Old Hance Trail

Having moved back to Grand Canyon longing for some awesome backcountry adventures, I was having trouble finding people who could handle the trips I wanted to take. Luckily, one of my co-workers, Matt was up for a trip. I talked him into the Old Hance Trail. The New Hance Trail is probably the steepest established trails in the Grand Canyon. It was built in 1898 after John Hance abandoned the Old Hance Trail for being too steep and washing out frequently. So you can just imagine that this was going to be an interesting trip. We found a viewpoint on the road out to Desert View where the trail was supposed to have started. We were just going on information from Harvey Butchart's book and information obtained from the backcountry desk. We were able to pick up pieces of the trail at times, but you could imagine that after a hundred years there was not much left. At one point I was scared I was a goner as Matt kicked down a giant boulder and it went very near me. From that point on, we were more cautious and kept a close distance to each other. It was unbelievably steep for the first part until we were able to open up on a slight plateau between Coronado Butte and the Sinking Ship. That is when we spotted another hiker. He was going over to climb Coronado Butte. We talked to him a bit and he said that he had been hiking off trail in the Canyon for 30 years and yet we were the first people he saw in such a remote place. He gave us a little more information about what we would see below and then we went our seperate ways. We were glad we talked to him because when we came to the one major obstacle, we were able to pick out a safe, yet steep route that helped us continue down the steep drainage of what would become Hance Creek. The Canyon is so magnificient because as we looked up to see where we had been, the rim seemed an unfathomable distance away, yet we had only been out for a mere couple hours. Eventually the drainage became less steep and the nervous

ness died down. The boulder picking became creek walking. We ran into a baby rattler and saw all the remnants of the Hance camp in Hance Creek. Hundred year old grafiti was all over the rocks as I am sure John Hance encouraged his tourists to leave their mark. Wow, it would have been interesting to see the Grand Canyon in those days. We followed the creek to where it interestected the Tonto trail. Here is where Brian, Austin, John and I had camped several years ago on a four day backpack over Veteran's Day weekend. Matt and I contemplated going down Hance Creek all the way to the river, but he was not for it. It would have been an impossibly hard day, but I would have been happy to do it and probably would have been successful. Instead, we went up the Tonto trail that would take us steeply up to Horseshoe Mesa. Along the way, we decided to stop first at Page Spring for some water and then at one of the bigger copper mines. This one was huge with deep uncovered shafts. We went quite aways back until Matt had enough and then continued to Horseshoe Mesa. From there we had the steep 3 miles from the Grandview trail up to the rim. With another car situated there, we would have an easy time making it back home. This trail is steep enough itself, but with how good of shape I was in, it was a piece of cake. I was so happy to have completed that hike as it was the one I definitely wanted to cross off my list. The Grand Canyon is amazing and I sure appreciated a good day off to spend hiking around it.