The Longest Day - Escalante Route from Cardenas Beach to Hance Beach, Grand Canyon 50 Miler Hike, 2000

Troop 285's 50 Miler expedition for 2000 took place in the Grand Canyon. This page covers the third day of the hike (May 31st, 2000, for Crew 2), from Cardenas Marsh along the Escalante Route west to Hance Beach.

Trail Report and Timing

3:40 AM: Wake-up Call!

We're getting an early start, because this promises to be the longest hike on our trip. Well before sunrise, we're up and grabbing a dry breakfast of dried fruit and granola bars. Boy, if these bars were any drier, we could print a book on them. We gotta remember to buy moister granola bars next time (maybe Sunbelt). We discover the pack rat damage to two adult packs, and moan slightly, but not as much as we will later in the day. Anyway, we get things together and move out. Sleeping on ground cloths really makes it easier to pack up and leave than striking tents.

4:30 AM - On the Trail

Escalante Route heads up the west side of Cardenas Creek drainage, due south. We climb almost 800 feet as we head up the ridge between Cardenas and "Unnamed" (seems like they might just as well hang that name on it - every route description for Escalante calls it the "Unnamed Drainage") valleys. Looking back over our shoulders, we get the great river view from Unkar Overlook.

5:45 AM - Abandoned Campsite on East side of "Unnamed Drainage"

On the east side of Unnamed Drainage, we round a bend and stumble upon an abandoned hasty campsite at trailside. Tucked into a clump of bushes, someone has their tent, cookgear, and other gear set up, and a tattered space blanket stretched over the branches to try to throw shade. From the ragged look of the aluminized plastic film, it has been here at least a week. No sign of the owner(s) and no note, but we didn't take time to dig around for one. We simply record the location and pledge to report it to the Park Service when we find the next ranger. We press on, glad we still have lots of shade - the sun's just starting to come up over the rim. Why is it that almost every break we take, some of the Scouts want to fall asleep? Here Dan watches as Jerry and Derrick try to grab five minutes of sleep in a ten minute pack drop close to the top of Unnamed Drainage.

8:00 AM - Butchart's Notch

We've crossed over the head of Unnamed and hit the boulder field on the south-west side. Takes a little while to pick through the boulders and some minor wash-outs where the trail tries to wash off the side of the hill. We take a look up at Butchart's Notch, and decide we'll contour around the west end, where the main trail goes. Even that is on about a 50 degree side slope, so we're walking carefully. It's got a great view down to the river, though! We can see back to Unkar Rapids from here; rafters are starting down the river.

9:00 AM - Escalante Creek Crossing

A minor downhill contour and a couple of down-slope scrambles take us down to the crossing over the Escalante Creek bed - totally dry. We easily follow the trail on the west side of the creek bed - nothing confusing here as the route guides we've read before the trip warned. Just make sure you don't go over the 100-foot pour off where the creek makes it's big jump down to a lower level! We reinforced the stop-rocks across the creek bed here, just to warn the next folks on the trail. The trail crosses over to the west side of the west arm of the drainage, then across a slippery side-slope and down to the river. We donated a loose hacky-sack to the canyon gods right at the slippery stuff, when it got away from a Scout and ended up about a foot away from a fifty-foot cliff edge at the bottom of the slippery slope. Nope, you're NOT going down the slope to retrieve that!

10:00 AM - Escalante Creek Mouth

Down to the river, and it's really starting to get hot again (what did we expect? It's almost summer!). We don't stop, though, as we've not used a lot of our water and we know 75 Mile Canyon is coming up. We don't even explore to see if the ledges along the water's edge are free of water, although the river's only at 13,000 cubic feet per second flow currently. Besides, the view is better up high, and we want to scramble down the pour off! The beach sure looks inviting, though.

11:30 AM - 75 Mile Creek Pour-off and Slot Canyon

Up a steep little hill to get high above the slot of 75 Mile Canyon. Then we contour south up to the head of the canyon. We watch for the rocks across the (old) trail that force you off down the 30 foot "staircase". By pretending it's just little steps, very narrow, that need to be walked "across" the face of the slope, you can negotiate this with your pack on.

The more interesting formation lies at the bottom of the stairs. This is the 15' pour off! It's well polished at the top, so you can just slide down about five feet of it to a small ledge. With the expedient of sending down a rock-climber (Derrick) first, lowering our packs down on a light rope, then letting Derrick spot people's foot placements in the pockmarks just to the right (going down) of the pour off slot, we all make it down easily. For Mrs. R. we provided a rope assist during descent - a bowline under the arms to help two people at the top of the slot put a little back-pressure on while she descended, just in case of a foot slip. This provided more assurance than any physical support, but still, it helped. This is Dan, showing the "take two steps to the left" technique to get out of the slot and over to the good handholds. The pictures make it look like it's only moderately sloped - but in real life, it feels pretty vertical. No water here, and only a few very small and shallow pools lower down the canyon.
Dan has so much fun coming down, that he explores several more routes up and down the pour off while the rest of us watch, just glad to have made it down.
On down the slot canyon we go. How beautiful. At places the canyon closes to ten feet across, and we find another three or four six-foot high (2 meter) pour-offs. Would take a little scrambling to get up, but going down is easy - just slide.

12:15 PM - 75 Mile Creek Mouth

As this picture shows, water pushes mud and sticks up about twelve feet on the cliff walls. Sure must be nasty in the canyon when it rains!

We come out of 75 Mile canyon at noon, thoroughly ready for lunch and water refills. So, it's down to a rather narrow beach at the river, and time to pump water. We're not all that hungry, so we fill up on fruit and nuts, then relax until about 2 PM. We're anxious to get back on the trail again, even though it must be 115 degrees F., because we know it's still about a mile and a half - by map - to get to Hance Beach (turns out to affect us more like five miles). Then we find out that a couple of Scouts haven't pumped their water bottles full, so we wait until 2:30. At least we had another 30 minutes of shade.

2:30 PM - Back on Trail

We go high again around the river bend downstream of Neville's Rapids. We didn't check here for any ledges, either. By the time we get to the bend, it's REALLY hot, and we stop to let Dr. Nigrey recover.

3:40 PM - Hiding Under the Rocks

We find a really large vertical rock slab right along the trail. Makes as good a place as any to find some shade. We hid out here for at least 45 minutes. Dr. Nigrey's drinking some more water and feeling ready to go again. As we get close to Papago Creek, the trail gets harder to follow, and cairns seem scattered over a wide path. There even seems to be some old cairns that indicate contouring up and around Papago, but that's not what all the trail guides say. So, we pick our way down the steeps and boulders to get to the beach at the mouth of Papago Creek.

4:30 PM - Oh, So THIS is Papago Creek!

On this beach, we do check for ledges at the water level. Nope, Vishnu is straight up for a hundred feet, and the water looks like it must be fifty feet deep next to that. Why look? Because we've looked at the Papago Cliff, and we don't like it's ugly face! It's about 50 feet, pure black, with some small ledges every five feet, but it appears to be pure vertical. If that's true, why do we see a few painted arrows on the rock face, and some cairns peeking down over the top rim? Well, that's got to be the way up, but most of us are beat already from the ten miles we've gone so far. What else can we do? Camp here? Not in our plan. We decide to rest and think it over for a while. We break open a breakfast pack and pass around the granola cereal and get everyone to eat and drink. Let's build up that strength, guys. In the mean time, we poke our heads into the slot canyon where the creek runs (but not this month), and we find a small snake right at the base of the 20 foot pour off. Well, we're not going up THAT slick rock.

After a 30 minute rest, we send out Scouts - literally. Derrick ventures up the cliff face without a pack, and gets almost all the way up, then calls back that he doesn't think he can make the last ledge-to-rim move. Well, that stirs up the challenge. Dan slaps on his pack (probably 60 pounds), and climbs the face, right up the arrows, and never slows down. Alright, Dan! We watch in astonishment when he drops his own pack, and comes right back down for Dr. Nigrey's, then another trip for Mrs. R's. Well, that really stirs up the crew, and the rest of the Scouts all toss on their packs and decide that Dan's not carrying THEIR packs up that thing. So, up we all go, and with a little pack-passing right at the top, we get everyone up over the rim. Hurray!

(Looking for a picture? Not from us. See Brian and Doug's trip report for a couple of good ones! Click here, then go to Day 3. We were either so mad at the cliff or so glad to be up over it that we didn't take a shot.)

Should we have roped up the packs? Nah, probably not worth it here. Besides, it would have required about 60 feet of rope - more than we were carrying. Was it difficult getting everyone up the heavy-duty scramble? Wasn't easy, but if you take it slow, make sure of handholds and let another person spot your foot placements if you're not too sure footed, it's do-able.

Ok, now what? On up over the top of the Vishnu block. The trail isn't well marked here, so we add a few cairns. The climb leads us to a fat-man's challenge - a six-foot high slot that is so narrow, some of our external frame packs (yep, oldies but goodies) try to hang up in the solid rock walls. We clear that after popping a couple of pack pins loose, then we find the OTHER half of the Papago test - the slide.

The slide is interesting - looks like a four hundred foot high talus slope, exactly at it's angle of repose, dropping straight down into the river! We take the most-often recommended route - cross straight over the top of the slide about 2/3 of the way across, then angle back to the up-stream (eastern) rock wall and carefully work your way down the loose stuff. We spread our guys way out, so that a loose rock doesn't clobber someone below. As we find out from other hikers later, getting hit by rocks kicked loose on this slide is an all-too-common accident.

Here's a look back at the Slide from Hance Beach - looks pretty easy, huh? The Slide is the bright triangular area at lower center of picture, the Vishnu block is the black chunk to the left of that, and the 50' cliff is tucked around the corner (not quite visible) at the left edge of that. Our question now? Is there really a way around the top of Papago Creek, coming back out at the Slide? If we ever go back, we'd like to check.

By the time we're at the bottom, we're really beat. It's 7 PM and we're still not at a spot we can stop. We're all in this together, though, and the Scouts are ready to press on, even if the adults just want to curl up and die, so on we go!

7:30 PM - On the Beach (Hance, that is)

Whew, we drag into Hance Beach just before sunset. We've been up and down over boulders and through the tamarisk that separates the Slide and the beach by about a half mile, but it seemed like about three, we were so tired. Anyway, we pump a little water, then start dinner - for the adults, this turns out to be lunch's passed-over ramen noodles, which take the place of the pack-rat-devoured pasta that disappeared at Cardenas. Dr. Nigrey really needs the salt and water, and the noodles are quick enough to fix, so we get a good bowl of them down him before he drops off to sleep. We also whip up our dehydrated blueberries with cold, filtered river water. Boy, this is the best food item we've had, or will have, on the whole trip! We scarf up about a quart of blueberries and juice in nothing flat!

We talk briefly about tomorrow - and decide that today's been too hard to do another early morning "death march". So, we decide to modify our travel plan and lay over at Hance Beach all day, rehydrate fully, then head up the Tonto all the way up to Horseshoe Mesa in one day, instead of stopping in Hance Creek for another night. By 8:30, we've all passed out, but not before rigging all the food in "bear bags", not in our packs. One bag goes up in a mesquite tree, the other is tied onto a hiking staff (solid hickory) that is wedged between rocks, thus holding the bag about three feet above ground. Both methods work, and the mice we have seen here during dinner don't chew up our empty backpacks. Maybe we're learning something.

Last Updated: 2000-08-01

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