The Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne is aptly named. The Canyon follows the Tuolumne river as it drops from the Meadows down to Hetch Hetchy, where the river empties into…
Clear Creek Falls
“What wonders lie ahead?”
This is how Dave started us off on the trail every day of our six day trip into the Grand Canyon. Our group, (me, Paige, John, Dave (Paige’s Dave), and David (my Dave)), spent an incredible week exploring some remote corners of the Clear Creek canyon, while also enjoying some civilization at the Phantom Ranch down along the Colorado River.
View the extended entry for the trip report and links to pictures. It’s a long one, but I decided to keep everything in a single entry instead of posting a separate entry for each of the six days on the trail.
Day 1: Wednesday, March 26
South Rim to Bright Angel Campground via the South Kaibab Trail
We spent all of Tuesday, March 25 driving from the Bay Area to the Grand Canyon. After a late arrival and night at the Yavapai Lodge, we met for breakfast and last minute shopping at the store nearby. Having been warned about ice along the trail, I picked up a cheap pair of ‘shoe chains’ so I wouldn’t have to carry my bulky and heavy crampons. This ended up being a wise choice – I didn’t even need the chains, but at least they weighed significantly less than the crampons.
After picking up our permit, we left the car at the Bright Angel Trailhead and waited for the shuttle to take us over to the South Kaibab Trail. By late morning we joined the throngs of dayhikers heading down the the South Kaibab. Near Ooh Ah Point it was practically a waiting line. Fortunately, once we got below Cedar Ridge the crowds thinned out to a manageable level, mostly people hiking to and from the bottom as part of multi-day trips.
The last stretch of the SK, from Tipoff Point to the Colorado, is just stunning, zigzagging steeply through the Redwall layer. The trail spits you out onto the Black Bridge, where hikers and mules can safely cross the dangerous Colorado River. Some interesting sites lie on the other side – a grave for one of the builders of the Black Bridge, Ancestral Pueblo ruins, and a fresh sandy beach formed by the controlled flood of a few weeks ago.
A few minutes after crossing the Colorado we arrived at Bright Angel Campground and set up in site 31. From there we walked the ~1/4 mile up to Phantom Ranch where snacks and cold lemonade and ranger program awaited. The descent was really rough, especially on my calves and knees, so this treat was much appreciated. We came back later for a couple of rounds of cold beer and Yahtzee – I was the champ, of course!
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Our trip started with the long drive out to Zion National Park. We arrived on Saturday night, just in time for sunset. After sunset we checked into our hotel, the Pioneer Lodge in Springdale. This was my favorite hotel of our vacation. The decor was great and the beds were really comfy. I’m sure that during the regular season it is overpriced, but we got a good deal since this is supposed to be the off-season. We just lucked out with the record high summer-like temperatures.
Sunday morning we woke up early so that we could get in as much hiking as possible before the sun set. Our first stop was the Weeping Rock, a short little hike to a neat arch in the canyon walls. Here, water has seeped through the sandstone and collided with a shale layer. The water is forced out of the side of the rock here and drips down, forming a year round seep. After visiting the Weeping Rock we continued up and up the trail to the Hidden Canyon, a beautiful hanging canyon with dryfalls, steep walls, and arches.
This was a long but enjoyable day. We rose early and hit the trail around 7 am. In no time at all we had reached Duck Creek where we took…
Yesterday I returned from two weeks on the John Muir Trail. If I ignore the ~8 miles or so between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne that I haven’t hiked, I’ve now completed the trail. At the very least, I’ve walked every mile of the trail between Tuolumne and Whitney over two hikes – the stretch from Kearsarge to Muir Trail Ranch was completed last summer, and the past two weeks were spent on the stretches between Tuolumne and North Lake and then Kearsarge to Whitney.
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Dave and I headed up to Desolation Wilderness this Memorial Day weekend with the standard group. As usual, a good time was had by all. Saturday we started at the…
On Saturday David and I dayhiked and geocached at Uvas Canyon County Park. This is a small park tucked away in the hills to the southwest of San Jose. It…