South Kaibab Trail (Grand Canyon NP) (6/10/09)

Route Name: South Kaibab Trail
Location: Grand Canyon National Park
Start Elevation: 7,190 ft.
Skeleton Point Elevation: 5164 ft.
Elevation Gain/Loss 2,026 ft.
Round-trip Mileage: 6.28 mi.

Trip Report

I awoke up this morning about 5:30am and hopped the shuttle to Yaki Point right around 6am. The shuttle from the campground takes you to the Information Center where you catch a different shuttle to Yaki Point for the South Kaibab Trail. It took the better part of 45 minutes to get to the trailhead. Along the way I saw some elk near the Yavapai Lodge and deer eating breakfast at the Information Center.

I left the South Kaibab trailhead at 6:42am. It was nice cool air and shade for the first part of the hike. Met a few hikers along the trail as I sped down pretty quickly. I made a 5 minute stop at Ooh Aah point. Took an amazing panorama (my favorite of the trip) from this point.

From Ooh Aah Point

Queens Garden/Navajo Loop (Bryce Canyon NP) (6/9/09)

Route Name: Queens Garden/Navajo Combination Loop
Location: Bryce Canyon National Park
Start Elevation: 7,958 ft.
Bottom Elevation: 7,413 ft.
Elevation Gain/Loss 545 ft.
Round-trip Mileage: 3.7 mi.

Trip Report

In the visitor center at Bryce I was curious as to what hikes this unique park had to offer. With the time I had alloted the Queens Gardens/Navajo Combination Loop stood out to me. It was quoted as the "World's best 3-mile hike". Sounded good to me.

I started hiking from our camp along the rim to Sunrise Point where I picked up the trail to Queen's Garden. I was taking quite a few pictures on the Nikon D50 camera when the batteries ran out. I was stuck taking pics on my Omnia phone the rest of the way. The 1-mile hike to Queen's Garden had some great views. I saw the Queen Victoria formation at the end of this trail portion. From there is a forest hike to the Navajo Loop. I took the northern section of the loop. This brought me two a signed split in the trail which pointed right to the two bridges area. It was unclear if this was trail so I followed it up a gulley past the two bridges. I followed this to the top of the gulley where it dead ended at a 50 foot cliff. I turned around and went up the other split which was the real trail. The trail ends at Sunset Point where I took some more pictures. On the walk back to camp I stopped at the General Store and bought some Corona for supper at camp. It was a cold night down in the 30's up at 8000 feet.

VIDEOS:

Here are a pair of videos I took along the hike. The first is towards the eastern end of the loop, near the beginning of the hike. The second is towards the western end of the loop near the very end of the hike at Sunset Point.

TRACK:

I took a KML track file from this hike showing the full extent of the loop. Because of poor GPS reception in the canyon on the way up some of the track is a bit messed up. The rest is great!

My Track

PHOTOS:

Angel's Landing (Zion NP) (6/8/09)

Route Name: Angels Landing
Location: Zion National Park
Start Elevation: 4,276 ft.
Angels Landing Elevation: 5,787 ft.
Elevation Gain: 1,511 ft.
Round-trip Mileage: 4.00 mi.

TRIP REPORT

We drove this morning from Las Vegas into Zion. We headed through the Visitor Center, asked some questions about the trails and shuttles, and headed onto the Zion shuttles. We rode up to the Grotto stop and there we hopped out onto the Angels Landing trail. We enjoyed a beautiful hike along the Virgin River for the first half mile and started getting great views of the canyon walls around us. Sarah had to do a time out on the hike about a mile in as the switchbacks started and the trail got steeper heading up into Refrigerator Canyon. I headed on ahead and cruised along the trail. With a half mile to go on the trail you reach Scout Lookout and the remaining trail heads up a narrow ridge to Angels Landing. At this point there are steep dropoffs around the trail and chain ropes to hang onto (for safety and piece of mind). It was a beautiful trail to the top. It took 1:20 to get to the top, only 40 minutes on the way down. Atop Angels Landing one gets some of the best views of Zion Canyon. Angels Landing sorta sits right in the middle of the canyon and gives you great views down three different parts of the canyon.

After I cruised down from atop Angels Landing I met up with Sarah again just above where I had left her earlier. We hiked down the remainder of the Angels Landing trail together and then hopped on the shuttle again. We rode it to the north end of the canyon at the Temple of Sinawava. The canyon was narrow at this point and we got out and walked to the river's edge.

Zion Canyon from Angel's Landing

VIDEOS:

Below are two videos hosted on Youtube. The first video is from above Scout Lookout giving an idea of what the upper portion of the hike looks like. The view of Angels Landing is daunting in what the perceived difficulty of the hike will be. The second video is from atop Angels Landing giving great views of Zion Canyon.

TRACK:

I took a GPX track from the hike of Angels Landing. There are a few short segments of the track missing as the GPS had bad reception and missplaced several points. I used a GPX editor to remove the bad segments and put it into KML for download.

My Track

PHOTOS:

Here are photos from the hike. They are hosted on Picasa and clicking any photo will take you to the full-size version.

Angel's Landing as seen from the trailhead

Nearing the top of the first major set of switchbacks which then leads into Refrigerator Canyon

Above the switchback from the last picture now looking into Refrigerator Canyon

This is looking up from the famous "Walter's Wiggles"

From Scout Lookout looking south

Getting ready to head into the more dangerous section.
A sign warns of the exposure ahead

The ridge leading out to Angels Landing is indeed narrow and the "trail" keeps you righto n the crest of it

A narrow section with a sheer drop-off on the side.
You can see in the pic some of the chains put in place for safety and piece of mind

On another section of the ridge crest

Another example of the chains and the narrow trail they keep you on

Nearing the top finally

My "money shot" from Angels Landing catching the grandeur of Zion Canyon

Looking north along the path taken

An example of the sheer dropoffs on all sides

On the descent I could see Sarah on the trail down below waiting for me

A look at the amazing switchbacks which pick up a lot of elevation in a short amount of space.
This is below Refrigerator Canyon heading down towards the trailhead

Missouri Mountain (7/21/08)

Route Name: Northwest Ridge from Missouri Gulch
Start Elevation: 9658 ft.
Summit Elevation: 14,067 ft.
Total Elevation Gain: 4409 ft.
Round-trip Mileage: 10.6 mi (according to my GPS)

TRIP REPORT:

This was our fifth day of 14ers in a row. By now I think the legs were so used to the daily beating that they just went along with it with little complaint. We decided on doing the Missouri Gulch route for Missouri. We left our home base and were on the road around 6:15am, a modestly early start. We found CO-390 and headed off US24 for Vicksburg. This got us to the Missouri Gulch TH about 6:50am.

We headed up the trail which begins with a bridge over Clear Creek and then involves several steep switchbacks in the trees. This trailhead is at 9800 feet and so its a long day of climbing. We made it up through the switchbacks with very little stopping and soon found ourselves at the broken down cabin (okay, so it took us about an hour). There we put the good ole suntan lotion on (heavily!) and it wasn't long till we were out in the trees. There was one stream crossing just below the cabin which involves walking over three fairly thin logs to cross. We were also surprised along the way at how many Columbines there were to see. One of the meadows was just full of them. Great sight! From this point on the trail wasn't nearly so steep and actually was just beautiful hiking. The trail progressively takes you up into Missouri Gulch with Missouri Mountain being the high point on the ridge ahead of you the whole way. At some point the Mt. Belford trail breaks off and this junction was well signed. We couldn't get past how beautiful the hiking was and how well done the trail was. There were a few more stream crossings as you went deeper into Missouri Gulch, and these involve hopping rocks to get across. Dad ended up with a wet shoe on one of them as one of the best stepstones had water running over its top.

We were worried about the amount of snow we would find back in there and from a distance it did look as though we would still see a lot of it. We ran into some backpackers hiking out that day and they said there is some snow to cross, but it ain't bad, and some of it can be avoided even. Deeper into Missouri Gulch the trail starts to approach the base of the Missouri Mountain summit, here there is another junction where the Elkhead Pass trail heads to the left and the Missouri trail ascends to the right.

From Missouri Gulch

From here you ascend a grass slope with some switchbacks. At the top of that slope we crossed an easy snowfield. From here the trail veers to the right and heads for the rocks at the base of the 13er Point 13, 784'. There is an amazing rock trail leading you up to the face of Point 13,784'. The trail then traverses along this face with a steep dirt trail in which much of the left side of this trail as you ascend is washing out. This trail works its way up to the saddle on the Missouri ridge. Just before you reach the saddle the hiking gets much steeper. There was a large snowfield covering the approach to the saddle. On our ascent we decided to veer around the snow and climb steep loose talus up to the ridge. This worked but it was very steep climbing. On our descent we went through the snow and found this to be the easier route. The snow involve some straight down-hiking in the snow but the steps were deeply melted in.

Once on the summit ridge heading for Missouri the first 3/4 of the ridge were easy hiking along and near the crest of the ridge. Nearing the summit there are two crux points along the ridge. There is a 20-foot descent on very steep loose dirt and rock with some exposure below. The exposure is a steep talus slope. Once this 20-foot descent is completed you hike 50 feet on level ground with the exposed talus slope to your right and your walking area very narrow. At the end of this 50 foot run you then ascend 10 feet or so through a near vertical notch where the trail continues. From this point it is a very steep loose dirt trail to the summit. We summited at 11:01am after a 4hr 9 min climb.

We enjoyed as usual the views from the summit and met a marmot up there as well. We only ran into one other person during our time on the summit which was a pleasant change from yesterday on Princeton. We spent a good 30 minutes or so on top and began our descent. The descent went very easily. We downclimbed through the steep sections on the ridge and made our way back to the saddle. We had fun descending through the large snowfield and I tried out the yaktrax's there. The rest of the hike out was just a beautiful hike on great trail. We ran into a large youth group on the trail coming up. They would backpack the night and then hike Belford the next day. We didn't so much enjoy the long hike through the switchbacks in the forest and Dad almost had a bad accident. He nearly tripped up and ran off the trail into a tree. Luckily he didn't hit the tree at any great speed and it actually saved him from rolling down the side of the hill for a good ways.

We made it back to the car at 2:44pm after a 3hr 19 min descent. It was great to finally have a rest for the legs after 5 14ers in 5 days. The drive out felt good and we really enjoyed the Missouri hike. From there we headed to Leadville for the second day in a row and we had "lunch" at Doc Holliday's bar and grill. We had more outstanding burgers there.

TRACK:

I have two GPX track files from this hike. One for the ascent and one for the descent. The route in both directions should be nearly identical. I put them into KML for download.

My Track

PHOTOS:

If you would like to see all my photos from this hike click the photo below and it links to my Google Photos Album:

Mt. Princeton (7/20/08)

Route Name: East Slopes
Start Elevation: 10,843 ft.
Summit Elevation: 14,197 ft.
Total Elevation Gain: 3,354 ft.
Round-trip Mileage: 6.72 mi (according to my GPS)

TRIP REPORT:

We were off fairly early this morning from our home base, around 7am or so. We made our way to the Mt. Princeton road. Somehow we got lost a bit heading for the road which is CR-322. We took CO162 from Nathrop and couldn't quite follow the signs or the GPS right to catch 322. The blue line leading into the image is where we came from. The GPS wanted us to follow the yellow route which took us into a no trespassing camp. We finally found our way to the green route which then brought us to CR-322 and the proper passage. You can click on the image posted for a closer look at what happened. That image is from Google Maps Terrain view on the southeast slopes of Mt. Princeton. Once we were on the proper road we quickly ran into a Y-junction where the left route takes you into a private ranch and the right route takes you under a sign marked "Mt. Princeton" and into a large parking area. The road does continue on from this point with 4WD heavily recommended. We proceeded and drove up the narrow road with many water-eroded gullies in it. The rocks were very small in comparison to the South Colony Lakes road and the driving much nicer. This road took us up to around 11000 feet where we found some parking at the radio towers there. We'd heard that parking can fill up and be a problem on Princeton and we were fortunate to find a space, with the time being just before 8am. We were also surprised to find a few not quite full 4WD vehicles had also made it up there.