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October/November, 2007 - New Hance, Escalante and Beamer to Little Colorado River |
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Trip number 41 - September, 2006 : Ken Patrick, Old Bright Angel and North Kaibab Loop plus Widforss Trail
Trip number 42 - April, 2007 : Clear Creek backpacking trip
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This would be my second attempt at day hiking the Beamer Trail to the Little Colorado having failed that during a trip in December 1994, coming short by about a mile or so. The days are just too short in December and I started that hike too late. I also under estimated the difficulty of the Beamer Trail.
This was another one of those trips that got off to a bad start. I was originlly to go in on the Tanner Trail, and then day hike the Beamer Trail, and exit using the Escalante Route and the New Hance Trail. But a rock slide in the Coconino on the Tanner Trail a few days before I was supposed to start closed that trail and forced me to change the itinerary so I ended up going in on the New Hance Trail and Escalante Route as well. The first day was a good one and I went down the New Hance Trail to Hance Rapid and then about a mile east on the Escalate Route to the beach at Papago Canyon. I stopped at Hance Rapid briefly to talk with a river trip and ended up getting a free beer out of it. That first night at Papago I was camped right next to the rockfall and my first challenge to for day two was climbing it to continue my hike to the east. There were a few challenges on the Escalante Route and it was slow going. I had planned to go all the way to Palisades Creek on day two but ran out of time and did not even make it to Tanner Rapid, camping a little to the west of there. I knew that was going to make the day hike to the Little Colorado on day three even more challenging. I was up very early on day four and started hiking by moonlight. It took 7 hours to get to the Little Colorado, arriving there a little before noon. I knew it would be dark before I got back to camp and was not looking forward to the hike back. It was nice to finally make it to the Little Colorado though and even nicer that it was flowing its beautiful turquoise color and not muddy brown. I had been to Little Colorado a couple of other times as stops on river trips but this was the first time I had hiking to it. It was also nice to visit the Beamer Cabin which I had been unable to do on those other trips. I ended up losing the trail on the way back to camp once it got dark. The headlamp I had with me was not very good and I just could not find it again. I had enough clothes with me to make myself comfortable and was pretty sure I was stuck until daybreak. Luckily the situation got a lot brighter once the moon finally came up. When the clouds cleared away I was able to locate the trail and hike the rest of the way back to camp. I did not get there until well ater mightnight though. I got a late start on day four because I got to sleep so late. It felt good to get the extra sleep though. It was an absolutely gorgeous day for hiking and I did about 9 miles from the camp near Tanner Rapid to the beach at Escalante Creek. I got to camp early and was able set everything up and even had time to take a bath in the river and wash away several days worth of grunge. Day five was a pretty east one and going down the Papago rock slide was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It looks a lot worse from the top than it actually is. I made it to Hance Rapid before noon and took a long break for lunch there. I met some other hikers at the rapid and we all started hiking back up Red Canyon together. I had hoped to make it aabove the Redwall but darkness started to close in and we decided to make camp at a nice spot about mid way through it. I had a nice time chatting with them and exchanging stories before calling it a night. Day six was short and sweet. I was up early and did not wait for the others. I started out a little before 7am and was back on the rim around 1130, a little later than I expected. The full trip report is here. |
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Next >> Trip number 48 - April/May, 2012 - Nankoweap & Marion-Seiber
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