Last night was quiet. We were all up fairly early and had a nice relaxing breakfast at camp. The plan for today was to do a day hike up to Ariel Falls and I wondered if anyone else would be up for it or if I would be going alone. Michael said he was feeling up for it and would join me and John said he would go part way, as far the ruins I had told him about. Rob was more interested and having another relaxing day back at camp before starting the long hike back to Bright Angel Campground and Phantom Ranch tomorrow.
It was around 1030am before we started our hike and we arrived at the area of the ruins a little before noon. We explored the ruins for a little while, ate some snacks and then headed up the northern branch of Clear Creek toward the falls. John had originally planned to leave us and head back to camp but decided to continue on with us to Arial Falls. The main branch of Clear Creek goes east and then north from here towards Cheyava Falls. Maybe this portion could actually be called Ariel Creek.
There was more trail than I remembered going up towards Ariel from the one time I did it before. I remembered being in the creek more, crossing from side to side a lot and it also being a lot more brushy. A flash flood can change all of the in an instant. We made pretty good time going up with the only slow part being in the last quarter mile or so. The waypoint I had for the falls in my GPS was wrong and when we arrived at the falls that waypoint was still about a half mile away. We were all very happy about this.
We all dunked our heads under the falls to cool off, ate some more snacks and took a nice long rest before starting the hike back. It had been mostly cloudy for most of the day but there were some clear patches of sky and sunshine on the way back to camp. We made better time on the way back to camp since we didn't stop at all and arrived back there a little after 4pm.
Rob had occupied some of his time back at camp by working with some yucca. He had pounded out a leaf and then stripped the fibers out and wove them into a chord. It was pretty cool.
Dinner tonight was my least favorite of the trip, Backpacker's Pantry Kathmandu Curry. It was another two serving package and I could only eat about half of it. More food to be packed out.
After dinner Rob broke out the cards again and we played until we all just got too tired and called it a night. Tomorrow was the 10-mile hike back to Bright Angel Campground and it was going to be a long day.
