The Grand Canyon & Lowe Alpine Memories,

Back in 2017 I wrote this piece on the classic Lowe Alpine Expedition, which was the first ever internal frame pack. A year later I posted it on this blog and forgot about it. Until yesterday when I had a request for a brief inteview from a writer for Backpacker magazine in the USA who had come across my article. Corey Buhay really wanted to talk to someone who'd used the original pack but reckoned I'd do as I had used one in the 1980s. As the original came out in 1967 I guess there's not too many people still around who used one.

This reminded me that I did have photos of a Lowe Alpine pack from the 1990s that had an updated version of the original back system that had revolutionised pack design. I'd used this pack on a two-week trip in the Grand Canyon and it had been excellent. I posted some black-and-white photos two years ago on the 25th anniversary of my trip. Now I have an excuse to post them again!

My 1995 pack was a Lowe Alpine Alpamayo with a capacity of 70 litres. I needed a big pack as I only had one resupply and so twice carried a week's food and also regularly carried two gallons of water - the Grand Canyon is a dry place and water sources are far apart. I also had 9lbs/4kg of camera gear. My notes say that my base weight without the cameras was 26lbs/12kg, which doesn't sound bad. However add in the cameras, a week's food, and all that water and my total load reached 66lbs/ 30kg at the start of each section. I needed a pack capable of handling that weight. And the Alpamayo did so comfortably. At 5.6lbs/2.5 kg it was quite heavy in itself but it was made of tough fabric that stood up well to the abrasive stony and sandy terrain and the spiky vegetation of the Grand Canyon. 

Having been founded in Utah by the mountaineers and brothers Greg, Mike and Jeff Lowe Lowe Alpine has exchanged hands a number of times over the years and is currently owned by British company Equip Outdoor Technologies, whose other brand is Rab. Under its various parent companies Lowe Alpine has never stopped making packs. I recently reviewed a recent one for TGO magazine. It's good that this pioneering company is still going.

The Grand Canyon walk was superb, one of the best shorter backpacking trips I've done. The Canyon is unique, extraordinary, spectacular, beautiful. I loved it.

Photography note.I had two film SLRs - a Nikon F801 I used with Fujichrome colour transparency film and a Nikon FM2  I used with Ilford FP4 Plus black-and-white film. My lenses were Nikkor 24mm, Nikkor 75-150mm and Sigma 28-70mm. I also had a Gitzo Loisir tripod.

I photographed these prints with my Sony NEX 7 camera with Sony E 35mm lens and processed the raw files in Lightroom. For this piece I processed the raw files again in DxO PureRaw and then Lightroom. The reprocessed images are sharper and less noisy, though this isn't really noticeable in the low res images posted here.

When (if) I locate the negatives I may be able to get better results.One day I will also scan some of the colour images.

Crossing the Grand Canyon on the Arizona Trail twenty years ago

The Grand Canyon

On March 24, 2000, I reached the place that had led me to walk the Arizona Trail, the Grand Canyon, the most awe-inspiring landscape I have ever seen. This was my second visit and the effect was as overwhelming as ever. That evening I walked to the South Rim and stared into the black impentratable depths.

The Colorado River

The next day I descended into those depths, down the turning, twisting Bright Angel Trail as it cut through layers of rock, millions of years, to the Colorado River where the rocks are 1.8 billion years old. Down here I felt I was in deep time itself, the great cliffs rising thousands of feet to the present far above me.

That evening I walked out along a side trail and bivouaced under the stars. I woke as the first rays of the sun turned cliffs high above red and gold. A raven called harshly. From a yucca came the much sweeter song of a cactus wren. Otherwise I was alone amongst this vast beauty. It was one of the best camps of my life.

Early light on Zoroaster Temple

A long hot marvellous day ensued as I wound my way up the North Kaibab Trail some four and a half thousand feet to the North Rim. There I camped amongst big ponderosa pines and Douglas firs. I'd left the desert for the forest.

The North Kaibab Canyon

Four more days and I was at the Utah border and the Arizona Trail walk was over. It had been a tremendous trip, one of my favourites. And the highlight was the Grand Canyon, splendid, immense, unfathomable.

View from the North Rim

The full story of my walk is told in my book Crossing Arizona.

Book Review: Grand Obsession, Harvey Butchart and the Exploration of the Grand Canyon by Elias Butler and Tom Myers

Continuing the Colin Fletcher theme of the last couple of posts I’ve been reading an engrossing biography of the man who provided Fletcher with most of the information for his walk the length of the Grand Canyon, mathematics professor Harvey Butchart. At the time of Fletcher’s walk in 1963 Butchart had been exploring the Grand Canyon wilderness on foot for seventeen years and, as Fletcher discovered, was the only expert in this field. When Butchart started hiking there in the late 1940s most of the Grand Canyon was little visited and unknown to walkers. In the past Native Americans, prospectors and explorers had ventured into the Canyon but routes and trails had faded and knowledge of them had been lost. Only a few rim-to-river routes were known and barely any traverses inside the Canyon. In a series of short but intense expeditions, mostly 2-4 days in length, Butchart explored the Canyon systematically, filling in gaps on the map as he covered some 12,000 miles. As well as finding ways down to the Colorado river he climbed many of the massive steep rock buttes that lie inside the Canyon. He kept detailed logs too and published short guidebooks under the title Grand Canyon Treks (now available in a single illustrated volume). All hikers and climbers in the Grand Canyon owe Butchart a huge debt for his efforts, which lie behind all subsequent guidebooks.

Everyone who has hiked in the Grand Canyon away from the maintained corridor route trails will know just how forbidding and serious, with steep cliffs, loose rocks and scree, frequent exposure, scarcity of water, heat and remoteness, it can be even though there are now detailed maps and guidebooks and often other backpackers. For Butchart it really was an exciting unexplored world replete with wonders and dangers and it became the main aim of his life to trace every possible route. A Grand Obsession indeed. In their book Butler and Myers tell the story of Butchart and how the Canyon came to be so important in his life. Canyon hikers and climbers themselves, the authors also set out to follow one of Butchart’s routes, the ascent of Wotan’s Throne (Grand Canyon features often have romantic names that fit the strange and glorious landscape). They used Butchart’s terse and minimalist description (his guidebooks are not the easiest to follow) and it takes them two attempts and gets them into some desperate situations. Interspersing their own adventure with Butchart’s and showing just how difficult hiking and climbing still is in much of the Canyon helps show just how determined, skilled and tough Butchart was.

A key part of the book is about the relationship of Fletcher and Butchart. When Fletcher announced he wanted to hike the Grand Canyon in one long walk Butchart had almost completed a traverse himself, though in a series of short walks spread over many years (Butchart didn’t think that he would like long trips, a few days at a time were enough). Butchart assisted Fletcher with his planning and then completed the last section of the traverse after Fletcher had started out, becoming the first person to do so and leaving Fletcher to become the first person to do so in one continuous walk. After his hike Fletcher and Butchart fell out, why not being clear, as Butler and Myers point out, but it does look as though Fletcher writing a successful and eloquent book about his hike was a major part of the reason, even though Butchart is praised and thanked extensively in it. Also the two men come across as very different in their writing and approach. Fletcher is romantic, expansive and able to express the beauty and wonder of nature and landscape and the joys of backpacking while Butchart is pragmatic and unemotional, describing the Canyon in terms of routes, statistics and physical challenges. Whilst both clearly wanted success Butchart often gives the impression that the achievement of doing new routes and climbs is his main impetus whilst for Fletcher it is the experience itself. Whatever the reasons for their falling out both are now part of the history of the exploration of the Grand Canyon.

Being Grand Canyon enthusiasts themselves means the authors understand just what Butchart achieved and they express this well in the book. For anyone who has hiked in the Grand Canyon (which is the most amazing place I have ever visited) this book tells the story of the pioneer who opened up the way for them. But it’s not just for Grand Canyon hikers. It’s for any outdoors lover who likes stories of adventure and exploration.

Photo info: Wild camping in the Grand Canyon. Photo info: Ricoh RDC-5000, JPEG processed in DxO Optics Pro.