The morning was nice and cool, maybe lower to mid 40s, and the air was clear and calm, not a cloud to be seen. The trail started off easy enough and I knew what to expect having hiked the first mile or so of it the day before. After descending quickly from the rim the trail climbed over and around a small hill that lies between the USFS trail #57 trailhead and the Saddle Mountain saddle. The aspens along this section of the trail had already changed and were showing their full glory. The contrasts between the gold of the aspens and the dark greens of the evergreens were awesome. After descending the hill on the other side the trail reaches a nice level section that cuts across a hugh clearing. There is evidence of some fire damage in this area though it does not appear to be recent. Once the other side of the clearing is reached the trail cut off to the north and then began its descent to the Saddle Mountain saddle where it joins up with the Nankoweap Trail.

I knew as soon as I started down the Nankoweap that it was not going to be fun. I anticipated some problems after reading the official NPS description of the trail, talking to some people about it, and reading the article in the October 1996 issue of ARIZONA Highways magazine called Grand Canyon's Scariest Trail. I just never expected it to live up to its reputation because I have never had a problem with a trail in the Canyon before... until now.

There are a series of steep switchbacks right at the top of the trail and the trail itself is also clogged with brush in a number of places making it difficult to see where exactly it goes. After the first couple of switchbacks I came to a spot where a log had been fastened in place just above a rather large drop-off as a sort of safety measure. It's easy enough to avoid getting close to the edge here by staying high up on the cliff and I don't understand what the purpose of the log is. The fact that there are much more dangerous spots further on down the trail it makes this bit of trail construction seem even more bizarre. Perhaps it was intended as a joke for those hiking out... I wasn't laughing. After a few more switchbacks I came to a slick spot where a seep had caused a rather large patch of mud to appear on the rock below. I knew that I would slip if I stepped on it because the rock beneath the mud sloped downward. Trying to step around it was possible but not exactly easy in itself.

Once I got past that top set of switchbacks things greatly improved. It was still early enough in the day that it was nice and cool and the views of Nankoweap Canyon below, Mount Hayden to the south and some of the other features in the area were truly magnificent. The trail meandered along between the cliffs that confine it above and below and I made pretty good time. There was still a lot of brush that kept snagging my pack from time to time but all in all this section of trail was delightful.

And then... I saw it. I was warned by Ranger Rick that I would see it before I got to it and there it was, a very big cliff above and another one below and somewhere in the middle there was a trail. I couldn't see the trail just a short section of sloping ground between the two cliffs. As I got nearer I was finally to make out a sort of a foot path across the top of the slope and was able to make out the footprints of someone going across ahead of me. It looked like they made it so away I went, one foot in front of the other and only looking at the trail in front of me. I knew what was below me, I didn't need to look that way, and I certainly didn't want to. Luckily this section of trail is not that long, only about 15 feet and so it doesn't take very long to get past it.

Once beyond that spot the trail continued as before for the short distance remaining to Marion Point. There was a nice campsite out there and I thought about the possibility of using it on the way out. It was getting close to 11 am and I knew I still had a long way to go. Originally I had planned to get to the river in one day and I was still hopeful of this but I knew it was going to be a very long day. I already wasn't sure at this point about making the hike out in a day.

As I rounded the bend in the trail beyond Marion Point I was delighted to see that the side canyon beyond was still in the shadows. The sun was starting to get hot and it felt good to get out of it. It also meant that the water cache that I intended to leave here would probably be nice and cool when I returned for it. I found a nice location to cache my water and decided to have some lunch here as well. It was still a bit early in the day for lunch but the location was perfect and I didn't see anything in the way of shade or the chance of it between here and Tilted Mesa. I could see the distance remaining out to Tilted Mesa and it looked to be at least 2 hours away. From there I still had to get down to the creek and from there to the river. It was going to be a very, VERY long day.

I was feeling OK when I started lunch and was feeling great afterwards. It helps to take a nice long rest once in a while, especially when it's out of the sun. I was not looking forward to getting back into it but nevertheless I shouldered my pack, got it adjusted and was soon off again. The shady section really wasn't that long, maybe only a quarter mile or so, and after that I was in the full glare of the sun again. It was getting hot now... real hot... damn hot... and I knew the temperature would be rising higher still as the day progressed and I descended deeper into the Canyon.

The hike out to Tilted Mesa was pretty much the same as the hike out to Marion Point though there seemed to be more sections where the trail got really close to the edge in places where the drop-offs were quite severe. None of these was as bad as that spot just before Marion Point but they were still cause for concern when walking past them. Plus my feet were getting tired now and they were also starting to heat up. I should have taken my boots off for a while when I had lunch but I didn't. I knew I would need a good rest at Tilted Mesa before starting the hike down to Nankoweap Creek and decided I would take them off for a while at that point.

When the trail started to approach Tilted Mesa and began heading downward my feet really started to bother me. My toes were getting slammed into the front of the boot and it was not a pleasant feeling. It was also getting late in the day and had taken longer than I expected to reach Tilted Mesa. It was already 2:30 and I knew I had a long way to go still. I could see Nankoweap Creek far off to the south and below me and it looked so very, very far away. I was also becoming concerned that, even with binoculars, I could not see any water in it. I had consumed two liters already today, had cached two more for the hike out and only had two left. I began toying with the idea of camping here and finishing the hike to the river tomorrow. There were some very nice campsites and the view was spectacular. I took off the pack and the boots and sat down to take a rest and think on it. I finished off the water remaining in my water bottle and broke into my last two liter bottle. The longer I sat the better I felt and so after about a half hour I decided to push on for the river. It couldn't be that far away, could it?

I put the boots back on and walked around for a while taking in the view and shooting some photos. The view was really great from up here. Nankoweap Canyon was off to the south and Little Nankoweap Canyon was off to the north. Tilted Mesa was just below me and to the east and the massive cliffs that I had walked along were behind me to the west. Way off in the distance to the east I could see the eastern rim of the Canyon and I was still above it. I could see the gorge of the Colorado cutting through the plateau way off to the northeast and struggled to see if I could find the bridge that crosses it in upper Marble Canyon. I could not find it.

Finally I decided to get moving and donned my pack. I found the cairns leading me down and headed over the edge. After a short distance I came to the first of the two cliffs that I knew I had to descend. There was a dead tree still firmly rooted to the ground at the base of the cliff which made the descent fairly easy. I don't now what kind of tree it was, but looked like it probably could have been a pinyon pine, and I wondered how long it had been since it died. Was it alive when Major Powell first blazed this route back in 1882 or was it already dead back then?

Below that first cliff the trail runs across a reasonably flat section before coming to the next. The next cliff is a little more tricky with a backpack on but I was still able to do it without removing the pack. This cliff is a little higher and requires a couple of long reaches to get down. The tree here was also pinyon pine but it was still very much alive. Below this cliff was another flat section and it was while walking along this stretch that I noticed my left foot didn't feel quite right. When I got to the place where the trail started to head down again I first stopped to see what the problem was. It turned out to be a small blister starting under my big toe, not good. I fixed it up with some moleskin as best I could and began the descent.

The descent was long and seemed very drawn out, more than it needed to be, but did not seem all that steep. I didn't understand the Park Service trail description and expected a much more vertical trail than the one I was seeing. The long traverses were becoming annoying and the trail seemed to be wandering back and forth more than it was going down. I could see Nankoweap Creek off in the distance and it did not seem to be getting any closer.

As the afternoon progressed towards sunset and I did not seem to be making much more headway I started making up new names for the trail: Asinine Trail, Soul Crusher... I bean wondering what Nankoweap really meant and wondered if the "weap" part was perhaps a misspelling and that it maybe was supposed to make you cry. My toes were hurting real bad and I was starting to get real worried about water. I was down to about one liter, there still didn't appear to be any water in the creek and I was very sure that I was not going to make it to the river. The springs mentioned in the NPS trail description sounded like my only hope and I was hoping that they would not be dry as well. I trudged along.

I finally got to the shaley slope mentioned in the trail description and it was no big deal. It was not really that loose and the footing on it was fine. I have been on much worse shale slopes on other trails and again the comments in the trail description did not make sense. At the bottom of this descent the trail entered a dry creek bed, levelled out considerably and started making a bee-line for Nankoweap Creek. Walking down the creek bed was easy for the most part as it was filled with a very fine crushed shale and was very comfortable to walk on considering the sorry state my feet were in. There were a couple of places where I had to leave the bed and side-track around a bit because of obstacles in its course, mostly trees, other brush and large boulders, but nothing to be concerned about. And then I came to this large dry fall and saw the trail/creek about 10-12 feet below me. This was slightly more difficult to get around but was still no big problem. Shortly after that I reached Nankoweap Creek.

It was now close to 6 pm and I was very disappointed as I knew I was not going to make it to the river today, but I was also very relieved to see water flowing in the creek. It was a very narrow band of water, which explained why it was not visible from further up on the trail, but it was flowing at a fairly good rate, maybe 0.5 cfs or so.

I looked for a good place to set up camp and since there was no rain predicted for several days and no clouds in the sky, I decided to camp just off to the side of the creek bed that I had followed down. There didn't seem to be any chance of a flash flood and I was not right in the bed anyway. After setting up the tent, stuffing everything inside and hanging my food I proceeded to refill my water bottles. Since there was plenty of water in the creek I didn't even bother looking for the springs.

By the time I finished filling the bottles the sun had set and it was beginning to get dark. I was not hungry at all and this created some concern for me because I knew I should have been. I had no desire at all to cook a meal and the thought of eating it was even more revolting. I suspected that I was probably experiencing the early stages of dehydration or something and I forced myself to eat some CHEX Snack Mix that I had brought along. I could not force down very much of this however and very soon decided that sleep would be the best thing for my body. I drank about a another liter of water and headed off for the tent.

When I took off my boots I was horrified to see that the small blister on the bottom of my left big toe was now covering the entire bottom of the toe and was almost as big as the toe itself. Apparently the moleskin had come loose during the descent and created more problems than it prevented. It really didn't feel that bad but it looked awful. Both of my little toes were also quite red and they were sore to the touch. I settled down for the night and went to sleep.