We started out our hik
e Friday AM, camping just outside of the park that night so the Saturday AM we could charge our way down into Nankoweap and see those rewarding views. While the distance is only 14 miles from the trail head to the Colorado River, the distance is deceiving since the trail is barely more than a goat trail in the best sections. This made the going slow, lots of climbing over rocks, skirting the edge of a cliff while trying not to slide off into the abyss. In short it took us 1.5 hours from truck to Park perimeter, 1.5 hours to Marion Point (Sat AM), 2 hours to the top of Tilted Mesa, 2+ hours down to Nankoweap campground. The thing is you are level with the South Rim at Tilted Mesa and then you do the complete drop down into the canyon from there, so in 2 hours and 4 miles we dropped 4,000 feet and I was absolutely drained, dehydrated (didn't bring enough water from the truck) and just short of passing out when we got to the river.
e Friday AM, camping just outside of the park that night so the Saturday AM we could charge our way down into Nankoweap and see those rewarding views. While the distance is only 14 miles from the trail head to the Colorado River, the distance is deceiving since the trail is barely more than a goat trail in the best sections. This made the going slow, lots of climbing over rocks, skirting the edge of a cliff while trying not to slide off into the abyss. In short it took us 1.5 hours from truck to Park perimeter, 1.5 hours to Marion Point (Sat AM), 2 hours to the top of Tilted Mesa, 2+ hours down to Nankoweap campground. The thing is you are level with the South Rim at Tilted Mesa and then you do the complete drop down into the canyon from there, so in 2 hours and 4 miles we dropped 4,000 feet and I was absolutely drained, dehydrated (didn't bring enough water from the truck) and just short of passing out when we got to the river.So here is the k
icker, those amazing views at Nankoweap have been swept away earlier by a flashflood! The entire creek area is no longer sandy beaches and amazing views, it is all now boulders with pockets of sand trapped between them. The beaches are gone and to hike down stream is more like rock hopping. Fortunately I love rock hopping!! We stayed the night getting water from the creek/spring and trying to refuel.
icker, those amazing views at Nankoweap have been swept away earlier by a flashflood! The entire creek area is no longer sandy beaches and amazing views, it is all now boulders with pockets of sand trapped between them. The beaches are gone and to hike down stream is more like rock hopping. Fortunately I love rock hopping!! We stayed the night getting water from the creek/spring and trying to refuel. Sunday we hiked down to the Colorado River (2-3 miles) making a detour to the granaries. It was supposed to be a light day since Larry and I had decided to cut our hike one day short since the side trails that we were previously thinking of hiking involved some major elevations and our promised Nankoweap views were no more. Along the Nankoweap confluence and the granaries were occupied with many rafting parties. We got down from the granaries and hung out with some boatmen (guides) refilling our water supply from them and having dinner on the beach downstream from the confluence. We then hiked up to the confluence of Nankoweap and back to camp. At camp we had one more series of refueling and hydrating in preparation of the hike out to Marion Point the next day.
Monday we got up and on the trail at 7am and charged up Tilted Mesa (yeah right). It took us 4 hours to climb (not hike, this was climbing). We got there and met a man "not feeling well" that refused our offers of water, food, minerals etc . . . we later heard back from the Park Service that he and his brother did get out safely. We were worried when he made the comment "This would be a great place to die". Yeah, that's nice for you while we all suffer from survivor’s guilt! Honestly though, we were so worried about getting our own hides out of the abyss, we didn't really know how to get him out too. Hiking from Tilted Mesa to Marion Point was more scary now cause frankly the trail doesn't exist for large portions and is very sketchy in even more places. Many times, hiking out I would step on a "secure" looking part of the trail and watch that part of the "trail" crumble and slide off into the abyss, leaving yet another void for future hikers. At Marion Point (a location that Larry had GRACIOUSLY cached 10 liters of water the weekend before, we had used 3 liters when we were going down, 2 liters was stolen by others and then we had 5 liters for meals and hydration coming out) we setup camp after having endured a slight rain from Tilted Mesa. We got our tents up just in time to dive in as it started pouring on us. After it stopped, we adjusted to ensure a drier experience if it rained again (Thanks Rachel for the suggestion to bring the Shammy - lifesaver!) and then made dinner . . . at this point I enjoyed my meal for 2 so much that I had another (feeling safe with all the water at our cache) and so I ended up eating 4 meals of freeze dried beef stew - DELICIOUS! As fate would have it, it started raining again and so we dove into our tents and then during the hardest part of the rain I heard voices asking if they could share our campsite. We got out after the rain and greeted the new arrivals - 3 men drenched, a day late from their itinerary and loving every minute of it. Shortly after salutations, it rained again and we all went to bed.
Tuesday we got up, Larry was convinced that it had hailed on us through 
the night but the weather was amazing. Visited with our new friends and parted ways as we hiked the last 3 hours to the truck and headed off for lunch at Marble Canyon, drove through the rain to Phoenix and got home late Tuesday night totally exhausted.
the night but the weather was amazing. Visited with our new friends and parted ways as we hiked the last 3 hours to the truck and headed off for lunch at Marble Canyon, drove through the rain to Phoenix and got home late Tuesday night totally exhausted. A note on my truck; we had rattled my front bumper off on the way in and I had to reattach that, my battery cable rattled out of its connection, fixed that, my vacuum ball that controls the direction of airflow in the cab had melted against my exhaust the day before the trip and so the air only blew on the windshield, my transmission had just been rebuilt and had some hard shifting, my radiator was brand new but the manufacturer had a defect in this one so it leaked and because of the transmission place, I couldn't start my car sometimes because Park was misaligned. Poor Larry had to endure all of this as I was running around with my tool box addressing everything. Progress Note: to date it's all been fixed except for the hard shifting in the transmission and that is scheduled to be fixed soon.
On a separate note, my anxiety kicked in heavily on this trip, again Larry had to deal with this. For some reason after my hike in 2004 I have had an anxiety about being able to safely hike out despite rain, snow, or darkness. In 2009 I had repeated the hike that initially caused this anxiety and felt like I had slayed my demons. For the most part I had but I guess that I will always have a streak of anxiety. I sure am grateful for Larry's understanding as he was the only person I could share this with. Larry was a great trip leader and made this hike amazing. He made great choices in preparing for the hike, scheduling the hike, and modifying the hike as needed to accommodate our abilities once the realities of the hike occurred. Thank you Larry, it was a great hike!
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