Start: Nankoweap Trailhead
Finish: Nankoweap Camp
Daily Mileage: 13.1
Trip Mileage: 719.8
Elevation gain/loss: 1118/6691ft
The wind howled over the canyon rim all night long. Even though my tent wasn’t very sheltered, for some reason only the really big gusts hit it, and most of the time it was still. I guess I got pretty lucky with that. Both the inside and outside of my tent were coated in a layer of frost in the morning. That didn’t surprise me at all, though it didn’t feel like my coldest night yet.
I set my alarm to watch the sunrise. The sun was going to rise right over the Grand Canyon in front of me, and since I was on the rim, I obviously wanted to watch. I went outside and shed most of my layers as soon as the colors started. I watched it through its evolution for over 45 minutes. Unfortunately, most of the clouds from last night had cleared out, though there were some near the sun too, putting on a colorful display. The canyon gradually emerged in front of me with a seeming purple haze filling its depths until the sun got higher in the sky.
The trail dropped down a bit, and then it got on a narrow ledge, which I stayed on for a long time, circling around the rim of the canyon. There was often a sheer wall to my left going straight up and a series of large stair steps down to my right, where the ground disappeared beneath and a cliff. The hiking was somewhat exposed, but it didn’t bother me at all. There was a decent treadway, and it was pretty easy to follow. There was quite a drop off though, so I did find myself more staring at the trail than out. I did stop to look up a bunch of times and take a bunch of pictures because the canyon was opening up before me as I descended into it.
According to my guidebook, I had about 10 miles today, so I wasn’t in a particular hurry. I got to the Grand Canyon National Park boundary, and it said I had 14 and a half miles to go. It didn’t really match with my book or my maps, so I chose to ignore the 14 and a half miles. I edged around the rim for 2 or 3 hours. I traversed around one canyon and wrapped around into a second canyon before I finally attained the promontory ridge, which I followed down to Nankoweap Creek. The temperature definitely got warmer as I dropped down, and I could have had a little bit more water with me. However, it was only supposed to be 7 miles until I hit Nankoweap Creek from the trailhead, so I thought 2 liters would be enough.
The hike took a lot longer than I thought it was going to. I looked at my GPS, and I was well beyond 10 miles by the time I got to Nankoweap Creek. I guess the NPS was right, and my guidebook and maps were off. I had enough water to get to the beach, though. I just had to ration it. The descent was long, long, long. I descended more than 6,000 feet. I’ve never done a continuous descent that long. In places, the treadway got more faint or loose and crumbly, which wore on mea after a while with the continued descent. I did finally make it to Nankoweap Creek and definitely took a break there to refill with water and chug some.
I followed Nankoweap Creek down to the Colorado River. There was supposed to be a trail, but there wasn’t really. I’ve followed plenty of creeks upstream and downstream on this trip, so it is now second nature to me. My priority was to get to camp, to set up, and see if I could find any rafters and maybe go up to see the granaries. The canyon grew as I descended and got closer to the Colorado. I emerged at a wide river delta and grabbed water from Nankoweap Creek to fill my water bladders. I figured I would just carry them to camp, which was not too far off, rather than put them on my back.
Unfortunately, there were a lot of thorny flora of various types, thorn trees, bushes, and cactuses on my way to camp, and by the time I got to camp, I saw that one of my bladders was now leaking from several puncture holes. Damn. Now I’ve only got one of my three bladders in perfect condition. I put my stuff down at one of the rafter camps and saw that there were some rafters in one of the other campsites. I spread out my stuff to dry, patched my bladder, and walked over to talk to them.
The rafters invited me over, and we’re friendly, and we got to sharing our journeys. I asked them if they could take me down across the Colorado River tomorrow, and they agreed! I was hoping exactly that would happen. This is a popular rafter campsite that I’m at, so I expected to see people here, and I was really hoping they could help me make the nine miles of bushwhacking and boulder hopping tomorrow disappear. I also had to get to the other side of the Colorado River, and rafters are the only way to do that safely.
We sat in the shade for a bit, and they asked me if I wanted lunch. Of course, I answered in the affirmative, and I was offered two grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, guacamole, and carrots. Amazing fare compared to my dry hiking food. Since the rafters were friendly and agreed to take me down the river, I brought my stuff over and set up camp in their camp. We hung out for the rest of the night, sharing our stories. A lot of them were pretty interested and impressed with what I’ve accomplished so far. They are from the Montreal area and spoke a mix of French and English, and French was their fallback language, but they often switched to English.
They also invited me to have dinner with them, which was also great and let me eliminate one of my cold meal replacement bar meals. That is a great thing because my first meal replacement bar was not that good. We had rice-seasoned tofu and veggies for dinner, and it was great to have something fresh. We had some goo that didn’t quite set up like it was supposed to for dessert, but we ate it anyway. Also had some adult beverages, which is always nice. They had a campfire at night, and we all took turns telling war stories in English. At the end of the night, they mentioned that I didn’t tell any stories, so I told them my favorite Iceland stories. They’re a funny and very friendly bunch, and I’m glad that I bumped into them and went over to talk to them. It was a great night!
