FALL WINTER SPRING FALL WINTER SPRING FALL WINTER SPRING
Best two and three day backpacking: South Rim
all tours are -first day to a creek or river and camp two nights at the same campsite, allowing recovery and weightless day hiking
South Kaibab Trail - favored route to Bright Angel Campground 6.9 miles
Because it's steeper, more exposed to the elements, and lacks drinking water, this trail is more challenging than the Bright Angel Trail. However, it's well maintained and easy to follow, and the park bills it as the second "least difficult" canyon trail off the South Rim. The trail crosses two saddles with striking views 1,000 feet down to the Tonto Platform on either side. After dropping onto the Tonto platform, the trail reaches the top of the black, sheer rocks of the Vishnu Formation. From there it pinballs downhill toward the river and, eventually, the bridge to the Bright Angel Campground.
Bright Angel Trail - favored route up from Bright Angel Campground 9.8 miles
This trail, the least difficult out of the canyon from the South Rim is wide, well maintained, regularly patrolled, and easy to follow. It also has sources for drinking water. Though crowded, it's very pretty, following natural routes from river to rim and traveling along lush creekbeds at its lower elevations. Hikers can break up the trip from river to rim by staying overnight at Indian Garden Campground, 4.5 miles below the rim.
Hermit Trail - muleless unmaintained trail - great trail to escape the crowds - 14 miles round-trip to Hermit Creek - 17 miles to river.
During the 1910s, this wilderness trail was considered the best route into the canyon. Its upper section, which receives warm late-afternoon sun, travels on crumbling cobblestones left from its heyday. Its upper sections have views down into the brick-red rocks of Hermit Gorge, a drainage of Grand Canyon proper. After passing Santa Maria spring the trail becomes considerably more rugged, crossing numerous rockfalls and eventually plummeting through a boulder-strewn break in the Redwall. The trail also passes the foundations of the old Hermit Camp, where tourists once stayed in heavy-duty tents with windows, wood-burning stoves, and Indian rugs. Not far past the camp, a small primitive campground borders the cool waters of Hermit Creek. Hikers with extra energy can walk an additional 1.5 miles down the creek to the Colorado River.
Grandview Trail - great view but no water at campsite - good winter hike
For a short, relatively manageable backpack, hike the three miles on the Grandview Trail from the rim to Horseshoe Mesa. There, you'll find designated campsites and pit toilets amid the pinyon pine and cedar trees. More challenging trails descend from the mesa onto the Tonto Platform, eventually linking up with the Tonto Trail.
Tanner, New Hance Trails - not recommended for first time canyon hikers - hot and exposed
These rugged wilderness trails have much in common. Steep and rocky, they're among the most challenging descents into the canyon; they journey north from rim to river, eventually reaching the river by traveling down creekbeds. And they pass through the pastel-colored rocks of the Grand Canyon Supergroup. Sandwiched between the pre-Cambrian Vishnu Formation and the Cambrian Tapeats Sandstone, these rocks do not appear in most other parts of the canyon.
October to May is the time for backpacking in the Canyon.
All HSA Backpacking tours are customized to your desires. Here are the steps:
1) You ask yourself - Am I comfortable carrying a thirty-pound backpack on a trail that drops one mile down in seven miles of distance? If you're not, consider our rim camp or paying an extra guide to carry your gear.
2) You have exact dates (hopefully four months in advance) to be at the Grand Canyon and you're willing to part with $100 of your hard earned money for us to buy your park service reservations. If you are planning last minute we can usually obtain the more primitive campgrounds. Costs are $200 per person per day for food, group equipment, guide and safety gear. Permits and $20 entrance fee are additional.
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SPRING SUMMER FALL SPRING SUMMER FALL SPRING SUMMER FALL
Here's some general info, our Sampler Tour is a great introduction. Let us know how we can help.......
TWO to THREE DAY MOUNTAIN BIKING & HIKING SAMPLER TOUR
This Grand Canyon experience is a unique, singular opportunity and our most popular. HSA offers a worry free two or three days with several choices of great base camps, all with hearty, country meals in a rustic backwoods setting. IMAGINE - Watching the sunset as elk, wild turkeys and coyotes come to a tranquil wildlife pond - Relaxing at a remote camp right on the edge of the South Rim, with guaranteed peace and quiet - Enjoying mountain biking on thrilling single-track trails or along peaceful back roads - Viewing and photographing your own private Grand Canyon panoramas - Hiking hidden ancient Indian trails to the Canyon's floor - Fascinating seminars on photography, natural sciences and human history Cost is $200 per person per day for permits, all gear (including sheets and pillows), food and guides.
During the summer, High Sonoran Adventures offers individuals interpretative day hikes and mountain bike rides on demand daily at the Canyon. Create your own adventure while cruising quiet back road wooded trails on one of our stable and sturdy mountain bikes. Whatever your ability, our experienced guides will assist you in feeling at ease on this adventure. Feel free to rest and enjoy this peaceful landscape away from the crowds and fumes. If childhood bike riding is a hazy memory, this is the tour for you. We leave the forest cover to enjoy the South Rim vistas of your choosing and at your pace before the downhill ride back to the Village. Wilderness fully guided customized day hikes are also provided. Cost is $125 per day for guided biking and/or guided hikes.
GRAND CANYON BY BICYCLE The Grand Canyon bike/hike tour begins at a Nature Conservancy Lodge in Flagstaff and heads north around the San Francisco Peaks. The Arizona Trail follows single track and forest service roads onto the Babbitt Ranch and the Moqui Stage Coach Route. Days are warm and nights are cool (in the summer) in the dancing aspens and stately pine forest. The third day marks our arrival at Grandview on the South Rim. The fourth through seventh days are reserved for South Rim village strolls, back county rides along the rim (mostly double track) and day hikes to the wonders below. This tour is seven days from Flagstaff or four days on the South Rim. Guests may elect to join the tour in either Flagstaff or at the Grand Canyon.
High Sonoran Adventures operates any where in Arizona with hiking, mountain
biking, kayaking and corporate adventure camps..... Please let us know how
we can make your Arizona vacation a Wild West adventure. Grand Canyon Lodging
and Transportation from Phoenix or Flagstaff, Arizona can be arranged .
- Also
check out Upcoming Trips -
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Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you --- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls. - Edward Abbey
