. Box 129
Grand Canyon, AZ 86023
(928) 638-7875 between 1 and 5 P.M. Monday through Friday, except on federal holidays,
Here we ago again - another crazy Grand Canyon hike - this time a loop from the North Rim, down Crystal Creek, along the Colorado River for a few miles, then along the Tonto Plateau high above the river to reach the foot of the North Bass Trail. After a few miles hiking the trail, we'd then climb out of the canyon via Flint Creek and walk the Point Sublime Road back to our starting point. Sound easy?
"This trip will be a lot easier than the last one," says Jim. Yeah, right.
"There's only a little brush at the start. I've checked it out from above many times," says Art. From the seat of a Boeing 737 flying 500 mph at 35,000 feet, I'm sure it appeared as "a little brush."
Head-high manzanita, scrub oak - the usual Arizona brush, no problem. But I forgot about New Mexico locust. This lovely plant has leaves that turn a fine, bright yellow in the fall. Leaves that hide three-quarter inch needle-tipped thorns.
A thousand feet below the North Rim and several hours after beginning our hike, I survey my bleeding arms - maybe next time I should wear a long-sleeved shirt. Then I spot the blood seeping through Jim's sleeves.
The hardship comes as no surprise to us. We've shared many Grand Canyon hikes, enough to know that through hardship come the rewards - those stunning little gems of the Grand Canyon - like the hidden springs bursting out of the rock, sinuous little side canyons, and the starry nights with black cliffs looming above.
Our descent route finally opens up as we continue down a ravine in the red Supai formation. By the time we find the fault route through a 500-foot limestone cliff and set up camp in the dry bed of upper Crystal Creek, my cuts and punctures have scabbed over. At least I won't bleed onto my down sleeping bag. It's a fine night and a good sleep, lying on my sleeping pad under the starry Arizona sky. We'll have five more nights just like this. Rain threatens this trip only once, while setting up our shelters on the seventh and last night.
Back in boots, easy boulder hopping down Crystal Creek leads us to a perennial spring. The moisture also fills the canyon bottom with brush. Our choices here are to either push through thick willow and tamarisk along the creek or crash through cat claw, a brush whose namesake says it all, along the alluvial terraces. Fortunately, the brush peters out quickly upon reaching the first outcroppings of Tapeats sandstone. This 200-foot thick layer of brownish rock forms a narrow gorge and hides an impassable waterfall. We circumvent the impasse by following a route along the east rim of the little gorge. After descending back to the bed of Crystal Creek, we drop our packs and explore upstream to the fall.
The next day we reach the Colorado River at Crystal Rapids. The first question non-hiking friends ask about Grand Canyon hiking trips is whether we plan on hiking to the bottom of the canyon, which implies that the bottom is a broad valley where we can stroll around at leisure. This is not the case in this part of the canyon. The Colorado River here flows through Granite Gorge, a V-shaped, 1,200-foot deep inner canyon composed of Vishnu schist, the twisted, hard, gray remains of a billion-year old mountain range. Going downstream, we scramble around boulders the size of small houses and over the top of sheer buttresses dropping 500 feet into the river. It takes us four hours to go two miles.
The end of this charming riverside ramble is a nameless side canyon at Willies Necktie Rapid. The river gorge is impassable downstream, so we plan to follow one of two known routes to the Tonto Plateau, a sloping terrace just above Granite Gorge. A short distance up the side canyon, we are forced west to bypass a hundred-foot dry fall. Now we have a choice, either to drop back to the bed and walk upstream to the easier route or continue directly up the west slope to the closer but harder route. We live by the mantra, "Never lose elevation unnecessarily." Up we go, scrambling up steep talus slopes and schist buttresses to the base of the Tapeats sandstone cliff. The highly improbable route goes up a chimney at the back of a dihedral and then requires an exposed step-across to ledges that lead to the rim. We have to pass packs at one spot and haul them at another, but finally we reach the Tapeats rim at sunset and settle in for a dry camp among the prickly pear cactus on the terrace.
As hiking goes in "The Ditch," the Tonto Plateau is relatively easy. Relatively. For every mile of straight line progress, we hike two, three, or even four miles around side canyons, side-side canyons, side-side-side-canyons, and dozens of irritating little ravines, for every mile of straight line progress. Furthermore, in addition to the impediments of brush thickets in the ravines, there's the prickly pear. This little cactus has hundreds of needle-like spines per pear-shaped pad and is ubiquitous on the Tonto. Generally, prickly pear is spaced decorously among the sagebrush, Mormon tea, and agaves. Not here. On this part of the Tonto, the prickly pear grows in dense patches, covering acres so densely it's hard to pick a way through.
In spite of the obstacles, the views we encounter are numerous and spectacular, alternating from overlooks above Granite Gorge and the river, to towering cliffs and buttes.
Halfway along this Tonto Plateau traverse we drop into a side canyon called Monadnock Amphitheater. According to those who've gone before us, there's seasonal water to be found here; "seasonal" being the operative word. After finding no water, we race the setting sun down a thousand-foot rock slide to the Colorado River. And return up to our campsite at dark and begin cooking a well-earned dinner.
Another day dodging prickly pear leads us to the rim above Hakatai Canyon, overlooking the Shinumo Creek area and the former domain of William Bass. His doctor having given him but a few years to live, Bass fled to the dry desert of northern Arizona and ended up living out the end of the 19th century at a camp on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Mostly alone, he built the South and North Bass Trails, the first trail across the Grand Canyon. (His wife had the "easy" jobs, such as hauling laundry nine miles and 4,500 vertical feet to the Colorado River and back every few days.) Bass also opened several copper and asbestos mines, and built a ferry across the Colorado and two cable car crossings for use during floods.
We descend via an easy ravine to the bed of Hakatai Canyon, where we pick up the lower end of the North Bass Trail. Although only "maintained" by hikers, the North Bass seems like a freeway to us, and we quickly walk past the old terminus of one of Bass's cable crossings and up into Shinumo Creek. A major spring drains through Shinumo Creek. It's a delight for desert rats like us to hike near the musical waters and camp on a open terrace under the stars near rustling cottonwood trees. And take a bath. (A sponge bath, of course, because every self-respecting desert rat treats water with respect.)
The next day we follow the trail a few miles upstream past what remains of Bass's old Shinumo Creek camp - a flash flood destroyed most of it. At White Creek, the North Bass Trail turns left for its climb to the North Rim. Our route continues along now trail-less Shinumo Creek, which requires a lot of boulder hopping and creek-crossing but the water is still a delight - we know what's coming. At lunch time we reach Flint Creek, which is dry. Since there are no permanent water sources between us and the car - still two full days away - we each load up with about 7 quarts (14 pounds) of water. To our surprise, the walk up Flint turns out to be brushless and easy, and there are even seasonal pools of water. We ponder whether to dump most of our water and take a chance we'll find more upstream. We elect to keep the water. We find a good source of water at our final camp, of course, but we're consoled by the fact we can stay amply hydrated for our hard climb out the next day.
Jim and Art spend the morning exploring up Flint Creek while I keep track of the lizards and tarantulas around camp. "There's a much better campsite just upstream," they report, too late. After lunch, we start up to the base of the Redwall limestone and the exit route, thinking we can reach easily before dark the high saddle between Tuna and Flint Creeks. The shale slopes leading to the base of the Redwall are slippery and tedious, and the climbing in the limestone time-consuming - we have to haul and pass packs. We reach the top of the Redwall at sunset and hike a short distance south along the rim to a saddle. Reluctantly, we set up our last campsite of the trip under a lowering sky. It's Halloween, and we've been very lucky to have had so many cloudless days. Funny, there are no trick-or-treaters.
Our luck holds, not a drop of rain falls, and we climb the remaining 2,200 vertical feet to the North Rim in time for an early lunch. It's strange to walk on the level surface of the Kaibab Plateau after so many days of cliffs and steep talus slopes. After 40 miles and over 17,000 vertical feet of mostly cross-country, the 7-mile walk along the Point Sublime Road through the fir and aspen is a pleasure.
Two weeks later, back in civilization, I'm still picking thorns out of my skin. And I ordered a new long-sleeved hiking shirt.
Bruce Grubbs is an active outdoor writer and photographer with 20 books in print. His "day job" is flying air charters.
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