Honeymoon Part I: North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Anita and I had a beautiful and excellent wedding in Minneapolis in September really deserves its own post (!), but I'm focusing on the outdoor stuff in this blog. After the wedding, we did a nice trip to eastern South Dakota (Badlands, Jewel Cave, Mt Rushmore, etc.) with Anita's family and Indian relatives. Then, we took a trip to CA, where I went to a workshop in the Bay area (Livermore), and then visited southern CA, where we saw friends and I visited a private fusion company. Finally, we were off on our honeymoon down in the Grand Canyon area. We did a 3-day backpacking tour from the North Rim on the Bill Hall trail to Thunder River, then toured down to "Lake" Powell (actually a reservoir that is highly controversial from an environmental standpoint). After visiting the Vermillion cliffs where we saw the launch of a few endangered California condors, we went down to Page, AZ, where we had an interesting stay in at a B&B with a Mormon family.  We concluded the trip by visiting Zion National Park.  For all the details, read on! For all photos, see:
https://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20110920SfLaGcZionBestOf

This N Rim trip is probably my 4th or 5th trip to this part of the Canyon. My dad brought me and my Uncle Rick down here back in 1995. What an adventure we had with no GPS and limited backcountry experience :) Ended up eating fish from Thunder River for sustenance.. but that's another story. I figured with all my accumulated mountaineering and backcountry travel experience, I'd have no trouble guiding my (physically quite capable, but not exactly mountain-tough) new bride down here without ending our marriage and hopefully making it stronger by sharing this beautiful place together :)

We flew into Las Vegas on Tues the 20th of Sept, and headed to Pipe Springs National Monument ranger station to get a permit. We were too late, so skipped the permit (which actually turned out to be legal after all). We headed down into the Kaibab (the forest on the North Rim of the GC) to camp that night. Found really nice spot near turnoff onto the little FS425 that leads out to some excellent N Rim hiking. Saw a bushy-white-tailed Kaibab squirrel (famous for its existence as a distinct species after separation from its South Rim cousin squirrel) and a few deer, but no turkey or anything else. Wednesday morning, we headed to the Bill Hall trail parking lot at Monument Point.

Looking down from Monument Point. Bridger's Knoll center left. The esplanade is the flatish area upon which the Knoll sits. Powell Plateau is the flat feature in the distance at left.

As we started the hike, we saw a Perigrine cruising around but it didn't swoop down past us. Didn't see a whole lot of other wildlife for the duration of the GC hike, but the breathtaking vistas alone are sufficient to hold one's interest. No rattlesnakes (but didn't go beating through the bushes). Anita was somewhat distressed about the exposure in some spots as we headed down the trail, dropping through about 1000 feet and many millions of years of rock layers. Notably, near the beginning of the hike, there are some hair-raising dropoffs as you walk along the trail. In one or two spots, the trail has mostly sluffed off, and you have to take a big step over the sluffed spot. Then the little step down the Toroweap went smooth, but was still a little scary for her.

Anita questioning her new husband's honeymoon location choice (hey, it was a JOINT decision!).

After about 1000 feet, you hit the so-called esplanade, a layer of tough sandstone called Supai, which forms a sidewalk-like surface that rings the canyon. There is an interesting geological story behind the Esplanade: above the Supai is a layer called the Hermit Shale. The Colorado easily cut through this shale layer (after slicing more slowly through the Toroweap and Coconino above). Then it dwelled for a long time in the Shale layer, slowly washing it downstream. As it washed some away, it left overhanging cliffs of Toroweap and Coconino. These cliffs, once deeply undercut, broke away and their crumbled remains were also washed downstream. The river meandered in the Shale, carving away at the cliffs until the Supai "sidewalk" of the Grand Canyon was exposed. You can see the esplanade best in the first photo from Monument Point.

We camped on the Esplanade at roughly the planned spot, just above Surprise Valley. Some people were occupying the best little spots under the ledges, but a few hundred meters further (and right near the rim), there was a nice spot. Brought 6 L each down from Monument Point. Turns out we needed 4 L each. Left 2 L at bottom of first decent from Mon Point. Left 2 L or at first camp. The camp was within 100 feet of the rim of Surprise Valley, which has to be one of the more astounding geologic features of the Grand Canyon (see photo). Surprise Valley was spread below us to the south, and to the east was Powell Plateau, a vast and strikingly flat feature which has one of the few virgin Ponderosa Pine forests in the world.

Standing near our first campsite on the esplanade .

What a view just 100 feet from our camp. Surprise Valley was created in a colossal landslide. Water had greased the skids, and the Supai and Redwall collapsed in a rotational landslide, forming the valley and blocking the Colorado river.

Headed down to Thunder Spring Thursday morn. Still some distress on Anita's part hiking trail leading down to Surprise Valley. More distress on the way to the Spring itself. Again some hairy spots. To me, these hairy spots go completely unnoticed unless i'm hiking with somebody like Anita who's scared of heights. I came to recognize when she'd be scared. On the final trail down, we saw a dude hiking up that we thought might've been a ranger. He was a young guy (my age), with the posture of a fresh military recruit out to impress, and a clean-shaven face.  He had a big and very clean stiff-brimmed hat. As we later learned, he wasn't a ranger after all. When we got to the Spring, Anita was ready to sit for a while. There was a woman sitting there who we briefly chatted with. She was sitting reading a book and explained that her badass hubby had busted it over toward Deer Creek that morning and was coming back later in the evening. I didn't guess it at the time, but this was the wife of "the ranger".

 On some rocks while hiking down into Surprise Valley.

From the Spring, I scouted ahead to look at the trail. It was too tough for her, and I couldn't justify asking her to come down to the upper camp. We didn't have permit anyway, although it appeared that there would be a nice two-person spot remaining for the night. (Two other groups were going to be taking up the main sites.) Plenty of rafters down near Thunder Spring. We had several offers to join rafters for dinner down at the CO river at their camps. They, as usual, were loaded for bear, foodwise. Swordfish was apparently on the menu.

Lots of rafters were climbing around near the spring pouroff

Headed back up to Surprise Valley and camped there that night. Wandered along trail to near the Y intersection and found nice spot a few hundred yards short of that. Our food was really good. We did simple things like Idahoan mashed potatoes with jerkey + dried fruit, and tortilini pasta. We got some non-meat jerkey called Seitan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_%28food%29).

Friday morning, we got cracking at 4 am and hiking by 5. We made the Esplanade a little before 8 and stopped for a good brunch of pita bread, butter, peanut butter, oatmeal, string cheese, etc. "The ranger" and his wife had camped up in Surprise Valley right near the dropoff to Thunder Spring. They reached the Esplanade and passed us just as we were getting going again. We leapfrogged them several times on our way up to Monument Point.  The ranger and his wife were all business on the trail.  The only conversation we had was when we talked about what a bunch of slobs people are on the trail.  Yes, people are a little ridiculous to ditch all the stuff they do.  Food, water bottles, etc.  But I must admit that on one trip somebody (it MIGHT have been my own father) decided to ditch all sorts of junk out of desperation -- we were really low on water and out of food! -- including an entire backpack and a thermarest.

Hardly any flowers were out in the fall, but there were some impressive agave stalks out on the esplanade.  This is a good example of the "sidewalk" nature of the esplanade.

 The fruit at the end of an agave stalk.

The walking was pretty smooth and easy along the esplanade. Not too hot mid morning. Made good time to the forty-something switchbacks leading up to Monument Point. The guidebook I have claimed there are exactly 49 switchbacks, so I decided to count. To keep myself and Anita entertained, I decided to tell the story of my life, one year at a time as we hiked up beginning on switchback 15 at age 15. The pace was slow and plodding in the mid-day heat, so I had plenty of time to think as I breathed deeply and sweated my way up. When I got to 31, I started telling the story of Anita and Eric. At age 35, we had a child. At age 37, we had another. At age 45, the first kid (named Liam as an abbreviation of William) was 10. Etc. It was kinda fun. Eric became a professional tennis coach, for example. The final push to the top was hot and slow, but no big problems. Both of us had no major foot pain, and we had plenty of water.

The honeymoon so far wasn't as relaxing as laying in the sun on a tropical beach. However, it was an experience that few can say they've had.