We started up just before 4 a.m.  with Omar setting a nice slow pace that I could easily match.  (I’m much better at going up than down.  I take after the turtle racing the hare, slow and steady.  That way one doesn’t have to stop and catch one’s breath all the time.)  With my headlamp focused on Omar’s feet just a few paces ahead, I didn’t have to worry about falling down the side of the cliff, and I wasn’t psyched out about just how far we had to go up.  Unlike my hike out of the Grand Canyon though where I had all day, the bus was going to pick us up at 9 a.m., and we needed to eat breakfast in Cabanaconde before it arrived.  Remember, it took me 3 1/2 hours to get down.

First light, about half-way up (5:53 a.m.)

It started to get light about 5:30 and by 6, we were half-way up, and Omar let me take a break to eat a mandarin and trail mix.  I was enjoying the hike.  In the dark, one pays more attention to the sounds and smells, and, temperature-wise, it was very pleasant.

The sun is up! (6:20 a.m.)

Within a half hour, the first rays hit the tops of the mountains.  The picture just doesn’t capture the moment; it was spectacular.  Of course, I knew the temperature was about to climb, and I still had more than a 1000 feet to go.

It's 7:10 with another hour to go

There were now other people on the trail.  Children heading up to school; men with donkeys laden with supplies heading down.

I made it to the top! (7:52 a.m.)

Unlike the Grand Canyon where as one nears the rim one has a good sense of where the top is, it’s not the same when climbing out of Colca Canyon.  There are peaks all around you.  The sky doesn’t seem to expand and suck you up to the top.

Just 15 minutes from the top of the Grand Canyon and the end is clearly in sight

At Colca Canyon, you seem to just arrive at another ledge and wonder if you really have made it and your guide is just giving you another pep talk so you can forge onward and upward.

It took me four hours to climb out of the canyon, and it was almost another half hour back into Cabanaconde.  We finished breakfast well before the bus arrived to pick us up.

My summary of the trek:  a great experience, down was more difficult than I expected, up was easier.  I’m glad I did it.  Would I do it again?  Sure, but I would take one of the longer treks that goes through villages inside the canyon and make sure most of my hiking was in the cooler parts of the day.  On the other hand, I yearn to return to the Grand Canyon even though it is a much, much harder hike; I don’t have that kind of feeling about Colca Canyon.

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.

Colca Canyon at the start of the trek: Where's the bottom?

Colca Canyon is said to reach a maximum depth of 13,648′ on the north rim and 11,811′ on the south rim with the floor being 3,960′ below the rim on average.  (See the Colca Canyon official site.)  I started my trek into the canyon at Cabanaconde at an elevation of 10,780′ and went down to the oasis as Sangalle at 6900′, a descent of 3,880′.  I couldn’t find a trail distance in any of the guidebooks, and my guide just shrugged his shoulders.  Since I met young people with good knees who made it down in 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hrs, I’d guess three to four miles.

The following table compares the trail descents:

 Thus, there are several important statistical differences in these two treks:

• the Colca Canyon trail is significantly steeper with an 18 to 21% gradient vs. a 14% gradient, and
• the Colca Canyon trek is accomplished at significantly higher altitudes, but
• the vertical descent into the Grand Canyon on the South Kaibab trail is significantly greater.

By comparing the views, one can see that the “rim” of Colca Canyon is far less obvious than that of the Grand Canyon.  There are mountains that rise up from the rim of Colca Canyon.  The Grand Canyon is in the middle of the Colorado Plateau.  The Grand Canyon is also much older than Colca Canyon.  Researchers estimate it began 17 million years ago.

 For a good discussion of canyons, see http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Canyon.  And, by the way, Colca Canyon is not the deepest canyon in the world; Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet is.

For the first time,  I actually had the opportunity to stay here.  While it was nice and had the ambiance of a luxury hotel, the Rim Cabin at Bright Angel Lodge I had the first night had far more character. 

The view was also spectacular, especially when compared to the parking lot behind El Tovar.  Just a few feet from my front door was a bench where I could watch the sunrise.

This year I also spent some time talking about Fred Harvey postcards with Tom Ratz, a fellow collector who has worked at the El Tovar for almost thirty years.  He’s about to have a book of canyon views, both photographs and postcards, published by Arcadia.  Meanwhile, unwilling to settle for black and white, I’m still trying to find a publisher of my canyon history illustrated with 300 color postcards.   Oh well.

Anyway, if you ever have a chance to dine at El Tovar and want an expert to point out changes from the following view and today, be sure to ask for Tom.

Most of the material dated from after the purchase of Fred Harvey by Amfac in 1968, a period I have not paid much attention to since most of the Fred Harvey postcard views in my manuscript The Grand Canyon: A Fred Harvey Postcard History pre-date World War II.  Some of the most relevant materials were letters from a blacksmith hired to recreate the bear trap for Hermit’s Rest, along with numerous other items.

That means the bear trap in the picture below is not the one on the postcard.  No real surprise given the span of 80 years, but it’s nice to have proof of one’s suspicions.