Grand Canyon - Little Colorado River

 Nancy has been wanting to do this hike down to the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers for a good number of years now. We actually had permits to do it last year, but rain/snow made us chose an alternate hike that weekend. The reason to do this is to see the amazingly blue water of the Little Colorado mix with the green water of the Colorado. It is quite a dramatic sight. 

This summer we got permits to try again, this time with our good friend Chad coming along. Of course, there had to be drama. The weekend we chose to do this was 3 days after the government shutdown. We spent the week before wondering if our congressional representatives would fail to do some of their basic duties (of course they did), then wondered if that would mean the Grand Canyon would be inaccessible. Fortunately the idiots in Washington were not able to ruin our plans. The canyon stayed open. Since all we needed was access to the trailhead, we didn't care about the reduction in services - we were self sufficient. 

Day 1

The journey started from Lipan point. We took the Tanner trail down to the Tanner Rapids, then turned east on the Beamer trail for another 3 (or 4) miles to set up our camp for the weekend on the beach at Palisades Creek. Nancy and I had hiked the Tanner Trail before (with Ash), so we knew what to expect for the first 7 miles - or thought we did. 

Getting ready to go

Starting with positive vibes

And away we go

Pretty easy so far

Time to head over the edge

Down we go

Headed down there, somewhere

Trail is not bad here

This is one of many "wow" moments

Starting to get a little spicy

It is as steep as it looks. Gotta be very careful.

Not just hard on the knees, but pretty slow going

First field of rocks to cross

Stairs. How nice

no stairs here

As we descended Chad mentioned that he felt the Eye of Sauron on him. It was actually the Desert View Watchtower which was visible to us nearly the entire trip. It got really small as we headed to the Little Colorado River (LCR), but it was always there - watching us. 

Desert View Tower up on top of the rim

This was a cool spine of dirt

Interesting towers of rock

looking down Seventy Five Mile canyon toward the river

Some smooth, flat trail. What a relief. 

After the big, first descent (which Nancy assured Chad was the "worst part") the trail went along more or less hugging the contours for nearly 3 miles. Then it did another steep and long drop.

Time to make some faster time

Nice section

But it can't stay easy

Lunch time in the very sparse shade

Time to lose some major altitude

Of course it won't be easy

We gotta go where?

Gravelly, slippery. Be careful

Sometimes you just have to butt slide

You can see the next layer we need to descend to

Such great views out here

You call that a trail?

Starting to moderate a little

Come a long way down

After a very brief saddle it is back down again, but less far

ooh, look at that smooth trail

Just be careful not to slip off

Always something to look at down here

Group pic before the final bit of downhill

First view of the Colorado River. Disappointed to see that it was a muddy brown.

 

Trail contouring down

A few rocks, but overall good trail here

Tanner beach/rapids straight ahead

Getting very close to the river

And there it is

The first part of the journey, on the Tanner Trail, is about 7.5 miles. It took us around 4.5 hours to do. I think I can speak for the group in saying that it was exhausting. Despite being primarily downhill, the rawness of most of the trail really works you. I would have been fine with calling this a day. However, our plan was to camp 2 nights at Palisades Creek - theoretically another 3 miles upriver on the Beamer trail. Turned out to be closer to 4. 

Beamer started out with a climb up to get past the cliffs that lined the river - no low road possible without swimming. 

Up we go

Of course, the cliffs go in and out of drainages

Past the cliffs it was mostly easy walking

A bit of sand

Somewhere along here we ran into a couple of gals who had day hiked to the LCR and were coming back. Apparently, they had met a group of rafters who were parked at the confluence and managed to get them to give the girls a lift downriver. That saved them about 6 miles of hiking. Of course, this was a discussion for us all the next day - with little to no hope of actually making that happen.

Short rock section

And more easy trail

When we got to Palisades Creek (a dry creek, of course), we thought there would be a nice beach for us to camp on. But all we could see was trees and brush along the water line. We wandered around for a while trying to find a decent place to camp. You can see my wanderings on a closeup of the GPS track, below. 

Where is the campsite??

Eventually Chad found a pretty hidden entry into the brush where there were a few nice campsites, completely covered over with branches. However, Nancy really wanted to camp on the beach. We found a "path" to the beach that went through heavy brush for about 50 feet. 

That is the path to the beach

However, the beach was small and damp. Not a good place to camp. So, we headed back into the woods and made our home there. 

Home sweet home

Smiling through the pain

The day ended at almost 12 miles and 5600 feet of descent, over nearly7 hours. We were all whupped. There were discussions about bailing on the 13-mile hike to LCR the next day. Instead we could hike back to Tanner, chill for the rest of the day, then go up Tanner to the rim the next day. Much easier than our crazy plan. I was all about this idea.  

However, we decided to sleep on it and see how we felt in the morning. 

After we retired to our tents, early, Chad kept saying that he heard mice. Neither Nancy or myself heard these so we just chalked it up to his overactive imagination. Turned out he had a mouse drop down on his tent during the night - or so we were told. I slept great - didn't hear any mice - soooooo.

Day 2

With morning came, tales of mice, sure. But worse than that Nancy and Chad colluded with this idea that we'd hike up toward the LCR for a little way and just see how we felt. If bad we could still come back and go to Tanner. I smelled a rat but had to go with the group. 

Breakfast time. And those two cooking up a plan for more hiking.

The Beamer trail from Palisades to LCR is up on cliffs. It is just not possible to get there by a low route so you have to climb up and do the contours of the cliffs. You can see from the track that it is a twisty, windy route. Every time you go into a drainage it is down, across a bunch of rocks and back up. 

Heading up

Still heading up

At least the views are killer

It is impossible to capture the grandeur of these cliffs in a photo. 

But you feel it when you are there.

There is definitely some nice, smooth trail up here

Rafters still in camp, below. Slackers.

Somewhere around here the plan to "just go upriver a bit" got forgotten. I guess we all had a bit of a recovery overnight and once we got into this a ways, there was no turning back. 

You try not to think too much about how close to a long way down you are

some parts are closer than others

We went off trail here to avoid a particularly spicy section of trail on the very edge of the cliff

The shelves of rock make a natural place for a trail

Descending down into a drainage

And back up out of it

Have to balance out the smooth trail with this

The views. Just can't get enough of them.

First glimpse of the confluence - there in the distance

As disappointing as it was that the Colorado was muddy, we figured the Little Colorado would be good. It hadn't rained in a week, so shouldn't be runoff. When we got our first glimpse of the confluence, we were stunned to discover that the Colorado was green above the confluence and the LCR was where all the mud was coming from. So the LCR was turning the big Colorado brown. Arrrrrgh. The whole reason to come here was to see the gorgeous blue water. 

THIS:

Little Colorado on the right

WAS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE THIS:

Ugh. We were disappointed. However, we did not consider it a loss as the views along the trail were pretty awesome. 

Rafters on the other side of LCR. See how green the water is upstream of the confluence.

Upstream on LCR

We did trek down to the river, but it wasn't much to see. The water was like chocolate. The plan was to filter water there, but it was so filthy we decided to head back down river about .5 miles to a little spot where we could access the main river. The water should be a "little" less muddy there. I will say that our water filters got a heck of a workout on this trip. Nancy and I have Sawyers so we were constantly backwashing them to clean out the dirt. But they did give us clear water. 

Chad soaking his calves in the very cold river at our lunch break. 

back on the trail, heading to camp

More pics of the same trail, in reverse and different lighting. 

Another drainage to navigate

This is so much more dramatic in person

Temple Butte in the foreground and Chuar Butte in the distance

When we got to the sketchiest section of trail Chad and Nancy opted to go high (off trail) to avoid it. I decided to take the trail. It was definitely narrow, but as long as you were careful, it was fine. 

The smooth, green part below the brown/green wall is the trail. It is for sure narrow, and the drop is severe. But with care it is navigable.

Camp is down there in those trees on the shore - near the mini beach

Coming back down

Day 2 ended up being 13.5 miles and 3200 feet of climbing over 7.5 hours. My feet were pretty destroyed. I had purchased expensive insoles for my old boots - trying to get a couple more trips out of them. They were fine for the training hikes I did and even the first day of hiking. But on this day I ended up with a number of blisters and much pain. Was not looking forward to the big hike out, but there was not an option.

Once we got back it was beach time. We needed to filter water and we wanted to soak our feet in the cold water. 

Not the greatest beach, but we had a great time cleaning up and filtering water.

Turning mud into water

Back at camp

Wine sampling time. Combined with some bourbon, it helped ease the pain of a big day.

As we finished our day and it got dark, Chad started in about the mice again. However, he did manage to make us believers when our headlights caught a couple of them scampering around in the dark. They were crawling up the branches that arched down to the ground from the trees. Given that we were invading their homes, I couldn't get too upset about that. We just secured our food and went to bed. They did not bother us.

Day 3

Knowing we had a long hard day ahead, we started out early to try to beat the heat. We got up, packed up and headed to Tanner (by 6am), where we'd take a break for breakfast. Those calories would be very necessary for the climb. We would retrace our steps from Day 1, except going up instead of down. Going down was tough. Going back up - oof.

Early start

Some nice, easy trail

Obligatory rock scrambling

Tanner is just past the cliffs

Breakfast and water filtering

At our breakfast stop I made a stupid/dangerous mistake. In my head I thought I had a full bladder of water stuffed in my pack. I figured another liter in my Nalgene bottle, to be cautious, would do the trick. I didn't check to make sure I actually had water in the pack. It was less than an hour into the climb that I discovered I had almost no water in my pack - which left me with about a liter for the rest of the climb. No way that was going to work. Fortunately, Nancy had me get an extra liter of dirty water in her filter bag - just in case. I filtered that on the climb, and it saved my bacon. I ran out of water as we walked across the parking lot to the car. NEVER assume on water. ALWAYS check. Yeesh. 

Fewer pics on the way up cause we had already come this way. Plus, just trying to grind it out. 

This is the intersection of Tanner and Beamer trails

gaining altitude, but so much more to go

Topping out on the first big climb

When do we get to the hard part?

This pretty well sums up the last climb

Almost to the top

It is a long way down there

So good to finish

11.5 miles and 5600 feet of climbing in a little over 8 hours

This was a tough journey to pull off in 3 days. Unfortunately, given the terrain and where water/camping spots are available, it is challenging to do it in more days without having a couple of very short days. You could do it as a 5-day trip with 2 days where you only do 3 miles, but that is not how we roll. As always, the views and the "presence" down there simply do not translate to film. Getting to experience the canyon from top to bottom, in person, is worth the effort. We may not be back to do this particular route, but we will answer the call of some other GC routes in the future.