Grand Canyon October 23, 2019 - Cape Solitude & Comanche Point Backpack From Desert View

October 23, 2019 - Cape Solitude and Comanche Point Backpack From Desert View

It is amazing how much stoke can be squeezed out of 24 hours of driving and 34 miles of backpacking.  Maybe next time I could try just sitting awake in my car for a full day, roll around in the dirt, and beat on my feet with a board.  Of course if I did that I would have missed out on two of the best viewpoints in the Grand Canyon and three days of awesome weather and the camaraderie that comes from shared abuse in the wilderness with a like minded desert rat.

I met Ross on the now defunct Grand Canyon hikers and backpackers Yahoo forum.  All I knew about Ross was that he was from England and had a permit for 6 for a three day trip from Desert View to Cape Solitude with a side trip to Comanche Point. Desert View, Solitude and Commanche are some of the best places to view the canyon.  Desert view is accessible by car, the other two require a bit of effort.  I have been wanting to do this trip and it has actually been my backup choice if I was unable to get a walk-in permit for past trips, however I have always been able to get my requested permits. The opportunity to hike with Ross came at a perfect time,  mild temperatures and some free time.

I drove out to Arizona on a Tuesday evening and arrived in Williams AZ at 4:30 am, bivied in the Subaru for 3 hours before heading north to the park.  I had all day free so I decided to take the dirt road into the park.  The dirt forest service road leaves the highway just south of Tusayan and goes east and eventually turns north and enters the park near the Grandview fire tower.  It was only 10 am when I arrived at Desert View so I decided to attempt to drop a water cache on our proposed route  There is a maze of roads on National Forest and reservation land that ultimately intersect the park boundary where our trail touches the park boundary.  I was warned that the road was bad and even told that my Forester would not make it, that was challenge enough, game on.  I gave myself six hours in and out so that I would be back at Cameron Trading Post on time to meet Ross.at 5:00 p.m.

The road was very rough in spots, the worst seemed to be where you drop down the switchbacks and enter the reservation, once I got through that section it was fairly straightforward but very rough driving. I lost traction a couple of times and just backed up and took a run at it.  Beautiful scenery out there, with glimpses of the rim of the Little Colorado Canyon. I did manage to get to the point where the trail makes a short loop onto the reservation.  I dropped 14 liters next to the trail at the boundary fence and headed back.  The return trip was a little quicker, less route finding and I was driving more aggressively.  I met Ross at Cameron Trading Post where a tire went flat.  I put a can of flat repair into the tire and found the leak high on the sidewall so I pulled the tire off and laid it face down so that the goo would fix the leak in the sidewall, bingo, worked perfectly.  You are not supposed to drive on tires with holes in the sidewall but if I had a flat on the I-40 between Seligman and Kingman at 10 p.m. I wanted a spare.

We geared up that night and headed out the next morning for an 8:00 a.m. start.  We drove the dirt road as far as possible and parked about half a mile past the sewage treatment plant.  In no time we had hiked down the switchbacks and past the no vehicles sign.  The trail follows an old jeep trail that has not been used since the mid seventies when the park was enlarged to encompass the area between Tanner Canyon and the Little Colorado River.  Fairly easy to follow the trail, although it was faint in places as this area gets little traffic.  We cached two liters of water at an obvious spot in the wash that we would not miss.  Of course we missed it on the way out.

We had decided to hike the 14 miles to Cape Solitude on day one and camp at Comanche Point on the return.  The hiking was pretty mellow by Grand Canyon standards.  Nice trail with hardly any steep sections.  We agreed that there was only one short hill that got us huffing.  The last few miles to the cape are across flat ground, a fast hike, but it did get a little monotonous.  In true Grand Canyon style the great abyss suddenly explodes into view.  No matter how many times you gaze, slack jawed, into the canyon, it always mesmerizes.  Less than another mile and we were at the tip of the cape.  Cape Solitude is aptly named, other than an occasional air tour high overhead it is total seclusion. There are 2000-3000 foot walls on three sides.  The weather had been dry so the Little Colorado was flowing an amazing blue, it was the first time I had seen it flow blue. The color is the result of dissolved travertine and limestone.  The confluence is the spiritual heart of the Grand Canyon and the Navajo and Hopi both consider the area sacred.  As an initiation into adulthood, Hopi males make the trip from Tuba City to the Hopi salt mines.  The salt trail enters the Little Colorado canyon and goes down river to a point on the Colorado River that shall remain secret. 

Edward Abbey made the trip to Cape Solitude to escape the insanity of a book tour, he found peace and quiet and healed his soul. As I lay gazing at the stars late at night I could feel the same energy that attracted Abbey there.  Staring up at millions of stars late at night has a way of changing the perspective on our daily existence.

Although the Navajo consider the confluence sacred it did not stop them from recently entertaining offers from a developer to build a gondola from the rim to the river.  Fortunately the tribe ultimately rejected the proposal.  Although the gondola threat has passed, there is a new project threatening the river, a series of energy storage dams on the Little Colorado.  Dams are very destructive to the natural habitat.  The dam at Lake Powell has done irreparable damage to the river.  The only refuge for the endangered humpback chub is the Little Colorado, dams will likely destroy the few remaining fish. 

I have been reading The Big Burn, the story of how the National Forest Service was started as told through the lens of the largest forest fire in American history, the 1910 “Big Burn”..  The book does a good job of chronicling the early skirmishes in the political fight to protect public land from development.  The fight continues today, we must remain vigilant and protect our public lands.

Comanche Point was the second day’s objective. There is no trail to the point, just some instructions Ross had downloaded.  Our maps were seriously lacking in topographic detail so it was difficult to determine the easiest route.  We considered trying to shortcut early off the main trail and go as the crow flies cross country directly to Comanche from the east before we got south of it but we were unsure what terrain we would run into.  Given our resources, we wisely opted to follow the route description   Although we lacked a good detailed topo map we were able to rely on what maps and GPS we had to keep us on track.  We dropped some water and extra food at the trail junction where we turned toward Comanche.  We followed an old jeep track that actually goes in the wrong direction, that is always a bit disconcerting.  When the track ended we turned north through a fairly flat valley.  We eventually crested a ridge and contoured around a few hills to keep our elevation.  Turns out the wash below us and to our right had a good trail we could have followed to the base of Comanche Point but there is always a tendency to not give up elevation.

Comanche Point finally came into view when we rounded the last hill.  The small saddle just south of Comanche Point seemed to be a good campsite..  The saddle, while small, provided enough level room to sleep, albeit close to the edge of a 2000 foot drop.  Wind could be an issue on the saddle so keep your loose gear secured.  Upon arrival at the saddle I was ready to relax, but Ross, the dedicated photographer, went charging up Comanche Point.  He was only gone for 45 minutes and managed to summit and return before sunset.

Before the sun went down the wind was gusting in both directions through the saddle.  I opted to position my bag with feet toward the canyon, hoping the prevailing wind would be into the saddle from the canyon.  We watched an amazing sunset and as darkness set in we could see the first sight of civilization, a single tiny light of someone camped on top of the redwall on the Tanner trail, and a light at Tanner Rapids. The few big gusts that blew as we slept came from the canyon so I was very comfortable in the very light bag I carried.  I also had a bivy sack but never used it except as a ground sheet.

 Before I went to sleep I considered the possibility of getting up in the middle of the night and wandering over the edge, luckily I do not sleep walk.  Funny thing happened that night, I got up to go to relieve myself and started walking before my feet were completely free of my bag and I took a full tumble, no where near the edge, but I had laugh, that would be an original new chapter to the book Over The Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon. 

The wind eventually settled down and it was very still in the morning and we enjoyed a glorious sunrise.  I think that saddle is one of my favorite Grand Canyon campsites.  Camping on the summit of Comanche Point is an option, but we did not really want to drag our packs up the final 600 feet.  In the morning we traversed the base and dropped our packs and climbed to the summit.  I think the view from Comanche is one of the best in the canyon.  You can see from Desert View to Marble Canyon and 9 miles of river is in view from Tanner Rapids to the beginning of the granite gorge.

Comanche Point has been the scene of some serious  adventure.  Before Bill Hatcher became a National Geographic photographer he and Stan Mish came up with the idea of flying a paraglider from the summit and landing on Tanner Beach some 4500 feet below and take the river out. At 2016 at a Grand Canyon climbing history symposium I recall Stan recounting the hilarious story of his near disastrous flight. The text of the event can be found here starting on page 24.  Thanks to Steve Grossman for posting the transcript.

After taking in the view from the summit we dropped back down to our packs and while gazing across the hilly terrain we deliberated the best route from afar..  We decided that retracing our steps was not the easy way back.  Our decision was to go to the bottom of the wash below us and hike up the hill to the south east and take the ridge south,  As we approached the wash we saw hikers exiting the wash.  As they deliberately angled towards us we were surprised to see it was a patrol ranger,I rarely see patrol rangers in the back country.  I doubt Comanche is a high priority area with all the idiocy occurring on the corridor trails.  We chatted briefly and he checked our permit, he almost seemed surprised that we had one. We wisely inquired about the exit moves and he told us to follow the wash and when we see the slickrock watch for an animal trail going up and left.  We found the trail and climbed over a couple of hills and were quickly back in the valley.  From there it was just a matter of angling south and slightly east to intersect the jeep trail and take it east back to the trail junction with the large cairn, much easier than our hike in.

Once back at the junction we retrieved our cache at the trail junction and hiked up the wash we came in on.  On the return trip we found a couple of bypasses and managed to miss our cached water, which fortunately we did not need.  We started with 4 liters each and had 14 cached.  We ended up dumping 3 liters and lost the 2 liters.  I think we each had a liter when we finished.  That comes out to about  6 liters consumed by each of us. In hindsight we could have carried all our water in, I would have carried at least 9 liters.  If it was a month or so earlier (hotter) we could have easily consumed 12 liters each.  The final stretch is the switchbacks out.  They are not so steep that you have to stop and rest, but it is a fairly long uphill trudge.  It was a great trip, Ross was an excellent companion and we both travelled at a similar pace. I do not think a party of six would have gone quite as smoothly.  My fear of partners is that I am too slow or the pace drags to a slow crawl.  I love solo trips but trips like this make me more inclined to seek partners.