Most of the month of April has brought unusual cold showers to the Southwest, but I had hopes that it would warm up for my next adventure with Mike down in the depths of the Grand Canyon to combine backpacking, exploring, and rafting in our Alpacka packrafts. We had to delay leaving a day later due to strong rains and winds, so we had a lot of miles to make up in 6 days. We each drove out to the top of the Lava Falls trail near Toroweap, left one vehicle there, and then drove back up to Hack Canyon. The road down Hack is usually rough, but the BLM must have done recent work to make it passable for most vehicles. We easily cruised with packs down Hack to Kanab Creek, then continued down Kanab to the confluence of Jumpup Canyon. This part of the canyon was very pleasant, beautiful, and easy for hiking, although I developed a nasty blister on my pinky toe that slowed me down the rest of the week. We continued a couple of miles farther to a nice quiet camp site for a total of 16 miles the first day. The next day we hiked for more than 12 miles of slow boulder hopping down beautiful lower Kanab Creek, past Showerbath Spring, Scotty's Hollow, and Whispering Falls, all the way to the confluence with the Colorado River, where we spent our second night.
From there we started the second phase of our adventure--exploring the Grand Canyon via our packrafts, which allowed us to move down river, stop, visit and/or explore up a number of side canyons, including Olo, Matkat, Canyon of a Thousand Names (where we spent our third night under ledges out of the wind), Havasu, Tuckup, National, Fern Glen, Mohawk, Stairway and Cove canyons. Some of the most scenic hiking was up to the Muav ledges, patios, and pools, that usually have water flowing down through these side canyons. One of the biggest highlights was going up Havasu (aka "Have-A-Zoo" due to the swarms of people)--it was so unusual, because there was absolutely nobody there at all, and also because the water was running so high and so incredibly cloudy/milky blue, instead of the normal turquoise blue. The fourth night was spent at Tuckup, which we explored; and our last night at Cove Canyon, where we could see Toroweap Point downstream--the point where we climb out of the canyon. The last morning we made our way down to the base of the Lava Falls Trail, where we packed everything up, and climbed practically straight up 3,000' in 3 hours, and back to our vehicle for the ride home.
Our total mileage was 30 miles of hiking, and another 35 miles along the river, not including untold miles around the side canyons and camps. I flipped my packraft twice within the first hour of being on the river, in a couple of different medium sized riffles. I then noticed my backpack was loaded off-center, and this was causing me to list to the port side. After fixing the balance, I never flipped again. Mike only flipped on the last day at the next-to-the-last riffle, because his pack was not tied down tight (I forgot to check the knots before launching), and his backpack shifted weight mid-stream, causing him to be off-balance too. These little rafts are pretty incredible in how they handle in big waves. We wore wetsuits on the river, so the cold water was not a factor during out swims or paddling. We also portaged around any nasty looking rapids and riffles whenever possible, like Upset Rapids, which would have swallowed our little rafts in its numerous holes, and maybe never spit them back out. Some rapids like Matkat were un-portageable, so we had to run them anyway, but did fine. The camp sites and weather was mostly beautiful, clear, cool, with only a little bit of clouds and light rain spatterings. All in all, it was a very tough, challenging, and highly rewarding trip that will go down in the memory banks!
A view up Hack Canyon.
Showerbath Springs
A pool near Whispering Falls
Havasu Canyon pools and cascades.
Me next to Havasu.
A photo near the mouth of Havasu. Notice the water color!
Mike and our packrafts next to the mouth of Havasu.
Tuckup Canyon
Sunset light hitting cliffs during our last night at Cove Canyon.
Getting ready to push off from Cove Canyon on our last morning. We climbed out just past Toroweap Overlook, which can be seen in the upper left background with the sunlight hitting the top there.
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