New Hance to the Grandview

April 14-17, 2009

The Hikers - Daniel DeFraia, Jennifer Romano, Caroline Wheadon, Tom Ralston, John Avello, Cheech Calenti, Gary DeFraia, Christopher DeFraia

Our Trip Plan

Day 1: Hike down the New Hance Trail from the South Rim to the bottom of Red Canyon

Day 2: Hike along the Tonto Trail, along the Colorado, then climb up to the Tonto Plateau. Camp on the Tonto about mid-way between Mineral Canyon and Hance Canyon

Day 3: Hike the Tonto Trail into Hance Creek, then up to Horseshoe Mesa. Camp on the Mesa

Day 4: Hike the Grandview Trail from the Mesa up the to the Rim

April 13^th - To Phoenix and Grand Canyon Village (South Rim)

Cheech and John drove from Las Vegas. Tom drove from Tucson. The rest of us flew to Phoenix – my cousin Jen from Pennsylvania, my father, Gary from Newburgh, NY, Jen's sister, Caroline from Rochester, NY and my brother, Chris from Florida. I flew in from Massachusetts. The point being—forget Rome - all roads lead to the Grand Canyon.

By noon all the East coasters arrived at Sky Harbor Airport. Achilles ("Cheech"), in a kind gesture, left his car for us to drive to Grand Canyon Village. However, just as hot does not fully communicate the dry sweltering air in a desert at noon, and grand can never accurately conjure up the awesome panoramic reality of the Canyon on a clear blue day, so too is car a bit inadequate when referring to Cheech's "gesture". How about "Traumatic Road Machine?" One of the back doors didn't open, both back windows were shot out by some hoodlums and shattered so we could not open them, which might not have been a problem, except that his air conditioning was not working! A semi-nauseous odor evolved from a prolonged stay in a parking space (turned baking space) in the Phoenix sun. On the long drive to the Canyon, all this helped produce not a few pit stops for the infamous "number three"!

Upon arrival at the Rim we escaped from the Traumatic Road Machine and stopped to wonder at the Canyon. Please always leave time for staring. The advent of the Canyon horizon seems to appear so quickly and is always unforgettable.

Sometime later we met Cheech, Tom, and John at Maswik Lodge and stayed the night. In preparation for the hike my father thought it pertinent to inspect the cousins' (Caroline and Jen) packs. In view of his findings, I share this advice: One item you should not bring on a hike through Grand Canyon is a genuine US Marine-issued collapsible foxhole shovel, assuming you can even find one. (Jen actually had one).

Day One: April 14^th - South Rim to Bottom of Red Canyon

Mileage Day One: From the Rim to the Coronado Saddle to the top of Red Wall and then down to the campsite, where the creek surfaces from underground en route to the River. About 5.5 miles.

We began our adventure on the New Hance Trailhead, east of Moran Point. From the South Rim the descent is about 4300 feet to the first available campsite at the bottom of Red Canyon. Many Canyon experts consider the New Hance to be the toughest descent in the Canyon. It's hard and it's beautiful, which pretty much captures most hiking experiences in the canyon.

Chris: Top of the New Hance Trail

While writing this account my father reminded me of the book "130 Ways to Die in the Grand Canyon" thinking it would be fun to reference. I respectfully decline. Moving on. Only literally minutes into the hike Caroline's sleeping bag shook loose and tumbled, and bounced down past us all, through a series of switchbacks, and for a moment hit terminal velocity before we heard the suppressed thud of down feather smacking into rock. Caroline's "Oh no, oh no!" would have seemed ominous if not for her sister Jen's hysterical laughter. Most of us agreed that it was funny to see the bag diving into the Canyon and ignored what, if anything, this foreboding beginning might mean. Personally, I have always had the childish urge to throw inanimate objects down the Canyon, to watch them bounce and fall and stop and start, like a massive giant slinky. I've also wished many times for a bucket of golf balls and a driver. So I admit I was both tickled to see the sleeping bag bounce by and a lot relieved that we got it back without much trouble.

This was the first Canyon experience for my cousins Caroline and Jen. Which makes them, in my father's Canyon class system "First Timers". (Per Dad, the Canyon hiking hierarchy goes like this: First Timer, Canyoneer Trainee I, Canyoneer Trainee II, Canyoneer, Canyon Master). Jen was quite vocal about her astonishment that she could see no actual "trails". Apparently, we neglected to mention that in the Canyon "trails" are pebbly, unstable, boulder encumbering spaces without little resemblance to what one would imagine when the word "trail" is used, normally to evoke an image of roughly defined paths stretching through backcountry. Suffice it to say Jen wondered what the hell she was doing here and why she came. My father's fatherly interpretation of Jen's comments: "a typical First Timer reaction."

Jen and Caroline on the New Hance "Trail"

Chris and Dan, Near Coronado Butte

Everyone did really well and we reached the bottom of Red Canyon and the campsite by late afternoon. On the last trip I was on (down the Tanner Trail), Cheech fell way back on the trail because of a bad knee while his old friend Tom, made wonderful jokes (most in bad taste, of course) about Cheech's untimely demise. See the Spring 2002 trip for details. If you look moderately closely in the picture below and note what is Cheech's hand, you can see that Cheech is sipping wine while most of us are scurrying about setting up camp. Now that's,in my opinion, a first timer, rookie-type mistake - setting up camp before sipping the wine.

Cheech in Camp (Red Canyon)

Canyon tradition demands the first night's dinner be one of epic stomach expanding proportions. Italian bread, sauce, meatballs, sausages, breads, and several red wines appear from the tight recesses of everyone's pack and there it is! Your favorite local Italian restaurant's staple meal is ready for enjoyment. Delicious! Two days prior at Maswik Lodge, Tom asked my brother Chris how much of the eight bottles of wine he had, we should bring. Chris correctly advised him, "Tom. We're all Italian. Bring it all!" And so we carried eight liters of wine - one liter per person. I like to think that in some small way we were continuing our ancestral traditions, keeping the eternal Italian flame burning by introducing to the wilderness red wine, meatballs, salad and garlic bread. We've lost the old ways and the language here, but the really important stuff remains—and by that I mean the food, drink and friends. We drank every night amongst a cosmic display of stars. The Grand Canyon, by the way, is one of the few places left where you can view the night sky as Lewis and Clarke might have, because there's hardly any light pollution.

Two things to note here: Liquids are the heaviest item one is likely to carry into the canyon and two there is often bargaining, cajoling and other attempts to dump of some of your weight onto a fellow hiker, and sometimes this takes the form of a wager. At dinner Chris made a bet with Cheech that it would rain and if it did Cheech would carry Chris' wine. Cheech predicted a dry cool night took the bet. It rained. Cheech cursed. Chris laughed and in the morning, handed over his liter of wine.

At night the temperature dropped fast! Everyone who had tents (except for my father and Johnny who both slept outside) crawled in and attempted to sleep. But high winds, driving rain, and wildly flapping tents (a foreshowing of the next two nights) was our nature's lullaby. When the rain storm hit at around 2 AM my father, who slept next to the girls, first threw his sleeping bag into their tent to keep it dry, and then, in the rain, made a makeshift lean to by tying his ground tarp to the girl's tent.But it was too low to the ground for him to climb back under, without laying in the mud. So he had to walk through the girl's tent, over the girls, in one door, and out the other and into his warm bag. A little unorthodox, but he woke up dry in the morning. Caroline, who slept through the whole ordeal asked in the morning, "Hey Jen. Did Uncle Gary come through our tent in the middle of the night?"

Gary's "Lean To"

Day Two: April 15 – Bottom of Red Canyon to Colorado to Tonto Plateau

Mileage Day Two: From the campsite to Hance Rapids at the River (Junction of the Tonto Trail): 1.6 miles. Then another 3.5 from Hance Rapids to west of Mineral Canyon to our camp on the Tonto Plateau.

The morning was sunny and calm, still and cool. The short hike through the bottom of Red Canyon to the River was pleasant. We had a nice rest at the river at Hance Rapids. As seen in the picture below, my cousins seem to be taking Cheech's advice to "Listen to the rhythm of the rocks", which is either a profound aphorism we should all seek to comprehend or some off-the-cuff utterance he made after a few glasses of wine, which we should all ignore.

Caroline & Jen at Hance Rapids

Caroline, Gary

Caroline & Jen at the River

We hiked along the riverbank on shifting sand and then climbed, which is tiring with a heavy backpack, but it was nice to walk along to the Colorado. After less than an hour we turned away from the river and began our assent and climbed along the Tonto, where we broke into separate groups because first as Jen noted earlier, "where are the trails?" and also each person runs, walks, clambers, strides, saunters, moseys, scrambles, hikes or trips his or her way through the Canyon at their own pace. Individual paces combined with some soreness of the first day's hike created a bit of distance from one pair of hikers to the next. So Cheech and I got lost. Well, not lost really, just on the wrong side of a small chasm, having to jump boulders and slip on loose gravel. It took an hour for Cheech and I to navigate our way back to everyone. By the time we'd reached them a sea of clouds had rolled in and the temperature dropped. This was about the time we hiked out of Mineral Canyon.

Dan & Chris on the Tonto Plateau

Unfortunately the gray clouds were not an empty threat. Once back on the Tonto a hailstorm replete with winds and cold descended. The sepia tone brown of the canyon turned white and gray when a hailstorm blew in. The progression of emotion went from confusion, ("Why the hell is there hail in the bottom of the Canyon?"), to surprise, ("I can't believe there's hail in the Canyon"), to discomfort, ("Damn, there's freezing hail in the Canyon"), to being quite perturbed ("There's !#!***ing hail in the Canyon!"). But it was an incentive to keep hiking. If you were gasping for breath, you were usually warm.

Gary in the Blizzard

Camping on the Tonto was freezing and uncomfortable to say the least. I myself had an existential crisis in the dark hours concerning weather or not to leave the tent to relieve myself or stay in my warm bag. (Which was it?) My father attempted to build a shelter with large rocks and a tarp, which by morning showed an impressive collection of fairly large hailstones. Gusts of up to 40 miles an hour are no sweet natural lullaby. The tents were blown flat during the night. Caroline reported almost being "flapped" to death. But, and I use the conjecture in the most profound sense, like when someone is looking for silver lining in difficult times, (dramatic pause), we had wine (really dramatic pause). We had great wine.

#12: Camp Two on the Tonto

Storms on the Tonto

Hail on Gary's Tarp

Day Three: April 16^th – Tonto to Hance Creek to Horseshoe Mesa

Mileage Day Three: 2.0 miles from Camp # 2 on the Tonto into head of Hance Creek then 3.5 miles up from Hance Creek to Horseshoe Mesa to Camp # 3. Total 5.5 miles.

We all survived the night, and like in the movies after a dark and stormy night, the sun rose, morning brightened, warmed up and we awoke to quiet. As light crept over the canyon I noticed the picturesque view - at least 270 degrees of canyon and I wished I could look at all of it at once.  

From camp we hiked along the Tonto to the mouth of Hance Canyon and then managed the tricky ledges into Hance Canyon to the head of Hance Creek. This is a long contour into and out of side canyons until the trail drops down to cross the creek. We took a lunch break at the creek. There was a good bit of water in this area.

Lunch at Hance Creek

After leaving the creek we met a guy trudging down the trail carrying a liter and half of vodka! He was very excited about his vodka and when we looked at him a bit puzzled, he added that his buddy behind him was carrying 30 cans of beer! We offered to lighten his load but he wasn't sharing. I thought it interesting that in no less than a quarter of a mile, in the middle of the Grand Canyon, on one of it's remote trails, a group carrying a wine store met someone carrying vodka and then another carrying beer. I can only assume from this limited sample that a majority of those who hike in the canyon also like to drink, although they have a variety of preferences.

Coming out of Hance Creek the trail climbs up to Horseshoe Mesa. From the creek to Miner's Spring is a steep, tough section. Since there is no water on the Mesa, we detoured into Miner's Spring to fill up on water. It's a short hike to a unique area with a few blooming flowers. A perfect spot to take a breather.

Miner's Spring

Filtering Water at Miner's Spring

Based on reports of the water from websites and guidebooks that the spring is OK to drink as is, we considered not taking the time to filter, but after two brief and very scary lectures, one from our Microbiologist (Chris) and one from our Environmental Engineer (Caroline), about what could be in the water, even at such a nice spring, we filtered.

Dan & Caroline at the Old Mine

The climb from the mine and spring to Horseshoe Mesa is even tougher than the previous climb, with a lot of switchbacks and vertical climbs.

The Ascent to Horseshoe Mesa

Arrival on the Mesa

Once on the Mesa Caroline and Jen were ecstatic to see a toilet or, as I like to refer to it, a Canyon Throne. Caroline took pictures of the throne including a view from the throne. Cheech later commented,"Caroline. You took a picture of a toilet! Only in the Grand Canyon." It is the most picturesque B-break you'll ever have. I assume it was flown in and is periodically flown out. But what I find so awesome is that someone somewhere not only thought it was a good idea to put a toilet in the Canyon but actually did it I would love to know the back-story to the toilet/throne and how it all happened. How do you pitch the toilet idea to the Park administrators? Towards the end of a meeting of preservationists and tourist management, etc. did an intern kid in the back stand up and say "Listen guys, I got a great idea. No hear me out, listen. Let's put a toilet on Horseshoe Mesa. It will be totally sweet dude." I imagine unanimous approval.

The Famous Mesa Toilet

View from the Famous Mesa Toilet

So what was my cousin thinking while seated on the Famous Mesa toilet? Because the answer is obvious and there are cousinly boundaries I have to respect, to respond, I'm forced to create this little fantasy sequence. First Caroline recited a haiku aloud to the flora and fauna and spoke in sweet mumbles to the wind and sand. The poem's theme revolved around the gustatory system and the democratic ideal of love as postulated by the Beatles. Then she wrote a poem (in her mind), which she forgot on purpose in hopes that she would have the joy of remembering it someday and be pleasantly surprised. Then thought of those Transcendental heroes - Emerson and Thoreau and bellowed out a few lines from Walden until her trance ended and she descended from the throne, a little disoriented, and giggling, the laughing Queen of Horseshoe Mesa.

The camp on the Mesa was a welcome respite from the previous two nights. Still cold, but not as windy. Hearts tournament. Caroline and I both recall we won? Trivial Pursuit questions between the tents.

Jen Sipping Wine with the Boys on the Mesa (Anyone see a pattern here?)

April 17^th – Horseshoe Mesa, Up the Grandview to South Rim

Mileage Day Four: 3.0 miles from the Mesa to the Rim.

The morning was clear again and still cool. It never quite warmed up on this trip. We broke camp and headed for the rim up the Grandview Trail.

Packing Up the Last Morning