April 16-18, 2009
My friend Michael Dax came to the Canyon for a backpacking trip before he traveled to Yellowstone for the 2009 season. He was my roommate at the South Rim the previous year, in 2008.
We had several ideas for the trip. But when I went to the Backcountry Center to acquire the permit, I learned that all 3 of our proposed itineraries were impossibly booked. That was the day I learned that April is one of the most popular months for backpacking the Canyon.
The ranger there at the desk, Lon Ayers, searched for what he did have available on the desired dates. One of the choices was 2 consecutive nights in the Grapevine use area. Sold.
As I stood and filled out the paperwork, I questioned whether it was possible to get all the way down Grapevine Canyon to the Colorado River. Lon said yes, he’d done it years ago, and that he didn’t remember any technical climbing along the way.
He said near the mouth of Grapevine, it breaks away from the fault that created it (and coincides with Vishnu Canyon to north). Where Grapevine breaks away to the west, he said, it’s possible to scramble up and over the fault to the east to access the River at a place where rafting parties camp, upstream of the rapid. He said he and a friend had made it all the way down to a place where they could see the River from Grapevine proper, but were blocked from continuing down the watercourse due to pourovers. That’s the gist of the beta, but its fallible in two separate recollections (Lon’s and my own).
So armed with this information, Michael and I set out to camp for two nights at Grapevine. Our main goal was to reach the River. We did not succeed, but we had a lot of fun trying.
Here’s the breakdown of how it went:
- Day One: Grandview Trail to Grapevine Creek (12 miles)
- Day Two: Exploring Grapevine Creek (5 miles?)
- Day Three: Grapevine to Grandview Point (10 miles)
In an effort to downsize from my usual Nikon DSLR at the time, I purchased a Canon Powershot G10 for this hike. The photos came out well – especially with some different perspectives due to a more powerful zoom. I ultimately didn’t favor the camera, however, and went back to the DSLR.
Day One: Grandview to Grapevine
I imagine we set out from Grandview Point at our usual start time.
Our hikes tended to start at 10 in the morning – to the point that it became a running joke of ours. We’d dilly-dally in having breakfast, getting to the trailhead, and recovering from the previous night’s beers. When taking our first steps on the trail, we’d check our watches, and without fail it would be 10am.
The humor lies in the fact that it’s specifically not recommended to hike the Canyon between the hours of 10am and 4pm throughout the summer.
Since Grapevine Creek is only 10 miles from the trailhead, we decided to spend the day exploring the unnamed drainage that sits between Cottonwood Creek and Hance Creek. To get there, we took the spur trail that descends the Redwall off the northwest point of Horsheshoe Mesa.
We found this structure in the drainage. Normally I would not post about archaeological sites on this website – even under a password protected post – but I have it from a good source that this is not a prehistoric site. It rather seems to date to the time of modern pioneers.
With our curiosity satisfied in discovering the structure, we opted not to go to the very end of the drainage where it cliffs out to the River.
After circumnavigating the rim of Cottonwood Creek, we took in the views of the Inner Gorge from its west side. The scene was complete today with the presence of a rafting party on the water.
We noted the large cairn that marks the top of the “Old Grandview Trail.” I was hoping to have time to explore this old route down to the River, but we were out of time. I think we still lacked the confidence for such a steep off-trail endeavor, too.
Still, we had a nice time taking a moment to explore its upper reaches. We were rewarded for our efforts with epic views of the Inner Gorge.
It was a lengthy meander (as always) from the Tonto’s northernmost point to the place where it crosses the main arm of Grapevine, where we made camp.
see more photos from Day One:
Day Two: Exploring Grapevine Creek
This was the main event of the trip – we used the entirety of the day to explore down Grapevine Creek.
It got off to an auspicious start as we barreled down the main arm of the canyon. We were only a few steps from camp when we discovered the first obstacle, and it gave us a moment of pause.
There was a short 10-foot pourover. It looked like we could bypass it on the left, but the re-entry to the canyon floor at the end of the bypass didn’t look very desirable.
So instead of giving it a try, we decided to hike over to the next arm of the canyon, to the west.
We discovered that the west arm was definitely not the place to enter the canyon, so we turned back to the main arm where we’d started
Here we gave the undesirable spot another go, with Michael leading the way. It turned out to be just fine. We were in the bed of Grapevine, but probably lost an hour with our exploration to the west.
When we reached the junction with the aforementioned west arm, we chose to go up it to a pourover we’d noted from above. It had a trickle of water running down it in a sort of “narrows” environment, and I wanted a photo from below.
The walk down the canyon was beautiful and sublime, with hanging gardens and fluted granite and schist. We made a game of seeing how far we could go without getting our feet wet – a game that required plenty of unnecessary acrobatics. Hours went by.
After making significant progress where we thought must be close to the River, we came to an intimidating pourover. It bent away to the left, and had at least two main tiers. Neither of us felt good about attempting the down climb, and we were already flirting with our turnaround time.
So we turned around here. We halfheartedly looked for bypasses, and scrambled up a loose chute on creek-right that we hoped could be “the fault” I was told about, but it was no good.
Besides, I distinctly remembered Lon had said he could see the River from the place where he turned around to go up and over the fault. We had not seen the River.
So we called it a day and turned back up the canyon.
Somewhere on the return trip – not far from camp, but below the first obstacle I described – I remember finding an old tent stake. It was above the creekbed on creek-right, under a sheltered overhang where I presumably scrambled to avoid an obstacle.
Something about it struck me as having a story to it, calling back to maybe the 1980s. I imagined a solo Canyon explorer slept here.
I was reading of folks like Harvey Butchart, but also George Mancuso and Ken Walters at the time, and something about that old-school tent stake (it was certainly not made of titanium) in such an unexpected location had an intangible touch of age and lust for adventure.
see more photos from Day Two:
Day Three: Grapevine Creek to Grandview Point
I don’t have much to say about the final day of the trip. This is common when I backpack the Grand Canyon, as the last day is often spent retracing a trail to the rim.
The morning walk above the side canyon we’d explored yesterday was certainly pleasant.
We stopped once more to take in the view above the mouth of Cottonwood Creek.
This photo above shows one of the old vertical mine shafts on Horseshoe Mesa. These vertical shafts no longer exist (the photo is from 2009).
In later years, the Park Service filled these shafts in the name of safety and legal liability… yeah, in the backcountry of a National Park. What?
They filled them at the same time that a part of the Grandview Trail was re-routed, and when the “Danger Radioactivity” signs were posted.
In hindsight, it was a blessing that our desired itineraries were all booked. Those plans were for the more common hikes, like The Hermit/Boucher Loop and Clear Creek.
Staying at a base camp for 2 nights acted as forcing function to make us explore something a little more out of the ordinary.
Further, it opened my eyes to a new angle of exploring the Grand Canyon, rather than the more linear style of backpacking that I was accustomed to.
see more photos from Day 3:
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