Grand Canyon (Thunder River/Deer Creek Trail): Dec 2017

At the beginning of December 2017, Tom and I spent a week on a leisurely backpack of the Thunder River/Deer Creek trail, of which the National Park Service's description says:

"...booming streams of crystalline water emerge from mysterious caves to transform the harsh desert of the inner canyon into absurdly beautiful green oasis replete with the music of water falling into cool pools."

It turned out that this praise was not exaggerated (except that we got to the oases just as the cottonwoods were putting on their fall foliage of brilliant gold).   It was an amazing trip.

Day 0: Getting There

We threw our gear into the back of Tom's truck and hit the road just after 5 on a Saturday morning.  Traffic on the interstate was light and we made good progress, getting to Jacob Lake around noon.  There had been something in the news about an upcoming seasonal closure of Highway 67 (the road from Jacob Lake to the Canyon rim), but we were eager to get to the trailhead and didn't pay this much attention.

When we got to the Bill Hall trailhead around 3:30 we were the only ones there.  Once camp was set up there wasn't a lot to do: we strolled the initial ¾-mile portion of the trail to the edge of Monument Point, texted pictures of the expansive vista to friends and family (somehow there was just enough of a faint signal to let them get through), walked back to camp.  The temperature dropped quickly once the sun dropped below the horizon.  The weather forecasts we had seen called for a cold night (mid-teens °F, i.e., about -10°C), so we had a quick early dinner and turned in shortly after sunset; I was asleep long before 7.  It seemed unexpectedly warm the few times I woke up during the night, but I assumed that was just all the extra-heavy layers I had on.

Day 1: Canyon Rim to Deer Creek Campground

Up at 4:30 am.   It was surprisingly warm, and according to the thermometer the temperature had barely grazed freezing overnight --- presumably because of clouds that had rolled in during the evening.  This led to some hurried reevaluation what to pack for the hike. I ended up deciding to travel light, a decision I'd come to regret.

We had a long day's hike scheduled --- about 10 miles, with a net elevation change of about 5000 feet --- which argued for getting started early.  It was still dark when (after popping some ibuprofen to keep my knees quiet) we hit the trail at 6:30.  The sky gradually lightened as we hiked up towards Monument Point, and we were able to turn off our headlamps by the time we dropped over the edge of the Canyon rim.

 This trail demands early commitment.  In the first 0.4 miles after Monument Point it plunges about 700 feet (from 7200′ to about 6500′) through the Kaibab and Toroweap formations, with the occasional half-hearted nod to switchbacking but mostly just heading straight down.   It then contours north for a little over half a mile, after which a series of steep switchbacks  through the Coconino layer drops another 500 feet over roughly a quarter of a mile (down to about 6000′).  Things ease up somewhat after that, descending 600′ over the next ¾ mile or so  to the junction with the Thunder River Trail at 5400′.  The junction is at the edge of the Esplanade, which is a large flat(ish) area of red sandstone that forms the top of the Supai formation, and for the next four miles or so the hike is a pleasant meandering saunter through gorgeous scenery.  While the trail is faintly visible through parts of this section, much of it is bare rock that doesn't show or retain footprints and the only indication of where the trail lies is a sequence of cairns ("ducks").  The Park Service's trail description advises: "Try to locate the next cairn before the last one is lost from view."  Getting lost here would not be fun.

Hiking along the Esplanade was delightful.  The trail wasn't difficult to follow: the ducks were pretty conspicuous, and there were stretches where I think there were too many of them.  The air was nice and cool, and the warmth of the sunshine very enjoyable.  We set a relaxed pace, stopping a couple of times to have a snack and enjoy the scenery, and came to the descent through the Redwall about noonish.  This was another steep descent, through a series of steep and rocky switchbacks, that lost us another 800 feet over about ¾ mile and put us at the top corner of Surprise Valley.

Surprise Valley looks placid and unremarkable, but it's been the scene of a lot of geologic action.  It was formed by a rotational landslide and is the largest landslide complex in the Grand Canyon, "filled with landslide debris of varying age ... and may contain over 1 cubic mile of displaced debris."  The area gets brutally hot in the summer --- and, of course, there's no water --- and losing the trail can be fatal.  Fortunately for us, our late-season hike meant that heat was not an issue.

The trail split soon after we got down to Surprise Valley.  We headed right towards Deer Creek (in just a few days we'd be coming back up the other fork on our return from Thunder River).  The trail headed southwest and then west, skirting the western edge of Surprise Valley and then heading in the direction of Deer Creek, gradually losing elevation.  The hiking wasn't too challenging, but we'd been on the trail for over seven hours by now, and I was beginning to get tired.  At one point we came across a little flat area off the trail and it was very tempting to stop and make camp... we sat and rested for a little while, after which it seemed just a little bit easier to put the pack back on and keep hiking.

After a while the trail began a steep descent into Deer Canyon.  I could see the lush growth of cottonwoods below me, resplendent in bright golden fall colors.  The descent wasn't easy: between the steep, loose, rocky trail, the higher center of gravity from the pack on my back, and my fatigued state, it would have been all too easy to mis-step and take a tumble; and a turned ankle here would be problematic.  So it was the familiar drill of focusing on the trail one step and one switchback at a time, paying careful attention to my footing, until eventually the trail flattened out and we found ourselves at Deer Creek.  Soon after that we were at the campground.  It felt good to take the pack off.

We were the only hikers there and had our choice of campsites; we chose a good-sized site, in the shade of some large cottonwood trees, just yards from the rushing creek; a couple of fallen tree trunks that marked the edge of the campsite provided convenient seating and/or leaning and/or shelf to put gear on.  We sat and rested and relaxed for a while: there were lots of flies around for some reason, but we were too tired to care much.  A few rafters, who had camped by the Colorado river not far from us, hiked by.  The sun sank below the cliffs to the west and the day began to cool.  We had dinner before it got dark and turned in early.  The creek rushing by our campsite was our lullaby, and I think I was asleep before 7 pm.  I vaguely remember the tent shaking and swaying under some strong gusting winds that night, but eventually that passed and the night was still.

Day 2: Exploring Deer Creek

This was a "rest day", meaning we didn't have to hurry up to break camp and rush off somewhere.  We could stay in our sleeping bags as long as we wanted to (modulo demands of nature)!  We could procrastinate without guilt! It felt wonderfully decadent.

Sunshine arrives late in the morning deep in the Canyon.  This is welcome when hiking in the warm season, but gives an excuse to delay when it's cold out.  Sunlight was creeping down the cliffs above our camp by the time when we headed down the trail.  A little way downstream was the Patio, where the rock ledge beside the creek widened into a little platform nestled between high vertical cliffs on either side, the creek splashing down a little waterfall as it began cutting deeper into the rock.  The creek bed deepened rapidly into the serpentine slot of the Narrows, the trail a narrow six-inch ledge clinging precariously to the cliff wall above (I'd initially thought that we'd be hiking that way with our packs on the next day, a prospect that scared me).  It was an amazing place!  The Narrows deepened until we couldn't see the bottom any more, just a dark slash writhing through the rock, the narrow canyon echoing with the roar of the creek rushing unseen below us.

Eventually the canyon widened and we found ourselves blinking in the bright sunlight at the edge of a cliff a couple of hundred feet above the Colorado river.  A rafting party --- presumably some of the people we had seen the day before --- was packing up on the far bank, little ants scurrying about their beach far below us.  We sat quietly for a while, listening to the river and enjoying the sunshine, scenery and solitude.

The sound one hears, standing on the cliffside trail above the Colorado, is that of the river rushing by below.  As we headed back into Deer Canyon, the sound of the river gradually fell away while that of Deer Creek, echoing off the canyon walls, grew louder.  It was pretty cool to pause at the spot where the two balanced: a step forward and the creek dominated, a step back and the river was louder.

At one point on the way back, while Tom was sitting on a rock by the Patio and I was off a short distance away taking pictures, I glanced up and saw a bighorn sheep walking up to drink from the creek close to Tom.  I tried to creep up closer to it to get some pictures, but it must have seen me move because it vanished.  But it turned out that there was another sheep standing on a boulder nearby, and this one held its pose for a long instant, silhouetted against the brightly-lit cottonwoods behind it, before it, too, trotted away.  This was the closest I'd been to bighorn sheep in the Grand Canyon, and it was definitely a treat.  Later, when exploring the hillside near our campsite, we came across fresh bighorn tracks and droppings, likely from the same animals.


Later that afternoon we went back past the Patio and the Narrows and followed the trail down to the Colorado and to Deer Creek Falls.  This magnificent waterfall, 180 feet high, marks the end of Deer Creek's journey to the Colorado.  The rocks flanking it are covered with orange-brown travertine deposited by its spray, and on either side of the cascading water there's a narrow band of lush green vegetation, a few feet wide, reveling in the micro-climate created by the spray, a stark contrast with the bare brown rock all around.








The rest of the afternoon was lazy.  There weren't any rafters wandering through the campground today so we had the place entirely to ourselves.  We were content to mostly sit around and work on our alcohol (a pint of Drambuie, a quart of excellent tequila) and the absolutely delicious dessert that Linden had baked and which Tom had graciously hauled across ten miles and five thousand vertical feel of trail.  Life was good.

The evening, predictably, was abbreviated.  It began to turn cold soon after the canyon bottom lost sunlight.  We had an early dinner and I was inside my sleeping bag by 6:30.

Day 3: Deer Creek to Lower Tapeats Creek

We needed to move our camp to Lower Tapeats Creek today, but this was only some three miles away, on a relatively straightforward trail, so we didn't expect the hike to take a lot of time.  This left us plenty of time to wander around and explore before we had to pack up and head out.

Crawling out of the reeds

After a pleasantly relaxed start, we spent part of the morning exploring Deer Creek upstream.  There wasn't much of a trail to follow beyond the "main" trail from Surprise Valley, just some occasional footprints in the dirt to show that other hikers had been that way.  Soon after that, the creek veered away from the canyon (or, more accurately, joined the canyon from a side) and disappeared into a dense wall of reeds.  The canyon turned into a dry mass of boulders above this point.  We went up a little ways but soon turned around.  Tom crawled into the reeds to try and follow the creek upstream, but he wasn't able to penetrate very far.  So we decided to head back to camp and finish packing up.

The trail to Tapeats Creek headed east, crossing Deer Creek and climbing a couple of hundred feet to a saddle and then heading generally south-east, more or less following the river upstream.  The temperature was perfect for hiking: not too warm, not too cold.  The trail stayed above the cliffs beside the river until about halfway to our destination at Lower Tapeats Creek, then dropped down to river level.  The second half of the hike alternated between soft dry sand (which can be an effort to hike on) and harsh black Vishnu Schist bedrock.  At one notable point the trail went straight up a nearly vertical 20 foot section of rock: it was a fun little fingers-and-toes scramble for us, but would be a bit of a hairy descent for hikers going the other way.

We reached the Lower Tapeats Creek "campground", tucked in the elbow where the creek flows into the Colorado, in the late afternoon.  As on previous days, we had the place to ourselves, dinner was early, and we didn't stay up long after.

Days 4 and 5: Upper Tapeats Creek

Day 4 was a short-hike day: two miles up Tapeats Creek and a net elevation gain of 450 feet, to get from the Lower Tapeats Creek campground to the Upper Tapeats Creek campground.  The commonly taken trail crosses the creek a couple of times, but the creek had enough of a healthy flow, and mindful that two hikers had been swept away in Tapeats Creek earlier in the year, we decided against trying creek crossings.  Instead, we stayed to the west of the creek, on a trail that the Park Service describes as "a sketchy, seldom used trail ... narrow and exposed ... should be used only as a last resort", but which didn't seem any worse than most Grand Canyon trails.  

The weather was perfect, the sunshine pleasant, the scenery gorgeous.  We reached the Upper Tapeats Creek campground in the early afternoon.  Our campsite was right beside the creek, which was bordered by thick stands of cottonwood resplendent in golden fall colors.  We spent the afternoon relaxing, enjoying the scenery, and reducing the weight of tequila and drambuie we'd have to backpack out.

The next day (Day 5) was likewise a pleasant and relaxed day.  We hiked up the trail to where Thunder River erupted out of the cliff wall in a huge waterfall.  Thunder River is the world's shortest (and possibly steepest) river, dropping some 1200 feet over its ½ mile length in a series of cascades big and small.

Our first glimpse of Thunder River spring, as we came around a bend in the trail, was amazing: white tendrils of water snaking in and out and through a thick clump of lush green-and-gold cottonwoods plunked down improbably in the middle of a cliff face.  The trees grew larger as we drew closer, the tendrils thickening into water cascading noisily down the rocks.  The trail to the spring split off from the main trail, a little below where the spring comes out of the rock, and climbed a short distance to just below the spring.  Tom and I sat there in the warmth of the weak winter sunshine, enjoying the solitude and the hypnotic roar of rushing water.  A couple of hours flashed by, then we roused ourselves and headed back campward.  Soon after we came to the main trail heading down, we came upon a party of rafters hiking up to the waterfall---so we had timed it right, because the solitude we had enjoyed was about to disappear.

The hike back to camp was uneventful, and the afternoon was quiet and relaxed.  The levels of our tequila and drambuie dropped further.

Day 6: Upper Tapeats Creek to the Esplanade

We aimed to cover about 4½ miles today, starting at an elevation of 2,400 feet and ending at about 5,200 feet, for a net climb of about 2800 feet.  Our packs were heavier than the last few days because of the need to carry water for the dry camp on the Esplanade, though the weather was cool enough that we could get by without having to haul a lot of water: we figured we wouldn't need more than a couple of quarts for the hike to the rim, plus a couple of quarts for the night and the next morning, for a total of four quarts.

The hike up Thunder River was just as enjoyable as the day before.  The trail climbed another 400 feet or so before flattening out at Surprise Valley.  A pair of condors circled high above us, the white of their underwing markings stark against their black silhouettes.  The 2½ mile walk through Surprise Valley was pleasant and relaxed, and after a brief stop for lunch at the junction with Deer Creek Trail at the top of Surprise Valley we started our climb through the Redwall.  This was steep and rocky and had us huffing and puffing, as one would expect of any climb through the Redwall, but otherwise uneventful.  Shortly after we got to the Esplanade, we found a flat area near the trail that was large enough to accommodate our tents and decided that we'd found our campsite.

Our camp was at quite a bit higher elevation than on the previous nights, and the temperatures correspondingly lower.  I lay awake in my sleeping bag for long stretches in the middle of the night, cold despite all the layers of clothing, feeling the numbness in my toes, and wishing I had brought my long johns along.

Day 7: Hiking out: The Esplanade back to Monument Point

The morning was cold, at least for us low-desert dwellers, and my fingers were numb as I went about breaking down camp and packing up my gear.  The packs were at their lightest of the entire trip: most of the food was gone (though not all, sadly—I had over-packed and would be hauling out the excess), and the cool weather had greatly reduced our water needs.  I marveled at how effortless the act of putting on the pack seemed.

The trail was well-marked and pretty easy to follow.  The stretch across the Esplanade was a nice relaxing walk across flat terrain, but it began to climb steeply soon after the intersection of the Thunder River and Bill Hall trails: a series of steep switchbacks through the Coconino sandstone, then about half a mile of contouring, then a final push through the Toroweap and Kaibab layers that climbed 700 feet in less than half a mile.  We climbed over the edge of the rim a little after 1pm, dropped our packs gratefully, and sat down to rest and catch our breath.

Epilogue

The ¾ mile walk back from Monument Point to the trailhead was quick and unremarkable stroll after the hike up to Monument Point.  We changed out of our sweaty-smelly hiking clothes as soon as we got to the truck, threw our packs into the back of the truck, and as soon as we could, headed back towards Jacob Lake.

It's about a couple of hours drive from the trailhead back to Jacob Lake, first on rough dirt roads and then on blacktop, and it feels even longer when one is tired and hungry.  We were almost at Jacob Lake when we came upon a locked gate blocking the road.  State Route 67, from Jacob Lake south towards the Grand Canyon, was closed for the winter!

This was a problem.  Our only option for getting out was to go back the way we had come and then take a Forest Service road to Fredonia.  This was a long detour, and we weren't sure the truck had enough gas to make it all the way; given the remoteness of the area and sparseness of traffic, this was a real concern.  Also, we were tired and the prospect of a long detour wasn't appealing.  But the locked gate across the road in front of us didn't leave us any other choice but to turn around.  We headed back in disappointed silence.

We hadn't been driving for long before we came up on a truck with a cut fir --- a Christmas tree --- strapped down in its bed.  It pulled off to the side to turn off onto a Forest Service road; we barreled on.  Then a few minutes later we a couple of trucks went by in the other direction, towards the locked gate that had turned us back, and these too were carrying cut trees.  This seemed odd --- these had to be locals, and wasn't the road closed in that direction?  Then Tom suddenly realized what it meant: we hurriedly grabbed his map of Forest Service roads, and sure enough there was a way to go around the locked gate.  It was a long detour, but nowhere near as long as if we'd had to drive all the way to Fredonia and then back.  We reached Jacob Lake a couple of hours later, and after a nice warm delicious greasy dinner we headed back home.