Thunder River
September 11 – 13, 2010
Submitted by Pat
Day 1 – September 11, 2010
This is the big trip, the true backcountry experience, the trip I have labored over for months, planning food, buying gear, nearly lighting my kitchen on fire trying to figure out how to use the little ultra-light cook stove, and reading everything I can find about the trail. This is our first time carrying heavy packs on a hike – and mine feels very heavy – I’m surprised, a little discouraged, and determined. I can’t believe that carrying a tent, a thermarest pad, a small stove, freeze dried food, powdered milk, an emergency beacon, kitchen implements, a first aid kit, a change of clothes and water for one day can weigh so much. And we have to start the hike by carrying two gallon jugs of water to cache on the trail for our climb back out three days later.
While we’re preparing our gear, the grace wave sweeps over us – a group of four men arrive at the trailhead. One of them is familiar with the trail and they’re going for a day hike. They ask us about our plans and we tell them. Then the guide offers to carry our two gallons of water down the trail. His offer feels like a dash of kindness coming at us from the middle of nowhere. Nancy loans one of them her pole to ease the strain on his knees so it feels like the wave is going both ways.
When we’re finally ready, we start off walking the trail along the rim, through mesquite and juniper, over rolling hills, seeing evidence of a long ago forest fire. We’re at a little over 7,000 feet in altitude and with the heavy pack and my difficulty breathing Nancy soon leaves me behind. I struggle to keep up, to breathe and to stay positive, but I have to admit I’m pretty disappointed in myself. Feeling like this I’m not going to last an hour, let alone three hard days. But I have already turned us back once and I’m not going to turn us back before we have even started climbing down. I suck it up and breathe.
The Bill Hall Trailhead is two cairns sitting on the rim of the Canyon with the trail going straight down the side, through white rock, sharp, steep, with big steps, straight down. We move slowly and I’m able to stay with Nancy. I even lead the hike a couple of times as the steepness levels out and we start traversing the side of the cliff on a rolling path, with the side of the cliff straight up on our right and straight down on our left. The trail is easy to follow, but nothing like the well manicured and switchbacked corridor trails. The views are magnificent, the sky cloudless, the temperature perfect – I want so badly to just feel strong and happy to be alive, but underneath I feel anxious – Am I going to make it? This pack weighs a ton, my legs feel like lead, and we have ten more miles of this before we rest?
We reach a place in the trail that a trip report described as the 49 switchback section – it included a 15-foot downclimb. Here we meet the men who are carrying our cache water. They generously offer to take our packs so we lower them down and downclimb the section with relative ease. We stand and talk with them for a while. They’ve decided not to hike all the way down to the Esplanade and said they will cache one gallon of water at the end of their day hike, wherever that turns out to be. Nancy grabs the other gallon and we start down a series of less steep switchbacks, with a huge expanse of Canyon below us. The Esplanade is a layer that is visible only west of Powell Plateau on the North side of the river, and Garnet Canyon in the south. It’s a relatively flat area full of red sandstone and amazing rock shapes carved by wind and water. We reach the intersection of the Thunder River Trail, our first major waypoint.
Walking along the Esplanade is an exercise in staying upright – the views are amazing and everywhere are huge rock shapes and water carved overhangs offering a bit of shade. The footing is good and I spend more time looking up and out than at the trail so the occasional stumble becomes part of my ritual. We come to a deep overhang with a cave scoured into the rock that goes back maybe 30 feet. A perfect spot to cache our second gallon of water. We had written on the bottle Piper – please leave! – and we leave it on a shelf of rock about halfway toward the back of the cave. It should be safe there. We have already seen evidence of other water caches and know no one will take it. Everyone will know our survival depends on it being there for us on the hike out.
I begin feeling better as we sit in the shade and eat. Our overhang is part of a huge amphitheatre of red slickrock – we memorize the location and know we will easily find this place again on our way back. After a brief rest we resume our trek toward the next major downclimb into Surprise Valley. We crest the redwall cliff and start down a jumble of rocks on an unmaintained but recognizable trail. It’s hot and I’m feeling it. My pack is heavy and a muscle in my back is in spasm – high on my back, unrelenting. The worst part is that as the day wears on I realize that as soon as I put the pack on the muscle will tighten up and as soon as I take the pack off it releases. I try to ignore it, to put it in a place where I won’t feel it, to keep it away from my awareness, but I’m lousy at compartmentalizing and the discomfort stays right on the edge of my consciousness.
Three quarters of the way down we stop in the shade of a boulder to rest. Both of us are feeling the relentless heat and sun and we can see that as soon as we get down to Surprise Valley there’s no shade at all until we reach Thunder River. The walk across Surprise Valley is hot, no way around it, and it seems to go on forever. As we come over a rise we see more valley ahead of us, hot, arid, dry desert. Not very welcoming. The Canyon is showing her fangs, making us realize how small and how fragile we are in this desert landscape. With each sip of warm water I’m aware of how close people who venture into the far reaches of the Canyon really are to their own deaths. When Nancy stops and says, “Do you hear that?” I hear water, loud, rushing, clear, cold water – spilling out of the side of a cliff – Thunder River, the shortest river in the world – a series of tumbling waterfalls that run a half mile before descending below ground again. Tears flash into my eyes. We’re going to make it. We finally have access to cold water!
We start down our last descent of the day, but it’s bliss compared to Surprise Valley because we are walking in the shade. As we wind our way down the steady switchbacks, we can hear the sound of the water getting louder and louder. We take the spur trail to the base of Thunder River where we meet others who are resting, bathing, getting water. Nancy has been here before on her river rafting trip and urges me to walk up close to the falling water. It’s like stepping from an oven into a freezer – my skin stipplies with goose bumps – wow, how can it be so cold? The rush of the water creates a strong breeze and on the one hand I’m happy and grateful for the coolness and the water but on the other hand I’m freezing. Such a strange juxtaposition of two very different realities.
Once we have refreshed ourselves we realize we only have about an hour before the Canyon will plunge into darkness so we start back down the switchbacks to the Upper Tapeats campground, our first stop. To say that I’m not exhausted by the time we reach a nice spot next to Tapeats Creek is be a lie. My hips are screaming, my back aches and spasms, my legs feel like tree trunks – no strength or flexibility left – and my feet, my feet, are just plain finished with walking. I can’t believe how good it feels to stop moving and sit down…
But we don’t have time to rest; we need to set up camp, cook dinner, prepare our sleeping space, hang our food and put away any extraneous gear before we can actually lie down and rest. I make beef stew, freeze dried, and although there isn’t enough for seconds it tastes so good, warm and savory. I’m surprised and happy. I had been worried about the food – it’s really important to me that we eat well and have enough food to maintain energy.
If I hadn’t been so tired the whole process of preparing dinner would have made me laugh – so many little steps and parts and pieces, hidden in zippered pouches throughout my pack are needed to reach the place of actually being able to sit down and eat. Putting the stove together is a task in and of itself, lighting it, always a nervous moment, finally a steady blue flame, then filling the single pot with water and waiting for it to boil, meantime setting up a thin metal windbreak around the stove so the wind won’t blow out the flame. And then finding the bowls and the sporks – spoon/fork combination utensils that fold down to a small size that nest in the bowls, which nest in the mugs, which nest in each other which nest in the pot which nest in a drawstring bag. While I’m cooking, Nancy prepares our sleep area – it’s hot down this far into the Canyon and the idea of sleeping in a tent is not appealing. So she lays down the ground cloth, our thermarest pads, our sleeping bag liners – Coolmax cocoons shaped like a mummy bag, and our luxurious camp pillows – and as it grows darker, turns on our little Black Diamond lantern.
We eat in relative silence. There isn’t a lot to say. We’re both tired, and by the time we finish eating and clean up, darkness is taking hold of the Canyon floor. The sound of Tapeats Creek rushing by our campsite erases all other sounds, perfect for sleeping. We crawl into our sleeping bag liners and I face that inevitable and stark moment where I know it’s time to rest and I can feel my body thrumming with exhaustion. It feels like I’m still hiking, still humping that heavy pack, and my mind is not ready to stop thinking and worrying about tomorrow.
As we lay there trying to find a comfortable position I hear some rustling in the leaves near my head. I turn on my headlamp and see the hind end of a mouse scuttling into the shadows. I had read cautionary tales about mice and squirrels and ravens who haunt the camping areas looking for food. And here we are, lying under the stars, right on the ground with only a thin piece of material covering our bodies. I turn out the light and hope for the best. Five minutes later Nancy yelps and sits up – a mouse has just run through her hair. This is seriously not OK, but again the idea of sleeping in a tent as hot as it is feels like too much. Maybe it’s just one mouse and it’s gone now.
But, no, five minutes later a mouse runs across my feet and I yell and sit up. Nope, this isn’t going to work. It’s either set up the tent or get no sleep. We set up the tent by the light of our headlamps. Great tent, by the way, easy to set up, lots of mesh to let in the huge expanse of sky and what little breeze blows through, and two separate doors so we don’t have to crawl on top of each other to get out in the night to pee. I breathe a hot sigh of relief – at least I don’t have to lie there anticipating a mouse crawling on me. It’s hot, but no creatures can scare us. We just have to deal with turning off our brains and finding a place where we can actually rest. Not easy. Long night. I have no idea how long we sleep between waking, but morning dawns awfully early.
Day 2 – September 12, 2010
My recollection of the morning has dulled as time has passed. Consciously or unconsciously I have pushed away the details of what I did and said and felt. I light the stove for coffee and tea water, then make breakfast. Granola with milk (powdered), Tang and a fruit bar. While we’re packing up I start really thinking about the day we have planned. Nancy reads the trail description for the section of the trail from Upper Tapeats to Lower Tapeats and over to Deer Creek along the Colorado River. As she’s reading, I catch snippets like Although the Park Service recommends using that trail, it is accessible only when the creek is low and the route requires a second ford farther downstream and occasional scrambling and two downclimbs en route – The trail that follows the west bank is equally as rough…You must lower your backpack and downclimb two ledges in order to proceed…The rugged trail continues…One trail leads straight ahead, continuing the traverse. That high trail is marked with cairns and has led many a hiker astray. It dead-ends high above Bonita Creek and 400 feet above the river. Do not follow that trail! It’s not like I haven’t ever read this description, but I’m actually feeling the reality in the moment right in the actual place rather than safe at my computer at my desk in my house in Jaffrey, NH!
As we’re packing up I do a mental inventory of our food situation and realize that while we have just enough food we don’t really have enough snack-type food to keep us fueled and energized on the hike. Our dinner food is just enough, one helping, not enough for seconds. We start to sterilize water from the creek for the day’s hiking and after one liter Nancy asks why the light on the device is red instead of green. The Steripen (a device that looks like a pen that uses ultraviolet light to kill bacteria and nasties in backcountry water) we’re using to sterilize our water has run out of batteries! You have got to be kidding. I curse myself for not replacing them – I had even thought about it, but when I saw it was some esoteric battery that I would probably have to order on the Net I decided to ignore it and hope. Yes, I have a backup – iodine pills – which we drop into our Camelbacks and Nalgenes. My confidence takes another blow.
The trail to Deer Creek, our next camping area, is only 5 miles or so, nothing like the 10.4 we had done the day before, but the description of how rugged it is, the uncertainty of crossing the creek or not, not having enough food, having to use iodine pills to sterilize our water, and the fear of getting lost erodes my confidence. I question my ability to safely carry myself and my pack over challenging terrain for another three days. My courage takes a punch in the gut.
Nancy brings my attention back to our decision point. To go on or to go back. Either way it’s a long hike out. I know neither option offers much fun or comfort. Neither option guarantees I can make it back. Two days ago I turned us away from reaching the Colorado River on the Lava Falls route. And here I am contemplating turning around again. I can barely stand to think about it, let alone look Nancy in the eye and be honest. I’m exhausted, I’m sore, and while I know I can probably make it to Deer Creek, the idea of spending two more really long, hard days hiking in the heat on poorly marked trails is pushing me over the edge.
I don’t just stand up inside my skin and make a firm decision that I feel good about, that I can live with. I stand there and cry, seeing the disappointment in Nancy’s eyes as she let’s in the fact that once again we aren’t going to make it to the river. She says she feels she can make it to Deer Creek, but she doesn’t think she can make it to Deer Creek and emotionally carry me along with her. I need to do that on my own and the only way I can imagine continuing the hike is to grab my guts and push beyond every limit I have ever known, to force myself to carry a heavy pack for two more days, without enough food, with foul tasting water, on a difficult trail. When I was younger I would have pushed on – on this day I stand in my disappointment and shame and say I need to turn around.
A pall of sadness descends on our camp as we finish packing up in silence. We decide we will hike up to Thunder River in the cool of the morning and spend the heat of the day by the waterfall, then ascend the last bit of trail to Surprise Valley after the sun has set and walk as far as we can before setting up camp. Then we’ll get up early the next morning and climb up the redwall to the Esplanade before it gets really hot and slowly work our way back up to the rim, picking up our water caches as we go.
The only thing that feels good is that we have a plan. I made a decision and I still feel awful. I’m still exhausted, still sore, and now I feel disappointed and raw. I worked so hard to plan this hike and if I could have picked one hike to finish on this trip, this one would have been it. But it’s not to be and I make the decision. So we throw on our backpacks with a collective groan and start back up the switchbacks to Thunder River.
We arrive mid-morning and find a spot on the spur trail to the waterfall where we can sit in the shade and spend the hours waiting. I pass the waiting time writing and thinking, occasionally walking up to the river to refill our Nalgenes, then make us a late lunch with the meal I had planned for dinner – Tuscan Beef Stew with Polenta – freeze dried of course. It tastes good, but it’s hard to sit in this glorious place and just be happy. I know Nancy wants to go on – I want to go on too, but not feeling so sore, so tired, and uncertain that I can actually make it and not endanger Nancy. So we sit together in this disappointment – we talk and cry and nap and talk some more.
Around 5 o’clock we pack up, fill our Camelbacks and Nalgenes with fresh iodine tasting water, and walk the last mile of switchbacks until we pass over the rim to Surprise Valley. The sun is directly in front of us, slowly slipping down past the Canyon cliffs ahead. We walk for an hour until we’re maybe halfway between Thunder River and the bottom of the next difficult upclimb to the Esplanade. We find a spot that has been used for camping before and set up our tent. We eat a snack, change clothes and finally, as the last streaks of light faded from the sky, lay our bodies down.
In spite of our disappointment, we watch the stars. Nancy shows me Orion, her favorite constellation, and we both marvel at how big the sky is, how many stars we can see, how small and insignificant we are lying in this orange tent in the middle of the desert. Watching the stars, talking and laughing takes some of the sting out of our disappointment. I have done the right thing and coming back up and spending the night in Surprise Valley is also the right thing. Lying in that tent in that moment in time is exactly where I need to be.
Day 3 – September 13, 2010
We don’t get much sleep. I wake up at one point and feel like I am lying on cement. My thermarest has a hole in it and although I try to blow it up, it won’t hold any air so I spend the rest of the night lying on hard ground. We’re up before the sun, eating our granola and packing up camp as fast as we can. Our goal is to get up to the Esplanade before the heat of the day and we set out to climb one of the steepest sections of the trail. I barely remember the climb up. I know it’s hard and I know it’s steep and I know we pick the perfect time to climb.
As we approach the last pitch we meet a couple of hikers on their way down. They’re from Boston, very friendly, hoping to complete the loop we hadn’t been able to do. We tell them our story of woe – turning around, Steripen not working, thermarest with a hole in it, not enough food – and they in turn told us their story. They had spent the night on the Esplanade, but when they went to set up their tent they found they had packed their tent fly, not the actual tent, so it was a cool night – and one of them has a thermarest with a hole in it. We commiserate for a few minutes then we start up and they start down. All of a sudden I have an idea and yell, “Hey, would you like to borrow our tent? We sure aren’t going to be using it.” They don’t hear me, but Nancy hears me and yells out to them even louder. They stop and consider the offer and I think we all feel the grace wave wash over us. They smile in a big way and said, “Sure, that would be great. We’ll mail it back to you at the end of our trip.” We even trade Nancy’s thermarest for the one they had that has a hole in it. Everyone wins – we’re all smiles – it’s the happiest moment of the trip for me thus far.
As they drop out of sight, we top the rim to the Esplanade and begin walking on relatively level ground back to our water cache. We had decided to stop and rest there, eat a hot lunch, and load up on energy for the last nasty, steep climb back to the rim. Today’s meal is freeze dried lasagna. Nancy says it’s her favorite meal yet – it tastes delicious – and we sit with our backs against a ledge and rest for an hour. The sun is hot and the red slickrock stands out against a deep blue sky. Back on with the packs – my back muscle going into spasm before I have taken twenty steps – and it doesn’t feel any lighter for the food we have eaten.
We reach the junction of the Bill Hall Trail and start our last climb of the day. Long switchbacks that gradually become steeper and shorter. I keep my head down, concentrating on moving forward, staying hydrated, and feeling my legs start to become more tired with every step. On our way up, we occasionally stop in the shade of a tree and rest, but taking off our packs wis not a good idea because putting them back on is hell. We reach the spot where the hikers we had met at the trailhead cached our other gallon of water. Alongside the plastic jug is a baggie full of trail mix. This time we do sit and take off our packs, drink our fill, and rest for a while. Such a nice gift to find in the middle of a tough day.
We keep going, resting less and less often, and are relieved to reach the steep upclimb part of the trail where we had caught up with our water carrying friends. No one is there this time to lift our packs, so we decide to climb with them on. Not easy, but not devastatingly hard. We’re up and onto the rolling section of trail that traverses the cliff. I remember walking this section in short order, but on the way back it’s like it goes on and on and on. Around every corner I hope to finally see the trail turn left to climb the last bit to the top, but the trail won’t behave and we slog on. Both of us are tired, both of us are finished with climbing, both of us are quiet. There’s no laughter or joking or talking. We have our heads down and we silently move forward step by step.
Finally the trail turns off and starts up the last pitch. I remember this climb as being fairly short, but today it feels interminable. We get so close and think we’re there and be disappointed by another long climbing pitch. Step by step, heads down, no more looking at the views or feeling connected to this wonderful place or to each other – I just push my body up the cliff until we reach the cairns that mark the start of the Bill Hall Trail. We make it. We don’t celebrate – we take a few pictures and start the hike back to the car. Nancy has two empty plastic gallon jugs hooked to the back of her pack. If I could have found the humor, I would have laughed.
I fall back into my own thoughts as we walk the last rolling stretch of trail and they aren’t pleasant. Something has changed – something has changed inside me and between us. I can feel it, but don’t have the words to name it. Mixed with the relief of making it out without sickness or injury is a feeling like acid in the back of my throat. Burning, not easy to wash away with water, reminding me that I made the decision to turn around. We’re zero out of two attempts and I carry that on my shoulders.
Today, almost two months later, I see more clearly that my years of pushing myself, of demanding that I give 100% all the time, and touching the edge of my physical and emotional strength are really important to me. I define myself by what I can do, what I can endure, what I can conquer – my physical strength is a way I measure my worth. I find joy in pushing myself, making it to the top, even though it’s hard and sometimes it really hurts. This, as I say to Nancy, is the good stuff.
Over the past couple of years, and especially in Thunder River, I have repeatedly come face to face with the fact that I don’t have the same physical strength that I had 6 years ago when I started hiking and set goals to climb all these mountains. Now hiking hurts, it hurts my body, my knees, my back, it hurts my sense of self and I no longer have fun when I push myself. It’s hard to breathe and sometimes I can’t keep up no matter how hard I try. Pushing is no longer the “good stuff.” I’ve changed – my body has changed, my heart is changing, and my life is taking a different turn. I’m not sure where I’m going yet, but holding on to what we had during those wonderful years that Nancy and I spent climbing the 67 4,000 footers in NE is simply not possible. That’s what hurts so much, I think, that I have tried to hold on and keep it what it was, while at the same time knowing that I can’t hold on, that something has changed, and that I need to open my eyes and see it.
Today I see it. The time of pushing myself physically is over. It’s not fun anymore and pushing doesn’t feed me like it used to. It’s time to stop mourning the past, to hold onto the experience as the blessing it is, and look out toward the horizon of a new day.