A trip to Arizona in May 2024

I had planned a backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon in May 2024, to a location called Utah Flats, which I thought would be another good location for some Milky Way shots. Utah Flats is a relatively flat area of slickrock that is located above and just west of Phantom Ranch, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

This trip was plagued with problems at the start as I could not get the backcountry permit that I needed for Bright Angel Campground, which is adjacent to Phantom Ranch. I decided to go with a permit for another campsite that was much further away, on the other side of the Canyon, and over 1,000’ higher in elevation. So, to get to Utah Flats I would first have to hike from this campsite down to the bottom of the Canyon and then back up to Utah Flats. It would be a long day but not impossible, if it had not been for the heat.

I awoke to a nice cool morning at my campsite, but it took several hours to get to Phantom Ranch and by the time I got there it was already quite warm with temperatures in the 90s. I had planned to rest there for a few hours and do the hike up to Utah Flats later in the afternoon, expecting it to cool off. It didn’t, I only got hotter. I tried to find a ranger to see if I could snag a campsite at Bright Angel Campground and then do the hike to Utah Flats in the cool of the following morning, but I could not find a ranger anywhere.

When I got to the start of the route up to Utah Flats a little after 2pm the thermometer at Bright Angel Campground was reading 105. There is a route from Bright Angel Campground up to Utah Flats, but it is not a trail by any stretch of the imagination. I had been up there a few times in the past but had always done the climb early in the morning when it was much cooler. I was not looking forward to this, but I thought I would give it a try, but it did not take very long for me to realize this was going to be a very bad idea.

I was carrying a lot of weight because of all the extra camera gear and extra water because I was planning on spending the night up there. After only a few minutes into the climb I was sweating profusely and knew it was not going to work. Since I did not have any place to stay for the night at the bottom I pretty much just panicked and decided to start my hike out. Luckily, I was able to snag a campsite at the Havasupai Gardens Campground on the other side of the Canyon, about halfway to the rim, so I did not have to hike all the way out. I finished the hike out the next morning.

A few days after the failed backpacking trip I drove down to Sedona, from our house in Flagstaff, to attempt some Milky Way shots from a location there that had been recommended to me by a friend. I had a beautiful evening for that, and it was a very short hike to the location I needed to shoot from.

You can read the trip report from the backpacking trip on my Grand Canyon Explorer web site by clicking here.