I had a GPS track from someone else's trip to the top loaded into my GPS but had a heck of a time trying to follow it. I was always pretty close to it and crossed it a number of times but was rarely right on it. I don't understand this as the bed of the drainage that we were using seemed to be the easiest route but the GPS initially told me the track was higher up on the west side. I could not see any easy to be traveling where it said we were supposed to be so we stayed in the drainage. I am pretty sure that most of the route was pretty much the exact same route I had used on my previous attempt six years earlier. The only difference being that we passed an old mine this time and I know I didn't see that last time... or maybe I just didn't notice it. There was a waypoint for it in my GPS now so I was looking for it.

The drainage had split just prior to this point and we were following up a small ridge in the middle as that seemed to be the easiest way to go. It's possible that I went up the drainage on the east side of the ridge last time and would never have seen the mine. It was very obvious from the ridge though and Gordy went down to check it out. There were numerous mining implements inside and he dragged some of them out for us to take photos of. There was a pick axe, shovel, bucket and several long metal rods, all of which had been stored on some metal bars that were affixed to the ceiling. It was pretty cool.

From the mine we continued up the ridge to the saddle on the Butte Fault between the drainage we were in and another larger one to the east. This was very familiar from the previous attempt and I was somehow hoping the track we were following would somehow avoid it. We had to get down into that other drainage it seemed so awfully far down and far away. I did the same thing I did last time and tried to go as far east as possible to meet it higher up rather than going all the way down. In retrospect this was a bad idea the second time around as well. The distance from the top of the ridge is deceiving and if you just hike right down to the other drainage it really is not that far down or far away. I finally figured this out on the return trip when we did just that and climbed back up to the ridge and it only took about 10 minutes. Traversing the slanted and brushy slope in an attempt to not loose elevation is a heck of a lot more time consuming.

We were up on the saddle a little after 9am and rested there a bit and took some photos. We left there around 9:30 and it took until almost 10:30 to get to the big pour-off in the other drainage. Had we just gone right down into the drainage and followed it we probably could have cut that time in half and not had to deal with nearly as much brush.

The climb gets a lot tougher from just above that pour-off and we struggled numerous times to try and figure out where this track was. Where ever it was did not seem like a good or even possible way to travel so I just don't get it. We followed the drainage most of the way as that seemed like the easiest way. At one point the drainage split again and we went up a ridge in the middle that was very steep and loose in places. But the drainage on either side seemed like much more difficult and slower travel.

It was at the top of this ridge when we were already high up into the Coconino that I got very confused. I totally lost my sense of direction and could not figure out where the heck the track was or where it was trying to go. The topography I was seeing around me did not match up with the where the track was. We were not cliffed out or anything like in my previous attempt and I was pretty sure I was further north on that attempt and may have been trying to figure how to get to where we were now from where I was then, with no easy way to do that. Gordy did some scouting ahead for us and there was a route that was passable for a ways but it eventually led over into the bed of the big drainage to the south of us and then started a steep climb up that towards the top.

Rob, Pam and I discussed options while Gordy was scouting and decided our best option was to give up on this. It was already after 1pm and we had been at it for over 6 hours already and there was a good chance we were still 2 or more hours away from the top. If we did make to the top we would have absolutely no time on the top and would just have to turn around and leave. We probably would not even have time to get to the other side to see the river. And it would probably take just as much time to go down this thing as it did to come up. I don't know how people do this as a day hike. And I really don't know how some people do both Nankoweap Mesa AND Nankoweap Butte in the same day as day hikes. We didn't start nearly early enough and were not traveling nearly fast enough for this.

We had a hard time trying to signal Gordy and tell him to abort and just come back but we finally got the message across. We all started down and looked for a shady spot to rest and have some snacks. None of us wanted to make the climb back up to that saddle which looked so high and far away and on the map it looked like the other drainage would also take us down to Nankoweap Creek but about a mile below camp. I thought I may have even done this on the previous attempt, also not wanting to climb back up and over the saddle.

It was just after 3pm when we reached the big pour-off. Instead of climbing up to the saddle we just followed that bed and it was very easy going, a real delight after all of the loose rock and brush. It was fine for the better part of an hour... and then the walls started to close in and we started hitting lots of well polished Redwall and some larger pour-offs. And the walls continued to close in and I started getting a very bad feeling about this. Gordy took off ahead again to see if there was anything impassable ahead. He was not gone long and around the very next bend was a pour-off about 50 feet high that we would not be able to get down. If we did get down we would definitely not be able to get back up and that raised a big red flag. We turned tail and started back up the drainage. Luckily it was an easy walk and now mostly in shadow.

When we did get back to the saddle I was surprised at how little time it actually took to get from the bed of the drainage to the top. The view from the bottom (or top) to the other end is definitely very deceiving. We were back on the saddle around 5:45 and raced down the drainage to camp arriving there just a little after 7pm. It wasn't dark yet and we did have time to filter water and start dinner before it did. We were all eating dinner by headlamps though. It had been a very long day and everyone was looking forward to a much more relaxing day tomorrow, just going down to the river and then moving camp a few miles upstream.