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Day 1 - Tanner Trail to Tanner Rapid |
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We were all up well before the crack of dawn on day one of the hike. Jake had made some breakfast burritos for us the day before and he warmed them up in the oven so we could get some fuel into our systems before heading out. It was about 2 hours from the house in Flagstaff to the trailheads up at Grand Canyon and we were out of the house a little before 430am. The plan was to start down the trail around 7am but we missed that and it was almost 8am before we were on the trail. We ended up making a first pit stop at the McDonald's in Tusayan and then made another one at the restrooms at Desert View before heading to Lipan Point and the Tanner trailhead. In between we dropped Jake's car off near the trailhead for the New Hance Trail, where we planned to emerge from the Canyon five days hence.
It was a chilly, grey morning and the sky was not very welcoming at all. The clouds were quite thick but it wasn't a solid overcast and there were little breaks of sunshine here and there. My hopes were that it would clear up a bit more as the sun came up and warmed things. The wind was just absolutely crazy for pretty much all of the day. We hit a few little sheltered spots where it was blocked somewhat but for the most part it was a steady and constant blow and there were some gusts that came close to blowing you over. I have no idea what that would have been like on the Nankoweap Trail but it could have made the scary spot somewhat scarier. I have dealt with excessive wind on that trail when camped at Saddle Mountain and it frequently blows strongly across Tilted Mesa but I can't say I've ever had any problems with wind anywhere else on that trail but perhaps the high cliff on one side shields people from most of it. Apart from the wind it was a pretty nice morning and we did warm ourselves up once we started hiking. There was more and more sunshine as the morning progressed and that warmed things up a bit more as well. It took us about an hour to get down through the first phase of the descent to just past the new rock fall in the Coconino that closed the trail for a period in 2007. The Park Service trail crews have done a wonderful job re-routing the trail through that section and even put in a few sections with real stairs using some of the sandstone blocks. Just beyond the rock fall section it started snowing on us, or groppling actually. Gropple is a light, hail-like snow and they look like little snowballs ranging in size from 1/8 to 1/4 inch in diameter. Apparently it's pretty common in northern Arizona but I had never seen it before. When the wind would blow we were being pummeled by this stuff but it never really amounted to anything and they would all melt away within a few minutes after falling as the ground was just too warm. We took our first short rest break about 2 hours into the hike just before reaching Stegosaurus rocks. It was like a blast from the past walking past Stegosaurus rocks again and remembering the first Grand Canyon backpacking trip I did with Robin back in in 1989. That was a crazy, two day trip down the Tanner Trail one day and back up the next, with only one night at the bottom. We cached a couple of bottle of water at Stegosaurus rocks for the hike out and Robin was very happy when we got back there and retrieved our cache. We hiked for another couple of hours and then took a break for lunch before starting down through the Redwall descent. We got to the top of the Redwall around 1pm and had some fantastic views of the Colorado River from there. It took about an hour to get down through the Redwall and then all that was left was the long approach to Asinine Hill and then Asinine Hill itself. It just seems to go on forever and I had forgotten how truly asinine it was. We arrived at the Colorado River right around 5pm so it took just about 9 hours to do the 9 miles of the Tanner. We were certainly taking our time and not setting any records which had me a little concerned about trying to go all the way from Tanner Rapid to Escalante Creek the following day. We discussed this for a while and finally decided we would be better off to go with the ranger's recommendation of camping on the east side of the Escalante use area for the second night and then moving to a camp on the west side (Escalante Creek) for the following night. That would make for a nice easy day of only 2-3 miles tomorrow, with an early camp and a relaxing afternoon next to the river. It wasn't until this trip was over that I discovered the Park Service had changed their estimate for the length of the Escalante Route from 10 miles to 12 miles. I originally thought the distance from Tanner Rapid to Escalante Rapid would be about 7 miles but it now appears to be 9 miles or maybe a little more. Alysia found some fabulous backpacking recipes online and she put together meals for us for dinners and breakfasts. These were definitely the tastiest and easiest to prepare meals that I have ever had in the backcountry.
The breakfasts were all oatmeal based with different ingredients added to them, like peanut butter, chocolate chips and freeze-dried blueberries and bananas. |
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