High above the Col­orado Riv­er on the brink of Grand Canyon winds howl with temps in the sin­gle dig­its, my face and hands go numb. Soon we are clam­ber­ing down the “trail” which is real­ly a very steep, loose, rocky slope lit­tered with cairns. Emi­nence Break is a fault that breaks up the oth­er­wise impen­e­tra­ble ver­ti­cal cliffs of the canyon. Arriv­ing at the top it looks almost impos­si­ble to descend on foot, log­i­cal­ly I know how­ev­er that we are on the right path as we pro­ceed down. The slot in the dis­tance below us and the riv­er beyond seem almost out of reach.

Look­ing down the Emi­nence Break Fault into Grand Canyon

We final­ly reach Tata­hoysa Wash with its gold­en walls glow­ing in the reflect­ed light forc­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties behind us out of mind. Get­ting deep­er in the nar­row canyon the walls are an ever-chang­ing kalei­do­scope of red and orange hues bathed in the after­noon light.

After­noon light in the canyon.

Tobac­co hued walls.

Rock win­dow.

Deep nar­row slot from which we could start see­ing the Col­orado River.

7 rap­pels before giv­ing way to the grand view of the Col­orado Riv­er. After deal­ing with a poten­tial­ly rope eat­ing crack on the last rap­pel we are on the sandy banks prepar­ing our­selves for the long hike out.

Along the banks of the mighty Col­orado Riv­er. A per­fect place to camp.

Climb­ing out. Back up the steep walls of Emi­nence Break.

Back at the car after 10 hours it’s down to the sin­gle dig­its again, but with one hell of a climb behind us we turn on the heater and slow­ly rock crawl back to civ­i­liza­tion. Anoth­er great day of Grand Canyoneering!

Beau­ti­ful red walls