Our Nest on Wheels: Grand Canyon

The Dinosaur Hunt

by Steve

The Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon is quite possibly the most popular hiking trail in the world, based on the number of people that hike at least a portion of it. Millions of people visit the Grand Canyon each year. Bright Angel Trail is readily accessible from popular areas on the South rim, and fairly famous. So who wouldn't want to say that they hiked it, even if it is just a small bit near the top?

I've also heard that it is the most dangerous trail in the world. This claim is not made based on any inherent danger - it's really not that steep and doesn't have bad exposure - but simply on the number of people who hike down only to find themselves without sufficient water, or salty snacks, or energy to hike back out. The National Park Service at Grand Canyon does 200 to 300 rescues each year, many of them on this popular trail.

It's also been called the safest trail in the world, for a number of reasons, including the fact that because so many people hike it, there is always someone coming along who can help. And there is water available at four places along the trail. Plus the park service will station a ranger or volunteer along the trail to watch for people who might be likely to get in trouble. They want to be sure you know how far you plan to go, and that you have sufficient water and food along. They look out for anyone struggling on the way up.

But really the Bright Angel Trail is a time machine. As you hike from the rim to the Colorado River at the bottom, you pass through 1.8 billion years of geologic time, through layers of rock that were deposited long before dinosaurs roamed the earth. But it's not just old stuff; every time we hike the trail we discover something new that we hadn't seen before. This year's hike, our dinosaur hunt, was no different. For one thing, we encountered this woman on the trail.

She had brought her own horse to the canyon, and she's wearing what appear to be an Edwardian-era riding suit, and sitting side-saddle on her horse. I'm guessing there's an English side-saddle under that modesty blanket. She was happy to pose for a picture, with ours probably being just one of hundreds that were taken of her that day. (And yes, she gave us permission to use her photo in this blog.)

Going a little further back in time than the100 or so years ago that this riding outfit evokes, we find some pictographs that are missed by most hikers.

These are just below the rim. They were probably painted 800 to 1000 years ago by the people who lived here at the time. While the pictures are not very clear anymore, what is clear is that the south rim had lots of deer and elk back then, as it does now.

Our hike this year had a very specific mission. We wanted to find a rock that has clear dinosaur tracks on it, impressions that were made roughly 313 million years ago. In 2016, there was a rockfall along the trail. This happens fairly often in sections of the trail with vertical rock walls that are subject to freezing and thawing. The park service maintains the trail by moving the rocks that have fallen off to the side of the trail so that hikers can pass safely. In this case, one of the fallen rocks now exposed had dinosaur footprints on it.

Since the rock fall happened four years ago, hundreds of hikers have passed this rock every day, most without noticing what they are walking past. Jane and I have passed this spot at least five times since the rock fell and did not see the tracks. The story recently came to light when USA Today published an article about it. You can read it here. Here are the basics: In 2016, shortly after the rock fell, a geology professor from Norway was leading a group of students up the Bright Angel Trail when he spotted the rock with the dinosaur tracks. He alerted a paleontologist friend at the University of Nevada, who then brought a team to study the rock and analyze the tracks on it. Their research on it was published this summer, and that's when USA Today picked up the story. Read the research paper here.

This rock probably belongs in a museum, where it would be protected from damage. We did not touch the impressions, lest the oils from our hands damage the stone. But moving a rock of this size is no small challenge in a place where the standard mode of transport is by mule. And so the rock stays put for now. Needless to say, the park service does not advertise the exact location of the rock, and so it remains protected, largely by ignorance.

When we decided to locate this rock, all we knew was that it was along the Bright Angel Trail. Given that the Bright Angel Trail is 9.5 miles long from the rim to Phantom Ranch, there would be a lot of rocks to look at as we hiked along. Fortunately, there were just enough clues in the research paper and in a video that someone had posted for us to determine the exact spot on the trail. Combining those clues with Google street-view images of the trail (Google had people hike the trail with street-view camera back in 2012), we were able to confirm the exact location on the trail within a few feet. So we dropped a pin at the spot on our Google maps and simply hiked to the spot, which we won't disclose here.

If you are interested in hiking to see this rock, you can send us a message, and if you seem trustworthy, we'll send you the details of its location. As we sat nearby, we watched as numerous hikers passed unknowingly by it. We told a few of the hikers, those that seemed to be likely to respect the rock (generally those carrying camping gear, since we figure anyone willing to carry that much weight probably loves and respects the canyon). A couple who had read the article and knew about the tracks, but didn't know where they were, had stopped for a rest break just 20 feet from the rock, without even knowing it.

We've been up and down the Bright Angel Trail many times. And every time we see something new along the way. This time the new thing was something really, really old.

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, by Steve and Jane Vogel

by Steve

Grand Canyon hike - 4th trip to Phantom Ranch

by Steve

You'd think we would have just about had our fill of hiking down into the Grand Canyon by now. But we saw an opportunity to book at Phantom Ranch and decided to do another winter hike to the bottom.

Here's Jane at the rim. We arrived right after they had a snowfall of around 2 feet in early December 2019.

It's fairly difficult to get in at Phantom Ranch, the dorms and cabins at the bottom of the Grand Canyon inside the national park. You can book 13 months in advance, and there's so much demand that there is a lottery for available spots. Some people try for years to get in without success. But as we wintered in Tucson again this year, we are nearby enough to take advantage of any cancellations that might show up. So in October when we saw an opening at Phantom Ranch for early December, we decided to do the hike again. We have done this hike in January, June, and October in earlier years. We thought that December might be cool and crisp at the rim and sunny and warm at the river. We hadn't counted on an early-season snowstorm.

The snowstorm that hit in early December dropped around 2 feet of snow at the rim. This was an unusually large amount for this early in the winter. Typically in the winter, any snow and ice on the trail tends to be gone once you've descended a mile or mile and a half into the canyon. This time we had snow for around 4 miles of the trail. In the picture above, you can see snow all the way down to Indian Garden on the Bright Angel Trail. The snow in Indian Garden was so heavy and wet that it caused lots of the cottonwood trees there to lose branches, prompting an evacuation of the campground.

Jane confidently navigates a snowy section of the South Kaibab trail.

Here we are descending the South Kaibab trail. As you can see, there's lots of snow and ice on the trail, and if you know this trail you know there there are areas with a fair bit of exposure (drop-offs). Fortunately we had purchased good quality snow grippers for our boots, which made us feel confident hiking on the snow and ice. [Jane's note: "Confident" does not necessarily mean fast. Our hike out of the canyon took longer than any we've done before.]

This is a view from the Tonto Trail junction, about 4 miles from the rim and only 2 miles or so from the river. The snow extended down this far, almost to the Tip-Off.

Here's the last bit of ice on the trail. After this bit of white-knuckle trail there's sun on the trail and the snow was mostly melted off. After 4 1/2 miles of hiking in snow, we were happy to finally remove our crampons.

Here we are arriving at Phantom Ranch. The trees still had their fall colors and had not all dropped their leaves.

Of course we rewarded ourselves with the steak dinner at the canteen.

The next day we hiked out using the Bright Angel trail. Here we are coming into Indian Garden and are greeted by a rather large buck. Fortunately he was willing to share the trail with us.

Here's someone up in the trees at Indian Garden cutting off branches that have broken and are poised to fall onto the campground below. The cottonwood trees that are growing there are actually not native and can break easily. So the park service replaces them when they die with a native variety of tree that will still provide shade.

We had hoped that after a couple days of sunshine that the Bright Angel Trail would be a bit more free of snow and ice. But no. We hit the snow about 1 mile below 3 mile resthouse (4 miles from the rim) and were wearing crampons the whole way after that. In the picture above you see the view from mile and a half resthouse. While it was hard work hiking the last 4 miles in snow, it did keep the trail pretty free of other hikers.

I think we've decided that if we were to hike the Grand Canyon down to Phantom Ranch again, we would be doing it in the spring time (March or early April) and staying in a cabin rather than the dorms. And we'd do it with a couple of friends to make for a social hike. Let us know if you're interested.

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, by Steve and Jane Vogel

by Steve

Third Time Is Charm

by Steve

Or, "Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold, but Just Right." Or "Always Something New."

We recently made our third trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We first went in 2014 as part of a rim-to-rim backpacking hike in early June. Early June is pretty hot at the bottom of the Grand Canyon--107 degrees Fahrenheit to be exact. Our second trip was in January of this year, when we scored a last-minute cancellation at Phantom Ranch. We were at the Grand Canyon again in October, on our way back to Tucson for the winter. When we were making our fall plans, we saw an opening at the Grand Canyon trailer village in October for six nights, so we grabbed it. This being the only RV campground in the park, it fills up way in advance, so if you see an opening, you'd best take it. The last time we stayed in the trailer village, elk came through the campground every evening. No elk this time, but there's always something new to see, like this RV built on a M1078 military truck platform.

The day after we arrived at the canyon, I checked online to see if there were any openings at Phantom Ranch. This was on a Thursday, and there were openings in the dorms for both Sunday and Monday nights. After reviewing the weather report, we booked it for Monday night. Now, you may know that it is extremely difficult to get a reservation at Phantom Ranch. It books up 13 months in advance, and demand is so high that there is a lottery. We met people on the trail who had tried unsuccessfully for 2 1/2 years to get a reservation at Phantom Ranch. But as it turns out, the mules that take riders to the bottom had gotten sick, and the park had to cancel the mule rides for a couple of days. This left some spots open in the dorms at Phantom Ranch, and we took advantage.

If June is hot, and January can have snow and ice at the rim, October should be just right. And the temperatures were pretty much just right for hiking: around 60 F at the rim and mid-70s at the river. But we were also dodging rain and thunderstorms this time. Fortunately it never rained very hard on us, although we could see rain not too far away. And the thunderstorms were around 10 miles away. Nevertheless, we did not stay on the ridgeline of the South Kaibab trail any longer than necessary. Sometimes we could see a rainbow below us, and sometimes we were hiking down into the clouds.

Also new for us this time was the color of the Colorado River. We had been in Moab, Utah, earlier, where we had five days of rain. And there had been significant rain in Arizona and Southern Utah in October--5.5 inches in Phoenix, for example. This meant that there was lots of run-off water carrying the dark red dirt, which turned the Colorado from it's typical green color to the color of chocolate milk.

Here's a pic looking down at the beach near Phantom Ranch where the rafters all stop.

Even Bright Angel creek, which gets most of its water from roaring spring, was looking pretty muddy.

Another new sight for us this time was this rather large spider we encountered on the trail in Phantom Ranch. I think it was probably a tarantula, but I wasn't going to get close enough to find out for sure. It was about the size of my fist. And it didn't seem to be too scared of us.

Also new on this hike was the amount of green in the canyon. Thanks to all the rain, there was green grass growing all along the Bright Angel trail. We joked that the rangers would need to start mowing the lawn, and rangers that we met commented that they had never seen so much green in the canyon.

The final new thing we saw in the canyon on this hike is something that was old and is new again. We came across someone taking pictures with a 4x5 view camera.

Most people we see take pictures with a smart phone or a digital SLR. A few use a tablet, and we like to use a pocket digital camera. But you rarely see something like a 4x5 view camera. This is not an old camera, but a modern incarnation of an old design. It uses film, not digital image capture. And it's the format used by the professional photographers whose photos sell for thousands in art galleries across the west. I guess that nothing can match the level of detail that you get with this type of large-format camera.

The young man operating the camera, Drew Nikonowicz, owns the company that makes them and was returning from a convention in San Diego. He had not been to the Grand Canyon before and had just come a mile or so down the Bright Angel Trail to take a few pictures from a different perspective than you get on the rim. I'm sure he got some good pictures, and he'll probably return someday. If you want to read more about the cameras that he makes, go to Standard Cameras, I think you'll find it fascinating.

When we did our rim-to-rim hike, people told us that we would likely return to the bottom of the canyon, as there's always something new to see. We saw many new things on this hike, just as we did on the last. We now know that October is an ideal time to do this hike, at least for the temperature. And we know that we can expect to see something new each time. Will there be a next time? If so, what will we see?

Stay tuned . . .