Fishing Soap Creek

Angler Hooks 50 Rainbow Trout in One Day SOAP CREEK FISH STORY

text by Christine Maxa photographs by Marty Cordano

50 RAINBOW TROUT IN ONE DAY.

Some people might call that just another fish story. But things like that happen to fishermen in the right place at the right time along the Colorado River.

As Marty and Annette Cordano and I started a three-day fishing trip along Soap Creek on an early October afternoon, a fisherman on his way out recounted his success fishing the Colorado at the mouth of Soap Creek Canyon: 10 fish one day, a dozen the next and then 50 that very morning. Few were kept; most were released to observe the legal catch limit. Many fishermen prefer to wade the casual flow of the Colorado as it wends its way between the ruddy sandstone walls of Glen Canyon at Lee's Ferry, when the water level is safe for such adventure. Yet some fishermen seek out more obscure spots that rattle a few nerves on the hike in, such as Rider Canyon, Jackass Creek, Badger Canyon and Soap Creek all side canyons of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park.

"The fish are pretty abundant at Soap Creek," said Bill Persons, fisheries biologist with the Arizona Game and Fish Department. "And they're fairly naive. They don't see a lot of hooks."

Arizona Game and Fish officials encourage fishermen to harvest the fish to help cull the population, with a six-fish-per-day limit at Soap Creek.

Not just a path to another fishing spot, Soap Creek Canyon's wildly eroded corridor gives experienced hikers a daring, scenic adventure. River runners take to its persona.

"A lot of the side canyons in the Grand Canyon don't have the class Soap does," said Connie Tibbett, a professional river runner. "Soap Creek has character and a lot of good history. It's not just another fishing hole."

The history starts with Jacob Hamblin, a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who reconnoitered northern Arizona between 1588 and the early 1870s for Mormons looking to settle the area. While scouting for trails, river crossings and water sources, Hamblin shot a badger, boiling the critter in the next canyon downstream. The intensely alkaline water, combined with the fat from the badger, produced soap suds; hence the names Soap Creek and nearby Badger Canyon.

Soap Creek Canyon, dry outside of wet weather, has a spring tucked deep inside it. But water pockets from flash floods can linger for weeks under pouroffs, turning the ground around them to the consistency of peanut butter. A secluded beach at the canyon's mouth along the Colorado River gives back-packers and fishermen a piece of the Colorado all to themselves until river rafters pass by.

Soap Creek Rapids, just outside the canyon's mouth at Mile 11 on a river runner's map, can be a feisty ride. It rates 5 or 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Until 1927, boats portaged around the rapids.

"Soap was the last rapid to get run," Tibbett said. "A giant rainstorm rearranged things in the river. It moved boulders around to make a channel deep enough to run."

During its portage years, the maverick rapid claimed several lives. In 1889, a surveying team from the Denver, Colorado Canyon and Pacific Railroad Company lost their president, Frank Mason Brown, who drowned in the roil after portaging the rapids. Five days later, two other team members drowned. The survivors finally abandoned their work and climbed out of the canyon.

The route into Soap Creek gets pretty aggressive, too, punctuated by climbs down pouroffs, scrambles among huge boulders and dicey treks up canyon walls. Fishermen with vertigo or little intestinal fortitude better fish at Lee's Ferry.

"If you don't mind a challenge getting to your fishing spot," Bill McBurney said, "Soap is a great experience. And it always pulls a lot of fish." He should know, being one of the Colorado River's first commercial fishing guides and the owner of the Fly Shop & Guides at Lees Ferry Lodge.

Thinking of 50 fish in one day, even after releasing 44 of them, I could almost smell a couple of trout frying with butter and onions. Marty, a catch-and-release purist, looked forward to the secluded fishing. Annette, not a fisherman, came to explore. Hiking the 4.5-mile route down Soap

Creek Canyon, plotted with cairns that guide hikers through its melange of rocks, usually takes about three and a half hours. An early afternoon start lands most backpackers on the banks of the Colorado River with enough time to set up camp and relax before dark, and maybe even nab a fish for dinner.

But that's a normal hike. Our hike down Soap Creek was not just another fishing trip.

"I guess we'll have to lower our packs here," Marty said as he looked into a 10foot pouroff, the start of a series of dryfalls that dropped 100 feet to the canyon floor.

Up to that point, the route trudged three-fourths of a mile along the gravelly canyon floor past ledged Kaibab limestone cliffs with a gray-brown cast. The rocks showed occasional crusts of calcite crystals that glinted in the sun. Fossils of ancient coral and brachiopods told how the area once had an ocean cover. Annette and I discovered all this while waiting for Marty to go back to the trailhead to get the fishing pole he forgot.

At the pouroff, the whole character of the canyon changed. The canyon walls took on a tawny tinge as we neared the ledge-forming Toroweap Formation. By mile 1, a platform of rock overlooking the ever-descending canyon showed a jumble of huge limestone boulders piled on the canyon floor. On the canyon walls, boulders wedged and leaned upon one another so precariously that they gave the impression that one false move would set the whole wall in motion.

Marty's heavy pack made agile maneuvers unstable, so he took the high route, while GETTING THERE: From Phoenix, take Interstate 17 north to Flagstaff. Drive north on U.S. Route 89 toward the Utah border. At Bitter Springs, take Alternate Route 89 toward Marble Canyon. Drive about 9 miles west of Marble Canyon, just past Milepost 548, and turn south (left); go through and relatch a gate, then drive 0.5 mile to the trailhead.

TRAVEL ADVISORY: Only experienced hikers should attempt the route in Soap Creek. Overnight use requires a permit from Grand Canyon National Park. Only licensed fishermen with a trout stamp should fish. Fishermen may keep six fish each day and may use live bait.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Fly Shop & Guides at Lees Ferry Lodge, (928) 355-2231 or toll-free (800) 451-2231. Grand Canyon National Park Backcountry Information Center, (928) 638-7875, www.nps.gov/grca/backcountry.

arizonahighways.com Annette and I headed into the boulder field. Hiking through the boulders required hopping, twisting and squeezing among square house-size boulders, giant dimpled slabs and round rocks the size of an elephant all jammed together. Gaps between the boulders called for careful sidestepping. One gap, wide enough to swallow a large man's body, dropped farther than light could reach. Annette and I studied the gap to see how far down a misstep would take someone, but the darkness gave no answer. As we wriggled around the dicey area, rocks clanged down the north wall where Marty climbed. A heap of rocks slid from under his feet, and we watched as the rubble bounced down the wall while he held onto a boulder for stability. After we each confirmed our "okay" status, we continued, slowly.

The next challenge came at a sliver of a trail, often less than a foot wide, that teetered midslope around a 100-foot pouroff. The alternative offered a traverse along a narrow 50-foot ledge with a down climb that had a difficult last step: It looked like it offered no handholds and required an unsteadying drop of body weight across a boulder, then a 3foot jump onto the canyon floor.

"Time for the rope?" Marty asked us as he dug into his backpack for the thick cord to lower our backpacks to the canyon floor.

No one responded. The route looked too technical. Any attempts down alternate routes proved too intimidating, yet no one wanted to turn back. Time passed. Fifteen minutes. Thirty.

"Look at this," Annette exclaimed as she discovered a handhold on a boulder.

The handhold made the difficult drop an easy traverse. Now the challenge switched from negotiating ledges, boulders and pouroffs to reaching the river before dark.

The terrain tamed a bit after another mile of boulder negotiation. The last mile simply wove around boulders on the canyon floor -easy, if not hiked in the dark. The hike finally ended at the river at about 6:45 P.M., almost an hour after sunset. Under the cover of night, canyon walls loomed blacker against a black sky sprayed with stars. The rapids of the Colorado River foamed white in the starlight as bats flitted on erratic paths above the turbulence.

The river's roar muffled a bighorn sheep's early morning sojourn by our camp. Only when we discovered the animal's hoofprints, sunk several inches into the wet sand, did we know it had walked barely 10 feet from us. On another night, Marty surprised a ringtail perched on one of our backpacks, ready to peruse its contents.

The animals proved pretty cagey at Soap Creek, and so did the fish. After seeing a hook at least 50 times the day before, the rainbows weren't biting. Rainbows do get spooked from too much fishing, Persons had said, and these now lay low.

By the afternoon of the second day, Marty had caught several other rainbows with his woolly bugger lure. He released all of them, though, since they were only 10and 12inchers. The fishing halted when his lucky lure flipped off the fly rod's line and into the pile of boulders.

By the third day, the fishing pole stayed lashed to Marty's backpack. The frying pan never did get used, nor did the lucky woolly bugger lure ever show up.

Our return hike up the rocky canyon trail turned out to be as uneventful as the fishing, so we actually made it back to the trailhead before dark. Still, with 50 fish or none, Soap Creek was more than just another fishing trip. All