The Little Colorado River Gorge: Boulder Scrambling & Route Finding

OK...so the route finding was basically..."I just hiked down that wash, so to get back I have to hike back up."  Plus it is kinda hard to get lost as far as I hiked, which probably totaled <4 miles at the end of the day.

Let me tell you about hiking at the LCRG.  It is primitive.  There are no trails, no trail heads, no blazes, no cairns, no nothing but tons of rocks ranging in size from babies heads to a VW buses. Oh & a sheer cliff face whose terminus is the rocky shore of the Little Colorado River 2,000' below.  You can probably already guess.  This was one of my favorite places.

You need a permit to hike on Navajo Tribal Land where the LCRG is.  My conversation with the lady selling the permits went like this...
"Do you have a trail map?"
"No. There are no trails."
"So, no trailheads either?"
"No, it is just a canyon with no maintained trails."
"How do you get down in it?"
"Find a wash."

I took my photocopied topo-map & hit the road.  The LCRG feeds into the Grand Canyon & it is outside the park boundaries on Navajo land.  I found a wash on my map, right near an overlook off of the highway.  Perfect.

Although you can access unmaintained trails via GCNP.

Funny thing was walking though the vendors at the overlook. They were all selling dream catchers, Navajo silver jewelry, turquoise, toy spears for the kids, etc...I wanted to get Laura some earrings so it worked out perfect.

The hiking was stellar.  About a 1/4 the way from the beginning of the wash I hiked down & lowered myself down a sandstone shelf & set out towards the cliff.  Scrambling down a mess of boulders, lowering myself, hanging & dropping, hoping from one to the next was hard work & when I turned around to look at the ground I had covered all I could see was a wall of rocks.  It did not look the wash i was looking at from above.  Still with some way to go to the edge of the canyon, I decided to back track just to make sure I was going to get back up.  It looked way more difficult than it was, but for a second I started thinking about having to spend the night out there and that did not seem to appealing.

After building my confidence by making sure I could get out, I kept going.  It was such a change of pace from hiking at the Grand Canyon.  For one there was no trail, but the greatest thing is that I didn't see another soul the whole time I was out & the only thing I heard was the wind.  It was a beautiful day too. I have only had one day of bad weather & that was driving from Monument Valley, AZ to Moab in the rain & the snow & well, it snowed in Winter Park, but you want snow when you are skiing.

After I made it to the edge of the canyon, I explored as much as the edge as I could , then I stopped & had a snack, snapped some photos, took in the view until it was etched into my memory & started my climb back out.  I ended up hiking all the to the top of the wash which ended in this little sand stone cove that I imagine is a pretty cool waterfall during a monsoon.

If you are looking for some serious hiking & solitude near the GC, The Little Colorado River Gorge is
the place. It is easy to get in over your head, so you need to keep that in mind & be prepared for
anything.

The Little Colorado River Gorge

Looking up the wash I climbed through.

Adopted Navajo dog for the day (he adopted me, well, my cars shade at least).