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Monday, January 14, 2013
It was a whole 2 degrees this morning when we got up at 5:30.
We packed most of our stuff into the car - the stuff that's not going into backpacks, that is. The car will be parked at the backcountry office's parking lot. We took the backpacks to the Lodge, where I checked us out and stayed with the packs while Carl moved the car. Then we went in for breakfast.
After breakfast, we set off. Our first stop was by the Kolb Studios to put on the crampons. We had packed snow and ice almost all the way to the three mile rest house!
Only one stretch was really treacherous (photo to the left). There was a sort of waterfall down one side of the trail, continuing across most of the trail. Sheer ice for about 12 feet of trail. I found a bit of softer snow along the outside of the trail, but it was very narrow. When we returned to this spot five days later, the ice patch had grown to about 20 feet of trail and there was no soft area along the edge...
We stopped to visit the toilets at the 1.5 mile rest house and found out that crampons and tile floors don't really work together. I felt like I was walking in heels again – ones with very slippery high parts. Very uncomfortable. I actually twisted my knee a little. It worked out over the next couple of switchbacks, but we almost aborted the trip at that point.
The photo on the left above shows some of our trail this morning - snow packed with a steep rock wall on one side of the trail and a steep drop-off on the other. Watch your step! The center photo shows me on one stretch of the trail. I have crampons on and turned around for the photo very carefully. It's easy to twist an ankle or a knee if you're not careful. The photo on the right shows some of the switchbacks ahead of us.
My large camera stayed in my backpack the entire trip down today. I really didn't want it swinging from my neck over this icy portion of the trail. However, that doesn't mean that I didn't take any pictures. I used the point and shoot. It swinging from my neck didn't bother me – most of the time.
Unlike other trips down to Phantom Ranch, we didn't stop as frequently and we didn't drink as much water. It was much too cold to stop for long. Even a small rest stop was enough to cause muscles to stiffen up. It almost wasn't worth it. In fact, we only consumed one of the five liters of water on the trail down. And we had way too many Clif bars left over at the end of the trip... Oh, well. Better too much than not enough.
We stopped at Indian Gardens (4.5 miles from the South Rim and 4.7 miles from Phantom Ranch) for a bite of lunch and a longer rest. The thermometer in the shade there read 30 - photo left with Carl, while the one in the sun said 60! Quite a difference!
The photo on the right shows the view over the inner canyon from just below Indian Gardens.
These photos show a frozen waterfall that crossed the trail on one shady corner below Indian Gardens. The one on the left shows what it looked like near the trail. You can see the rocks that line the trail on the far side. The photo on the right is looking back at the lower portion of this extensive waterfall from farther down the trail. Near the top of the photo, you can see the upper portion of the trail.
The rest of the trail down to Phantom was steeper and rockier than I remembered. Oh, well, it's still better than South Kaibab. We soon reached the Colorado River, where the trail turns upstream for 1.5 miles to reach the Silver Bridge. The photo on the left shows our first close view of the Colorado River. This is the beach where Pipe Creek Canyon meets the Colorado River.
The photo on the right shows our view of the canyon above us from the river level.
Another mile after the bridge and we had arrived. We walked in about 4:30, so we had made our usual time - one mile per hour.
The canteen was closed when we arrived so that they can set up for dinner, but they have a service window around the side of the building, so we were able to check in. We're in cabin 1 for the night. How long we can stay here depends on the number of mule riders they get in the next few days and what other reservations they get.
So we rested a while. Muscles ache all over. From the hips down and up. We went to take showers, hoping to loosen the muscles a bit. There is a heater in the shower house, but it is woefully inadequate. I couldn't feel any heat coming off it unless I was within two feet of it. Carl tells me that the men's side didn't even have that much! It was like showering in a refrigerator. I skipped washing my hair...
Dinner for us tonight was the stew dinner. Very good. Nice company at the table. One man down the table from us mentioned being on the North Kaibab Trail (just north of Phantom Ranch) when the water main broke. Water squirted over 30 feet across the trail and across the creek. Quite a geyser! This would affect us a little later...
This water main takes water from a spring near the top of the North Rim and pipes it to the South Rim, where it is the main water supply for everything on the South Rim. Water from the South Rim is returned to Indian Gardens for drinking purposes there. Phantom Ranch gets their water from an offshoot from this main pipe. So, this was the main water supply for everything that was open at this time of year at the Canyon.
Once they reopened the canteen after dinner, took over the sack of playing cards we had brought down with us. The last time we were here, the cards were in such bad shape that most decks were incomplete and the rest were cracked enough that you knew who had the jack of hearts, for example. The young woman who took them was touched.
Then we bought a couple of beers and stood there talking with some of the other hikers. Nice conversation. Better than the beer. We had tried the Grand Canyon label beer and it was pretty weak.
So, we went back to the cabin for a few games of cribbage before bed.
As a side note, the toilet in the cabin was slow to fill – probably due to the earlier water break as we were still getting adequate water around the new break. They've had three water breaks (two major and one minor) since mid-December. This one today was the largest.
The high for the day at Phantom was 32.