September '08 Newsletter
September '08 Newsletter |
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Three months of hot, humid hell is enough for anyone to handle and we are no exception. June, of course, was dry but with triple digits including no zeros for weeks on end. The monsoons started early in July and we were forced to use the A/C earlier than usual. August was another moisture-laden month and we're still plagued by clouds and sticky air into September. We are so blessed to be able to occasionally get out of here during the worst of it.
Except for a few days car-camping and sea-kayaking north of Phoenix at Lake Pleasant, we were home most of June. It was great to finally get our "Current Designs" touring kayaks out on the water but it was toasty for car camping. It was pretty though and relatively quiet, so we'll give it another chance in the fall or winter. The kayaks were empty except for us in the cockpits on this short excursion; we found them comfortable and maneuverable. The true test would come later on a trip with hatches full of food, camping gear, and clothing. In late June we escaped to the North Rim and were elated to have to wear polypro long handlers to bed one night.
The third week in July we flew to Minneapolis, rented a car, and cruised north for a few weeks visit with Susan's family and friends. Her dad was in the hospital with pneumonia when we arrived but was out by the end of the week in time to see her clown in their annual "Water Carnival" parade. The Eveleth clown band welcomed her into their group and she attached maracas to her red, white, and blue pompoms. After the parade, we visited the nursing home at the local hospital to surprise a friend and treat the residents to some giggles. We again had ringside seats in brother Kevin's front yard for the fabulous firework display. Susan's dad was still frail but recovering slowly by the time we left for home. He is doing much better now and has resumed walking multiple blocks to keep in shape.
August was a tough month in Black Canyon City. The 33 year-old son of dear friends was murdered, his body dumped in the desert north of town. The family is devastated of course and our community went into shock. An arrest was finally made last week but rumors around town make it sound like possibly three other young men are involved. A week later, Susan's 86-year old boyfriend Henry, with whom she spent a lot of time, passed away. Plus we lost a number of acquaintances over the summer. We're thinking maybe a few more weddings and a few less memorials would be a nice change. Last week, we escaped the heat dragging our sea kayaks to Lake Powell.
Fall is coming and with it our activities in the community will start up again. Susan is playing Bunco from September to April. Bob is campaigning for a spot on the Board of our local Fire District. High Desert Helpers has resumed their meetings after a three month break and has a dance and a run/walk coming up in October. The man who usually cooks High Desert's big Thanksgiving dinner is going elk hunting this year, so the men of the Club are roasting the birds while Eve, Susan, and Mary make the fixin's. We usually get a crowd of 200-250 people. Meals on Wheels soup suppers start next month and Susan, the loudest mouth of the volunteers, will be running their raffles again. A local octogenarian woodworking artisan friend made a priceless hardwood bowl that we are raffling just before Thanksgiving. Then of course, there is Breakfast with Santa, Friday evening dinners at the VFW, Rock-a-rama - our November Rock Show, the Veterans Day parade and fireworks, yadda, yadda, yadda…
Looking forward to hearing about your summer adventures. If you plan to be down our way, please get in touch. Our guest room awaits you!
Expecting gas prices to be ridiculously high at the Rim, we gassed up in Jacob Lake for $4.39. Little did we know that the pumps at the North Rim Village couldn't go above $3.99 and the best gas prices in Arizona were to be had there. As we drove north through what used to be a beautiful succession of meadows and forest, we encountered frequent burn areas that reminded us of the Arizona news reports of the past few years about prolonged drought and beetle kill caused fires. Fortunately, much of that was left behind when we reached DeMotte Park.
The 800+ California fires sent a lot of smoke to Arizona, obscuring the expected 50+ mile view. The next day we headed for the old Nankoweap Trailhead (most backpackers do the hike from Saddle Mountain and Houserock Valley these days). We drove through a majestic aspen recovery forest, infested with tent caterpillars galore, that has replaced the ponderosa pines sometime during the past 20 years. The interesting marbled bark on the burned ponderosa made for some great photographic studies. One deer bounded across the road as we passed. Arriving at our destination, we found several delightful campsites with excellent rim views - Bob's kind of Grand Canyon campsite! He loves the ones where you can park the vehicle on the rim, sit at your pop up table or on your tailgate, and look down on a million years of big ditch creation.
In 1974 Bob and his first wife, Nancy started their Nankoweap Trail backpack at Point Imperial. At that time the rim was covered with a spectacular forest and a fire prevention road went from Point Imperial to the currently marked Nankoweap Trailhead. He remembered it as drivable road, which both of them, on a very long day, lugged full packs and a gallon of water in each hand along, eventually getting as far as the Redwall descent. Searching for this road/trail near our campsite, we eventually found a gate and the 2.2 mile foot trail. We attempted to bike it, but became discouraged within a mile or so when the overgrown locust chewed up our exposed legs. More than just a bit scratched up, we ditched our bikes and hiked to Point Imperial only to find that the last mile or more was clear sailing. Bob was surprised to find there was no longer any trace of the road he walked 35 years ago. Even more surprising was the Point Imperial fire of a few years back had removed most of the ponderosa forest.
Apparently it had been quite dry on the Rim. The forest roads were in excellent shape and while the 7.5 mile Swamp Point road was rutted in places, we had no problems reaching a great rimside, foot-dangling camp a short distance from the North Bass Trailhead. When Bob used to come here with his family, his younger son Scott was kept busy counting scenic flights at a penny a piece. With inflation and the missing aircraft, Scott wouldn't have done too well during the two days we were there. We saw one large helicopter come through the saddle loaded with water to fight the burn but they must have gotten it under control as no more followed. The next morning we had a quick breakfast and headed down the North Bass Trail to check out the spring and the Roosevelt Cabin. Both were in excellent condition and better yet there was no evidence of fires in the area. The most amazing thing to Bob was the amount of recent effort that has been put into North Bass Trail reconstruction. The part through the Supai layer was fairly obscure in the mid-'80's when he led a Sierra Club trip down it. From above, it now resembles the Kaibab Trail and was clearly defined into the Redwall section. The log book in the Roosevelt Cabin showed a trail crew had been active for a significant amount of time a couple of years ago and their work clearly showed.
Earlier when we passed Jacob Lake, we stopped at the Kaibab National Forest Ranger station and picked up a Rainbow Rim Mountain Bike Trail brochure. We were told it was pretty rough and we might not like it. We wanted to scout it out for a future North Rim Mountain Bike group trip, so we headed for Timp Point to see what pretty rough meant. We rode sections from Timp and other viewpoints along the 18-mile length and found it quite doable even for unskilled tail bikers like ourselves. The campsites featured spectacular views of a portion of the Park that not many of us visit. We could see Owl Eyes and even Thunder River from Locust and Fence points. Steamboat Mountain and the Esplanade country sprawled below us. The sunsets and sunrises were spectacular.
The Rainbow Rim Trail has definitely been found, as we encountered two bicycle tour companies: "Escape Adventures" and "Western Spirit". Apparently they offer one trip a week during the summer months. Naturally, their clients were riding the whole thing out and back in a couple of days. We spent some time talking to their folks at Parissawampitts Point. Everyone seemed in good condition and to be having a great time. A father and sons group we met complained about some of the hills on the trail. It follows the rim for much of its length but occasionally jogs back into the forest around ravines. Inevitably these ravines involve a short descent and what always seems like a nasty ascent (even a short uphill isn't much fun). The trail seemed to be well-cleared and always about a foot wide. In some places tall grass made it a bit more difficult to determine where to set your front wheel.
Saying a tearful goodbye to cool country we left the next morning for Black Canyon City. The week had been rain-free and daytime temperatures were in the 80's, a delightful change from the 110's of home. We decided to return through Kanab and Page, stopping at the Wahweap Marina to gather some information about kayaking Lake Powell and the daily Rainbow Bridge tour boat schedule. Wahweap was steamy and to make matters worse much of the information we were given about sea kayak pickups at Rainbow Bridge or Dangling Rope Marina would later prove to be totally incorrect.
A small side road near the gas docks provided a perfect sandy put-in area for the kayaks. Since this was our maiden overnight voyage - loading, unloading, and reloading the hatches was the morning drill. Powered by wishful thinking, into the hatches went a roll-up table, 2 chairs, and a shade canopy; back out and into the truck bed they went when there was obviously no room left for food, cook gear, and clothes. Still we were loaded and underway by 10:30 AM. We were hoping for light traffic through the recently reopened Castle Rock Cut. Lake Powell experienced voluminous inflows this spring and the level was up about 60 feet, although slowly subsiding as the outflows again exceeded the inflows. We were elated to find the Cut open as it saves miles of no-rest, narrow, steep-walled Canyon paddling to reach the first open water in Warm Creek Bay. The power boat waves caused both of us to be tippy and nervous initially, so our first day measured only 5-6 miles. It was especially dicey in the Cut along side the Big Boys (lumbering houseboats) and the Bad Boys (sleek powerboats). It is amazing how tense muscles and adrenaline rushes can sap one's strength. That night we slept like babies in the open air, blanketed by star-studded skies.
After a hearty egg and tortilla breakfast, our second day's challenge started with navigation of the choppy, boat-rich, narrow channel between Warm Creek Bay and Padre Bay. The weekend traffic was noticeably heavier and the wakes and cross waves reverberated against soaring sandstone walls. We were pretty pooped out within a few hours (another 6-7 miles) and flopped into our campsite before lunch. The four paperbacks we had brought along seemed like they might not last the whole 8-9 days that we originally planned to stay out but the food seemed adequate to overkill. We took a little hike up onto the sandstone knobs when the afternoon heat died down and went to sleep watching an intense lightning storm to the north. In the middle of the night, the lightning storm rolled in over the top of us and the rain hit with a vengeance. Fortunately, we had nailed down one side of the tarp over Bob's kayak. We drew it over the top of us and stayed dry for the most part, though Suz had to hold her end down with one foot and one hand for endless hours. With the storm still hovering around us, we became convinced it was a good time for a layover. We rearranged our shelter to include the second kayak and the paddles, just in the knick of time for a mid-morning downpour. The weather cleared in the late afternoon and we took another hike up in the sandstone, discovering an Anasazi granary tucked away in a small canyon.
The wind subsided sometime during the night and we woke to a calm, clear day. Bob's hat had blown away and we had to search it out before we could leave camp. Our destination was the cliffs east of Labyrinth Canyon but we miscalculated and fully set up camp on what we later found was an island. We had lunch there and spent a couple of hours before realizing our error, then loaded our gear back in the yaks and continued on to a better site from whence to hike. We were getting pretty efficient at loading and unloading, setting up and tearing down, but Susan didn't really need the extra drill of a two-camp day. On the clear days, we hadn't expected much in the way of sunsets but were surprised by a yellowish strip that we surmise may be pollution from the Page power plant. We didn't encounter much in the way of wildlife other than enormous jack rabbits that crossed our paths on each hike. One night, we had a mouse visitor who was easily scared away.
The next morning, we decided to leave before breakfast to beat the wind and any potential traffic in the narrow channels. There was virtually no traffic and we landed in a sheltered cove an hour or so later for coffee and a hearty egg and hash tortilla breakfast. The primary excitement for that stretch was watching a houseboat fresh out of Wahweap cross the wake left by the large Rainbow Bridge tour boat. The houseboat was violently rocking on the 4' swells. As it lurched from side to side, up to 20 degrees of tilt, we could hear stuff flying around inside it and there were numerous loud curses. On this last day of paddling we undid the first two days paddling in a bit more than five hours with an hour or more spent making breakfast. Once we got the hang of it, 10+ mile paddling days were possible with lots of time left for some hiking.
The week spent was a great shake down cruise for our relatively new sea-kayaks. Before leaving, we had to solve carrying problems for two 17' craft. Our wooden, home-brew truck-top carrier actually worked quite well. We now know how much fits into our kayaks and what one really needs to kayak camp for a week or more. Solving the foul weather cover problem was also essential. One can do very well with just a lightweight tarp as we did on our many backpacking trips. The two kayaks make great side tie downs, the two paddles create a front support, and a hiking stick makes a great rear support. On the sandy beaches, Baja style sand stakes (deadmen) would have been helpful, so they will definitely be included next time.
