I am resting at Seventy-five-mile saddle. I started down the Tanner Trail to 655am so it took me just over 2 hours to get here. It has been a cool and breezy morning and I am just getting into the sun now. The sign at the trailhead said 1.6 miles to this point and my GPS says 1.7, but I am a little past where the trail first reached the saddle.

I just cached water and I think this will be where I camp for the last night. There are lots of good places to camp. It's going to be a bear getting all the way up here from the Palisades Creek camp though. I will need an early start and a long rest at Tanner Rapid before starting the hike up from there. The good thing is the next three miles are supposed to be much easier.

The upper sections of Tanner have some really nasty stuff and I am happy to be here. I am going to have a snack now and the next break will probably be lunch at the top of the Redwall.

I left the house at 330am this morning and arrived at Desert View around 5am. It was still very dark and there were some clouds. I took some shots of the crescent moon and the planet Venus which is something I had been hoping it would be clear enough to see. There were some nice colors at the beginning of sunrise too. I had breakfast there before driving to Lipan Point to start the hike.

There is a very nice view of the watchtower from here.

11am

I found a nice spot of shade for my lunch break just a short distance from the Redwall break. I am going to rest here for about an hour before I tackle that. I am going to eat the leftover pizza from last night and drink some water. Getting over here was a little harder than I thought it would be. There were some bigger than expected ups and downs. Maybe leaving two bottles of water at that last stop wasn't such a good idea. Getting back there from Palisades on Friday is going to be a challenge. I can still haul some extra water from the river and camp here if I want to instead. I could watch the annular solar eclipse from that other site before hiking out on Saturday. That will get me back to the rim a lot later though. Decisions.

150pm

I am somewhere in the Tapeats, can't say exactly where. I started down the Redwall at 1200pm and finished that about 1245pm. I took a very short rest in some shade and polished off a water bottle. I got a very nice view of the Colorado River and then started down through the Tapeats. I stopped now to get the other water bottle out of my backpack and add some electrolyte supplement to it. It is very warm down here but there is a nice cool breeze blowing up from the river at times. I can see the river and think I am close to Asinine Hill which is near the end. I am feeling very tired but not sore or anything. The legs and feet are still holding up.

GPS says I've done 6.28 miles so still about 2.75 miles to go. Oy! The GPS also says only 1.52 miles to the river and the rest of the trail looks to be pretty straight so I don't know what's up.

350pm

I am at my Tanner Rapids camp and I arrived here around 315pm. I found a nice site that is already in shade. I am beat! That last section of trail, Asinine Hill, did me in. It's not steep but it is just a relentless downhill that was forcing my toes into the front of my boots. There is no real damage physically except one small abrasion on the toe next to my big toe on my right foot. That's it... but mentally I am exhausted.

The GPS said 7.95 when I arrived here so it lost a mile somewhere. I saved the track and will check when I get home.

I did not see anyone on the trail, all day. I did notice one water cache on the trail close to where I left mine. There were two other cars parked at Lipan Point this morning but no one in sight. I don't see anyone down here but I have not really looked around. The river is running clear which makes me vary happy. Time to filter some water.