Who is Walter Powell? Walter was Major John Wesley Powell’s brother who accompanied the Major on his famous Colorado River trip in 1869. The story goes that he climbed a route from near the mouth of the Little Colorado River to the Rim above on what is now the Navajo Reservation. He might of spent a day or two scouting the route, since the party camped at the confluence for some time.

I was lucky to hook up with Bill Orman to do this trip. Last June Bill led a National Trails Day work party on the Old Bright Angel Trail off the North Rim. He is a real expert on Marble Canyon and the LCR! Harvey spent years researching and rediscovering the Little Colorado River routes. One of the local Indians told him yes there was a route there, but "a
white man wouldn't like it."

One of the most difficult parts of this trip is finding the correct 2 track road across the Reservation to the "Trailhead". Bill had done the entire route before, and been down the hard section in the Kaibab on an earlier occasion. Then, he and Bob Audretsch had been out last month to look at the descent ravine again. Mike Quinn had told me that there were two possible ravines to descend through the Kaibab off the rim. Bill knows them both. Harvey would consider either route to be quite sporty.

We arrived about 10 am and immediately started the hike. The first ravine is marked by a small cairn, and the next one is marked by a much larger cairn. Both routes work well. Bill has done them both and considers the first one to be the easier of the two. We started down the first ravine, down climbing short sections. One place Bill had to spot my feet.

Finally we reached a 40’ pouroff where Bill anchored the rope and we rappelled down. There were a total of three sections where a rope would be useful. Good climbers might do this without a rope, but certainly the packs would have to be lowered. We left the rope and gear here and did a short traverse to more gradual slopes of friendly Coconino Sandstone.

We worked our way down through the canyon rubble, staying on the right side of the drainage. Eventually we reached the Redwall. The break in the Redwall was easily visable from above. Above the Redwall break is a saddle that reportedly offers an alternate route ending closer to the confluence. George Mancuso told Bill about this route in a meeting on the Tanner Trail.

We had a few route finding difficulties in the Redwall, once traversing and missing the descent. Backtracking, we found the correct route. We descended on to the Mauve, traversed toward the Little Colorado River, and reached the water just downstream from the junction of Walter Powell Canyon and the LCR. It had taken us a leisurely 6 hours from rim the LCR. The LCR was flowing high and muddy like it should in the spring.

We enjoyed the walk to the confluence with the Colorado River. We passed the camp of some Humpback Chub researchers, and the Beamer Cabin. The little beach at the confluence has a nice growth of willow and tamarisk. The beach was bare of these weeds in 1990. It was fun to see the cold clear greenish water of the big Colorado River come together with the warmer muddy red water of the LCR above giant Chuar Butte. I looked for boats coming down the River, but there were none.

It was right above Chuar Butter and Temple Butte where a TWA Super Constellation and a United DC-7 collided in flight. At the time it was the worst airline disaster in history. 128 people perished on that summer day, June 30, 1956.

Bill and I filled up with Colorado River water and walked back upstream to setup camp and rest for the night. Bill travels even lighter than I do. It was nice to not have to be concerned about the size and weight of our packs.

We started back up the route at 6 am, enjoying the cool of the day. Somewhere in the Hermit we were ran into Bruce McIntyre and Bob Audretsch! They had come down the other, "harder" route off the Rim and were on their way to the LCR. Bob said there was a 35’ downclimb and rated it a 5.6. Both extremely strong hikers, they were able to complete the round trip to the LCR and back in 12 hours! It was amazing to run into them on one of the least traveled routes in Grand Canyon.

Clouds, wind, and then snow greeted us as we neared the Rim. Climbing up the Kaibab was easier than the downclimb. We still needed the rope to haul our packs up. We reached the Rim in a little under 6 hours.

This is definitely a "climbers" route through the Kaibab. There are very few cairns and route finding difficulties in the Redwall and Mauv. There is no water anywhere along the route except the LCR and Colorado River. Elevation gain was 3,000’. 4 miles each way. Navajo Nation permits are required.