Royal Arch rappel and traverse
The exciting bits...
Click on the icons below for a large JPEG image.
Approach to the rappel ... and the view (again) from below.
Although Royal Arch and Elves Chasm are along the same streambed and
within a mile of each other,
to go from Royal Arch to Elves Chasm requires a long detour,
with a rappel at a point where travertine deposits provide an opportunity
to get through the Tapeats formation.
We were surprised to find decent ropes already in place.
The image from below shows the existing ropes,
one for rappelling down, and another for easily climbing upward.
I suppose one should not count on finding a rope available for climbing upward.
The climbers on this trip thought that it was possible to go up without a rope,
but that clearly is not a task for ordinary mortals.
Apart from this 20- to 30-foot rappel,
the route through the travertine to get to the river is fairly routine.
Negotiating the Supai formation.
A 10-foot section in the Supai requires hands, though there are good footholds.
Since the rock juts out somewhat,
doing this with a pack would tend to pull you backwards,
so we decided to line the packs across.
As long as we had the ropes out,
we used them for humans, too, though that's not necessary.
The second image is from "around the corner" looking back.
In the background is the dropoff in the streambed that makes this
adventure necessary.
The foreground shows the next 30 feet of the relatively narrow
ledge that must be followed to reach dirt again.
The background in the first image shows the talus slope that
gets you down into the streambed again.
The route continues in the bed of this side drainage,
and on into the bed of Royal Arch Creek.
On the way to Royal Arch, expect to wade through some waist-deep pools
if you're not inclined to climb around them.
A related image from a 1987 trip.
I believe that the center of this picture
(from the Apache Point trail, looking east)
shows the side drainage we used to get into Royal Arch Creek.
In the shadows is the Supai cliff that that necessitated the traverse
shown above.
Royal Arch Creek is in the foreground,
Mount Huethewali is in the background, near Bass trailhead.
carroll@cs.sdsu.edu
Negotiating the Supai formation.
A related image from a 1987 trip.