Royal Arch Loop Grand Canyon 5 Day Backpack

We drove up to the Grand Canyon the day before we started our adventure. This backpack starts at the South Bass trail head which is a 30 mile drive on dirt road a high clearance a must and four wheel a plus. We camped at the trail head on the rim with great view of the Grand Canyon. The next morning the canyon was fill with smoke from a prescribed burn somewhere on the rim and interfered with the great views, which bummed me out. We started down S. Bass trail for about one and a half miles to a large cairn at the esplanade (no sign). This was our turn for the Royal Arch trail. We wondered along the esplanade for 5-6 miles, some places were slow going working around rocks. Then we turned down a canyon and worked our way down, past some large water pot holes. At some spots we had to work our way around spillways on ledges and steep loose rock. We did get off trail for about half mile and had to re-track back which took about an hour more of our already long day. The canyon took another turn more north and became much harder navigating up-over-around and through large bus size boulders. I did a lot of sliding on my butt down the rocks with my backpack on. After 11 hours and 13 miles we arrived at the Royal Arch in the dark with head limps. Very cool place to camp under the arch on some ledges with a nice small stream.

Early morning view coming into the canyon, you can see the smoke in the air.

Looking at the trail

A large Cairn

a small spillway

A water pothole

working our way on a ledge

Camp under the Royal Arch

The Royal Arch

Selfie

The monument next to the arch

One of the pools on our way back up canyon

some ledge work

The next day we had to work our way back up the canyon up-over and through the large boulders. We had to help each other a time or two getting up the boulders. Then we had to climb up a loose rock trail to the plateau where the trail stayed on the plateau for a few miles. Then shortly after we started a decent we came to a place we had a 20 foot rappel. The rappel turned out to be the easiest challenge of the trip. After the rappel we continued down to the Colorado river at Toltec beach. We dropped our packs and made way to Elves Chasm. The trail to Elves Chasm turned to be a hard rough rocky trail and took one and a half hours. Elves Chasm is beautiful and we all took a swim before we headed back to make camp. I would have liked to have had the whole afternoon to spend there.

The rappel

Elves Chasm

Day 3
We had planned to take two days to get to South Bass beach, but there wasn't any water along this whole stretch. So we decided to just carry extra water and make it in one day. The first two miles was rough rock hopping. Then we turned up a canyon and climb sandstone ledges to the Tonto Plateau. Hiked along the plateau, along cliffs looking down at the river for miles, maybe 10 or so. Then we turned down a steep rocky slippery trail to a canyon that lead to S. Bass beach. Another long day about 10 hours, Arrived at S. Bass beach right before dark enough time to make camp .