The morning was sunny and quite cool and we started hiking in T-shirts, flannel shirts and jackets. The top sections of the trail were rough and rocky but we did not have any problems with it and Robin actually did a lot better than I expected she would. We ended up loosing the jackets before we were vary far down the trail as our bodies started generating great amounts of internal heat. About 2 miles into the hike, somewhere near the bottom of the Hermit, I slipped and ended up falling backwards on my leg and twisting my ankle pretty badly. It was a little sore but I was able to walk on it and so we decided to continue on down the trail. We probably should have turned back at this point but I can be pretty pig-headed at times like that and no way was I going to let a little sprain ruin our first Grand Canyon overnight together. Live and learn.

We continued on down the trail and shortly after that reached the bed of the drainage. The day continued to warm up and by the time we passed Stegosaurus Rocks we were rid of the flannel shirts as well and were now hiking in our T-shirts. We cached two two-liter bottles of water at Stegosaurus Rocks for the hike out and it felt good to get rid of the weight of those. The morning was absolutely beautiful and the views of the inner Canyon towards the Colorado River, of Cardenas and Escalante Buttes, as well as those of the Watchtower up at Desert View were fabulous. I was really eating this up and the ankle was really not bothering me that much so I was not worried about it. There was the occasion twinge of pain but nothing that I couldn't deal with. The trail does not gain or lose much elevation between Stegosaurus Rocks and the Redwall break and just contours through the Supai at or near the 5600' level. It's nice because you don't need to work very hard and the views are awesome. It's bad because it seems to take forever.

We ended up stopping for an early lunch around 11 am in the shade of a big Pinyon Pine out near Escalante Butte, about a mile from Stegosaurus Rocks and still about 2 miles from the Redwall break. It felt good to take off the packs and sit and rest for a while. The backpacks that we were using at this point were not the greatest and the one Robin was using did not have any kind of support, either internal or external, and no waist strap. The one I had did have an internal frame but it did not have a waist strap either. I bought it because it looked nice and had nice pockets for storage but it was not a backpack for real backpacking. It was more of a soft-suitcase that just happened to also have shoulder straps. Live and learn.

After lunch we continued on to the Redwall break and got there perhaps an hour later. It was already around 12:30 pm and though we could at least see the river it still looked like a long distance away. We were in fact only about halfway there at this point and still had another 4½ miles to go before reaching the Colorado River. I was beginning to get a little concerned and knew that we needed to pick up the pace a bit. The good thing was that it was going to be a full moon tonight so there would be plenty of light to hike by even after the sun went down. I was really hoping that we would not need it.

The descent through the Redwall was no problem at all and before I knew it we were done with it and on another short and relatively flat stretch of trail. From that point on the day just seemed to drag on. We would get a couple of more really nice teasing views of the river here and there as we continued the descent but it just did not seem to get any closer. My feet were getting tired and Robin was getting just plain worn out, period. On and on the trail seemed to go, descending ever so slowly towards its ultimate destination. By the time we reached Asinine Hill I was cursing the trail. Why did it just go on and on and yet never seem to get anywhere? I was never so happy as when we finally reached the bed of Tanner Canyon about ¼ mile away from Tanner Rapid. We made it to Tanner Rapid around 4:30 and still had about an hour and a half before sunset to setup camp, cook dinner and get ready for a long evening.

The first order of business was to filter some water as we had drank most of what we had brought with us. In the process of going back and forth between our campsite and the river several times I made a very nasty discovery, that being that my ankle hurt a heck of a lot more going uphill than down. It really did not bother me that much coming down which was why I didn't even think about turning back but going uphill was a different story and it hurt a lot. I did not know how I was going to be able to hike the 10 or whatever miles back to the rim with it hurting like this and I was not at all looking forward to it.

For dinner we had brought two cans of food, a can of chili for me and a can of spaghetti and meatballs for Robin. I know the cans were heavy but it was only one meal so it was no big deal to carry them. I took the tops off of the cans and heated the contents right inside the cans on top of the little camp stove. It tasted very good.

As soon as the sun went down the wind picked up and the temperature started to drop. We put our flannel shirts back on, cleaned up from dinner in the fading daylight and then watched a beautiful full moon rise over the Palisades of the Desert. Having a full moon for our first backpacking trip into the Canyon was a pure stroke of luck and I was amazed at how much light there was down here from just the moon. The sand on the beach was simply aglow with the moonlight.