Early in our acquaintance, Harold Pratt told me, of a place in the Grand Canyon National Park called Thunder River. he had been down there many times thru the years. He made it sound extremely exciting. He said the park service had a 26 mile trail by which one had to travel to get to Thunder River. He said that there was a shorter route that he and other cowboys used to use to drive maverick cattle up out of the area. He showed me the spot where they dropped down the first 1000 feet or more to the red rock floor. It was at the end of a road at that time.
I was not in Fredonia very long before I was made the Boy Scout Scoutmaster. There was a big group of boys that were scout age in Fredonia, Moccasin and Cane Beds. None of these boys had been to Thunder River or knew much about it. We made it a goal that if we were prepared we would go on a camping trip into Thunder River next spring or summer.
I had served as Scoutmaster for several years while living in Mesa and had planned several camping trips into the Superstition Mountains and other areas near Mesa. I tried to plan very carefully for the Thunder River trip because we had to hike in and carry all our needs on our backs. I tried to encourage the boys to get good backpacks.
We planned on eating lots of fish because Harold Pratt had assured me the streams were full of trout. We took powdered milk and knew we would have plenty of good water to make milk for our cereal.
Harold had described the Thunder River as a big gush of water coming out of a hole in the rock wall about 150 feet up. The water cascades down with a thundering noise and accumulates into a stream below. Then it continues to run down a steep stream bed for several hundred yards til it joins another stream known as Tapeats River making thundering noise all the way down. He recommended that we camp at the junction of the two streams.
The Tapeats runs down very rapidly for 1/2 miles or so til it runs into the Colorado River.
He mentioned that there were lots of rattlesnakes along the river and said the noisy river might keep one from hearing a rattle if it rattled. i cautioned the scouts about this threat and having grown up among rattlers in Gilla Valley; it was a real concern.
My good friend, Eldon Johnson, was my assistant and planned on accompanying me on the trip to help look after the boys. There were a dozen Scouts that all wanted to go.
Donald Finnicum and his brother David drove in from Cane Beds for all boy scout activities. Donald was a senior in Fredonia High School and he was my Junior assistant scoutmaster. David was on of the older scouts.
I got permission to be unavailable for the Arizona highway Patrol for four days starting the day after school let our in 1955. We planned to hike in on Wednesday and camp at the Tapeats-Thunder River junction. We would spend Thursday and Friday enjoying the area, fishing and exploring. We would hike out on Saturday, report to the ward on Sunday.
Little did I know what could foul up our schedule.
First of all Eldon Johnson and his wife had no children but they had been trying to adopt and they were notified a baby girl would be available in Phoenix on the same day he would be with us in Thunder River, needless to say he chose to get little Esther. I tried to get other adults to go but none could go. Harold Pratt wasn't that fond of boys at boy scout age so he declined too.
Early Wednesday morning we loaded 12 boys and their fear in my old Chevrolet pickup. As we were preparing to leave my little dog, Skeeter, begged to go too. I had the quick thoughr maybe he could protect us against the snakes so I took him along.
We drove on US 89 to the foot of Kaibab Mou
ntain then we went south. We drove along the base on a forest service road thru Big Spring Forest Service camp then we went west out to the edge of the Kiabab Plateau. then my second problem arose.Harold Pratt had driven me out to the take off point way last summer and in the interim a seismology crew had extended the road out to Crazy Jug Point and beyond. I didn't recognize where the road had ended at the trail head so we ended up at Crazy Jug Point. There was no trail here yet so we decided to go down off Crazy Jug Point to get down the first 1000 feet or so. It looked passable and we worked our way down but backpacks were very burdensome going down the steep terrain. At one point we were virtually scaling a cliff for 30 feet or so.
Donald Finnicum, the 17 year old Junior Assistant had a phobia of heights and he flat froze up. He couldn't move a muscle. What to do?
Mike Brown was one of the boys and he had brought a backpack his dad had improvised using his blanket and lots of rope. It had already came apart and I put his blanket on my pack but we used his rope to lower Donald down. It was very difficult and dangerous. I prayed we would succeed and we did. It was slow going down this way.
At the bottom of the cliffs there was some vegetation near the base then a vast slick rock sandstone area, red.
We found the obvious park service trail then the third problem kicked in. I wasn't sure which way to go on the trail so we went north. (the wrong way!)
We all had canteens but the boys had pretty well used up their water and I was getting worried.
We had walked about ten miles when we came across a sign showing we had gone the wrong direction and had to turn around and retrace our steps another ten miles to get back to where we started on the trail. We needed water and we needed sleep.
The first day had passed so we slept on the trail, having to eat dry cereal or whatever with no water for the powder milk.
Skeeter panted heavily, he was just as thirsty as the rest of us, but he settled next to me as we unrolled our bedding on the trail for the night. Since the day was wasted mostly hiking the wrong way and my boys were dreadfully athirst I spent most of the night praying, I was really worried about our plight.
We got up at daylight and ate what we could without water, then headed back down the trail the right direction. After we had walked 8 miles or so we were all tuckered out so we laid in the shade of a sandstone rock.
Skeeter had left us unnoticed but soon he came back, all wet!!!
We all hurried down the direction from where Skeeter had come and about 30 yards from the trail we found a water pocket the size of a bathtub. We filled canteens and ate a good hydrated meal and proceeded towards Thunder River. Just shortly before dark we gott back to where we had entered the tail then we found the Thunder River sign and realized how lose we had missed it (about 50 yards!). About 1/2 mile farther the trail went down a trail that had been cut down the side of another sheer cliff. We were looking down into Surprise Valley, an area of small bush like sagebrush and such no more slick rocks.
I decided we would camp a bit back from the rim on the red rock formation and climb out the next morning. We had found water pockets aplenty once Skeeter had shown us that first one. The boys were disappointed that we wouldn't go on to actually experience Thunder River. We would be late coming out if we continued on to Thunder River and the parents would be worried sick.
We had a good night there on the slick rock on the rim above Surprise Valley. No one walked in their sleep.
The next morning we had to decide how to get back up to the next level to my pickup. I noticed the old slide near Crazy Jug Point had a deer trail (very faint) zigzagging up the hillside even though it was pretty steep. We decided to try to go up the trail. We could see steep cliffs near the top but we hoped we could find a way up thru the cliffs. I had prayed about it last night so I felt it was the way to go.
It was slow going all the way up and we had to step very carefully to keep our footing. When we were most of the way up we got into cliffs but found breaks in the cliffs to allow us to get clear up to the top.
We loaded up my pickup and headed for Fredonia by midday. The parents never realized how close we came to expiring down there and no one was hurt at all.
A few weeks after the adventure with the scouts a bus load of college students from a college in the Los Angeles area came into the checking station while I was there visiting with Bud Button, the station operator. I asked the leader where they were going and he said they were going to Thunder River by way of the 26 mile Park Service Trail.
I told him he could cut out about 17 or 18 miles of their trek by going down the way we had come out. I explained just how to find the trail head at BIG Crazy Jug Point. Later he stopped and thanked me for making their trip so much easier. That college had been making the trip to Thunder River each year for quite a few years and continued to do so.
The desire to go to Thunder River stuck with me. I was made the Young Men President so I didn't work with the Boy Scouts, but with the older boys. The next summer I made plans with Donald Finnicum and his brother David, Kenny Birch and Kenny's older brother who was in the army and home on leave.
Kenny's brother took two horses to the old 26 mile trail head. He packed all of our gear on a pack horse and he rode his horse. The rest of us parked my pickup at Big Crazy Jug Point and hiked down our new trail to the slick rock level then dropped into Surprise Valley on a good trail. We left Surprise Valley on a ridge dropping rapid alongside a sheer cliff on our left. after a short distance we could hear loud roaring the we could see the water gushing out of a hole a 100 feet or so above the creek floor.
The trail went down the ridge parallel to the stream bed for several hundred yards with the stream still making a lot of noise because of the rapid fall of the water. It was a beautiful sight well worth our efforts to get there. We camped at a flat where Thunder River junctioned with the Tapeats river. The next day we hiked down the Colorado River and swam. Kenny's brother fished and caught us nice big ones to eat. We explored the Tapeats River area where we saw a beautiful King snake, the only one I saw in the Thunder River area.
To the left the Tapeats River headed north and we continued to see where such a big stream could be coming from. We went up the creek staying close to the water and we could see we were going right into a high cliff. Big boulders the size of a car or bigger made the going real hard so I led us up onto the ridge on the right. We went a bit farther then we found we were looking at a cave big enough to set 3 bedroom house in the entrance. What a surprise!!!
We had no flashlights but we pulled up some dead sage brush stumps to use for a torch. The smoke blew into the cave. We went about 50 yards then we came to a place where the floor was water. there were tunnels going off either side so we decided not to go farther. We thought we could hear a stream of water up ahead. We came back out with a resolve we would return with proper equipment at a later date.
There was a big stream coming out of the cliff at the level of the stream bed. also up on the cliff we could see a small cliff dwelling. It was up a narrow ledge about 100 feet above the stream. We carefully went up to it and it was where native americans had lived a recess or cave. It had several pieces of pottery in it. We were careful not to handle any.
We made our way back to our camp after an extremely interesting day. There were lots of fish for supper.
We all came out the next day by the same routes we had came in. It was an easy trip this time and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The next year Donald Finnicum told one of his Northern Arizona professors about Thunder River and the huge cavern. He made a trip with Donald Finnicum and some other students and the professors name is now on our trail and our caverns.
In 1960 while I was living back in Mesa, Arizona I was working with Explorer Scouts. I told them of Thunder River and two of them wanted to go see and experience it. So we made plans to take a 4 day trip into Thunder River. The two boys were Lamont Skousen and Earl Morris. I had known both of them since they were young, they lived in the same subdivision as I did.
We took flashlights, a ball of twin and a small air mattress to be used in the exploration of the cavern. We also had a video camera. We each had a good back pack.
We parked my vehicle a the Big Crazy Jug Point trail head and hiked down the switchbacks trial we had establish on our way out in 1955. The trail showed signs of heavy use.
Our trek down was fairly easy and the boys were fascinated at Thunder River. We camped at the junction of the Tapeats and Thunder River.
The next morning we went up the Tapeats river to the cavern. We explored the main area til we got in where the stream of water going to the Tapeats River was. It wasn't much past where we had to turn back when we were there before. The water in the cave floor was still there but there was a ledge we could walk on to get around the deeper water.
The area where the stream was a huge cavern and I supposed it went on and on back under the Kaibab Plateau. I had a claustrophobia problem so I felt my curiosity satisfied. we had unraveled the twine so we could follow it to find our way out.
We spent the 3rd day just going down to the Colorado River for a swim and they fished some. On the fourth day we made a easy hike out to our vehicle. While changing from my hiking boots to more comfortable footwear I had sat in some scrub oak that turned out to be poison oak so I had a lot of serious itching on my leg for some time afterward.
Each time I went to Thunder River, Danny, my oldest son, begged to go. We was always too young to risk his going.
When Danny got older he became a backpacker-hiker as a hobby. The first place he wanted to go was Thunder River. He and a friend went down from Ogden, Utah to take on Thunder River. I was living in Fruita, Colorado but I drove down to watch them hike out cause I knew of the possible dangers down there.
Since then, Danny has made several trips down and explored Kanab Creek to the west of Surprise Valley and other very interesting places.
He has also explore most of the side canons all thru the Grand Canyon National Park. The year Danny and his pal first made the trip to Thunder River was 1985, 30 years after my initial trip in 1955.
The Thunder River area is in the western part of the Grand Canyon National Park. Now days the park service monitors the trail traffic and maintain rest rooms at the campsite. My trail head is now called the Bill Hall trail head by the park service
