Looking to hit the big loop around the gorge - likely the weekend of Veteran’s Day (11/11) or the following weekend 11/18. Will be going solo but happy to have company. Plan to move along at a reasonably good clip so I can be out by Sun afternoon. Plan is to start on the north end near the falls and camp on the west side along the LRT Friday night and somewhere near Hawksbill or Sitting Bear on Sat night. PM me or post below if you have interest in joining.
Good luck and have fun. I'd love to go, but already spent the last two weekends in the ditch. 2 nights is pretty ambitious - must move faster than me.
Might see you up there if Veterans Day weekend! But we won’t be doing that many miles.
2 weeks ago, a buddy and I did Rock Jock -> Pinch-In -> LGT -> Conley loop with one night along LGT. It took us 7.5 hours to go 8.5 miles. The last half of Rock Jock and then PinchIn is some of the most technical and challenging stuff I’ve ever done! Now I’m looking for something a bit less ambitious…
Yes - one never knows what to expect in the gorge depending on weather, heat/humidity, blow downs, river flow, etc. I’ve done most of the side trails along the west side and the south loop along the east rim many times, but still haven’t finished the full loop. So going to give it a go. If I can avoid rain and pack light, I should be able to knock out two long days and have a chance to finish in three. The east rim is usually dry this time of year so that plays a factor too with longer water hauls.
As far as east rim, water tree was dry last weekend, but there was enough coming out of gully pipe to camel up. Was told that there wasn't anything at chimney gap, but I didn't verify myself.
Make sure you leave some time to navigate ledge if you haven't spent any time on the trail (little bit of a stretch calling it that, but the NE quadrant doesn't get as much traffic as everywhere else).
Thanks for the intel - I’ve never had luck with Chimney gap but Shortoff to Little Table Rock should be workable for me. I hoping NE quadrant is a bit easier this time of year with leaf fall, but we’ll see.Originally Posted by Dvankirk
For any hikers that want to join, I’m doing this the weekend of 11/18-11/20. Now planning to park at Spence Ridge and tackle the NE quadrant the first day. Feel free to connect if you want to join for all or a part of the loop.
I can't that weekend, but I'm going to do the ITAYG loop first weekend in December.
Hopefully it warms up for you some given the crossing at Spence ridge can get pretty wet. Night time temps look to be high 20s/low 30s next weekend and don’t appear to break 40 for daytime highs. Nebo stream gauge shows heavy flow from Hurricane remnants so I should have good luck with finding H2O.
Never got to do this before my knees got too old. Refresh my memory..... isn't the grand loop like 40 miles?
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