ADAM HAYDOCK

Miles of boulder hoping and steep ankle rolling trail access gives south canyon a natural filter for crowds looking for greener pastures and paved walkways.

 South Canyon is a one of the largest canyon tributaries in the Grand Canyon / marble canyon range.

Once you cross over the rim of  South Canyon you will be in Grand Canyon National Park territory so permits are required for overnight use.

There are a few routes to get to the river using south canyon and the nearby bedrock canyon.

We opted to go down bedrock canyon so we could by-pass miles of boulder hoping and wash walking.

We started at the top of the UPS route for bedrock canyon, which a very direct and a very steep route into the bedrock canyon. 

The UPS route actually cuts out most of bedrock and takes you to the confluence of bedrock and south canyons. 

We followed the rim of bedrock canyon and entered at the trail end of bedrock. 

We encountered some short but pretty supai sandstone "narrow" sections. until it opened back up again.

Afterwards we found some sketchy down climbs that did have rap anchors on them but we were able to negotiate the down climbs with everyone on the team and lower packs. 

After some boulder hopping we passed the UPS route and got into south canyon . 

We found that the potholes were full of water since it rained recently so we filled our containers and continued down canyon.

about 30-45 minutes later, we started to enter into the redwall limestone layer and the canyon started to narrow up.

Andy and James came with me while the others went around the obvious trail down to the beach.

They did not bring wet suits and they did not want to get their gear wet so they took the high road while we suited up for the narrow corridors.

We encountered some easy down climbs a a few difficult downclimbs through out the narrow section.

Although it was short, I was surprised to see how beautiful the narrows were !

We found that there was one small swimming and the others were waist to neck deep for a short period of time.

the narrows meandered right to the beach and the last drop was on a fixed line.

Once we got to the beach we unpacked and dried out a few items just as the rest of the team was coming down the canyon.

Woohoo! We made it to the beach and we had the beach to ourselves. 

After setting up camp we headed over to check out Stanton cave and Vaseys paradise.

Stanton cave was our first stop and its was quite the cave entrance right on the wall.

This cave is gated and protected by the park service for its significance so please respect this place when you visit.

Our next visit was over to Vaseys paradise.

This was a beautiful water fall coming out of the wall with a lush green area around the base of the shoreline where the water enters the Colorado river. 

Afterwards, we headed back to camp for dinner and a chill night for our hike out the following day.

We were going to bring pack rafts to head down to red wall caverns and head up to other canyons but we did not have time and the team decision was to just go down to the beach and back up. 

The following day we headed back up and went over to the UPS route for our exit. 

The sun was hitting the wall in some interesting ways and gave for some great light on the morning hike out. 

We took a casual pace and headed up to the UPS route while filtering water at the confluence.

Finally we made it to the vicious looking UPS trail, 1800 feet of steep boulder hiking and scrambling up the canyon.

The first third of the hike was steep but it was all that bad.

There was some grappling but not a whole lot and before we knew it, we were back up on the supai.

The last two thirds had some switch back hiking up a trail which was not bad than we got to a loose and steep section in between the spurs.

This section was just a bit more difficult but not bad at all.

Than we got to the last kaibab section which was grappling up boulders and some small exposed places to climb.

The views were fantastic as we hiked up and finally made it to the cars in a 1 1/2 from the bottom of the UPS route.

South canyon is a great introduction to grand canyon hiking and canyoneering and I highly recommend it as a first stop to get into the grand canyon.

Deep within the canyon tributaries of Marble canyon, two canyons intersect with one another and form a nice tributary and access to the Colorado river.

Bedrock canyon and  canyon are located right on the border of the grand canyon national park territory but access for overnight camping must be obtained by GCNP.

Our plan was to head out to the tail of bedrock canyon and descend into south canyon so we can skip the miles of boulder hopping in south canyon.

Once we get into south canyon, we will go through the narrows and set up camp at the beach following a hike over to check out vaseys paradise and Stanton cave.

We got a later start than normal since this would not take us as long as other grand canyon canyon routes.

We made it over to the tail of bedrock adn started to find our way down the canyon into the drainage where the supai started to come out. 

We continued to work down the canyon and found some short but interesting supai sandstone canyon that meandered through the floor and had some narrow properties to it.

We were surprised to find some "almost technical" descents that was a big help with a rope along with a partner assist.

It took us a bit longer than expected to get down but once we were down we passed our UPS trail exit and made it to the confluence of South canyon and Bedrock canyon.

Bedrock canyon was a nice canyon to go down to and although the UPS route is shorter and more direct into the canyon, you lose around 1800 ft of gain in a mile so it is quite steep on the knees.

Once we got into south canyon we filled up a bit on water and continued on with our adventure.

I recommend coming down the bedrock canyon route if you are looking for a nice two day or even a great one day trek into the grand canyon and down to the river. 

Some of us ended up going through the south canyon narrows while others went around and down to the beach.

I highly recommend going through the south canyon narrows and to read more about south canyon please click on my south canyon trip report for a account of how it went.

I am glad we got a chance to check out this canyon and I am looking forward to coming back to the area for the rest of the canyons. 

This blog is for informational and personal documentative purposes and is not to be used as beta.  Please refer to www.ropewiki.com or other resources for accurate information on how to descend these canyons.