Oct 15, 2022
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| With: | Eric Smith |
Our last day in the Grand Canyon had us visiting two additional summits found in Purcell's Rambles & Scrambles, accessed via a trail we had not used before. It would keep us busy for most of the day. Afterwards there was time for a few easy summits.
trailhead kiosk, but only
limited parking compared to the more popular thoroughfares. We were up well
before sunrise from our camp near Tusayan, pausing in town to get our Starbucks
fix before driving to the TH for a 6:30a start, just 
before sunrise. It
was chilly in the early moring air at 7,000ft, but we would warm soon enough
with the sun and lower elevations as we descended the trail.
We had 
the trail to ourselves for the first hour, watching
Cardenas Butte catch its first rays of sunshine, then
Escalante Butte about 30min later. It took us an hour and a quarter to
reach 
the saddle south of Escalante Butte. Tanner Canyon is to the east,
the 75 Mile Creek drainage to the west. This is where we would leave the trail,
and as we paused for a rest, a group of five fast hikers 
went by us on
their way down to the river. They were the only folks we'd see on the trail all
morning.
The climb up 
the Southeast Slopes of Escalante Butte is mostly class 2
with a few 
class 3 steps along the way, characterized by a lot of
broken sandstone rocks of all sizes. The summit itself is hidden behind
a false summit, 
coming into view as we traversed the SW side of the
false point. The rock changes from 
reddish brown to white in
the upper reaches. We found a short 
tunneling move, probably
completely avoidable, and more class 3 before reaching the summit blocks that
require consideration and caution. There is a short 
class 3-4 face with
minimal exposure, followed by a step-across with a 
heart-stopping drop
below it. Purcell calls this last move class 4, but it requires no more than
a moderate step to get across. The trick, if you could call it that, is to use
your momentum to keep going forward after making the step. Eric
made the step after much hesitation, describing it as "terrifying"
after joining me 
on the summit. It's a bit more awkward on the way
back, so we used my length of webbing to give him a psychological handline for
getting back off the summit block. There were two booklets placed in the same
custom-made copper box that I'd found on Sinking Ship the previous day, the
handiwork of Art Christiansen. One booklet dated 
to 2013, the other
to 2017, both quite busy. 
Views are as good as one might
expect from the Grand Canyon.
After carefully extracting ourselves from the summit block, we 
reversed
much of the route, finding a few easier lines and optimizations. Cardenas Butte
lies a mile to 
the northeast of Escalante Butte, and I figured the
easiest way to get there would be to descend the drainage on the east side of
Escalante to pick up the trail below. However, Eric wanted to skip Cardenas and
would prefer not to descend the rest of Escalante by himself, so we returned
together back 
to the saddle and 
trail on the southeast side
of Escalante. While Eric 
took a break before starting the climb back up
to the rim, I 
plied the trail downhill around the base of Escalante's
East Ridge and then around to 
the south side of Cardenas Butte. Purcell
describes 
the South Slopes as class 2-3, which I thought was fair. He
then describes two class 4-5 moves in a dihedral just below the summit, but I
didn't find this difficult at all (or perhaps found a different way?) and would
have called it class 3-4. Barely an hour after leaving Eric, I had found my way
to 
the summit where there was an identical 
copper box with the
same two 
notepads as we had found on Escalante. It seems these two
buttes are most popularly done together. I spent the next two and a half hours
making my way 
back down to 
the trail and then 
back up
to the South Rim and 
the TH at Lipan Point. Eric had thought I would
catch up to him on the way out, but he would have had to have been very slow and
take long breaks. As it was, Eric was back almost an hour before me.
a good use trail can be followed, starting from
a small turnout southwest of the summit. One then follows the edge of
the South Rim up to the highpoint in less than ten minutes, with a pretty decent
view 
looking north into the canyon. Eric had already done this one,
so I was on my own while he was off looking for an appropriate campsite up
by Grandview BM.
entrance station at the 
Forest/Park boundary. Grandview BM is
the highpoint of the South Rim area, and is the site of a tall
lookout tower. It's closed to visitors, but an ascent of the stairs
gives a view of 
the surrounding forest, though none of
the canyon. We found a spot next to a pile of slash that the Forest Service
had collected, essentially giving us an unlimited supply of firewood that we
would make good use of this evening. Behind the slash pile is a cell tower.
Free camping adjacent to the park, free firewood, full bars of cell coverage -
it was hard to imagine finding a better campsite in this part of the state...
Continued...
This page last updated: Fri Apr 7 12:32:16 2023
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