.

Member Trip Report

HOME

SEARCH CALENDAR VIDEOS TOP ROPING
SCHOOL ROOM BOARD ROOM WHITE ROCK CRAGS
GREAT LINKS BECOME A MEMBER DISCLAIMER
SWAP MEET LAM HISTORY INDEX NACLASSICS
TRIP ARCHIVE DOWNLOADS CLIMBING NEWS & FORUM


"Epic Winds on Tilted Mesa"

Nankoweap Trail Backpack in the Grand Canyon

April 20-25, 2008
 

Author: Al Bouchier

Other Participants: Ed Funk from Pagosa Springs, and his friends Ken and Mike from Phoenix

Trail Description: click here

Just before our Nankoweap Trail backpack trip in the Grand Canyon I bought a new GoLite tent, weighing in at just a pound and a half.  It's one layer, just a fly with no floor, and uses your trekking poles to hold it up.  I do like to pack light, and wanted to try it out in the fairly mild conditions we were expecting.

The first day in we got 8 miles or so, and had to camp in the only flat site available, a cleanly swept spot on a pretty thin ridge extending way out from the rim.  Below us on both sides of the ridge was a series of small drops, 5 to maybe 30 feet each separated by a few feet of steep slope, and then the really big drop below that.  It was breezy, so all four of us set up tents, piled rocks on the stakes, and climbed in.

Then the wind started in earnest.  Each gust got worse than the last as the whole air mass was forced over our ridge through our campsite.  My tent blew apart about 2 am, my clothes disappearing in the gale.  I stuffed the fly into my backpack while trying not to lose my sleeping bag and pad.  The other tents went down in quick succession, one with bent poles, another one better tied down than mine actually starting to rip in half when the guy in it pulled it down around him.  The gusts kept getting stronger, and we spent the night holding our sleeping bags closed over our heads to keep from being rolled over the edge.

It didn't let up till after sunrise.  Two of our backpacks had blown over the edge, along with both stoves and everything else that was left out.  My backpack apparently came open in the tumbling, and I found my torn up tent flapping from the branches of a tree overhanging one of the higher drops.  We eventually found both packs several ledges down, one stove still working, and enough stuff to go on with the trip.  The rest is now part of the canyon.

The remainder of the hike was uneventful but beautiful, with brilliant flowers blooming everywhere, frogs singing in the creek, fresh green of spring mixed with the red rocks.  We didn't camp on that ridge on the way back out!
 


Send your trip reports, comments, updates, and suggestions about this site to
Jan Studebaker

Website Design by Jemez Web Factory
.