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April, 2006 - Nankoweap backpack plus Dripping Springs and Horseshoe Mesa day hikes |
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Trip number 39 - December, 2005 : South Kaibab, North Kaibab, River and Bright Angel trails
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Well, this sure was one heck of a trip and many were surprised that I did it solo. After one failed attempt at reaching the Kolb Natural Bridge the year before I was determined to try it again. I also decided at trying to take my chances with the Marion-Seiber Route for the first time for my hike out, since I wanted to go back to Mystic Falls and try to find the ruins over there, and exiting via Marion-Seiber from there should be a lot easier than hiking all the way back to and out on the Nankoweap Trail.
The first day was easy. It started off with a trip to the south rim for sunrise and breakfast at the El Tovar. I had a lot of driving to do that day but it was going to be a short hiking day so I was in no real hurry to get to the trailhead. I also stopped for lunch at the Vermillion Cliffs Cafe before driving the dirt road out to the Saddle Mountain trailhead and then hiking up to the Saddle Mountain saddle. On the second day I hiked from the saddle down the Nankoweap Trail to Nankoweap Creek and made camp there. It was crazy windy the first night and the wind was with me for most of the day. Day three was a failed attempt at Nankoweap Mesa. I just lost the route and was totally baffled at what to do. I was kicking myself for doing the Nankoweap Mesa day hike with Chuck when it did during our South Kaibab to Phantom to Kwagunt to Tanner trip in 2003. Day four had me doing an early morning hike down to the Nankoweap granaries at the Colorado River. Other times I have been at the granaries they have always been in shade and I wanted to get some photos of them as the sun was coming over the east rim to light them up. The granaries were still in shade when I got to the river as the sun had not yet topped over the rim. It was nice to watch the shadow slip down the cliffs as the sun climbed higher. It was perfect. I was back at camp a little after noon on day four, packed everything up and headed up Nankoweap Creek towards the Kolb Natural Bridge. I wanted to make sure I could reach it on this trip so I was planning to move camp much closer to make the day hike on day five as short as possible. I ended up hiking about 3 miles which brought the day hike down to about 5 miles round-trip, which should be perfectly doable. I found some ruins up on a hill top along the way and that was pretty exciting. On day five I hiked up to the Kolb Natural Bridge. BTW, some references (including some of mine) refer to it as Kolb Arch, it is not an arch, it's a bridge, there's a difference. It took about 5 hours to go up and another 5 to get back to camp so it is not an easy day hike and very difficult from the normal camp at lower Nankoweap Creek, unless you are a very strong hiker and moving very fast. I am not fast, I like to take it slow and look at things whilst hiking. The bridge was beautiful though and I got some great photos. On day five I moved my camp over to the head of the Marion-Seiber drainage below Seiber Point and then did a day hike up to the ruins. The hike over to the other branch of Nankoweap Creek was just an overland bushwhack, there is no trail or an discernible route going over there. I climbed a little coming out of the creek and hen basically tried to stay at the same elevation until I could find a good spot to descend on the other end. I did manage to find the access to the ruins this time around and they were glorious. There was actually a nice view of Mystic Falls from the ruins, what a great spot. Day six, the Marion-Seiber Route, has me nervous as anything. It was Marion-Seiber or bust once I started up, I would just have to figure it out and was hoping for some cairns to help me out. I started early and had a few problems but it's not really that difficult to figure out as there are not many ways you can go off route for very long before it doesn't work. I left camp a little after 530am and was back on the rim at 1pm. It was still a couple of hours from there back to the car and then a long drive back to the main road and another fabulous meal at the Vermillion Cliffs Cafe. A few days after this backpack I ended up doing a long day hike down the Hermit and Dripping Springs Trails to Dripping Springs. I then went out the Dripping Springs Trail to the rim and walked some Forest Service roads to the Waldron Trail. Then down the Waldron Trail to the Hermit and back out to Hermit's Rest. Beautiful day for it. It was about 12 miles in all and took a little more than 8 hours. The full trip report is here. |
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Next >> Trip number 43 - October/November, 2007 - New Hance, Escalante and Beamer to Little Colorado River
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