At 8:00 I was packed up and on the trail. The drizzle increased to showers as I hiked up Tanner canyon. It got heavier and heavier as I proceeded and by the time I got to the top of Asinine Hill it was a fairly heavy rain. Am I having fun yet? Actually I was. The scenery was spectacular. There were lots of clouds blowing around at different altitudes in the Canyon and as I got higher and closer to the snowline the views became awesome. I was a little damp and my boots were covered with this thick, slimy mud but at least I was not cold. It was only the snow that I was worried about. By the time I reached the saddle that overlooks Basalt Canyon it was 10:00 and the rain had settled back down to a slight drizzle again. As I headed for the Redwall break it finally stopped.

I was starting to hit the snow already. Somehow I thought that I wouldn't hit any snow until I got above the Redwall. I was wrong. It was just a dusting down here, just enough to add a nice glow to the landscape. As I climbed up higher up into Tanner canyon I broke through one layer of clouds and for a time had one layer above me and one below. This was totally awesome. All I could see were clouds above, clouds below and a ribbon of red rock, dusted with white powder around the sides. I stopped and took my first good rest and got out the camera. This was totally unbelievable and I needed to record as much of it as possible. The clouds were blowing around all over the place and creating endless changes in the scene. First they would blow in and fill the lower reaches of Tanner, then they would start to break up and drift up and back out. Other pieces of cloud would break off from the upper deck and drift down into Tanner. Fantastic. I had to force myself to put the camera away and get moving again.

As I was climbing up through the Redwall I could detect a noticeable brightening in the sky. Maybe I was going to climb out above the upper cloud deck and it would be sunny up there? As I climbed higher and higher the clouds started to break apart and I could actually see some sun shining down in the lower reaches and up towards Marble Canyon end. By the time I got to the top of the Redwall a lot of the clouds had broken up and blown away. It was 11:30 and I was making pretty good time in spite all my stopping to enjoy the scenery. Now things were really starting to look interesting. The red rock dusted with snow, the blue sky, the clouds breaking up and blowing away all made me want to sit and watch again. I needed to get a little higher.

I climbed up to just beside Cardenas Butte and could not resist taking a few more photos. If I waited to long the clouds might all be gone. It was now around noon and I figured I might as well make this my lunch stop as well. While looking for a good place to have lunch I realized I had a problem. There wasn't much snow up here, maybe an inch or so, but it was a heavy wet snow and it was melting quickly now that the sun was out. Everything was turning to mud and I could not find a dry spot anywhere to drop my pack. Finally I found a nice rocky outcrop underneath a Pinyon Pine and got the pack off. I knew that I was not going to find a decent campsite up here at this point. The whole place would be mud a couple more hours and after the sun goes down it's all going to freeze up. While eating lunch I gave up on the idea of camping midway for the night and decided to push for the rim. At around 12:30 I finished lunch and headed out. I still had a good 5 hours of daylight left and hoped that would be enough to make it to the rim.

As I hiked on the snow continued to melt and the mud got nastier and nastier. Mud in the Grand Canyon tends to be more like a wet clay. The upper portions of the soil turn to mud but not far beneath that there is usually a layer of rock. The result when you are trying to climb through the stuff is that the mud layer slides off and you end up sliding on the rock. At places where the trail is not level you need to be very careful. By the time I reached Stegosaurus Rocks it was 2:00 and it was getting noticeably colder. There was a lot of mud here but there was a fair amount of snow as well. I could see lots of snow in the upper reaches of the Tanner some clouds had moved back in as well and were obscuring my view of the rim.

As I continued on the snow got deeper and once in the upper reacher of Tanner it was about 6-8 inches. There had been no one on the trail ahead of me and it was getting difficult to tell where it really was. I still had about 3 hours of daylight to make it to the top and I was not making very good time at this point. I would be cutting it close. Then at around 2:30 I noticed a few people heading down the trail. I stopped and waited on the side for them to pass, first 3, then 4 more, then a couple more and finally a few more, ... I lost count but it must have been 10-15 people. I talked to the 2 that were holding up the rear and discovered that they were headed for the Cardenas area to camp for the night. They had originally planned to head for the river but got a late start and decided not to try for it. I told them about the mud down around Cardenas and they did not seem any more thrilled with the idea of camping there than I was. I was dismayed to see such a large horde heading down into the Canyon after not seeing anyone for more than a day. At least they left me a good trail to follow to the rim.

I made very good time now and was back at the Tanner trailhead at 4:00. Plenty of time to spare and I would actually get to see the sunset from the rim. I got rid of my gear and cleaned the snow off of the car. I then headed over to the view point at Lipan Point to take a look at where I had been. The sun was low and shining right on the Unkar Creek overlook. The shadows were perfect. There were a 3 other people standing there with me, all in total awe of the view below us. "I was down there yesterday" I told them, and I pointed out the spot where the Anasazi ruin was on the overlook and told them about the village that used to exist on the Unkar Creek delta. They seemed amazed that people would actually live down there. I told them about the view of the Colorado River and the Palisades of the Desert from that ruin and wondered not why anyone would live there, but rather, why would anyone ever want to leave.