I got off at 7am from a 72 hr shift in Farmington. I grabbed some food at Walmart on the way out of town and drove to the Grand Canyon. I hiked down to Phantom Ranch on the S. Kaibab Trail and met up with John around 2pm. We were going to have a dry camp so we loaded up on water before we left the ranch. We hiked up toward Zoroaster and Brahma until the sun went down and set up camp just below the Hermit Shale layer.
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| Zoraster from high on Brahma. Note John in the bottom of the photo. |
We got up well before sunrise and took off at 5:20am. While traversing the Western edge of Brahma we decided to try a route that looked doable at easy 5th. Things went well and we were on top at 8am! We saw slings at 15' and 50' off the ground but besides that nothing. Surely this wasn't a FA, but it was a fun alternative to the 4th class.
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| Summit! |
We headed down the standard 4th class route and headed back to Phantom Ranch.
The weather started to roll in while we were starting up the S. Kaibab. When we got up to O'Neill Butte we tried to find the 4th class route up but decided not to gild the lily with the loose, wet rock and the route not being obvious.
After bailing on O'Neill we headed up to the South Rim with the snow starting to fall softly. We got to the TH as it was getting dark. Great climbing with you John!
