Five Days on the Bill Hall Trail with two amazing waterfalls and a wild sunset on the final night (timelapse at the end!)
The Meetup
Five days in the Big Ditch for hiking an amazing loop with two random friends from Baltimore. Stay with me here… As you know, I am a Baltimorean-turned-car-lifer and had been living out West for a year. Through a good friend, Diego, I met Zach, who is a Baltimorean-turned-van-lifer and has been mostly living in Arizona for the past few years. I met him from my trips to Sedona when I was visiting Diego. OK, so I also have a friend, Kara, who dated a friend in Baltimore before she took off to be a van-lifer out West. She and Zach had a lot of mutual friends from living in Yosemite at various times. Well, Zach scored some hiking permits for this highly sought after area in the Grand Canyon and threw out the invites. Kara and I accepted so we dubbed ourselves the BaltiMORONs and set off to explore this big hole in the ground!
Also, check out Zach’s photodump from this hike. He happens to be a professional photographer.
Winter was on it’s way when we met up in the tiny town of Jacob Lake, which is an odd name since there is no lake, but it was freezing and even snowed for a few little spurts. Kara has a Ram Promaster Van, Zach has a Ford E350, and I have my Subaru Outback: Large, Medium, and Small. I led the way down the dirt roads to the Bill Hall Trailhead where Zach had some intel of some great nearby campsites right on the edge of the rim of the Grand Canyon. We made a campfire, Kara mixed up some purple drinks with fresh tuna cacti, and we soon retired to our respective homes because it was dropping down into the teens (°F)
Large, Small, Medium rigs. (L to R: Kara’s Promaster, my Outback, Zach’s E-350)
Day 1: 8.6 miles, ↑ 641ft (195m) and ↓ 5294ft (1614m)
The next day we made the short jaunt to the TH, packed up, and began the massive 3,000ft descent. There is a big drop down to a plateau called The Esplanade which had tons of cool rock features and gave us the “walking on mars” vibe. This hike is a lollipop shape and this was on the stick, which we would be doubling back on our way out of the canyon. There is also no water on The Esplanade and it is easier to carry weight downhill than it is uphill. So we each stashed a few liters of water for the final night of the hike, heading back up the stick of the lollipop. Another big drop down to Magic Valley where we met the fork in the road, the end of the lollipop stick.
We then hooked to the East and got to the third and final big drop of the day which begins at Thunder Falls! A huge waterfall that shoots right out of the canyon wall. And it is loud, hence the fitting name. Unlike Jacob’s Lake. We most definitely took a break there to enjoy some fresh, crisp, water and gaze at the amazing feature. A quick few hundred feet of vert later and we finally arrived at camp.
Day 2: 2.3 miles, ↑ 505ft (154m) and ↓ 954ft (291m)
Day two was very short mileage so we had a lazy morning waiting for the sunlight to crest over the canyon walls and warm us up. Zach brought some fishing rods and tried his luck in the Thunder River while Kara and I played in some pools and then watched ants try to fit a big grasshopper leg down into their nest. We lost Zach for a bit and figured he must have went down stream for better fishing. We found him right next to a cool scramble and the trio continued on. We lost the official trail once or twice but knew to just follow the water downstream. A rafting group stopped at the Colorado to let some patrons take a day hike up to Thunder Falls and they did not believe us that we were going the right way. It was comical how much they kept telling us we were wrong so Zach eventually ended the conversation with a curt “OK, welp, hike your own hike. We are going this way.”
The river enters a narrow slot canyon where the trail parts ways and follows the edge of the cliff. We seemed to be going uphill and wondered how the trail dips back down to the water to the confluence of the Thunder River as it joins the mighty Colorado River, which is where our camp was located. How did it work? By jamming a myriad of tiny switchbacks down a cliff that had no business containing so many switchbacks. But we made it to camp and it was interesting to see the clear water of Thunder River joining the chocolate milk color of the Colorado. The stars came out and I took my first astro-timelapse of them spinning in the sky above.
Day 3: 4.8 miles, ↑ 1368ft (417m) and ↓ 898ft (274m)
Day three was all along the Colorado River and we saw plenty of rafting teams float by. We were finally at the bottom of the trail and it was HOT. We kept picking away at the footpath which was pretty tame, sans one scramble. After a few miles of paralleling the Colorado, the trail heads upwards to the mouth of the Deer Creek Slot Canyon.
We dropped our packs and then slackpacked along the narrow trail that lead back down to the Colorado River and Deer Falls, one of the prettiest falls I have ever seen, and I’ve been to Iceland. Crystal blue water spills out of the slot and down 100ft to a small pool that was fantastic to swim in and cool off. We took many photos and watched a duck float down some pretty gnarly rapids (for a duck) It was hard to say goodbye but we had to climb back up to our packs, then further up to find camp. Also, on the way up, Zach was in his sandals and accidentally kicked a cactus which forced him to spend 30 minutes pulling out the prickleys.
Day 4: 5.8 miles, ↑ 3193ft (973m) and ↓ 230ft (70m)
Day four we began the long climb out of the canyon to the flats of The Esplanade. It was quite a lot of elevation but we took a lot of breaks to eat snacks and tell stories. We had some trouble finding the stash spot where we left water on the way down but eventually discovered it. And a rodent had chewed on the mouthpiece of my Camelback. Little bastard. We returned to a campsite with a stone table since it was out of the wind and then backtracked a little to enjoy sunset. After being down at the canyon bottom and acclimating to the warm weather, it was COLD up here. I wore my pajamas as well as my hiking clothes and rain jacket AND my sleeping quilt as a cape. Kara had a sleeping bag which does not convert into cape mode but she joked she would just inch-worm back to camp. Goofing off, flintstone rock, cold, sleeping bag capes, sunset
Day 5: 3.0 miles, ↑ 1912ft (583m) and ↓ 279ft (85m)
Day five was just an easy hike back up to the rim where it luckily was not as cold as when we started.