Canyon Solitaire

A Walk to Grand Canyon's Pipe Creek

On a warm morning in May, the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail feels as crowded as an escalator in Macy’s the day after Thanksgiving. The dawn light on the canyons and cliffs is stunning; the people around me are distracting. Although I caught the early bus to the trailhead, I can see several groups on the trail below. With every arriving shuttle, more will come behind. Most of my fellow travelers seem intent on their destination, Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the trail, or the North Rim 17 uphill miles beyond. The hike takes on the nature of a race, people wearing looks of grim determination and angling for a less crowded spot on the trail. Why are they here? Because hiking rim-to-river or rim-to-rim is a feather in the cap, a trophy on the wall -- The Thing To Do. For the hiker in search of solitude rather than a physical challenge, the South Kaibab is no place to be.

But that first impression isn’t entirely accurate. After playing leap frog with thirty or so hikers on the descent of Cedar Ridge and the traverse beneath O’Neill Butte, I decide to take a break at Skeleton Point. I assume it will be as crowded as the trail has been. But strangely, no one else is taking advantage of this rest area out of view of the trail, and no one comes for the 15 minutes I spend here. This confirms what I’ve found in other national parks: as crowded as they are, it’s not that hard to find a bit of solitude. Some guidebooks and articles suggest that you need advanced climbing and canyoneering skills to avoid other hikers, but it’s just not true. Simply choosing the right trail, or even stepping a few paces off the busiest trail, can take you into your own private world away from the crowds.

I’ve planned today’s hike to provide maximum solitude, using two of the Grand Canyon’s busiest trails, and connecting them with a little-used trail. Below Skeleton Point, the trail corkscrews down cliffs of Redwall limestone, then gently traverses onto the broad Tonto Plateau. Here, at a rest area complete with outhouse and telephone, I silently bid farewell to the mad fools rushing down to the river, and strike out west on the Tonto Trail. One set of bootprints is the only evidence that anyone has been here before.

The change is immediate. Gone are the voices and the clank of aluminum hiking poles against rock. The absolute silence of the Grand Canyon engulfs me, broken only by the occasional breath of wind in my ears, the buzz of a fly, the call of a canyon wren. These are mere punctuations that only emphasize the silence. Behind me I can see more hikers coming down the Kaibab Trail to the junction, and I wonder if they wonder why I’m going off in this strange direction.

I may not want to descend all the way to the river, but I do want to get a good view of it, so I take a detour out to a point overlooking the Inner Gorge. From this point, I’m looking almost straight down the contorted cliffs of black Vishnu Schist to the river, placid here, and the Silver Bridge crossing it. A couple of hundred feet below me and a quarter mile away, my recent companions have stopped for a break on the point known as the Tipoff. From this remove they are no longer annoying, but mere figures dwarfed by the vastness. They remind me of the mountain pilgrims depicted in Asian landscape paintings: a vital element of the scene, but just a tiny part of it. The human presence here, my own included, shrinks to tiny proportions. The canyon has swallowed us whole.

I wonder if I should follow those hikers down to the river, after all. It looks so close from here, and my map shows that it’s only a 1,500-foot descent from where I now stand. Am I in shape for that, and the 4,500-foot climb back up? I could probably do it, though I wouldn’t feel great by the end. But there’s something else, besides the extra fatigue and the likely crowds at Phantom Ranch – it looks awfully closed-in down there. I imagine the dark walls of the Inner Gorge looming over me, creating an ominous mood. Besides, I’ve been down to the river before, long ago at Havasu Canyon. In my impression, the river is just the river, and the grandeur of this place lies elsewhere.

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