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Published: June 11th 2006
Up again at 4 am. Breakfast reservations for 5 am. YUMMY. Scrambled eggs, pancakes with butter and maple syrup, fresh juice, coffee, peaches, ICE water. We both ate our fill and then some. Had a very pleasant conversation with a couple from Sweden traveling with twin girls. They were maximizing their time in The Canyon by traveling back and forth between Cottonwood and Bright Angel Campgrounds. The dad kept reminding the girls (about 10 years old, I’d guess) to eat big. It’s surprising how much food and how many calories your body burns through just trying to stay cool let alone trying to stay cool while carrying a pack.
On the trail again we soon came to the Silver Bridge which spans the Colorado and started the uphill segment of our journey. Standing on the bridge above the Colorado I wondered what the river looked like before the dams much as I long to see the Columbia River prior to the dams and to hear the roar of Celilo Falls. Of the Colorado - red, warm and fickle, I hear. I guess we needed to do something to provide the power for Sin City and to water the deserts
Colorado River
at the bottom of the canyonof southern California. (Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey is a must read before you plan any visits to the southwest).
Following the Colorado for a mile or so we finally ran into the Alabama group again and hung out with them at the river rest house leaving them prior to a water fight breaking out - collapsible buckets are well worth the little bit of weight they add to the pack. At 7 am the day was already hot so we had soaked ourselves in Garden Creek to make the uphill climb more bearable in the heat. Devil’s Corkscrew - not so terribly devilish. We made our way up by the tortoise method. We spotted our first mule deer along this segment and marveled at the lushness of Pipe Creek canyon which contrasted dramatically with the Vishnu Schist. Very rarely were we in direct sun and the view up toward the south rim was fantastic and served to pull us up the trail.
After hopping across Garden Creek a few times we were already at Indian Gardens Campground. Unfortunately there are no creekside camps so we put the thermarests on the picnic table and laid around
Paul and I
at the Colorado River in a complete torpor pretending to be Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler telling stories about the multitude of lizards, a few sparrows and the lone mule deer than wandered in and out of our campsite.
The springs near Indian Gardens were used by prehistoric man and around 1300 the Havasupai Indians used the area as farmland. Indian Gardens is situated on the Tonto Plateau - an area of relatively level ground that formed 550 million years ago. More recently the Kolb brothers operated a developing room near the springs as the water on the rim was not pure enough to develop the photos they took. Emery Kolb would run down the Bright Angel trail, wait for the mule train of tourists (including John Muir and John Burroughs on one trip) to pass him, take several photographs, run to get ahead of the mule train again, develop the pictures at Indian Gardens and rush back up to the rim in time to present the tourists with their photos as they were coming back out of the canyon. (Emery and Ellsworth, I think, were quite insane and thoroughly explored and photographed the Grand Canyon during several daring adventures - I’d
Grand Canyon Cross Section
Vishnu Schist in the foreground. The red layer is the Supai Group and Redwall Limestone. Above that is the buff colored Coconino Sandstone and at the very top the Toroweap Formation. liked to have known them.)
In the evening we made the short hike out to Plateau Point. WOW! The view down into the canyon is unrivaled. If you plan on making any trip to the Grand Canyon, at the very least get a permit to camp at Indian Gardens and catch either the sunset or sunrise at Plateau Point.
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