HDT Day 44: Grand Canyon’s Nankoweap Trail

Daily Miles: 12.1, Total Miles: 595.1

Lori picked me up at 9:30am and I was on the trail two hours later. The Saddle Mountain TH is 23 miles off of Highway 89a on FR8910, also called Buffalo Ranch Road. The dirt road was in good shape considering the weather this past week.

I climbed about 1,000 ft over 3.5 miles to the top of a saddle and met the Nankoweap Trail. NPS calls the Nankoweap Trail the most difficult trail in the Grand Canyon.

My reaction to “the most difficult trail” was at least there is a trail. Unlike many of the canyon hikes on the Hayduke. Having said that, this trail was the real deal with constant exposure to heights. A long way down a steep rocky path once it finally decides to go down.

There’s a section where the trail narrows to a foot wide with a high sandstone wall on one side and a direct 100 ft drop on the other. Nankoweap Trail has the largest rim-to-river drop of 5,640 ft and is one of the longer trails.

I was a couple of hours from Nankoweap Creek on a steep, loose shale, “ball bearing” section of the trail when my already ankle damaged foot slipped out from underneath me. I tried to recover and instantly felt a searing pain over the top of my ankle. Nothing to do but fall on my side and slide aways. I’ve felt this pain before and knew what had just happened. I had either extended an old peroneal tendon tear or had a new tear or rupture. After the pain subsided a bit, I cinched up my ankle brace and very slowly finished my descent to Nankoweap Creek. I then hobbled down the creek about three miles to near the confluence with the Colorado River. I was grateful the cold water numbed my ankle a bit. We’ll see how it feels tomorrow but I think the damage is done.

By the way, beautiful views the whole way down including the snow-covered North Rim.