River Mile: 136.1 - right
Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes to go to the patio and back. (This is only 40 minutes hiking time, but you’ll want to spend a few minutes hanging out at the patio.)
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate. There is a trail the entire way, but it has some elevation gain and acrophobiacs will be challenged while hiking along a d=ledge above the Deer Creek narrows.
Wet or Dry?: Dry. This hike is not long, and there is a cool clear creek at the turnaround spot, so many do it in river sandals.
Ideal Weather: Any
Powell’s entry reads: “Just after dinner we pass a stream on the right, which leaps into the Colorado by a direct fall of more than 100 feet, forming a beautiful cascade… But we have little time to spend in admiration; so on we go.” Had our explorers hiked to upper Deer Creek, they would have found scenery as peaceful as the waterfall is majestic.
Upstream from the falls, Deer Creek runs perfectly down the middle of a rock amphitheater about as soothing as any natural setting can be. Cottonwoods throw shade onto sidewalks of Tateats Sandstone that border the creek. It is a great place for meditation, or a nap. You will likely have to share this spot with backpackers or other river runners. Everyone wants to see Grand Canyon’s most beautiful places, and this is one of them.
. There once were even more big cottonwoods than there are today, but a fire started by a backpacker burning his toilet paper charred about 60 acres along the creek in 1994.
Energetic types can proceed up to Deer Spring – a waterfall pouring right out of the cliff.