From Grand Canyon Village, we hiked across the Tonto, walking over 60 miles in two days. We planned an 8-day food carry, of which I accidentally left 2000 calories of chips behind, and raced to the South Bass trail with heavy packs and insufficient water to remain well hydrated. We hoped a raft would give us a hitch across the river.
With 45 minutes until sunset, the trail we thought ended at a beach instead led to a cliff. We turned to a use trail that led up the ridge, and saw some rafts on the other side of the river.
“Hello!? Hello!!” I shouted to no response except for an echo.
Another quarter of a mile up trail and we were directly aligned with some rafts on a beach across the river. A voice carried over the water.
“HELLO! Are you [trying to get] down?”
“YEAH!” I shouted back.
“200 YARDS DOWN RIVER!”
In 200 yards we began descending a steep tallus field. It led to the river, but did not lead to a beach. We stood on a small muddy ledge with cliffs to either side. This was no place to camp. And it was down river from the beach we needed to get to.
We ascended back up the several hundred feet to return to the ridge to shout again.
“IS THERE A BEACH?” I managed to communicate, after several complex inquiries lost to echo.
“UP RIVER!”
By now, the sun had set and we turned on head lamps to travel back up river, past the Bass Rapids, to a beach holding the shipwreck of the Ross Wheeler Boat. We slept poorly, not sure how we were going to get across the river.
After Tangent and I argued for 30 minutes in the morning about whether or not we could hitch a ride with a raft over the rapids, we decided to return to the Point of Good Shout. At 6:30 AM, after some morning shouting pleasantries, I got to business.
“CAN YOU PICK US UP, AND CARRY US UP RIVER, BACK TO YOUR BEACH?”
Far too complex over echos, but eventually it got through. The rafters said they could not, as they could only paddle down river. I tried the next group of rafters, 200 feet down trail.
“YEAH! WE CAN PICK YOU UP!” They shouted back.
We scrambled back down the tallus field and in 30 minutes, Max had motored his raft across to grab us. We rafted up river to their beach!
They also fed us breakfast. And gave us calories to pack out!
At that point, the hiking became slow. 30 mile days morphed into 13 mile days. The trail became a bushwhack. Saddle Canyon held some of the hardest hiking I’ve ever done. 50-foot dry falls yielded vertigo-inducing bypasses. We clung to steep hillsides with sand and gravel begging to give way. Eventually, we made it to the “plunge pools” — waist high pools of water with 20-foot sandstone water slides entering their depths. The joy of a child at a waterpark was nowhere to be found, but the slides were the best way forward.
Having covered 30 miles in two days, we were out of Saddle Canyon and headed toward Deer Creek Falls, past the scenic splendor of Thunder River (the shortest river in the world), when suddenly we saw people again!
“Oh, Hi! Did we give you a ride across the river the other day? Hayduke hikers?”
“Yes! That was us!”
I made some casual conversations wih James, before he said he had to get back to the raft group and ran off down the trail. A mile later, we turned a corner to applause and a human-created arch for us to pass under. Due to storms, the rafting party only travelled 10 river miles in the time we hiked 30 harrowing and circuitous miles to reconnect with them! Our reunion was short and sweet, but I did secure a bag of dried figs.
As the hours of hiking accumulated, we passed by the river again. A different raft group shouted from the water, “HEY! YOU WANT A BEER?”
“SURE!” I shouted back.
The rafters tossed four beers to me from the raft, without stopping, while I caught them from the shore.
We continued to slowly make our way up Kanab Creek, and then Hack Canyon, where dirt roads elevated our pace from the dismal 1 mile an hour boulder hop to something more normal.
Over the course of the past miles, my shoes have suffered. They are quite literally falling off my feet, and the tread has become a fleeting memory of its glory daya. I have 30 slow miles left to Zion.
With love from Colorado City,
Jeff (I have not joined the cult)
