Mitch above Bridge Knoll Photo by Mike Coronella Click on photo for more Grand Canyon pics!

We climbed up out of the gorge in the rain, to skirt around the schist section that makes up the narrowest part of the Grand Canyon's river gorge (a mere 71 feet wide). We made camp for the night at Deer Creek's only campsite, setting up our tents under a couple of huge old cottonwood trees, right next to the soothing sounds of the descending creek. The storm seemed to be waning at this point, so we decided to hike through the Deer Creek Narrows for a view of the river gorge. We were treated to what had to be the single most beautiful sunset that any of us had witnessed (and believe me, that's saying a lot). Broken clouds were moving quickly just above the height of the rim, constantly changing the ever-reddening light against the colorful layers of the towering sides of the gorge, the green water of the river snaking through the narrow schist lined bottom, fresh snow glistening in the distant ponderosas along the upper most reaches of the canyon walls. Of course, all of the camera equipment that I had been burdening myself with was sitting at camp, twenty minutes away. The decision was easy; hang and enjoy this sublime scene, letting it etch an impression forever in my mind instead of on film.

The clouds had mostly blown away by the next morning, providing another gorgeous day in the gorge. Mitch and Dan-O spent the day pulling fish out of the river and lower Deer Creek, even catching some small trout in the plunge pool under the famous falls. I had a laugh watching them trying to throw line against the blast from the falling water; it didn't matter how hard they tried, the line always went backwards.

Here's where my aching ribs forced a change in plans. We intended to boulder hop down river a couple of miles towards Fishtail Canyon, a place Mitch and I had passed without a chance to explore, on our earlier, long trek through the canyon (described on Mountainzone.com). There was simply no way that I was going to put myself through that torture. We went off our permit and camped on a ridge above the Deer Creek Narrows, figuring that at least we may get a repeat of the last night's awesome sunset (and giving me a chance to try to capture it on film). Of course, the show was a new one; different day, different scene.

In the morning we packed up for our long climb to the top. We followed Deer Creek to its source; another burst of water from the Redwall. After taking a break at the spring, we all hoisted packs and started the ascent towards Surprise Valley, the same route we had taken on our big journey, which is now incorporated in the Hayduke Trail. Here we had the biggest scare we've ever had while on a backpacking adventure: we lost Dan-O. We simply couldn't find him. We even hiked all the way back to the spring. No Dan-O. We shouted, we scouted. Nothing. All we could figure was that he must have fallen from the trail, which skirts dangerously close to the edge of a major drop. We started making plans for a rescue (or even worse, a body recovery). I ran back up to where I had dropped my pack to retrieve what I thought I'd need to sprint to the river for help (most boating parties have ground to air radios or satellite phones), and Mitch started digging for rescue gear. Suddenly, here comes Dan-O. A little spooked, but OK.

"Our cave provided us with not just shelter, but with a number of ancient artifacts; painted pottery shards, pieces of stone tools, and even some pictograph symbols..."

Turns out he missed one of the switchbacks, something easy to do for someone who hasn't yet developed an eye for following the faint backcountry trails in the king of canyons. After realizing his mistake, he tried yelling to us, but we apparently couldn't hear him anymore than he heard our shouts, so he correctly decided to backtrack. All was well! We decided to keep a closer eye on the first-timer for the remainder of the trip.

We hiked up to the Esplanade, the higher of the two major horizontal shelves in the canyon system (the other being the Tonto Platform). Again the weather took a turn for the worse. This time it looked like it wasn't going to be just showers, and it wasn't. Taking shelter under a huge rock overhang, we watched the rain and lightning do their thing for the remainder of the day and all of that night. Our cave provided us with not just shelter, but with a number of ancient artifacts; painted pottery shards, pieces of stone tools, and even some pictograph symbols.

The view we had was awesome. We could see far down the river gorge, though never quite seeing the river itself, looking at walls as far as Toroweap, more than fifty miles down river. Not a bad place to be I guess, until another group of backpackers apparently had the same idea and decided to set up camp about fifty feet away from us, oblivious to our very vocal objections to their choice, and to the fact that there was literally millions of empty acres around us. It's good to see people exploring, but some people just don't seem to get the idea that a lot of us come out here to get away from everyone else. Oh well, it still beat being back in Salt Lake.

The morning once again revealed fresh snow on top. We wondered how far it reached into the canyon; the top part of the trail is very steep, and very exposed. Snow would have made passage unbelievably dangerous, not to mention what the roads must be like. We decided to stay in the cave another night, and because of the artifacts that we were seeing, we decided to search for "ruins", so we spent the day checking out the area. We tried to work our way down into the upper reaches of the Deer Creek drainage. We found some petroglyphs, but we couldn't find our way around a massive pour-off that blocked our access to the rest of the drainage. As they say, it's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase; we still had a great day just poking around. We even discovered a bright blue spotted lizard that loved to stiffen up his entire body, as some sort of defensive posturing I suppose. Most lizards run away, this guy just hung out and became rigid. Weird.

It finally became time to head on, so we packed up and moved out of the cave. The rim seemed snow-free; the edge, despite being at an altitude of over 7,000 feet is generally much warmer than the interior of the Kaibab Plateau, heated from the warm air of the gorge. So up we went. Fortunately our packs were lighter from consuming ten days of food. The ascent was tough, but painless. The thought of the Bass Ale in the truck kept us moving until we reached the top, and the snowline. The journey out was fun; the snow slicked roads and mud kept us sliding all over the place. In fact I still have clay caked to the bottom of my vehicle (it doesn't seem to want to wash off) to serve as a reminder of another awesome journey to the most amazing landscape on the planet.

by Mike Coronella

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