THIS ONE'S FOR HARVEY

Among the many notable explorers of the Grand Canyon, Harvey Butchart (pictured) is the most prolific. Over the course of several decades, he hiked more than 12.000 miles, climbed 83 innerCanyon summits and navigated more than 100 rim-to-river routes. In spite of those numbers, there weren't any plaques or memorials to mark his accomplishments. That is, until 2008, when a 7,611-foot peak near Point Imperial was officially designated Butchart Butte. Recently, our writer went out and climbed it.

The fit is perfect. Harvey Butchart's namesake temple in Grand Canyon National Park reflects his style with an exactitude that would have pleased the late explorer and mathematician (1907-2002). Its distinctive summit is easily seen but not easily reached. No guidebooks tell you how to get there. The only nearby trail lies several miles away a useless distance in this terrain, unless you're a raven.

Surrounded by the Grand Canyon, Butchart Butte makes a dashing tribute to a man who was, by all accounts, not quite as dashing as his own accomplishments. A reserved math professor, Butchart moved from Illinois to Flagstaff in 1945 to take a job at Northern Arizona University, then called Arizona State College. For more than 30 years, Butchart taught calculus and linear algebra while raising a daughter and a son with his wife, Roma.

However, it was during weekends and summer breaks that Butchart compiled the numbers that brought him notoriety. He spent nearly three years' worth of days below the rim, during which he hiked more than 12,000 miles, climbed 83 inner-Canyon summits (28 of which were first ascents, the most by anyone), navigated more than 100 rim-to-river routes and wrote the national park's first backcountry guidebook, titled Grand Canyon Treks.

Butchart's quest to become the Canyon's most prolific explorer came at a price. He trekked into the then-unknown backcountry with the benefit of neither guidebooks nor modern, lightweight gear. His excursions sometimes led to broken heels, broken ribs and other misfortunes. In 1955, Butchart lost a best friend to drowning during an attempt to ride the flooding Colorado River on air mat-tresses. He also nearly lost his marriage by spending so much time hiking.

Despite the setbacks, he couldn't stay away. His light frame and speedy gait made him perfectly suited for canyoneering. People who accompanied him expressed awe at his physical endurance, and younger men would sometimes vomit trying to keep up. Whereas most people consider a down-and-out Canyon hike a major accomplishment, Butchart regarded the discovery of his own routes to the river as such. The trails? They were for the mules.

In 2007, Dr. Tom Myers and I published Butchart's biography, Grand Obsession: Harvey Butchart and the Exploration of Grand Canyon. During the research, a few of Butchart's hiking buddies suggested naming a natural feature in the Canyon for him. Nothing came of it until 2007, when geologist and climber Jim Haggart submitted a proposal for Butchart Butte to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

Naming of inner-Canyon summits is rare these days. Many peaks were named in the early 1900s, when the U.S. government surveyed the region and created the park's first topographic maps. Butchart Butte is only the second summit to be named in the last 37 years (in 1997, Berry Butte was named for entrepreneur Pete Berry).

Despite its prominent 7,611-foot peak and its visibility from Point Imperial on the North Rim and from several South Rim viewpoints, Butchart Butte remained anonymous until Haggart's proposal. The name became official in 2008 in Arizona and in 2009 at the federal level.

Myers and I decided to climb the newest of the Grand Canyon's 150-odd named summits. We contacted Haggart, who gave us a rough set of directions. Before we could set a date for the climb, we were invited to join a pair of Canyon explorers, Pete Borremans and Jim Ohlman, for their own attempt at Butchart Butte.

On a May afternoon, warm but with pockets of cold lingering in the shadows, the four of us convened at a nondescript pullout along the road to Cape Royal. We entered the forest to the east with three nights' provisions, ropes and climbing harnesses stuffed into backpacks. The plan was to set up a base camp on the rim, from which we could descend into the Canyon for the climb.

A winding mile through spruce and firs brought us to the rim near Atoko Point and our first glimpse of Butchart Butte, a white cap set against a backdrop of the distant Little Colorado River Gorge. From our altitude, above 8,500 feet, the butte seamlessly melded into the abyss and gave only a hint of its summit. Such is the paradox of climbing in the Canyon: You look down at a summit before ascending it.

But I couldn't see a way down, other than diving over the abrupt cliff that dropped hundreds of feet. In the 1950s,