Two things today.  It rained all day and all night so we hiked to Dripping springs because the Hermit Trail doesn't get all ooshy like the South Kaibab.  A better workout too, because it is so rough.  There appears to be a Red Tailed Hawk nesting around Dripping springs, because we could hear it scream for several minutes.  I think it was feeding its chicks.

The helicopters were really at it.  We counted four in one batch.  They were NOT 1000 feet above the rim, or were they one mile apart.  Also I think the noise scared the Red Tail.

Someone at Dripping springs has discovered that the mud makes a good paint, and the walls were covered with hand prints, names, hearts, and phony pictographs.  The hands aren't so bad, but I spent 10 minutes erasing it all anyway.

So  five year old boy wandered away from his campsite two days ago on the North Rim.  The family was camped at large, not in the developed area, and he was chasing grasshoppers.  There have been bad storms for two days.  They have been searching with dogs and with infrared from helicopters.

I remember when Robbie was wee little I told him if he got lost to stay put.  Searchers find someone who is lost much more easily if the search area is limited.  When we visited the Metropolitan Museum he and his Grandma Marji lost track of us, and Robbie sat down and refused to move until we found him.

I also dressed him in fluorescent colors, usually orange.  I had noticed that people in bright orange ponchos showed up from miles away, and I figured if it worked for hikers, it would work for small children.  Probably explains why he only wears black now.

When we went hiking he always had his own pack with food, water, clothes, and a whistle.  I figured if he strayed he could at least have some basic supplies.  I felt pretty smug about this until one day I rounded a corner and saw Robbie's pack with no Robbie.  I looked up.  He had spotted some rock climbers, threw his pack off, and hied off after them up the cliff.  I can't remember if I made him wear a whistle when we were camping.

This is not to say that this poor family is at fault.  I was just trying to convince myself that even though we took Robbie into the Grand Canyon, and onto 14'ers and, into geyser areas, and all sorts of places that gave both grandmothers fits, I felt better by setting Robbie up for success.

We were also lucky.  Robbie was capable of taking off at a dead run for reasons known only to himself, and it is just luck that he never did so in a wilderness area.  In stores, many times, yes.  I recall when he was trying on a pair of shoes which were clipped together with a plastic tag to keep people from stealing one (though why just one?)  Robbie was hobbling around trying to get a feel for the fit when the plastic snapped.  He yelled, "Oh, good, now I can run!' and did so.  Didn't find him for a good ten minutes.

We are fortunate (more spiritually inclined friends would say blessed) that Robbie never managed to completely lose himself.  Given all the odd places we dragged him when he was too young to fight back.  Bad things happen to good people, and we are just lucky it never happened to us, no matter how much we thought we were "prepared".

So we just got back from three weeks on the road.  Well, on the river, on the rocks, and on bikes.  We went down Desolation Grey with Holiday River Expeditions.  Interesting trip since Brad and I have done a bit of river running and the other family had never camped before.  Pulling into camp they were given umbrellas, and chairs, and snacks, while we squatted in the shade of the bushes.  High maintenance vs. low maintenance, I guess.

Brad in a ducky on the Green River

gorgeous little granary

Bear country

The KT boundary!  I've never seen it before.

 Lots of nice rock art from the Fremont.  We did some good two mile hikes to find these. Then on to Capitol Reef to hike and visit with a ranger friend transplant from the Grand Canyon.  We brought the mountain bikes, but it was so  hot we spent most of the time in canyons instead where there was at least some shade.

Fruita lookout

Navajo knobs

Narrows in spring canyon

Cassidy Arch

good advice

tracks in the rock

golden throne

fossil sheep

power horse designed to pull horse drawn equipment on the farm.  It is steered with reins

 Finally to the North Rim where we stayed in some nice little Forest Service cabins.  Fifty dollars a night for a small cabin with a separate shower, bathroom, and kitchen.  The second day the water began to run out.  Maybe the tank was getting empty?  Just a trickle of water from the pipes, and had to flush the johns with non potable water from the outside faucets.  There was a number to call for the Forest Service, but no phones and no cell service.  I guess we were supposed to send up smoke signals.  Did a couple of hikes and one bike ride.  Everyplace was at least a 40 minute drive on dirt road, however, we didn't run into any other hikers or bikers.

Jumpup Creek overlook.  Very hot, very sweaty, and I walked most of the hills. wimp.

Some friends just completed the Escalante route, and they said the "trail" was easy to find.  This got me to thinking about my history with the route.

One Veteran's Day in the 1960's, the NAU Hiking Club asked Harvey Butchart for suggestions for a long hike on the long weekend.  He replied that he thought there was probably a route between the Tanner and the Hance.  We ran down the Tanner, which then was not much of a trail below the Tapeats.  One skidded down through the Supergroup where it seemed to work.

The route then climbed Escalante Canyon to the top of the Unkar Cliffs, then descended back to River level to clamber down a tiny little, nasty cliff directly over an eddy in the River.  It wasn't very high, but the thought of dropping into that water was daunting.

First climb, top of the Hakatai Cliffs

Cliff on the water

A stroll along the beach brings one to the next climb, up a ramp to the head of Seventy-five Mile Canyon.    I was sure the route went down Seventy-five, because I saw footprints and rock markers, but who listens to me?  The group kept going at this level into the head of Pagago Creek, which was terrible.  Exposed, loose, and hiking down Papago Creek was even worse.  Then up another small cliff and down a section that I dubbed the "great terrible rock slide".  

Climbing up from Papago

GTRS

Once on the beach, the route was straightforward to Red Canyon.  We managed to finish the route in good time, and held a Veteran's Day parade on the beach below Red Canyon.   Up Red Canyon we found another "trail" which wasn't worth much back in the day.  It was, in fact, so washed out that the Park Service issued a list of "waypoints" to reach when hiking out.  There was no trail, so one must be sure to leave the streambed at the Hakatai, then climb to the twin towers in the Redwall, then contour to the Supai wash.  How one got between those points was a matter of opinion.  

The following year, we hiked the route again.  I was the only person who had done the route, so I was in charge.  However once we reached Seventy-Five Mile canyon again, they tried to stay high. I insisted that the route was low.  They said, "But there is a route up high, right?"  "Yes, but you don't want to do it!".  We did, and I was right: we didn't want to do it.  That was the last time I did the high route.  Every time after I slid down into Seventy-five Mile and the correct route.  The climb down is straightforward, no exposure, and correct, as I had insisted for two years.  

In the fullness of time, a high route developed which bypassed the climb above the eddy.  A two hour walk took one around the Butchart Notch and down and down to Cardenes Canyon.  I have not yet sent one group by the low route and one by the high to see which route works best, but I suspect they work out pretty close time-wise, and there is no scary climb above the whirlpool.

The frustrating thing about this route is that if one climbs and descends many, many feet to avoid tiny little cliffs several times.  Seen from the River, these cliffs are infinitesimal.  Perhaps with a pack raft...but that is a procedure I have not yet adopted.  

Over Thanksgiving of 1991, we and most of the state were hit with an unforecast blizzard.  

A non existent trail under four feet of snow.

I wrote this hike up for my webpage at the time.  I called it the Death March and the Just In Case Syndrome: 

For most of my twenty-five year hiking career I have carried the heaviest pack in three counties due to the just-in-case syndrome. I'll have my pack neatly stuffed with a reasonable amount of weight and reconsider. Remember the Sangre de Cristos, when we ran completely out of food on the 9th day of an 11 day hike? Then I throw in another bag of dried fruit. Remember the rattlesnake-drowning rain on the Grandview Trail when I had a cold stream of water running down my neck and out each sleeve? I replace my light-weight rainsuit with the heavy-duty job. I stuff in the snake bite kit on my way out the door, and my down parka as I lock up the car. People amuse themselves by hefting my pack and pretending to suffer hernia. A park ranger once accused me of smuggling metates. And at the end of almost every hike I carry back a day's worth of extra food, a pint of extra fuel, and a sack of extra clothes which served only as pillow stuffing.
This year, the just-in-case syndrome saved the trip, my husband's toes, and quite possibly five people's lives.

Each Thanksgiving we celebrate Harvest Home by taking an extremely difficult, mostly off-trail route in the Grand Canyon that our first year surviving companions facetiously (I think) dubbed the Death March.

This year's hike had not begun auspiciously. When my husband, Brad, and our friend, Tim, arrived at the Grand Canyon back country office, the rangers said "We've been waiting for you", and hauled me into the back room. Stalwart no-impact camper that I am, I was nervous. My conscience isn't that clear.

Flanked by two armed rangers, I admitted that, yes, this was an organized club hike. I hadn't been able to find anyone willing to hike with us this year (I can't imagine why) and opened it up to a local hiking club.

Was I aware that hiking organizations had special regulations to follow when applying for a permit? Well, no, since I hadn't led an organized hike in five years. Most people would claim that my hikes prior to that time were somewhat less than organized. The gist of the matter was that the rangers were concerned that the dozen-odd hikes I take a year in the Canyon were all with organized groups, and I had neglected to follow the permit regulations. With earnest zeal I assured them otherwise, and they admitted that they had never had trouble from me before.

"You come up here several times a year," one ranger commented, "And we've never had to haul any of your people out of the Canyon. We appreciate that." I vowed to go straight henceforth and they turned me loose.

Because of this we started down into the depths of the Grand Canyon a good bit behind schedule. Beth and Rolf, whom we had not met before this trip, were strong enough going down the steep, loose, rocky route laughingly called the New Hance Trail, and I was confident that we would reach our proposed campsite before dark. On the second switchback, Brad slipped and landed hard on his knee. "Just a flesh wound," he grunted, and at intervals pointed out the blood stain spreading down his pant's leg with a martyred air. About a quarter mile down, the waist belt fell of Tim's pack. Nonplused (it takes a bit to plus Tim) he lashed it together with nylon cord. When it began to snow on the North Rim, I commented that maybe Someone was trying to tell us something.

We set up camp in a drizzle, but the forecast was for clearing skies on the morrow, and clear but cold afterwards. When I looked out of the tent later that night and saw snow at the Colorado River level, 2,000 feet above sea level, I got a slight chill that had nothing to do with temperature. In the morning snow had fallen far into the depths, including over most of that day's route, and it was still snowing. I had rarely seen snow that far down into the Canyon, and I was not willing to take an untested group off-trail in fresh snow. Nor was I sure I could find most of the route under snow.

Brad and I made a leaders' decision to turn around and go back out the trail we had come in. We had to cover some off-trail mileage to reach the start of the New Hance Trail, and so we didn't start hiking out until mid-morning. However, Brad and I normally come out the seven-mile New Hance in four hours or so, and we figured we would make it out easily. We had come out of the Canyon in fresh snow before, and we had advised everyone in the group to bring instep crampons--short metal frames studded with spikes that lash to the boot. JUST IN CASE.

We hit snow about 1,000 feet above the River. After climbing another 1,000 feet, the snow was so deep that we could not see the trail markers.

When I had first started hiking in the Grand Canyon, there wasn't much of a New Hance Trail. In its stead was a series of "landmarks" that indicated key points on the route. To get out of the Canyon, the hiker had to hit each of the landmarks. Getting between them was mostly a matter of opinion. Nowadays hundreds of thousands of busy little feet have worn in sort of a trail, so the use of landmarks has fallen by the wayside. Now I sorted through my memory banks to recall them.

It helped, of course, to know the formations in the Grand Canyon. The Canyon is there because the Colorado River cut through a number of rock formations that now form a series of cliffs and slopes. Veteran Canyon hikers memorize these formations so we can impress people, but also because it is easier to describe a route to someone who knows the difference between the Redwall and the Supai.

The first landmark to be hit on the way out of the New Hance was the Hakatai ledge where the route left the streambed. We were past that. The second landmark was a set of twin towers atop the Redwall Limestone. I managed to stay on trail climbing to these: a good place to stay on trail since the Redwall forms a nicely sheer cliff.
The next landmark was a long, steep wash cutting through the Supai Mudstone formation, which I call the Supai Chute. We had to contour through calf deep snow for a bit over a mile to reach the base of the Chute, and at one point I could only find the trail by aiming for a large boulder inscribed with graffiti.

Once in the Supai Chute, the snow deepened to knee level and the trail became most recalcitrant. Every time the trail crossed the wash, which it did with depressing regularity, we lost it and spent 15 to 30 minutes finding it again. It became apparent that we would not make it out by dark, and we did not want to risk the chancy business of following a trail less than a foot wide in deepening snow by flashlight, so we decided to camp. Five people crowded into two tents on a semi-flat spot we stamped out on a narrow ledge. I threw most of our gear into the tent to keep it from freezing, pulled on all the clothing I had brought, and zipped into my sleeping bag.

After a disastrous car-camp on the North Rim in a blizzard, I had replaced all my cotton hiking clothes with wicking, fast-dry fabrics JUST IN CASE. I now depended on polypropylene type fabrics and pile. The only cotton I carried was a bandanna. I replaced my lightweight, nylon rain gear at the last minute with my heavier, breathable rain gear JUST IN CASE, and it had kept me dry while pushing through deep snow and under snow covered trees that dumped their load as we passed beneath. I had an extra set of long underwear to replace the sweat-dampened set I hiked in. True to habit, on my way out the door I had stuffed in my heaviest down parka. I had lots of clothing, but I could not get warm.

I was shivering so hard I couldn't talk, classic symptoms of the first stage of hypothermia. Brad, huddled next to me in the fetal position trying to warm his feet, was no help.
I have read of people who died while climbing or hiking, and the article invariably said, "At least he went doing what he enjoyed most in the world." I always wondered if that thought was singularly comforting during the last moments when the brain began to mist over. My brain was close to misting right now, and the idea of doing what I enjoyed most in the process wasn't much comfort to me.

I thought of my five-year old, Robbie. He was bright and funny with a vocabulary larger than some adults'. If I was overdue from this hike, he would be frightened. If I was ultimately overdue, Robbie would be raised by his aunt and grandmothers. Sterling women all, but I hadn't suffered through 36 hours of labor to let someone else mold my kid's mind. The idea of getting back to Robbie seemed more important than saving the lives of everyone on the trip, even Brad's (sorry about that, dear).

I knew what to do about hypothermia: get the body out of the weather, put on dry clothing, and supply hot food and beverages. I had the first two covered, but in the mad rush to unpack, I had left the stove and pot in the pack.
My options then were: freeze where I was in relative comfort; stuff my dry socks into freezing, wet boots and get the stove; or put on my wet, frozen socks and stuff them into freezing, wet boots and get the stove.

I didn't like any of those, so I dug the extra plastic bags I carry JUST IN CASE, pulled them over my dry socks, and tucked them into the cuffs. Instant galoshes. I unzipped the tent and climbed over Brad, sending a shower of fine ice crystals onto his face. He protested weakly. I skidded over to the pack and produced stove, pot, and fuel bottle.
By now it was dark. It took about a century and a half to clean the stove orifice with a hair-thin wire, holding a flashlight in my teeth and balancing my glasses on my head, since I don't carry bifocals while hiking. Finally the stove roared and I scooped a pot full of snow to melt. I reached for the pot lid--still in the pack. Every drop of fuel would be vital, so I donned my plastic bags again and retrieved the pot lid.

A quart of hot cocoa and a bag of freeze dried sherry beef restored the inner woman wonderfully. I offered the same to Brad, and, groaning piteously, he emerged from his cocoon. Warm at last, I could spare a thought for the hapless occupants of the other tent. I had plenty of fuel, JUST IN CASE, so I threw them a canteen of cocoa.

Since I had dry socks and down booties, JUST IN CASE, I gave the booties to Brad, and he gratefully stuffed his frozen feet therein. Later he was diagnosed with frostnip, and it is likely that the booties saved him from full-blown frostbite.
I snuggled down between Brad and most of our camping gear into a rapidly melting depression in the snow. We put our remaining water between us and the boots under us so nothing vital would freeze, and settled in.

I spent much of the long, cold night reviewing the trail ahead. I could manage the Supai formation: there hadn't been much of a trail there in the 60's when I first started hiking, and I could always fake it through the Supai. Above the Supai were the Coconino and Kaibab cliffs, formidable barriers that would take more care.

There was one spot in particular in the Coconino that I mentally climbed all night long. Near the top of the cliff there are two routes. One, a set of short, steep switchbacks, carries the hiker along a ledge overhung by the last of the Coconino formation. The other suckers the hiker out onto a flagstone-laid slope that ends in an impressive cliff. Every time I come down the New Hance Trail, I block off the flagstone route, and without fail when I hike back out I walk right out onto it anyway. The flagstone is precariously balanced, and I am sure one day a piece will cut loose and skid me over the edge on the ultimate wind surf ride. If I couldn't stay on the best route when the trail was clear, how was I going to find it in the snow?

The snow won't stick to the steepest parts of the trail, I decided. Besides, the wind is blowing, and it will clear some of the drifts away near the top. It was still snowing outside, and I even convinced myself that, deep as the snow was, another six inches wasn't going to make a difference.

We were alerted to dawn by Tim's "sun yell" which he reserves for the first day's sighting of that orb. The clouds had lifted, and we could see the colors of sunrise on their bellies.
We packed quickly, and the stove fizzled out of fuel as we melted the last two quarts of hot water for breakfast. I stomped off through the snow, ignoring plaintive cries behind me that we weren't on the trail, and we should stop and dig for rock cairns. I wasn't wasting any time looking for the trail: if the route worked, I'd do it, trail or not.

This attitude got me to the last landmark, a low pass between the rim and Coronado Butte that I call the Coconino saddle. We had stopped for a snack there on the way down, and I recognized the tree we sat on. I was, incredibly, right on the trail.

I lost it again trying to make the Coconino connection, but I found it where the route narrowed down between a cliff and a gully. There in the center of the gully the snow had blown away from a huge rock cairn, which was greeted by unbelieving cheers. Wind had scoured isolated areas nearly free of snow, but the snow thus eliminated had piled up in deeper drifts elsewhere. The average depth was mid-thigh. I found I could stay on trail, because there wasn't much choice. I could follow a faint depression in the snow, and I could "feel" whether the footing was relatively smooth trail or jumbled rocks. I could not, however, let someone else break trail. I tried pointing them in the right direction, but they couldn't stay on the route.

We found yet another mostly snow-free cairn on a ledge, and we paused to consider. Brad wanted to camp: he was sure we couldn't get out by dark. I figured we only one more mile to go, and we could handle it. Even if it had taken us an hour and a half to hike the first mile, and we were slowing down fast. We agreed that if we weren't out by 3:00 we would stop and camp.

I doubted we could make it through another night in decent shape: our fuel was gone and the sleeping bags had gotten pretty wet the night before. There was no place for a rescuing helicopter to land, and the rangers had praised me for bringing my groups out intact. I was determined, and I was in the lead.

I got off the route a few times, and at one point stepped into a heart-stopping hole. My foot kept going down--and down--and down. I was sure I had stepped through a cornice and into open air when I came to a comforting stop waist deep in a drift.

I pushed through an over-friendly tree and spotted a cairn on a wind-cleared rock about 15 feet over my head. I looked around suspiciously. I was smack in the middle of the flagstone slope--again. Since the snow was hip deep, I wasn't worried about sliding off the edge. Unless the whole slope began to slide, and I wasn't going to think about that. I plowed my way straight up to where I knew the trail hid coyly beneath it's ermine mantle.
We climbed a nasty boulder, traversed an even nastier ledge and were back on the main route. We had topped the Coconino cliff, and only the Kaibab cliff remained.

I pushed off resolutely, ignoring all complaints that I was completely off route, that we hadn't contoured this much coming down, that we were doomed, doomed! I recognized a spot where I had taken a photograph two years before. I crunched my knee on a large flat rock blocking the trail. We call it the "sit-down rock" because that is the only way a hiker with a pack can traverse it. I was still on the trail.

At one point, faced with shoulder deep snow that had blown over the edge of a cliff, I surrendered the lead to Brad. He promptly became stranded on a pile of jumbled rock. Wearily I took over again.

I couldn't walk; all I could do was plow and stomp. I tested the snow with my hiking stick to be sure there was solid ground beneath, plowed into it with my leg, and stomped down firmly with my crampons. Plow, stomp. Plow, stomp. Pull myself up by way of a friendly tree. Plow, stomp.

The snow seemed less deep, but I told myself it was a hallucination. I could see trees on the south rim, but that was a hallucination, too. When I fell over the wooden sign that marks the top of the New Hance Trail, I knew it was real and I was out.
The group erupted into weary cheers. I was declared "trail finder extraordinaire". I kissed the trail sign. I was on my way home to Robbie.

I recently turned over all my old NAU Hiking Club Boots and Blisters to special collections at the Cline Library, there to be digitized and shared with the world.  This got me to thinking about the old club.

I had never hiked before I got to NAU, but my eye was caught by the posters the first week of school: See Arizona, join the Hiking Club.  So I went, and I found out that I was rather good at walking.  In high school we had lived at the edge of the district, so no bus was available, and I walked a mile to school every day.  My mother worked, so she couldn't drive me, and why should she anyway?  It was only a mile.

Back then, we didn't pay much attention to frivolities such as trail drags.  If someone couldn't keep up, it was their problem.  We had a rather steep learning curve.  At that time, there were no size limits on group in the Canyon, so we could show up with 200 people and lose track of some.

As it happened, I rather enjoyed walking by myself.  Once it was discovered that I could fall far, far behind and still find my way out, I was pretty much left on my own.  Consequently I got rather good at following faint trails, or finding good routes.  In the fullness of time, I got stronger, and began to wind up at the front of the pack rather than the back.

I do remember being suckered in to some very questionable routes.  Sitting atop a boulder crying, because, in the immortal words of Edward Abbey, I couldn't go up, couldn't go down, and couldn't stay where I was.  Eventually I learned to ask if we were planning on hiking on a trail, a route, or something which may or may not be a route.  If the latter, I opted out.  If the group tried to change their mind when they got to the rim, I flatly refused to go.

 The "good trail" at Eminence Break. What exactly was the thinking here?  And how did I get suckered into this more than once?

After I became an officer (editor of the newsletter, which did not stop me from putting my three cents in about how to run hikes), I suggested that we tell people exactly how difficult the trail would be, sometimes with pictures.  When the president assured the room that "there is a good trail down Eminence Break", I jumped up and cried, "don't listen to him!".  I began to turn people down for hikes.  On one occasion, we were heading to the Salt Trail, yet another test of one's Darwin skills.  A young man assured me he had lots of experience, so I allowed him to go.  At the start of the route, he put his pack on upside down.  His experience?  Day hiking with the Scouts when he was 12.  I told him he was staying at the car.

Not a place for one's first backpack, yes?

I already had a reputation for being a hard-assed bitch, and this type of thing didn't help.  But neither did I have to drag this guy up and down the Salt Trail.  

A new generation of hikers arrived, and they did not want to be abandoned to their own devices.  They wanted someone to walk with them, show them the way, and teach them our wisdom.  Nah.  When a group was stranded at the Mogollon rim and spent the night by themselves, there was talk of lawsuits.  

One of my standard hikes was the length of West Fork of Oak Creek.  The hike up from the bottom is gentle and crowded.  Hiking down from the Turkey Butte Road involved a thirteen mile day of swimming, climbing, and rock hopping.  At the first pothole we pulled out air mattresses and prepared to swim.  Three people looked confused.  I said, "I told you we would have to swim on this route."  "But we thought that was only if we wanted to."  We splashed through the pothole, waited on the other side (freezing: there was no sunlight yet) and finally told them to catch up. 

By afternoon we were at the cars, and they were not.  Two of us walked back up the bottom four miles, didn't see them, so we left and called Search and Rescue.  They were found the next day walking UPSTREAM.  They apparently reached the end of the lower trail, and the sign said, "four miles".  They thought, oh we have hiked a lot further than 13 miles, and this says we are still four miles from the end, so we must be in the wrong canyon, and they turned around. I got a lot of flack for that, though I still don't think it was my fault.  That was another time there were talks of lawsuits.

The following year, I had slides of this route.  I emphasized the difficulty, the cold swims, the long day.  I scared people so successfully that we had a small, strong group and finished in record time.  Then I got complaints because the hike wasn't as bad as I said it was going to be.  Sometimes you just can't win. 

I wanted to do Clear Creek for spring break, but I was on the river November first when the permit apps were due, so I got second choice: Grandview to South Kaibab.

I don't like the top of the Grandview in the best of times, so I packed my ice grippers just in case.  And sure enough, there was ice at the most exposed areas.  Only for about a half mile.  Then I got to schlep the pound of gripper for the next four days. At least I wasn't in a squashed heap just below the Toroweap.

One of the scary parts, sans ice.

Lots of water at Cottonwood, and lots of campers.  One group, but lots of campers.  One group of eleven people, and they all camped out of sight of one another.  We walked downstream almost as far as one can without cliffing out, and there was still someone camped close by.  Too bad, Charlie.  If you want to camp alone, don't come down with eleven other people.

The second day of this trip is awkward: there is water at Grapevine, but it is only six miles from Cottonwood.  There is sometimes water at Boulder, which is just right distance wise, but no water during dry weather.  It had just snowed, so we figured there would be water at Boulder.  We pulled into a little side canyon, named it Boulder, it was dry, and we decided that we needed to hike to the edge of the use area and hike into Lonetree to fetch water back.  We came around the corner, and there was Boulder.  Hike in the Canyon much? Rule of thumb for the Tonto: if the hike seemed easy, you are probably in the wrong place.  The little canyon shall henceforth be known as Not Boulder.   But there was indeed water about five minutes upstream from the trail crossing in Yes This Is Boulder.

Trilobite Tracks in Tonto

Lots of water in Lonetree, so we sat around there until lunch, loaded up two gallons of water, and dragged ourselves over to the edge of the use area. Which has moved.  It turns out there are archaeological sites in the old use area, so they moved the boundary about a half mile east to make sure no one camps in the little overhangs which were used by Those Who Came Before.  To the uninitiated an overhang just looks like a rock but they are important to the records, so they closed it off.

The hike into the middle arm of Cremation is marked double black diamond on the map, and it is.  The third arm is also double black, but our route was triple black.  Because the cairns were in the wrong place.  I hiked back up taking down markers and found the real trail, which is a bit downhill from the triple black.  The party right behind us took the trail I had just unmarked, so I guess it will stay there for a while.

New sign so one cannot claim to not know that the use area boundary moved.

I can sure tell it was spring break.  I spent a good fifteen minutes erasing stuff on the rocks in one quarter mile section.  Here are the two who signed their last names, in case anyone knows them: 

There was so much, and I was out of water, so I'll have to make a special trip to get everything properly erased.  And by the time I go back down, there will be more...

I was talking with some people whilst coming out the Bright Angel Trail about Things I Have Seen.  There was the young man carrying a kayak, and wearing board shorts.  Only board shorts.

He told us that he had to leave a river party in order to attend a wedding, and he had to return the kayak to the person from whom it was borrowed.  I am not sure what happened to his shoes.  We left him at Indian Garden.  I assume he did have some clothing up on the rim, or else he would definitely upstage the bride at said wedding.  

On the other extreme was the group of young people coming down the South Kaibab wearing snowshoes.  To be fair, there was ice on the trail.  However I don't believe one is supposed to wear snowshoes on ice in any case.  And by the time I met them, I had removed my own ice grippers, so the ice was pretty much a thing of the past.  

Just about every day there is footwear.  Now, I don't want to disparage those who want to hike and didn't bring their gear.  Much.  But some footwear doesn't belong on the street, much less on the trail.  High heels are an invention of men who hate women, and no one should wear them period, but particularly not on the trail.  And really, really, really, not on an icy trail.

Flip flops and birkenstocks have their place, but the trail is not it.  Especially, again, on ice.  Jeweled flip flops don't have quite the "grip" of a good pair of rubber soles.  And slippers belong in the bedroom, not in the out of doors.

I suppose the winner I saw wearing one slipper and one sock.  One on each foot, that is.  I could have assumed that he lost one foot's worth of wear but for the fact that he was on his way down, not on his way out.  Maybe the rock squirrels attacked him, tore off one slipper and one sock, and he was running for his life.  

And I don't care how tough your feet are, I would not go barefoot on a trail which is shared by mules.  Can you say "tetanus"?

Robbie is in town, so I went down to the Valley to drag him to the dentist and thense up the hill to see Grandma.  While I was there, I decided to climb Camelback Mountain.

It must have been 20 years since I've done the Echo Canyon Trail.  There is a new rotary on McDonald Drive and more parking.  I was there at dawn, so no problem finding a spot.  I remember having to wait in a line that wound all the way down the hill to park here on a weekday.  New bathrooms, too.

I was in my hiking skirt, and pack, and water bottle, and sticks, because that is the way I hike.  Everyone else was in running tights with no water, no food, no sticks, no nothing.

The trail was a lot wider, and there are little signs that tell the hiker how far up he/she has climbed.  At the first saddle there is a big sign that informs one that he/she has completed one quarter of a mile, it is another mile to the summit, and the trail gets a lot worse.  There is a picture of a young man who died on the route and some benches to sit and contemplate.

I had forgotten why I don't go up this side.  In fact, I can't believe I used to carry Robbie up this route in his baby carrier.  The sign doesn't lie: the trail essentially ends at the "turn around or die" spot.  Lots of huge boulders, lots of loose decomposed granite (also known as the ball bearing formation) and the granite is all polished by millions of busy little feet, so it is slick.  Every time I stopped to pick up a piece of trash. someone came up behind me and started breathing heavily, willing me to vanish.  

People kept greeting me: "Ah, you made it!"  "Here she comes!"  "Boy, I had to work to catch up with you!"  Robbie thinks that Camelback has a little cadre of early morning hikers who go out every day, and I was a novelty.  Especially with a skirt and sticks.

Down is worse.  Lots of big steps and loose rocks.  My pack kept nudging the rocks and my water bottle scooched out and tried to bounce away.  I am used to hiking in the Canyon where the down is FIRST and the uphill is the final accomplishment.  However, I did meet a gentleman with sticks.

"Oh, good," exclaimed I.  "Someone else with Yuppie Sticks.  I was starting to feel like a real dork."

"I feel like someone who is not going to face plant on a dangerous mountain," he retorted.  We agreed that these kids would figure it out once the have destroyed their knees by running down the mountain, and went our ways.

Lots of people heading up with no pack, just a disposable water bottle in one hand.  I predict that these bottles will find their way over the cliff once they are empty.  That's why they are disposable right?

I made it up in 50 minutes, which I seem to recall as being close to my best time when I did this mountain a lot.  Down in one hour, which is typical: I am a lot slower going down where I can see where I am going to fall and hurt myself. By the time I reached the parking lot, it was almost full.  I can't imagine being on this trail on a weekend with a parcel of runners.  I also don't understand why more people don't get into trouble on this mountain.  I'll be glad to get back to the South Kaibab where I fit in better.