The route of his that I liked the best is the one that takes you from Kanab over
to Tuckup. I've done that now a couple of times, and it's just nice. My brother likes the Esplanade. Twice, once
in 1977, I hiked from Kanab to Tuckup on the Esplanade. Then in 1982, from 150 Mile to Tuckup on the Esplanade.
By some great good fortune, both of those times were preceded by heavy rains so that all the potholes were full
on the Esplanade. You just maybe take a quart with you, or a half a quart. You didn't even need that, but it's
often easier to drink out of a quart from your pack than it is to take your pack off and kneel down and suck it
up out of a pool. I learned the word "estivation" to deal with that, which is the summer equivalent of
hibernation. You get these Esplanade pools that may be a foot or two deep and, I don't know, maybe as much as a
hundred square feet for a big one, or more coffin-size for smaller ones. You get these little shrimp in there,
fairy shrimp. Then when the whole thing dries up, they go into the mud at the bottom and stay there until the next
rain comes along and fills their happy home with water. But the process of surviving in the sand during periods
of the heat and drought is called estivation.
Quinn: Did you drink some pretty murky water at times? Or were you forced to?
Steck: I have, but not often. I have no objection to swallowing a few shrimp because that water generally [is]
pretty good. The WORST water I ever had was we were on our trip around Powell Plateau. I'm trying to remember.
I guess it was the first time that we ever did it. We had found a route down at the Explorers Monument to get to
the river but we chose not to use it because the river valley looked just ghastly. If it hadn't been for the dam,
I'm sure there would have been dead cows floating downstream. There probably were dead beavers, we just didn't
see them. So we went along on the Tonto a little ways and found a small pool with water that looked almost as bad
as the river, grungy stuff, but we boiled it. You know boiling that kind of water produces a scum, a kind of a
revolting scum, but you skim it off and the water is the better for it. It's the hardness, I think, somehow creates
this goo.
Quinn: That goes up to the top?
Steck: Yeah, floats on the top and you spoon it off, and what's left is pretty good. The next morning after we
had been walking for twenty minutes, we came to flowing water at a place that I have called Key Spring, I guess,
because in a sense it's the key to the route. You could take that route down to the river at Explorers Monument.
Subsequently, I found a route in that canyon near where Key Spring is that takes you down to the river.
I was on a river trip, and at Mile 114, there's a couple of camps there before you get to Elves Chasm, and we were
camped at one of those. I took what remained of the afternoon and got myself to the top of the Tapeats, and I ducked
the route so that I have used it then from the top. But there IS water in some of the Tapeats clefts where it's
not going to be subjected to sun, the evaporation is much less.
Quinn: What was the driest stretch that you could remember?
Steck: Of anywhere?
Quinn: Yeah, is there one that sticks out?
Steck: Well, our first hike into Thunder River qualifies. Another, and this [was] a stupid mistake, but I was taking
the Supai Route into Hells Chasm, into Royal Arch Canyon. I was talking to my friend Mattox, who had hiked out
Royal Arch, and he said, "Well, you just go up the creek and you take the first exit to the left." So
I look on the map and said, "Well, the first exit to the left is right there." So I aimed for it. It
was on the Fourth of July, I remember, and it was very hot, as you might expect. I go down this drainage to get
to Royal Arch Creek and suddenly I'm at the end of the drainage and it's still two hundred feet down to the creek.
I realized that this wasn't even one of HIS possibilities, he wouldn't have considered exiting from this canyon.
When I was counting the first one, I didn't pay attention to the fact that there were a whole bunch of contours
all crowded together.
It was probably about six o'clock or something [and was] getting pretty late, so we had a choice of whether the
next morning to try to find the REAL route into Royal Arch or to go back. I was a little shaken, so wasn't all
that sure about finding the REAL route, so we went back. But we were just about out of water that night, and the
only water that we had, except what was in the canteens, was a can of salty shrimp water, which wasn't very useful.
I think I had a pint to get me back to the car. Getting back, we left VERY early in the morning, it was almost
still dark. I remember putting my metal walking stick against my neck trying to get the coolness of the metal transferred
to my neck. [I was] very thirsty. Getting to the part where the South Bass Trail goes up and out, I remember kind
of hallucinating. My son Stan had gone on ahead, so that he could come back down the trail and bring me some water
if he was far enough ahead of me. I kept hearing him coming. I said, "Oh, here he comes!" I could even
hear the footprints and hear him talking to somebody. But then nobody would ever come. I would rest in the shade
of a piñon or in the shade of a rock and just make minimal progress up, because I kept waiting for him to
come down. Finally I decided that no one was going to come down, and I started out and got out. He did join me
finally, just quite near the top. That was a dangerous error. Other times I'd been using water at the rate of about,
oh, a quart an hour.
Quinn: With your family groups too?
Steck: No, this was when I was alone. I don't usually hike alone, but I was at this particular time in Marble Canyon.
[I was] going from where the Shinumo Wash Trail comes down at Mile 29, and going down. The plan was to go on around
Tatahatso Point and come out Eminence Break route, but it was just too hot, and I went out the Tatahatso Wash route. |
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