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#42: GRANDVIEW TRAIL AND HORSESHOE MESA CAVE HIKE
(no photos)
May 10, Saturday, 1969
A small group of us in the NAU Hiking Club decided to go on a small hike in the Grand Canyon for the day to get some exercise. I had to be back in time for mom’s birthday dinner at 8:00pm. We left NAU at 6:15 am. Jan Jensen took his VW car, Dennis Trover took his small car of some sort and I took my pickup “Cindy.” Those that went are; Jan Jensen, Dennis Troyer, Jim Sears, Debie Astyle, Ellen Doryland, Slim Woodruff, Kathy Lucas, Susan Varin, Mark Price, and me.
It was a clear summer type day and no wind. It was 40 degrees when we left Flagstaff. We obtained a hiking permit and finally started down the trail at Grandview Point at about 8:45 am. We just took a quart of water each and some candy bars. We have this art of traveling light down pat. There are 13 switchbacks in the Kaibab and Toroweap Formations, 16 in the Coconino, 8 in the Supai and then you’re down to the Redwall in 4 miles. While walking along the Supai part, Susan was about 80 yards ahead and I smelled a camp fire. I couldn’t see it but I was sure it was near it. I hollered to Susan and asked her and she said she defiantly smelled smoke. She went around the bend in front of her only 5 yards and ran into the camp fire in the trail. It was smoking slightly. Someone had spent the night there. Flowers were very abundant of various types, Indian paint brush, daises, wild onion, honey suckle, etc. The cliff rose bush was very thick on the Redwall and when we went through that it was almost overpowering the smell of those roses. Sorta like a rich perfume factory.
We went down to the mine. Some of the members haven’t been down this trail before and wanted to see it. We went into the mine for awhile and collected some calcanthite, azurite, malachite, gypsum and hematite. Some stayed for a while longer while Susan, Slim, Kathy, Jan and I went on. About a mile further we came to the cave about 100 feet or less below the flat surface of the west side of the Mesa. It is down a small ravine almost west of the butte on Horseshoe Mesa. We had large flashlights. Jan stayed outside while the four of us went in. There is a small door to the entrance about 3 feet high. Once inside it was quite roomy and a ceiling about 20 feet high with stalactites hanging all over the place. There were different passages going different directions but one main one went straight ahead about a northeast direction. We followed that one. The cave was powder dry and dust rose from our foot steps. Some places the ceiling was caved in and we climbed around and under blocks of rock. Small fern like limbs of calcite grew on the walls looking like stag horn cactus on a small scale. The floor was layers of travertine formed by running water.
After some distance we went up over a talus slope and followed a tunnel up and down in the same northeast direction. But there was also a tunnel below us parallel with our direction of travel. I got the impression that it was possible to come back in this lower tunnel. One place we had to cat walk across some pipes, four of them about a half inch each in diameter and laid side by side to form a pathway 4 inches wide and 7 feet long over a gaping hole of over 18 feet deep. This was as far as Slim was going. I went across first and had no trouble. Susan came next and also had no trouble. Kathy was shaky but made it. It was hot in this cave, about 75 to 80 degrees and no ventilation. Just past this pipe business we dropped down into a large room that had a large stalactite 657
hanging from the ceiling about 10 feet long and ribbon shaped. It was very musical when thumped on. At this point there was a large tunnel going to the southwest direction or south and went a considerable distance. It was 15 or 20 feet wide and averaged 25 feet high. Some places it was over 50 feet to the roof and many stalactites were hanging from a fracture along the roof. The walls were coated with thick gypsum which looked like it flowed down the walls from the roof. Satin spar gypsum and very pretty crystals. Stalagmites were numerous on the floor. About half way down this tunnel one stalactite was hanging about 15 feet long and almost connected with a stalagmite on the floor about 5 feet high and much fatter with layers like the leaning tower of Pizza. This tunnel ran about 70 yards and turned a corner to the east and stopped. We played the stalactites and had a quite a musical cave sound. Very pretty sounds would come from some of the stalactites and ribbons down the walls. These ribbons were not much over a ¼ inch thick and looked like ribs of fat sticking down the wall and out about 5 inches.
We went back to the main tunnel and continued on northeast. We climbed up and down and came to a place where there was a sort of a ladder and a rope hanging down the wall. We used the rope and climbed up. It was tied around a log and held in place by a bunch of rocks piled up on the log. The rope was about 30 feet long and made of grass and tied in knots in several places. This gave us the impression of it not being a very strong rope. It held us though. Once on top we had to sling the rope over and down the other side into another large room. This required using the rope entirely although if you had sticky hands and feet you could possible climb along the wall and down. It was only a 10 foot drop. This was as far as Kathy went. Susan and I went on. The cave tunnel got smaller and smaller until we couldn’t go any further. So back we went and climbed the rope up to Kathy. Then back down the other side and followed the lower tunnel back which we had to almost crawl at times. We saw the pipes above us that we came across before. Slim had gone back out of the cave. I came out a smaller entrance then we went in but came near the same place. Jim and others were there waiting outside and later they went in. It was getting quite warm, around 80 degrees so Susan and I decided to start out at 1:00pm. The others were coming as soon as they were through with the cave. I didn’t like the heat and Susan hates it as well. We made very slow time going out.
We caught up with Ellen about half way out and she was taking her time as well. Jan was with us. We rested under every tree along the trail. We didn’t drink much water when we came down so we had plenty of water now. We drank it all by the time we reached the top. It got cooler when we reached the 7,400 foot level at the top. Tourist was wondering just where we came from and some thought we were just story telling when we pointed out the area. We didn’t care since it didn’t matter. It took us 2.5 hours to come out the 2,300 feet in 4 miles. That’s the slowest I’ve ever come out of this trail. It wasn’t long before all the others came out one by one and the tourist began to believe it when each pointed out the place below. By 5:30pm everyone was out and in good shape. A good day’s hike and only 10 miles. Tomorrow, study. Its getting too hot for me to go down this canyon much more this summer so I may not go as much if any until the last of September.
