After sunrise we treated ourselves to a wonderful breakfast at the El Tovar Hotel. I had a pork breakfast burrito and Pam had the vegetarian version. When I later posted a photo of Pam at breakfast she actually commented with "Best breakfast ever" which made me feel good.

After breakfast we made a little side trip to the Backcountry Office to weigh our packs... just for curiosity's sake. My pack weighed in at 65 pounds, Gordy's was 55 pounds, and Pam's was 45 pounds. Ouch! It was going to be a long uphill walk to the Nankoweap trailhead with that kind of weight. Luckily about 16 pounds of that would be water and probably 12 of those pounds would be gone before we actually started down the Nankoweap Trail.

After the Backcountry Office we did a little shopping in the village and then started our tour of the East Rim/Desert View Drive. We stopped at Grandview Point for photos and actually went down the Grandview Trail for a short distance---Pam's first Grand Canyon trail experience. I warned her not to get too used to it and that this would be the best trail she would see for the next week!

We also made stops at Moran Point, Lipan Point and then a much longer one at Desert View. Gordy had seen all of this before but like me he never seems to tire of it. It was nice for both of us to see Pam's enthusiasm building. She was eating it all up.

After our final stop at Desert View for photos and touring the watchtower we headed out the East Entrance towards Cameron. I wished I had time to stop at the Little Colorado River gorge overlook but I was trying to stick to a schedule and that wasn't part of it. We stopped briefly at the Cameron Trading Post so Pam could pick up some more batteries for her camera. She also ended up with some ice cream.

From Cameron we headed to our last good meal for the week at the Vermillion Cliffs Cafe of the Marble Canyon Lodge. They serve good food there and it's usually my last stop before a Nankoweap trip and also the first stop after. Gordy and I both had burgers but I don't remember what Pam had... something without meat.

From Marble Canyon we continued to head west on US-89A towards the House Rock Valley access road (FR 8910) to the FR 57 trailhead. We ended up meeting Rob a few miles from the trailhead as he was pulled off to the side of the road waiting for us. We were right on schedule though and he had not been waiting long.

We all arrived at the trailhead around 3:30 and started the hike in to Saddle Mountain and the actual Nankoweap trailhead around 4pm. It took about 2 hours to do the 3 mile hike and we arrived at our camping spot for the night just a little after 6pm. We were all supper-ed up and settled for the evening in just about the time the sun went down.