There was only one catch: there's no water on Powell Plateau. Which meant we'd have to haul in all of our water for the entirety of our trip. Tom figured we'd need about 28 quarts per person (six quarts per day, a little less for the last day), which works out to 56 lbs; add another 30 lbs or so for food and gear, and we're looking at a total weight of 85+ lbs, which is pretty intimidating. Tom explained that we'd be "double-tripping", at least initially: i.e., carrying part of the load over, then coming back to retrieve the rest. Up until now I had just implicitly assumed that all I could take on a backpacking trip was what I could haul along on my back; the idea of double-tripping came as a revelation that opened up all sorts of interesting possibilities.
We got to the trailhead at Swamp Point around 3:30pm. This gave us about 4-5 hours of daylight, enough time to haul some of our water across Muav Canyon over to Powell Plateau (down 800 feet to Muav Saddle, then up 900 feet to the Plateau). I started out with about 50 lbs on my back; Tom's pack was a few pounds heavier. Between the 7000+ feet elevation, strong sun and midsummer heat, and the poundage accumulated since our last Grand Canyon hike, we found ourselves huffing and puffing a bit more than we had expected. Hmm. We took it slow and got back to the trailhead a little after dark (there was plenty of moonlight so we didn't need our headlamps).
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| Swamp Point | Muav Canyon |
Day 1. Up early, around 4:30; on the trail by 6:30. The forecast was for hot dry weather with no rain, so I decided to save some weight by leaving my tent and rain-jacket behind (I'd come to regret this on the last night of the trip). This time my pack came in at around 56 lbs. After a delightful hike across Muav Canyon in the early-morning cool, we pushed on about 1½ miles beyond our water stash from the previous evening. We were not in a rush, and by the time (after sitting around for a bit) we retrieved the rest of our water from the previous day, the sun was pretty high in the sky and it was warm! I was still having issues with the heat, so we decided to stay where we were and not go any further. Overall we had hiked about 6.5 miles. The rest of the day was spent lying around in the shade of tall pine trees; our most intense activity was scooting over every so often as the shade moved with the sun.
Day 2. Up and out early. The plan was to move the camp a couple of miles further down towards the center of the Plateau and visit Dutton Point. To reduce the total travel distance a little we took a roughly triangular route: Camp 1 to Camp 2 (first installment of gear); Camp 2 to Dutton Point; Dutton Point to Camp 1; and Camp 1 to Camp 2 (second installment of gear).
The day started out delightfully cool but warmed up quickly. The terrain was mostly very-gently-sloping pine forest split by the occasional brush-choked ravine. The hiking was pleasant except for some seriously heavy bushwhacking, through thick stands of manzanita, young oak trees, and locust bush, when getting across Dutton Canyon. The view at Dutton Point was breathtaking: the huge panorama of Grand Canyon stretched out before us with the tongue of Dutton Point sticking out into it, high steep cliffs to our right, and the Colorado a dim little ribbon far below. But it was almost noon and the sun was blazing down on us, so after a quick lunch in the shade of a nearby pine tree, we continued towards Camp 1. This portion of the hike was during the hottest part of the day, and was it hot! We took cover in the shade as soon as we got to Camp 1, and sat around until it cooled off a little before loading up and heading back to Camp 2. Altogether we hiked about ten miles this day.
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| Dutton Point | Dutton Point |
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| Bed with a view | Estivating |
Day 3. A wasted day. I woke up feeling sluggish and tired, had trouble pushing breakfast down, blamed it all on the heat and—not wanting to run into problems hours into a hike—suggested to Tom that I take a rest day at camp. Tom decided to hike out to Wheeler Point. About ten minutes after he left I realized that I wasn't feeling all that bad after all, and was kicking myself for staying back. Ah well. I spent part of the morning on a short hike to the edge of the Plateau, then basically took cover in the shade. Tom returned in the early afternoon and we spent the rest of the day lying around like lazy lizards.
While the days were hot, the evenings were lovely. The sun set around 7:30-ish, and I typically went to bed around 8 as the pine trees slowly turned into silhouettes and gradually blended into the darkening sky. A few bats might dart about, and occasionally a nighthawk swooshed by. At some point the moon would rise, a big bright spotlight shining through the treetops. Later, after moonset, the inky sky would be covered with a billion glittering stars. The view was the loveliest in the world.
Day 4. Up at 4, on the trail by 5:40. We hiked a counterclockwise loop hitting the "Points" along the western rim of Powell Plateau: Newberry, Thompson, Beale, and Ives (see map above). The terrain sloped very gently NE-to-SW, and when we come to the occasional ravine Tom almost always managed to find a way across without frontal combat with the vegetation. (By contrast, I—either due to impatience or insecurity—would tend to plunge in headfirst no matter what, then spend a whole bunch of energy flailing and thrashing among the brush.)
The views were, to understate considerably, stunning. The vistas opened up as we moved south, until at Beale and Ives it felt as though we were suspended above the Canyon. Grand Canyon looks very different from here: the near side of the Canyon is dominated by vast sweeping terraces on the Esplanade with unfamiliar Conquistador names: Tobar, Alarcon, Garces. The Colorado river seems an afterthought, a tiny ribbon in the distance.
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| Vista: Newberry Point | Vista: Thompson Point |
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| Vista: Beale Point | Vista: Ives Point |
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| Prehistoric ruins | Prehistoric ruins |
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| Potsherd | Potsherd |
Some dark threatening-looking clouds had rolled in during the day, and although some of them were streaming sheets of virga, we didn't get any real rain. The shade they gave was a huge help. The clouds eventually dissipated towards eveing, but later in the night I awoke to the gentle touch of a light on-again-off-again drizzle. My tent, of course, was back in the truck at the trailhead! I learned this night that "Raindrops keep falling on my head" is not conducive to sleep; and also that Grand Canyon weather shouldn't be taken for granted no matter what the forecasts say, especially during the monsoon season.
Day 5. The usual up-and-hiking-early routine, but heading out this time: extra water dumped, packs much lighter than when we came in. An intermittent drizzle accelerated our early-morning routine and we were on the trail by 5:30. Mercifully the weather held, and the overcast actually made for a delightful hike. We were back at the trailhead around 10:30ish.
As we drove out, we saw a lot of wildfire-related activity related to the smoke we saw on the way in ("the Fuller fire"): crew camps, Park Service vehicles, people clearing brush, parked helicopters. We got pounded by some very heavy rain on the drive back. I was glad that the rain would help the firefighters, and also very glad that we got out before the rain hit.
Some pictures from this hike are available here.
Critters
We didn't see a whole lot of critters: a few lizards and jackrabbits, and bats and various birds. Not all that surprising considering the lack of available water. Oh, and one very pissed-off rattler. Three different kinds of ants (S, M, L). Beale and Ives Points each had a little stone tower decorated with deer antlers, and we saw some deer droppings and deer bones. Interestingly, there were also plenty of signs that the place is visited by bison (aka "buffalo"): piles of droppings, hoofprints in dried mud (much too big for cows), and coarse hair that Tom spotted snagged on the side of a tree where the animal may have stopped to scratch itself. It's possible that the bison wander up the trail in the springtime, when melting snow provides water and there's plenty of new growth to munch on.
This and That
The soil on Powell Plateau is rocky and hard! At the end of our five days there, I found the tip of my toilet-digging utensil bent from the struggle. Tom found a creative way to get a head start on this: he enlarged a buffalo-hoof-print. I wish I'd thought of that!
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