The second day got off to a good start. I had slept restlessly during the night but I did sleep some and felt pretty good. I awoke early and just had to wait until it was light enough to see to get up. I finally got up just before 6 am, packed up my gear, ate some breakfast and headed out the door of Teddy's Cabin around 6:30.

I hiked back up to the North Bass Trail and started out along the contour that runs below the Coconino Sandstone. After slightly less than a quarter mile I arrived at the big cairn that marks the start of the descent. The North Bass Trail turns towards the southwest and the trail over to Muav Saddle Spring continues to the east. I started down at 6:40.

Yeeoow! This section of the trail is nasty! It is steep and rock - generally, very unpleasant - and bears no resemblance at all to the nicer section of the trail seen above this descent. Based on other trail descriptions I had and comments from other hikers I knew this section was going to bad but I really didn't realize how bad until I set foot on it myself. Going down about the best you can hope for is a controlled slide from one good footing to the next. I was very glad to have my hiking pole and don't know how I would have done without it. The descent lasted for about 20 minutes before the trail started to level out somewhat. There were a couple of bad sections after that but it got a lot easier on the legs.

At 7:10 I reached the dry branch of White Creek and took a rest stop to take some photos. The sunlight reflecting off of the Kaibab and Coconino cliffs of the Powell Plateau was beautful. Off again at 7:25, the trail climbed out of the dry bed on the right (west) side and then began to descend along a ridge into the main branch of White Creek. There was one small, bad section in here, which was somewhat like the initial descent, but on the whole the trail was a lot better than that above. The brush (manzanita, scrub oak,...) was very dense. At 7:40 I was in the bed of the main branch of White Creek, which was also dry at this point. At 7:50 I finally encountered running water and stopped to refill my water bottles.

From this point on all I had to do was to follow the creek to the top of the Redwall. Although this sounds easy enough it was actually quite time consuming and got rather monotonous after a very short time. There are lots of rocks along the creek that you have to work your way over or around and there are also a number of small bypasses, to get around little pour-offs that you need to watch for on the way down. Sometimes you are on a short section of trail that leads along the creek but for the most part you are just in the creek. Usually there is a cairn when you need to leave the bed, but not always. There was also one larger detour around a small waterfall.

At 9:00 I reached the start of the Redwall gorge at which point the trail climbed up to the right (west), away from the creek bed, and began its long traverse through the Supai to the start of the Redwall descent. This section of trail was very brushy and also consisted of mostly manzanita with a smattering of scrub oak. The trail also crossed three good-sized drainages along this traverse. The first of these was not too bad. The second one was the most difficult and involved a steep, loose & rocky descent on one side and a very brushy re-ascent on the other side. In the third and final drainage I needed to follow the bed to east for a little while before the trail finally climbed back out and continued its traverse.

The start of the Redwall descent began very shortly after I climbed out of that last drainage. The trail contours to the east and then north for a little while below a large cliff and then all of a sudden appears to end at the lip of the Redwall gorge. I missed a cairn somewhere as I soon found myself scrambling along one of the slopes above the Redwall cliff. I very quickly realized that this was not someplace I felt comfortable being - not with 40 or more pounds strapped to my back. I worked my way back to where I was last sure to be on the trail and located the cairn marking the descent. I stopped for a short rest here at about 10:30 and at 10:35 started down.

At 11:00 I was at the bottom and very happy to still be in one piece. Although I don't think the Redwall descent was as bad as the section below the Coconino, it was pretty darn close, and I would definitely rate it as being the worst Redwall descent on any of the Canyon's major trails. It was very loose, very rocky and a bit on the scary side. Again, like the upper section, it was little more than a controlled slide.

I took a long rest at the bottom of the Redwall and tried to figure just how far behind schedule I was. I had been making much more frequent rest stops that I had planned on and was also not making nearly the progress on the trail that I had expected to - this trail was very slow going. I figured I had come a little more than 3 miles in about 4½ hours. I still had about 2½ more miles to the top of the Tapeats gorge, another 2 miles down through the gorge and a final 1½ miles down to my campsite along Shinumo Creek. It was still doable but it was going to be very close.

At 11:30 I started going again. The bed of the creek was dry where the Redwall descent ended but shortly thereafter the water was flowing again. I still had some water in one of my bottles and expected to be along the creek for the rest of the day so I didn't bother loading up. The creek would disapper briefly at times but always reappeared a little further down the bed. At 11:45 I met a couple that were hiking out. They did not seem like the talkative type and after some brief questions about where they had come from and what was available in the way of campsites, we went off in our respective directions.

At 12:00 I hit the bypass trail, which goes around the gorge and falls in the Bright Angel Shale. There had been water flowing just above this gorge but when the trail finally descended back into the creek bed it was bone dry. I was getting very low on water and only had what was left in my little side bottle. I continued down the creek and waited patiently for the creek to reappear. Muav Canyon was really starting to open up at this point and there was a very nice view of Holy Grail Temple right in front of me. I walked and walked... and I waited and waited... what happened to the creek? It was very warm and I was getting very thirsty and was beginning to believe that this entire stretch of the creek was dry and that I would not see water again until I reached the Tapeats gorge. I continued walking, taking just an occasional sip from the bottle... it couldn't be too far ahead.

At 13:00 I came across some small pools of water that must have been left over from the last rainstorm. They looked clear enough and so I decided to fill up the bottles there, not knowing exactly how much further ahead the Tapeats gorge would be. My feet were also a little sore and I hadn't eaten lunch yet so it seemed like a good time for a break. I wasn't doing terrific as far as my schedule went but I still thought I could make it to where I wanted to be, even if it did take all day.

The first order of business was to get the water so I set about doing that. I filled up one of my two-liter bottles, immediately drank about half of it and then filled it again. I then set about having lunch and taking some photos. I also took my boots off to let my feet air out and socks dry. After lunch I checked my feet and sure enough I had a couple of nice blisters on my left foot already and one sore spot on the right foot that was likely to become one if not taken care of. This was really most unfortunate as although the feet had been sore they did not feel like blisters had already formed. It's a lot more difficult to take care of feet once they have blisters than it is to prevent them in the first place and I cursed myself for not being more cautious. I patched up the feet as best I could and got ready to leave.

It was then that the worst possible thing could happen. I tilted my pack off of the ground in preparation for putting it back on and away slides my Nikon CoolPix digital camera... right into the pool that I had just filtered water from. Apparently I had never put the camera away and since the bottom of the backpack in black and the camera case is black the one just blended with the other and disappeared. Arrggghhh! I dashed after the camera and grabbed it from the water before it even reached the bottom of the pool - and the pool was less than a foot deep. I immediately started taking things apart in hopes of preventing damage to the camera. The camera case was felt lined and like a sponge so that had to go. I opened the battery compartment and took out the batteries and out came a drop of water with them - but only one drop. I opened the compartment that holds the compact flash card and took out the card and that seemed dry enough. I could, however, see some condensation in both the LCD info display and digital viewfinder and both were also starting to steam up on the inside. I left all of the compartments open and set the camera out to dry for a while in hopes that I had recovered it in time and that there would be no real damage. Wishful thinking!!!

I spent the next hour or so trying to dry things out. Checking the camera. Turning the case inside out to try and dry that. It was warm and in about an hour everything seemed dry. Even the moisture inside the camera seemed to have abated. I popped the flash card and the batteries back in and went to turn in on to see what would happen. To my dismay the camera was already on and it was in PLAY mode. I guess I never shut it off after reviewing the last set of photos I had taken. It wasn't working though and I could get no response from it, not in PLAY more or RECORD mode. I tried a fresh set of batteries thinking that maybe they had been fried. No luck, this was a camera with some serious problems and I was in no place to be doing any kind of work with it. If I could have taken it apart completely maybe there was a chance, but here, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, without the proper tools... I suspect that it may have done better if it hadn't been on when it fell into the water. Having power flowing when it hit the water probably shorted out some vital circuitry. I don't know what impact water would have on the CCD (imaging) matrix... Ah, well, I had done all I could do... I had now lost even more time and needed to get going again. I packed it all up and cursing myself for being so careless, I continued on down the creek. At least I still had my 35mm camera and ONE roll of film. The time was 14:20.

The trail made another slight detour to the left (east) around a small waterfall and then descended again to the creek. At 14:35 I reached the Tonto Bypass and gave it serious thought. It might save some time and bring me down into Shinumo Creek closer to where I wanted to be that night. I did want to see the Tapeats narrows, however, and there was water down there and none up here and so I continued on down the creek. At 14:45 I reached the Tapeats Gorge and descended down into it. I took some photos with the 35mm and continued on down the creek. There was water flowing again.

After walking for about 45 minutes I came across some guys who were making camp for the day, high up on the western bank of the creek, beneath some Tapeats cliffs. They were from Prescott, Arizona and were on their way out. They told me about a nice campsite on the south side of Shinumo Creek right where White Creek joins it and I set that as my goal for the day. I doubt I would have time now to make it all the way down past Shinumo Camp. I thanked them for the advice and continued on. I wondered later why they were camping where they were as they probably hadn't gone more than a mile from their camp of the prior night.

At 15:45 I stopped to take on some more water. I was out again and getting very thirsty. I knew I should have been getting close to Shinumo Creek but I didn't want to wait.

At 16:00 I hit the bypass around the falls in the Vishnu Schist, which was just above Shinumo, and at 16:10 I was at Shinumo Creek itself. I thought about continuing down to Shinumo Camp but there was a lot of water flowing down this creek, easily 40 or 50 times the volume than was flowing down White Creek, which looked like just a little trickle next to it. That camp would still be about 1½ miles away and there was supposedly a very nice one just across the creek, right here. There did not appear to be any dry way across the creek so I took off my boots and carried everything over to the other side.

I found the nice campsite that I had been told about and the tent impressions, in the sand, from the prior occupants, still looked fresh. I also found the jug of water and air mattress hanging from the tree, which I had also been told about. It was there for a couple of days during the prior occupancy and would remain undisturbed for the two days that I was here. I do wonder whom they belong to though.

Being at camp improved my spirits a little but the loss of the digital camera was still a devastating blow and it would take more than a few hours to get over it. I was glad that I decided to stay here but I knew that I would now have to rethink the plans for the day hiking I was going to do the next day. I wanted to go over to Hakatai Canyon and down to the river but that would be 3 miles longer from here. Since I was late coming down this last section of trail I skipped checking out one of the side canyons that may have provided a short-cut up to the Burro Route and hence over to the Merlin and Mordred Abysses and as a result of that I thought I might as well wander up Shinumo Creek to Flint Creek and check-out that route. So the decision was made to cancel Hakatai completely and only go down as far as the river in the morning and then to head upstream along Shinumo Creek in the afternoon.

After setting up camp I made myself some supper and settled in for the night. I tried to read but I could not concentrate and after a while I just gave up. I could not think about anything except the stupid camera. I turned it on again at one point and the little info/status LCD was working. It told me how many pictures were left on the flash card and that I had good batteries. The auto-focus also seemed to be working. There was nothing in the big LCD (view finder/menu) screen, however, so it was still pretty useless. Maybe it was coming back to life?