Breakfast was good and I know John and Michael enjoyed it. Rob is not much for a lot of food early in the morning and did not eat as much. I passed on the bacon and sausage since I don't eat meat but I certainly had my fill of pancakes and scrambled eggs. It was also nice to have some fresh orange juice and coffee.

Michael had wanted to purchase a sack lunch for the trip over to Clear Creek but they said the register was not open and they could not start selling those until 830. We really needed to be on the trail before 830 and could not afford the time to wait around for that so we would just have to share some of our food with Michael for lunch.

We got back to the campground around 630am where were packed up and ready to go by a little before 730am. We hiked the North Kaibab Trail back through Phantom Ranch and were at the start of the Clear Creek Trail around 800am. It took about 30 minutes to hike from there to the Phantom Overlook where we took a short rest before continuing on.

It was another beautiful morning for hiking and we made good time along the trail. There is not much in the way of shade along the Clear Creek Trail and we took advantage of it whenever we could, which was not often. We had another short break after the final ascent up to the Tonto Platform, just before the cairns marking the two mile point and the end of the "no camping" zone. The other break was behind a large rock just before passing Demaray Point, a spot I have used on many other occasions.

After lunch I could tell people were starting to get tired but we still had several more miles to cover to camp. It was a beautiful scene hiking into the Ottoman Amphitheater and then through Zoroaster Canyon. The little hills after that we had to climb up, over and/or around took their toll on the party and everyone was very happy when we reached the final descent to Clear Creek. We hit that around 330pm and were down in the creek bed at 4pm. We were serenaded by some frogs that were occupying a small oasis near the foot of the trail during our final descent.

We were firmly ensconced in camp by 430pm and had some time to relax before dinner. We had dinner around 6pm and by 630pm we started losing daylight. I think everyone slept pretty well that first night over at Clear Creek.

Another couple came in while we were getting ready for dinner and took the camp site we had originally looked it. It was a younger woman with her father and they were going to be at Clear Creek for two nights. They had also originally planned to hike to Cheyava Falls and were looking for something else to do since Cheyava was not running. I recommended Ariel Falls to them and suggested that perhaps we could all go together if we decided to go there tomorrow as well.