Trails and Treasures

When planning my trip, I had a difficult time finding details about this trek.  So this post is my attempt to help the next potential trekker decide if this walk is for them. 

In my last post, I discussed the elevation loss/gain in numerical terms.  But how do I put that into perspective?

First, there’s the physical trail itself.  It’s not a trail like you would find in a US national park.  It is not a path designed for recreation, for people who want to experience the natural wonders of a place and have no particular need to get from point A to point B.  Instead, it is a path developed over centuries by people wanting to get from their homes and farms inside the canyon to places outside the canyon. 

Children from these villages on the north side of the canyon had to walk down to the river and then up the trail I descended to get to school

It is a well-used trail.  I met children on their way to school on the rim.  I met a husband and wife leading and prodding their animals loaded down with doors and lumber for a building project.

Highway transport into Colca Canyon

Sometimes the trail was so steep it seemed to disappear over the edge

Constant use, especially by load-bearing animals, is hard on a trail. This trail was especially rocky.  Stretches of dirt tread were few and far between.

A path of rocks

Trails need maintenance.  Grand Canyon National park has 415 miles of inner-canyon trails of which 42 miles are corridor trails.  Over a year, about 200,000 people use one of these trails to descend into the canyon.  In 2008, 9,600 went all the way down to the river and Phantom Ranch on a mule.  To maintain these trails, the National Park Service employs 30 people full time year round and another 60 part time or seasonally.  Its 2008 bare-bones trail maintenance budget was two million dollars.  I couldn’t find any details about the allocation of funds, but from some comments I found I gather that maintaining the toilets, supplying toilet paper, and cleaning up trash consume quite a bit of these funds.  Its backlog of true trail maintenance projects is such that some of the $10 million it received in ARRA funds are being used to rehabilitate the South Kaibab Trail.  In other words, trail maintenance to the level which we as Americans expect is expensive.

In September, 2006, parts of the South Kaibab Trail didn't look much different

Maintenance of the trails in Colca Canyon is rudimentary at best.  Of course, there are no toilets to worry about maintaining or keeping supplied with toilet paper, and there was surprisingly little trash along the route.

Now, what about the route?  Obviously, with a gradient of something close to 20%, it’s steep.  Very steep.  While the above photo of the South Kaibab Trail might make you think it is steep, it has long stretches of gradual elevation loss and lots and lots of long switchbacks.  The Inca and other early Andean peoples seem to have subscribed to the belief shorter is better; steps are the best.  On the Colca Canyon trail, there are no respites from the knee-pounding descent.

Zig-zags on the Colca Canyon Trail

The trail zig-zags rather than switchbacks down into the canyon, much like the earliest version of the Bright Angel Trail into the Grand Canyon which had a short section with a 40% gradient.

The original zig-zags on the Bright Angel Trail, Grand Canyon

In my next post, I’ll talk about the trek itself.