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| Descending from Shoshone Point on the approach to Newton Temple |
“The things you think are precious, I can’t understand.”
— Steely Dan, Reelin’ in the Years
March 25th, 2022: Newton Butte -- strava track
The idea of climbing mountains inside of a canyon will put a quizzical look on most people’s faces. It’s understandable. How can there be a mountain inside a canyon? Above a canyon, sure, but inside one? That doesn’t make any sense. Well, that’s mostly true. If the canyon is big enough, I’m talking truly Grand here, then mountains can and do reside within the canyon. In the Grand Canyon, these are called Temples and I’ve been sampling these summits over the last decade or so.
These are interesting summits. Most of them involve off-trail travel and traveling off-trail in the Grand Canyon is a particularly difficult taste to acquire. I assume some people have acquired it, but it’s still quite bitter for me. Besides sometimes ridiculous amounts of vertical gain, the routes are frequently loose and a bit dangerous. So, we got lots of work to climb crappy routes. It’s not surprising that many of these summits are rarely ascended. So, what’s the appeal? The lure of the summit.
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| The descent from Shoshone Point |
Mountain climbers look at peaks differently from the rest of the world. It is impossible for a climber to look at a peak and not start tracing out a route to the top; to start wondering how difficult it might be and if it is possible for them. It’s more than the abstract concept of feasibility, though— the draw to be on top is strong and if a climber looks upon a peak often enough, it will be impossible to resist at least attempting it. While the summit is sufficient, the journey provides spectacular 360-degree views the entire time.
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| Newton Butte |
The misery factor on these adventures can be quite high. It will likely involve dehydration, cramping, and extreme fatigue. It will definitely involve losing some blood. You will impale yourself on an agave or cactus at some point. The rest of the flora down here is no friendlier. If you dare to wear shorts because of the heat, your legs will look like they were locked inside a burlap bag with a couple of angry cats. There seems to be one plant species in the entire canyon that won’t cut you. We assume it is deadly poisonous.
Our routine for these Spring trips has been to drive halfway after work and then arrive around 11 a.m. on the next day. That leaves time for an “easy” temple. We decided on Newton Butte. This is accessed from Shoshone Point and has no trail whatsoever. I cannot overstate the difference between off-trail and on-trail travel in the Grand Canyon. If you are on a trail in the Grand Canyon, no matter how faint, you are on a paved bike path compared to off-trail travel. Nearly every step we took on this route involved some route-finding.
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| At the saddle, finally, on the last section of the approach to Newton Butte |
The Grand Canyon is famously composed of numerous layers of rock. Vertical cliffs are interspersed between steep, loose, slopes. We started by descending down one of these steep slopes, trying not to slip and fall, since you’d inevitably put your hand into a prickly pear or a yucca. With so much brush, we had to weave our way down the slope, downclimbing two short steps. We eventually arrived at the top of the sheer 300-foot Coconino cliff. We traversed hard left to a rib that projected out enough and was broken enough to allow us to scramble down it. This is the only way through the Coconino for a mile in either direction. Viewed head-on from the north, it looks ridiculous. But it went with careful route-finding and here we found our first cairns.
The exposure on this descent is real and climbing is probably 4th class with maybe a couple of short sections that were low 5th class. We tested everything, for a single broken handhold could end you. Once down that cliff we got on the relatively friendly, dark red Hermit shale. We quickly descended that to a saddle. Ahead was a significant bump on the ridge. I didn’t want to go directly over it, as it was a significant and non-trivial climb, marked by boulders, brush, and cliffs. I did my best on an unpleasant side-hilling traverse around it, while Derek and Homie went higher. Neither way was great, but on the far side, we were finally able to descend to the saddle below Newton Butte.
We had come down 1700 feet and had to traverse a half-mile under the south face, until reaching the break in the cliff that ringed the entire butte. We started the traverse low, but then eventually had to make a rising traverse to the base. It was warm when we arrived and the sun beat down upon us. We sought refuge under the huge boulder that marked the start of our route. It was tilted against the wall and we geared up in the shade beneath it.
Derek and I swung leads. I led the first pitch, a very unusual pitch that involved about twenty feet of real climbing and gained about six feet. Yet, it had us fully engaged. A single piton protects moves straight to the left, where the ground falls away quickly. Fifteen feet past the pin, I was able to get in a stopper and a couple of small cams in a tiny, incipient, vertical crack. The rest of the pitch was walking along a flat 3-foot wide ledge. I ran out most of the rope, placing a few pieces of gear, and belayed from a couple of good cams (0.75 and 0.5). Then both Derek and I belayed Homie across this pitch, so that, if he came off, he wouldn’t fall to the ground. Derek then followed and cleaned the gear.
Derek then led up and right, first on a steep slab and then through a vertical section with a tricky top-out. He followed a right-angling crack above and belayed just above a vibrant agave. I led the next pitch up mostly scrambling terrain to a short, easy steeper section. I belayed on a sandy ramp with the final Supai bulge to go. Derek led this pitch and found some tricky moves in topping out. He had to belay fifty feet back from the edge to find an anchor. When Homie followed he yelled down to me, “This is the hardest climbing yet!” I had just changed out of my climbing shoes and into my approach shoes. I had a toprope, though. Homie couldn’t press out the crux mantle and had to do some deserteering aid finagling, but was quickly over it. I pressed out the two-handed mantle while my shoes scraped for purchase on the smooth sandstone.
We found the summit cairn and the signature, brass-box, summit register. We were the first team to climb it since October of last year. The descent proved a challenge, starting with locating the rappel anchor on the south side of the temple. Derek or Homie spotted the red sling from well above. We didn't see an easy way down, so put the rope over a tree and rappelled down. Unfortunately, the rope got stuck pulling it and I had to climb all the way back to the tree to free it from the evil crack in which it had jammed.
The rappel from the red sling (backed up by Homie) was mostly overhanging and our devices were extremely hot by the time we hit the ground. Pulling the ropes went find this time and soon we were hoofing it 1800 back up the rim. We arrived back at the car just before darkness.
We drove to Steve’s house, showed, and ate chips for dinner. Well, Derek and I ate chips. Homie had a sandwich. We didn't want to eat our sandwiches for the next day and didn't want to take the time to drive into Tusayan for dinner, preferring to rest and hydrate for the next day's adventure.
March 26th, 2022: Dana Butte -- strava track
Steve Hawkins is the Imperial Grand Poobah of the Grand Canyon facilities and a good friend to have. His house is a 7-minute walk from the start of the Bright Angel Trail. We were hiking at 6:10, a little after first light.
We hiked down the Bright Angel Trail to Indian Gardens. Here we filled up with water and headed west on the Tonto Trail. 9.5 miles of the easiest walking you can do in the Grand Canyon led us to a dry wash descending from the Dana-Little Dana saddle. We each stashed a liter of water here and then started up the steep, loose slope, headed for weakness in the Red Wall Limestone below the saddle. We beached the thin Muav layer via 10-feet of 3rd-class scrambling and headed hard left to blocky terrain and headed up. The climbing quickly became exposed and Steve, who doesn’t climb much, was feeling the tug of gravity. After I paused working out the crux of the lower wall, Homie and Steve pulled out their harnesses. Derek joined me on the ledge above and we each belayed the other two up.
The headwall is more of a buttress and while rated just 5.4, it starts out very steep and the rock looks suspect. I led the buttress in one long pitch, passing a 2-bolt rappel anchor en route to the summit one-bolt/bush anchor. The rock was a lot better than it looked and frequent big footholds made the climbing very casual. Derek and I just climbed in our running shoes.
We unroped at the top and walked across the broad summit plateau, aiming for the summit cone. It was a few hundred yards to the top, which was guarded by an overhanging boulder move. This looked daunting, but a key foothold saved the day and we topped out. We were the first ones to climb it since March of 2021 - a year ago. We didn’t linger because we had Steve waiting for us. We reversed back to the buttress and did two single-rope rappels back down to the ridge. I once again short-roped Homie back to Steve, who was happy to see us and even happier to clip into the rope. He’d spent the last hour stressing about the moves he had to reverse to get down. In fact, it wasn’t really a move at all — just a very narrow section of the ridge with fantastic exposure on both sides. Halfway down the ridge he said to me, “I feel a million times better tied into a rope.” Yup. That’s why we use them. I feel the exact same way, though maybe on slightly harder terrain.
Back at the saddle, I put in a 2-cam anchor and fixed our 8mm 60-meter rope. Derek, Homie, and Steve rappelled down the difficulties. Once down, I dropped the rope to them and downclimbed.
Descending back to the trail, I was warning my companions to be ultra-careful, as any slip would cause you to put a hand down and that hand would likely land in a bad place. No sooner than these words had left my mouth did I slip and put my arm directly into an agave. I felt no pain and thought that somehow my arm had come across all the plant's spikes. I didn't even pull my arm away for five seconds or more, as I got my feet back under me. How lucky, I thought. Until thirty seconds later when my forearm screamed in pain. It felt like I'd been injected with a toxin. This pain would plague me for the rest of the day. The sharp pain faded quickly and only really hurt if I flexed my forearm. It was many days before my forearm felt normal.
Back on the trail, we hiked easily over to Indian Gardens, but just before we got there, Homie decided to peel off and hike out to Plateau Point, a one-mile out-and-back. The rest of us decided that the day was long enough and that we'd just head for the BBQ kabobs Steve had promised us. The climb out of the canyon went smoothly, though I felt each of those 3000 vertical feet.
March 27th, 2022: Horseshoe Mesa -- strava track
Bloodied and battered, we opted for an easier temple on Sunday morning. Steve, ultra-runner extraordinaire, was off for his 21-mile BASK loop and Cathy was down into the Canyon as well. We decided to do Horseshoe Mesa, despite Homie having done it before. This was a significant sacrifice and we vowed to reciprocate with O’Neill Butte on a return trip. This turned out to be the easiest temple I’ve ever done. The route barely involves any off-trail movement and here it was easy.
We started by descending the very steep and spectacular Grandview trail. We followed this down from 7400 feet to 4800 feet. From there it was just up a relatively easy slope, climbing through a couple of very short (one ten-feet and one 5-feet tall) cliff bands to the final steep wall. The climb is rated 4th class, but it is probably more like 5.5, though not sustained at all. The climbing ascends only about 30 feet with a big ledge halfway up. Derek and I soloed up the climb and dropped a rope to hip-belay Homie to the top. Homie would downclimb using this same method.
We lingered on top for an hour, just soaking in the views and identifying temples climbed and temples to be climbed. Or at least attempted. Despite seeing quite a few people on our descent down the trail, once on top, we could see no other people. The summit register revealed a summit frequency of once a month. We ate a second breakfast before heading back to rim.
Derek was too young to join me on some of the most heinous temples (Buddha, Vishnu) and technical (Zoroaster), so he was scheming how he’d groom a partner to join him. We concluded that Horseshoe Mesa was the most gentle introduction to Temple climbing. It is almost entirely on a trail, involves only 500 feet of off-trail gain, and is solo-able (for confident, experienced scramblers), so minimal gear is required and packs can be light. Plus, it is super fun and offers a great half-day in the Canyon. Anyone doing this still be anxious for more. What’s next, though? You can’t jump right to Buddha, as the shock to the system would kill an average man. Probably O'Neill or Coronado. Then Zoroaster to see if they have what it takes for long day in the Canyon. If all those go well, you're ready to try Vishnu, Isis, or Buddha.
Back at Steve’s house, we showered and packed up. We decided to head halfway home that day and break up the drive with a climb the next morning.
March 28th, 2022: Looking Glass Rock -- strava track
Homie, ever the master of finding something to climb, could find summits on the Bonneville Salt Flats. His encyclopedic knowledge of desert summits came in handy. He described this climb as “5.7 with a rappel over an arch.” That sounded like the perfect mini-adventure on the way home. Just a way to ensure that we did something besides sit in the car for ten hours.
We camped within a mile of the rock. The morning of our climb, while organizing gear, we saw people on the summit. Our rack consisted of a handful of quickdraws, as the climb is completely bolted. We took two 60-meter ropes because the rappel required them, but we climbed on one rope. Derek led us up the climb, which was a low-angle friction climb with two small steeper sections and a crux crack start. The first five feet of climbing are 5.7 and the rest of the climb is 5.easy, especially if you are an experienced scrambler.
As soon as we topped out we saw two women with large packs doing a mini-rappel that led down to the main draw of the outing: the free-hanging rappel. We wandered around the top for a while, going along the rim and finding various other bolts along the edges, but none sufficient for rappelling down. We returned to the rappel the women were using and found that it was a party of three, at least one of which was very inexperienced since she took quite a while to rappel ten feet. They were all nestled in an alcove with the rappel “hole” below them. They had a mass of tangled ropes at their feet and were still trying to set up the next rappel. None of us wanted to wait for that mess to clear.
The leader, a guy, said they would take 35 minutes to do this one rappel and that we could go after them, but before they did “the swing.” This rope swing appears to be the real draw, but I had little interest in swinging on a rope. It reminded me of my early days climbing and people would ask me, “Do you go rappelling?” No, I don’t go rappelling. That’s akin to asking me if I hike down mountains. Technically, yes, I do those things, but only because I haven’t learned how to paraglide or BASE jump…yet.
We just climbed down the route to the first belay anchor, which was also an ideal rappel anchor. I soloed down and Derek and Homie stayed tied into the rope. We were hiking back to the car fifteen minutes after leaving the summit. The party of three had one person on the ground so far and the second person was just starting to rappel. They had cameras set up to film the swing. We assumed the guy was a guide, but maybe just a more experienced friend.
Homie told us that people have found so many rattlesnakes at the base of this route, as to make it unclimbable. Now that sounds interesting to me. I wouldn’t mess with those snakes, but it might be fun to see such a collection of snakes. I thought snakes were solitary creatures, unlike the social butterflies of the crocodilians.
This trip was much lower on the misery scale than most of my previous trips. Usually, I need a year for my psychological wounds to heal before I’m ready to contemplate a return. If it wasn’t such a long drive, I’d be back next weekend.
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