Grand Canyon Part 2 - In the Canyon

If it's not the hardest day hike I've ever done, I bet it's pretty darn close. Conceptually, having gravity help you down a canyon seems like a good idea, but in all actuality it takes a lot of leg strength to slow yourself down. The canyon profile looks something like step-slope-step-slope.... and the way you get down the step portions is be zig-zagging down rockslides that occur in a weakness in the step.

The step-slope nature of the Canyon can be seen here


Here's a good example of the steep switchbacks. You can see Christine near the top of this section and Owen just two switchbacks (and so far) away.


This is Owen trying to recover after the brutal hike


Making the downhill trek even more difficult were the big packs on our back. I've done a lot of backpacking this year and I think I've gotten pretty good a not bringing extra items, but we needed to carry some heavy stuff for this trip. Because water is scarce, we carried extra water to cache partway down the canyon for our trip back up. I was carrying an extra 3 liters, which added a nice 6.5 pounds to my pack. We also we carrying enough food for 4 days. Okay, I probably could have left the liter of wine at home, but it was a nice luxury for an evening. And if I had to pick out some other weight savings, I could have done without the down jacket (but that's one of those things that's hard to know in advance), and I could have left my paperback of Powell's diary in the car.

I'm glad we planned for having one day at the bottom of the canyon where we wouldn't need to carry around our big packs. We started the morning out with some pancakes. Christine and I have attempted pancakes a couple times this year and were mostly unsuccessful due our cookware. This time, Erin brought down a frying pan and Owen was cooking up some sweet pancakes (no easy task while camping I assure you).

Owen working the pancake pan


With full bellies, we then took the ten minute walk down the creek to the beautiful Deer Creek Patio:


It's an awesome place to hang out in the shade a play in the water, but we only lingered for a short while before making the hike down to the Colorado River. The water looked like chocolate milk (from the recent rain storms in the area), but it was still just too inviting to stay dry. We swam a little bit in the cool water and chatted with a river guide (who was nice enough to toss us a beer and offer up a tequila shot to Christine). We also spent some time playing in the amazing Deer Creek Falls before heading up to relax in the shade on the patio.







All good things must come to an end, and we left our pleasant creek campsite on the third morning. None of us were looking forward to leaving our oasis and walking uphill, but at least we were breaking the hike up into two days. We hiked up to Surprise Valley fairly quickly and decided to ditch our packs and take a side trip over to Thunder Spring, another great oasis. Well worth the additional few miles of hiking.



Our campsite one the Esplanade that evening provided an amazing view of the sky on a cloudless night. The sunrise the next morning was pretty nice too.

(This great photo of the big dipper was thieved from Owen's Flickr)




The next morning we finished the hike out of the canyon and downed some beers that were still cold in the car.



A great camping trip if ever there was.