Due to the drive on the first day we got started on the trail around 8:00. Little did we know that this would be the latest that we would set out for the rest of the trip.
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| I knelt down so we could see the picture behind us, but it turned out to be harder than I thought to get up with a full pack on my back. |
The view from the top wasn’t the traditional view that I was used to seeing of the Grand Canyon, it was full of trees and other greenery without many of the sandstone red cliffs that color the rest of it.
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| It was a little daunting. |
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| Phil was smarter than me. This is as close to the edge as he got. |
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| I got a little closer, despite everyone else warning me that if my pack was unbalanced I was going to fall all the way down. |
Going down was deceptively easy. But given the jarringly wide steps and the steepness of the hill we all knew that, while it might not hurt now, we were going to all feel this part of the trail in our knees for the rest of the trip.
The morning had seemed cool when we started, but we quickly warmed up as we hiked in the sun. Luckily there was water everywhere. We hit a fountain almost immediately, although the flies gathered around (it was apparently a major mule stop as well) made us all drink quickly.
Soon we were in the canyon itself and face to face with the bare faces of rock that we would see for most of the trip. Little signposts here and there directed us to the strata of rock we were in and how old the area was.
Despite the redness of the walls here, this is not the redwall strata. Nope, this is hermit shale. We discussed this terrible naming convention for longer than we probably should have.
There were terrific rock formations wherever we looked and often they revealed more on closer inspection. On one of our lunch breaks I looked up at the shady rock we were sheltering under to see that an insect of some kind had built a hive in a small hole in the rock right above us.
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| Luckily it appeared to be uninhabited. |
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| Look at all the pretty colors… |
About two hours in we started hearing a sound in the distance. It was hard to place at first, but soon we realized that it was the sound of rushing water.
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| A lot of rushing water. |
This was Roaring Springs, a huge fall on the North Rim that supplies much of the water for the Corridor- the main rim-to-rim trail in the Grand Canyon. Since the North Rim, and Roaring Springs, is at a higher elevation than the rest of the canyon this means that the water carried on the pipeline is pressurized for most of the trail. This made for some interesting water bottle filling.
We decided not to do the side trail to Roaring Springs since it was warm, but we did stop at a rest station not far from Cottonwood Camp, our camp for the first night, until we were waved off by the rangers there. They had a helicopter coming in delivering supplies.
But we were soon at Cottonwood Camp and eager to set up our tents. Most of the other hiking parties out there had already claimed their camps and set up, since it was late in the day. However, we found that since we had a group permit (for seven or more people) we had to take the group permit site, despite the fact that three of our party had ditched us before starting out. This meant that we got the Taj Mahal of all the campsites, with enough food tins for each of us, several picnic tables to cook at, and plenty of room for us to camp.
They also had a creek nearby.
A big creek.
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| This is me thinking “as soon as I have my pack off I’m going to jump in that creek.” |
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about, hanging out, and, yes, swimming in the creek.
Part Three of Adventure on a grand scale continues tomorrow.
Most pictures are Credit to Phil Durham. Or at the very least Phil Durham’s camera.