North Bass Trail - , Arizona

Kerry Callahan

(hiked Aug 2021) This hike is no joke. Unless you want to be absolutely destroyed in the sun I do not recommend doing this in August/the summer. We did the hike in 2 days camping at Shinumo creek. The drive in your going to want a high clearance vehicle. I did it in my Toyota Camry and it took 2 hours from the paved road to hit the trail head. If it rained recently and you do not have a high clearance vehicle you will not make it to the trail head so check the weather. First part of the trail is reasonably well maintained and while some of the switch backs have loose gravel it’s nothing too strenuous going down. The red wall descent is where things begin getting a little difficult. It’s very steep lots of loose rock and almost no shade. You’re going to want to start early and get past this part before the sun is too high. Once you’re down in the bed of White Creek its rather annoying bushwhacking. Never 100% confident your on the “trail” your walking on creek rocks and getting wacked in the face/arms/legs by branches. In the creek bed the views not great and it’s a bit boring. You head out of the creek a few times to divert around dried up waterfalls but never to far. When you finally get out of white creek you head up over the tonto on crumbly rock. You definitely do not want to do this section in the dark. When you get over the tonto you have a steep descent down to Shinumo creek. Aug 21, 2021 the creek was flowing strong and is a reliable water source. There are campsites here which is where we camped. If you want to leave your camp stuff here and head down to the river with water it’s the final 3 miles. There is a final steep ascent before you hit the river and it’s pretty miserable after the day you just did. Next morning from Shinumo creek to the trail head took us 13 hours. That’s right 13 hours to go 10 miles. The sun absolutely destroyed me. I’ve done S. Kaibab and bright angel in august and this does not compare. I felt good through the red wall but that steep climb even though we hit it by 10:30 am it’s completely exposed and used so much energy. From the top of the red wall you are in the sun until with top with the rare tree to take breaks under. We cached water around 3 and 5 miles down. When your in the creek there was occasional water but you would need to filter and I would probably treat it as well. Leaving the creek until the spring which is 1.25 miles from the trail head there is no water source. So the cached water came in handy on the way up. We spent a good 20-30 minutes at the spring filling water bottles and dumping them on ourselves to cool off. The spring also provides the rare coverage from the sun. We made it back to the top totally defeated. The 2 hours back out the dirt road to the paved road felt like the Grand Canyon national park was just mocking me at that point. Yet another lesson taught in respect by the GCNP. My final thoughts on North Bass Trail is I think I would have liked it a lot more as a spring/fall trail. It’s a tough hike no matter what but I do not see it being enjoyable is the summer. Tips: do not hike this trail in august unless you are accustomed to hiking is AZ dessert heat with high exposure, pack more electrolytes/salt replacement than you think you need, cache water, bring extra food incase you need to camp an extra day. -30 year old female, avid recreational hiker.

Side note: swamp point which is the trail head is a great remote place to camp 5/5 stars