Mt. Charleston

We drove down to Las Vegas the night before, but had a bit of a tough time finding the campsite that we wanted. They had one campground completely closed, so we ended up having to go up the hill a little bit out of our way. It turned out fine though, just adding a few extra minutes to the drive in the morning. We awoke really early at first light. We had a short drive to the trailhead through all the developments right next to the trailhead. In fact, there was one development area that was right at the trailhead forcing us to park somewhere that we did not want to.

We got going on the trail with a route description to follow, but still managed to get off on the wrong trail and climbed uphill for a while. We got back on the right track, but Dad thought it was unfortunate that we threw in some extra work considering we had quite a bit of elevation to gain and many miles to do it in. After not too long, the trail got super steep with switchback after switchback. We were moving along quite well, though as the cool weather and quiet morning conditions helped to make the elevation gain enjoyable.

Dad was moving at a great pace and it seemed this peak would be a piece of cake. This was a really scenic area even being so close to Las Vegas. There were trees changing colors already as the bright yellows were starting to show up in the aspens. As the light hit the surrounding peaks, it felt as if we were in the mountains. The climbing sure felt like it, too. When we finally hit the ridge after about 3 hours of switchbacks, the peak still looked a long ways away horizontally but not too far vertically. We had a good traverse through the pine forest that gave way to the bristlecones.

Soon enough the bristlecones would die away so that we were just walking up a rocky trail above treeline. When we finally made it over to the last section of trail before reaching the summit, we were dismayed to see a helicopter landing on top. Well that slightly spoils the experience of getting up early and having the entire mountain to ourselves. We were surprised to not see any other people, but now we were seeing a helicopter. We made the final push to the summit and had accomplished another goal.

Dad had knocked out another peak with prominence and I had made it to the top of a peak that I had wanted to climb for some time. It was just after noon when we made it on top of Mt. Charleston. That put us at about 5 hours for eight miles of climbing with 4300 feet of elevation gain, most of that being done in the first 4 miles. This would give us plenty of time to get back down and relax for the evening. I am not sure if anyone else made the summit on this day, because most people that we saw hiking up on  the way down either looked like they were trying to kill themselves with a large load of gear or looked as if they were unprepared for what would be a long hike.

Preparation really does go a long way. We took our time coming down and were at the trailhead by 4 pm. We did a quick run over to the restaurant to have a beer and then back down to the campground for the night. It was an enjoyable hike that could be called Class 1 as never once was there exposure or any difficult sections of trail. Still it took a bit of effort to come out on top. We were happy to expend that effort for the trip was definitely worth it.

Thunder River - Deer Creek

Well, this trip started as an overnight into Kanab Creek. Dad and I had been talking about it for a few months and had come up with a good plan. The problem with our good plan was that it did not account for the current condition of roads. After a summer with quite a bit of afternoon showers, roads were not quite in great shape. We drove out into the western portion of the Kaibab National Forest which was supposed to be our access point for Kanab Creek. We drove down a dirt road for a while before it got super rutty and then we ran into a spot where the creek had decided the road was the best place to flow.
We took one look at the road and said, no thanks. We thought about walking the road to access Kanab Creek, but it turned out to be something that wasn't going to work. So we drove back to Fredonia to think of a new plan. This new plan would be to hike Thunder River - Deer Creek trail on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This required us to drive all the way out to the North Rim to get a permit. Luckily we were able to get a permit.
We ran into Steve Bridgehouse there who had worked at Grand Canyon many years ago. He hooked us up with a permit, but unfortunately made us pay even though we were fellow park rangers. We then had to drive a bunch more forest service roads until finally getting to the trailhead around 4:30 p.m. This would still give us the time to do some hiking. We were not the only ones starting out this late. There was a guided group that we were just flying by. They warned us of a difficult spot near the top but we were able to downclimb it with ease. We were only going halfway down and would camp on the Esplanade. We found an excellent spot near a side canyon with some water access and a good flat spot for a tent. We set up camp with the fantastic views that are a constant feature of Grand Canyon trips to enjoy. We woke early the next day to get a full hike in.
We learned from Steve Bridgehouse that there was a trail of use between Thunder River and Deer Creek down near the river giving us the chance to connect the two together. We talked about it and since Dad had been to both spots, he was not ambitious enough to do that big of a hike to see something that he had already seen. So he planned to just hike with me down to Thunder River and then he would go back up to the campsite.
 The beginning of the hike started with some flat along the Esplanade and then dropping down onto another flat plain below. We saw a group of hikers coming up out of there that looked just like a classic Grand Canyon couple completely unprepared. We cut to the west once down onto the next plateau. We followed that plateau to the edge until it dropped down below into Thunder River. The spring coming out of the wall was quite impressive with green cottonwoods below it.
 We made it down to the water and then Dad and I parted ways. I was really moving after this. I don't know if it is the pace of a 62 year old that gets me ready to move or if I just was in good shape and feeling good, but I was flying. This was an excellent part of this hike as I ran into a group of campers staying in one of the camping areas. I talked to them for a bit. They were a retired couple from Connecticut. They were slightly concerned about the river crossings down below. I did not have any trouble with them, though. The canyon was nice with big walls and lots of vegetation common of wet Grand Canyon side canyons. I ran into a river trip group hiking up. They were semi friendly in a way but they reminded me of other river trips where they felt superior to mere hikers.

 Eventually I made it to where I had a viewpoint of the river. Unfortunately, I had forgot to take the route description with me that told me how to get to the trail across to Deer Creek. I figured it had to be rather self explanatory. I was dismayed to find the route to be really steep and exposed to start out. I was questioning my decision making being out at this place by myself. There were quite a few spots where one misstep could mean a 500 to 1000 foot drop into the river below. I eventually made it around the corner to find a steep hill. There was no discernible trail, but I figured that going down to the river could really only be the logical choice at this stage. So I picked my way down sometimes stirring up some loose rock. I could tell that this was not a common route.

 I ran into a few dead ends and had to make some different decisions on the hot, dark rock to finally get my way into the side canyon that led right down to the Colorado. I enjoyed a quick dip in the cold river to cool myself after the hot hike at the bottom of the canyon. After this point, the trail was rather easy to find and I could tell to my relief that I was in the right spot. It still was not easy as I climbed up and over a hill that dropped me into Deer Creek. Once I hit Deer Creek, I knew that there was a large waterfall, but I was at a very small waterfall. So I continued downstream. I knew that the canyon itself would not be my trail because it was a deep slot canyon with cold water flowing through it.

 I walked the rim of this deep canyon on the right side. There were a few points where I could have taken a tumble into the canyon but nothing too super sketchy. I came out around the corner and had to take a hot steep trail back down to the Colorado River, then walk back up to Deer Creek Falls. It was huge and definitely worth the hike. I am glad I got to see it. At first, I had it to  myself, then 3 river runners showed up for a swim.I took the opportunity to sit down, have some lunch, and fill my water bottles back up. Then it was back up the hot hill. I made it back to where the trail from Thunder River hit Deer Creek. I jumped in under the waterfall here to cool myself off for the hot hike. I followed Deer Creek for some time before ending up climbing out of the creek and up the hill. I ran into a couple of clueless guided groups which made me happy we did not have commercial guiding in the wilderness at Zion.

I went past one more small waterfall before just going uphill through the more flat, plateau country. I ran into the junction with the Thunder Creek trail after hiking up and talking to a few more groups. Then it was back up the steep hill and what seemed like a much longer hike on the flats of the Esplanade above before getting back to the campsite. It was definitely dinner time by this point. Dad had told me that he had barely got in only a short time before I showed up. He said he just did not have much energy going up the hill. So it was probably a good thing that he didn't try to put in a bunch of miles like I put in. We enjoyed dinner and an excellent sunset before getting some rest to wake in the morning and hike out.

We got ourselves moving before the sun hit us and it stayed off of us for most of the morning until we were nearly out of the Canyon. It was a couple hour drive back where we would take one rest day before driving out to Las Vegas to go hike to the top of Mt. Charleston.

The Lake is Full

Seth and I have done Mystery Canyon at least a couple of times, so typically I would not blog about it because I have been there often enough. But this trip was a little different. The point of the trip was to do some monitoring on the slope into Mystery. After we got the measuring done, it was time to go through the canyon. We did the first few series of rappels without any issues moving through rappel after rappel in the narrowest of sections. Then we got to a rappel that was usually a short drop, but strange enough it had completely washed out. Now the anchor was well above our heads, but the rappel was not a rather simple down climb. We got to the nice open dry lake bed, well usually dry lake bed only to find this dry lake bed filled with murky water.

 There had been quite a bit of precipitation lately and I guess those afternoon thunderstorms had flooded Mystery Canyon nice and full of rainwater. Now this usually dry sandy spot was now a large lake. We started out just wading and then realized that even that was not going to work. It became deeper and deeper until we were finally swimming. Not expecting that much water, I was dumb enough to leave my dry bag unsealed, so everything in my pack got soaked. Smooth move Drake.
 After the lake, we climbed up the slightly less steep hill and then back down into the canyon. We saw a black widow and a lizard with a bug in it's mouth after that to mix things up a little bit. Just a few rappels later we were exiting into the Narrows. We were very happy to have something new on a canyon that we had done many times before.