mattvogt7
Member
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2012
- Messages
- 108
Hey all. I dont have it in me to write the whole trip up in one part, so am going to split it up into a few sections.....I apologize for my laziness. Anyways, hope you enjoy.
Links to the rest of the trip reports from this series:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Memorial day 2011. That’s the first time I ever did the Hopi Salt trail, leading down to the Little Colorado River (LCR). It was an incredibly memorable hike for a variety of reasons, and is documented via video here. The rugged terrain, pristine nature of the canyon, and time spent with friends made it a stand out for 2011 trip of the year. Driving home from the trip we crossed a bridge in Cameron, AZ with a sign that read “Little Colorado River.” It was at that moment that the Cameron to Confluence hike was born.
Cabin fever was building as I sat at home this last winter thinking about upcoming trips. The Salt Trail trip had left an indelible mark on my hiking conscious and I couldn't shake the idea of hiking the entirety of the lower canyon of the Little Colorado from Cameron, AZ to the Confluence with the Colorado River in Grand Canyon NP. To be sure there were some great trips already planned and on the books, but the excitement of the unknown posed by the canyon of the LCR seemed to consume my thoughts. At this point I began scouring the Internet to find information about this hike… which I quickly realized, didn’t really exist. It’s impossible to say how many people have done it, but the number of people who have done it and written about it numbered in the single digits. So it began in Dec/Jan that the logistics began to be planned and those who’ve done the hike were contacted. All were super helpful, enthusiastic, and had amazing things to say about their time spent in the canyon.
Camping at the trail-head
The biggest impediment to a successful trip seemed to be the water situation. The problem is a bit complex. The season for doing this hike is incredibly short, book-ended by the spring runoff of the LCR in April on one end (which has in fact been kayaked) and the start of monsoon season in June. Based on what I’d heard from those who’d successfully hiked the canyon, it was not even worth considering hiking if there had been a recent rain or there was still water flowing under the bridge in Cameron. The quicksand was just too much. Further, the positives benefits of the meek winter here in the four corners had to be tempered with another reality. It was roughly 44-46 miles to Blue Spring where the first “reliable” water source was. On top of this fact was the controversial nature of said water itself. The LCR is known for its incredibly turquoise hue, which is due to a very high mineral content. The resulting potability is questionable at best. Some have consumed it and been fine and some warned me to not even use it to cook with due to “extreme” diarrhea that ensued. This, in conjunction with the fact that my experience drinking it the year prior when doing the Hopi Salt Trail was less the enjoyable. My thoughts of a “quick and light” approach began to fade very quickly as I realized I would be forced to take a large amount of potable water from the beginning.
The scramble down into the main body of the side canyon
As the winter wore on and I found a buddy, Jarrod, to join me for this trek, I started to pour over the maps of the lower gorge. The confluence was roughly 56 miles from Cameron with a few other landmarks in between. I had received info and read about the limited entry and exit points into the canyon along our route. There seemed to be a hierarchy of difficulty and they all seemed to fall in the lower 1/3 of the canyon. The easiest of this hierarchy appeared to be what is simply called “The Horse Trail.” Kelsey mentions it briefly in his book “Non-Technical Guide to the Colorado Plateau” but other than that I couldn’t find much about it. Thankfully I connected with a local hiker and Dr. working in Tuba City by the name of Bill Orman, author Stephen Cole and Sierra club guide Michael Wise. Bill, Mike and Stephen promptly answered my emails, provided topos, and helped immensely with the logistics of the lower canyon. Around this time I also contacted epic distance hiker Jamal Green to get advice for caching food and water. After all the help I received from these great folks I decided that the Horse Trail, which is about 40 miles from Cameron and 16 miles above the confluence would make an ideal cache spot for re-supply in order to keep weight as low as possible from the start.
View from atop the first dry-fall of Horse Trail Canyon. The lit up canyon in the distance is the main gorge of the Little Colorado.
So with that said Jarrod and I packed a couple of plastic buckets with food, water, booze, stove and fuel, and plastic pool doughnuts for the lower canyon and I headed out to find the Horse Trail with the assistance from my girlfriend roughly 2 weeks before we were to depart Cameron. Finding the actual trailhead proved to be a little difficult as the canyon is about 20 miles off of US-89 just north of Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation. Eventually, with assistance from a portable GPS we were able to find it. Arriving as the sun was going down we decided to pack our bags and camp, with hopes of getting an early start.
Cammie approaching the long down-climb
We got on the trail around 7am the next morning with packs loaded with plastic buckets and 5 gallons of water split between us. Luckily we were shaded for the majority of the hike down, which ended up being close to 3 miles one way. The hike begin with a rocky down climb in a side drainage before meeting up with the primary side canyon. A series of large dry falls had to be navigated on canyon L but there was a faint trail which aided immensely. One last crossing of a dry fall lead to the “big climb” of the hike, a long rock strewn field that lead down to a flat boulder garden at the base of the side canyon. Eventually we got to the final down-climb leading to the sandy (but with water) floor of the LCR. This was the “crux move” of the hike. Having no good way down, you slot yourself between huge rocks and come upon a “bridge” made of pieces of wood with some rock slabs placed on top. This bridge must be taken in order to get on an exposed ledge and down climb to the eventual traverse back across canyon to a scramble down to canyon floor.
The first view looking down canyon of the Little Colorado River Gorge
Sketchy make-shift bridge on the last descent
Shortly after we found a nicely protected overhanging ledge at the bottom of the side canyon that we used to stash the supplies and covered them up with some loose nearby rock. I marked the spot on my GPS and we began the long, steep, hot hike back to the car, on which Cammie thoroughly kicked my ass.
The cache spot
Links to the rest of the trip reports from this series:Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
