Grand Canyon (Utah Flats/Phantom Canyon): March 2024

In early March 2024 Layne, Tom, and I spent most of the week of Spring Break backpacking in Grand Canyon on a trip spanning the gamut from near-glamping comfort to white-knuckled difficulty.  Some things worked as expected, others unexpectedly did not; but in the end a good time was had by all. 

Prologue: The hike that didn't happen 

Our original plan was to hike the Royal Arch Route, a challenging hike in a beautiful but remote part of Grand Canyon far to the west of the busy central area. I had done this hike once before, with Tom and Larry, and had always wanted to go back. On this trip, we planned to enter via the shorter but harder Point Huitzil Route, which none of us had hiked previously.

We drove up on March 1.  Despite a wetter-than-normal February, the dirt road to the trailhead was in much better condition than I had expected.  The road passes through a section of the Havasupai Reservation, which was closed due to the Covid pandemic, so we parked on National Forest land outside the Reservation, several miles from the park boundary, and set out on foot towards the Rim.  Our packs, loaded with rappelling gear, food for nine days, and water for an overnight dry camp, weighed in at over 40 lbs.  The terrain was mostly flat with scattered brush and junipers, and the dry ground made for easy and pleasant hiking.  After a brief stop at an old abandoned Ranger Station we made camp in a wooded area about a quarter mile from the Rim.

Abandoned ranger station

Our campsite the first day

We were on the trail by 7 the next morning.  Once we dropped down below the Rim, the trail grew rugged and descended rapidly.  Partway through the Coconino Sandstone layer the "trail" ended abruptly at the top of a smooth vertical wall: a pile of stepping stones at the bottom indicated that we had to get down this wall, and the only way to do so was by lowering ourselves down off a precarious handhold at the top.  We then found ourselves on a steeply sloping expanse of smooth sandstone with a high vertical cliff above us on one side and a high vertical cliff below us on the other.  To make things interesting, a cold wind had picked up and was  gusting hard and swirling unpredictably—the weather forecast had an advisory for wind speeds over 50 mph—and threatening to knock us off balance.  At one point a gust hit my backpack, which was lying on the rock, and almost blew it over the edge of the cliff before Tom grabbed it.  

The "trail": steep

The "trail": steeper

Layne sheltering from the wind

A fossil lying on the trail

We found ourselves stuck: there were some ducks (small cairns) nearby but, try as we might, we couldn't find a way forward.  We thrashed around for a while, including downclimbing a crack in the rock face and lowering our packs with ropes, then turning around and climbing back up after yet another futile search for a way to make progress.  Eventually, faced with increasing fatigue and no obvious way forward, we abandoned the hike and headed back up the trail.  Hauling our heavy packs up the steep trail was tiring, and we still had a long walk back to where the truck was parked.  We were pretty exhausted at the end of this effort and well behind the schedule on our permit, so we drove back to Tom's cabin at Valle to rest and recuperate for a day.

We drove up to the GCNP Backcountry Information Center the next day and, to our delighted surprise, the Ranger we spoke to agreed to modify our permit (as opposed to charging us for a new one) for a six-day trip to Utah Flats and Phantom Canyon. Not surprisingly, there were no vacancies at Bright Angel Campground, which meant that on the first day we would have to hike all the way down to the bottom and then hike back up over a thousand vertical feet to camp at Utah Flats, then reverse this on our last day.  Those would be long days, but still we were happy and excited as we drove back to the cabin to get our gear and supplies ready for the hike.

Day 1: Rim to Phantom Ranch

We started down South Kaibab Trail around 7.  The trail was nice and dry, the sky cloudy and overcast with a wickedly cold wind blowing.  At one point a pair of condors, huge and magnificent and graceful, floated by.   The trail, which we had had pretty much to ourselves when starting out, gradually became more crowded, but as the morning wore on the thick heavy clouds dissipated and the wind died down, making for very pleasant hiking.  

There was quite a bit of trail maintenance going on—something that I hadn't encountered on previous hikes down this trail and hadn't really thought about.  The problem is that the parts that most in need of repair tend to be in steep sections, typically with sharp switchbacks, and there's no easy way to haul rocks and gravel there.  We saw two ways this was being done: in one section little motorized wheelbarrows were being used to bring crushed and broken rocks to be dumped on damaged parts of the trail; in another portion of the trail, which was too rough for the wheelbarrows, the crushed rock was brought by mules.  It seemed slow hard work, constantly interrupted by hikers heading up or down the trail.  

We reached the Colorado around 12:30 and walked over to Phantom Ranch, where we sat in the shade by the canteen, relaxed, and had lunch.  None of us was feeling particularly eager to jump on the steep 1,500-ft climb up to Utah Flats, and it was really pleasant to laze in the warm sunshine, so we procrastinated and procrastinated.  At some point, on a whim, we asked about the availability of cabins and found that there was in fact a cabin available for the night.  We decided to take the cabin and soak up all the creature comforts that suddenly became available to us (hot showers! comfortable beds!!).  Dinner was at a picnic table on a patio behind the cabin, with Bright Angel Creek burbling softly just a few yards away.  A family of four deer, completely unafraid of us, wandered by as we ate.  It was a delightfully relaxing evening.  We agreed, somewhat reluctantly, that maybe the occasional bit of glamping wasn't that bad after all!

Glamping

Day 2: Piano Alley, Utah Flats, and Phantom Canyon

The trail to Piano Alley and Utah Flats starts at the very edge of Bright Angel Campground and almost immediately heads straight up a loose rocky slope, gaining 900 vertical feet over a distance of about 1/3 mile. This brings us to a saddle where the slope eases to merely "very steep", gaining 400 vertical feet over the next 0.2 miles to reach the mess of massive house-sized boulders that give Piano Alley its name (from a distance they look like a bunch of grand pianos lying on the ground).  The boulders bunch together as we get higher until at the top there's just one big crazy jumble of giant boulders that one has to scramble over.

The hike up to Piano Alley

We got on the trail at 7:30 and made our way up slowly and carefully.  Conditions were delightful: the warmth of the early-spring sunshine just about offset the cool air temperature, and once we were done with the slog up Piano Alley the trail across Utah Flats was pretty level and mellow.  Tiny little plants were beginning to put out tinier little flowers, bright little dots of cheery optimism in an otherwise arid landscape.  

The hike to Phantom Canyon

Once away from Phantom Ranch we saw only one hiker through the rest of the day: someone who worked in GCNP and was day hiking over to Haunted Canyon on his day off. He stopped and chatted with us briefly before heading off.  The silence and solitude was a wonderful contrast to the crowds and congestion of South Kaibab Trail and Phantom Ranch yesterday.

Eventually, at a point below Isis Saddle, the trail dropped down into Phantom Canyon.  We picked our way carefully down the steep loose rocky slope.  Once we reached the bottom we headed upstream.  The trail quickly grew faint, then disappeared (or maybe we lost it), leaving us to bushwhack our way.  We reached the Overhang, our camp spot, around 4 pm.  

Days 3 and 4: Phantom Canyon Camp

Lazy days!  There was no pressure to get out and on the trail early, and it was delightfully decadent to be able to lie in the warm comfort of my sleeping bag as the darkness faded and the world outside my tent gradually grew light.  We had an unhurried morning and eventually started hiking upstream. 

After a while Tom began feeling a bit under the weather and headed back to camp, and Layne and I decided to hike up Haunted Canyon.  Even this remote area wasn't immune to trash blowing in: we came across the remains of two large mylar "Happy Birthday" balloons that we brought out. The steep loose bouldery brushy terrain made for hard bushwhacking, and after going a short distance we decided it wasn't all that much fun and turned around.  The rest of the day was spent lazing around camp. 

Views from Phantom Canyon

The Canyon was right at the cusp between winter and spring at the time of our hike.  Although there wasn't much snow at higher elevations nor rain lower down, but both Haunted Creek and Phantom Creek had a good amount of water.  The cottonwoods lining their banks were covered with buds, and although the branches looked skeletal and bare from a distance, they would be covered in bright new neon-green foliage within a week or two after our trip.  There were lots of bees flying around, with a steady low hum just barely audible over the burbling of the water, sipping from the tiny cottonwood flowers.  A raucous chorus of frogs sang their hearts out in the creek.  The entire landscape seemed to be thrumming with the promise of awakening.

Although our first day at camp had started out clear and sunny, thick gray clouds moved in as the day went on.  The sky was gray and overcast when we came out of our tents the next day, and by mid-morning it was drizzling.  None of us had any enthusiasm for bushwhacking in rain so we stayed in camp until the rain let up.  The sky cleared towards mid-afternoon, but at that point it was too late to do any interesting hiking so we stayed in camp, relaxed, played chess on Layne's portable set.  The day wound down and shortly after dinner we headed into our tents.

Days 5 and 6: The hike back

We packed up camp and were on the trail by 8.  The initial stretch is nice flat easy hiking along Phantom Creek, changing abruptly to a steep and rough uphill once we start climbing out of the canyon; plus, we'd had to bring extra water for a dry camp overnight on Utah Flats, so our packs were on the heavy side.  But the weather was perfect, with the sun just warm enough to make up for the cool of the air, and the hiking felt wonderful.

Once we were out of Phantom Canyon, Layne generously volunteered to run ahead and down to Bright Angel Campground to see whether there might be any vacancies.  Our permit had us camping at Utah Flats tonight, and it's a relatively short and easy hike to get there, that would mean a long and hard hike out the next day, with a 1500' (about 450 m) descent down a very steep and loose slope followed by a 4,700' (about 1400 m) climb out from the bottom of the Canyon; a campsite at Bright Angel Campground would balance the two days out a bit.  So Layne went ahead, and we very quickly lost sight of him.  Tom and I followed at a more sedate pace, enjoying the scenery as we retraced our steps back to Utah Flats.  

When we reached Utah Flats, Layne's backpack was on the ground at the top of the gully leading down to Piano Alley, where we had agreed he would meet us.  We wandered around and explored for a while, enjoying the sunshine.  Layne came back up around 2:30 -- an amazing pace considering the ruggedness and difficulty of the terrain he was covering -- with news that he had managed to get us a spot at Bright Angel Campground.  We were elated, and as soon as Layne had caught his breath and grabbed some lunch, we headed down towards the campground.

Utah Flats

The hike down Piano Alley was just as steep and loose and rocky as it had been going up, though the descent was more treacherous than the ascent because of the myriad little pebbles ready to roll under our feet like a million ball bearings.  It took us about two hours of slowly and carefully picking our way down before we reached flatland.  After thanking the park ranger profusely for letting us use the group site, we set up camp.  The evening was pleasant and relaxed, and after sitting around and admiring the brilliant display of stars above us for a while we headed into our tents.

It was still dark when Tom and I headed out just after 6 the next morning.  The plan was for Layne, who is a much faster hiker than us, to get a more relaxed start a bit later and catch up with us on the trail.  There were very few people on the trail at first, but more and more people joined in as the morning progressed.  Many people passed us; others, moving at roughly our speed, played leapfrog.  Layne caught up with us a little below Skeleton Point and we moved up the trail slowly but steadily.  The miles gradually fell away.  We reached the Rim in the early afternoon.