April 15, 2002 - Grand Canyon - 6 Days

Tanner, Escalante

<Click on the thumbnail images to enlarge the pictures>

Although we thought we would not do the Tanner again after our last Tanner hike in 2000, the lure of that trail, and the thought of our secluded camping spot along the River, changed our minds. We had originally planned on doing the South Kaibab to Grandview, but decided against that because we wanted to be at the River.

This trip was different in several ways. It was the first time we have backpacked the Tanner from Rim to River in one day, we brought no stove and instead relied on MRE's, and I wore hiking sneakers instead of boots (NO BLISTERS!!!).

The MRE's brought mixed reviews. I didn't mind them too much, but Kathy gave out after several days. With some shrewd bargaining of her MRE's for my peanut butter crackers and Muslix cereal, she managed not to starve.

The weather was ideal for hiking, starting out near 50F at the rim, and ending up around 75F at the river. That was a big contributor to our deciding not to dry camp along the trail on the way down. For the duration of the hike, the temperature stayed mostly in the 70-80's during the day, dropping to the high 40's at night. On our last night, at about 5500 feet elevation at 75 Mile Saddle, we did get some ice crystals forming in our water bottles during the night.

Taking MRE's and other ready-to-eat food instead of cooked meals enabled us to leave home the stove, fuel, pot, bowls, cups and other cooking stuff. We were very pleased that our starting pack weights were both under 40 pounds, including 5 liters of water each, for this six day trip. By the time we reached the rim on our hike out, minus the food and water weight and with no kitchen equipment, our packs were closer to 20 pounds.

We met some new friends on this trip, Shawn and Sandra from the Chicago area, and Dave from Dayton, Ohio. 

    Shawn and Sandra                           Dave and Kathy  

Use the navigation buttons at the top or bottom of this page to view the trip report/pictures and our food and equipment list in Excel and HTML  format. Click on the thumbnail pictures to enlarge them. If you see any pictures you like and want the full resolution jpeg files (1600 X 1200 and typically around 1 meg in size), send me an email and I will be glad to email or ftp them to you.

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