It's great to be alive!

I did not sleep well and did not understand this, as I should have been both physically and mentally exhausted. It was very quiet up here after being camped next to Shinumo Creek for the prior two nights. The crickets partied all night but I am used to that and doubt it was responsible for keeping me awake. I did spend a lot of time thinking about the problems that I had encountered along the trail during the prior day though and I still don't understand the problem with Redwall Canyon. Total mental block. I ate some breakfast while waiting for it to get brighter outside and just before 6:00 I got out and started packing up the camp.

At 6:45 I was packed up and on the trail. I came upon the bypass around the Bright Angel gorge almost immediately and at 7:05 I was at the top of this. There was water flowing there so I took the opportunity to top off the water bottles. I also watched a beautiful sunrise on the Redwall cliffs and Powell Plateau.

At 7:30 I started back up the trail and at 8:40 I was at the bottom of the Redwall ascent. I had to backtrack a couple of times as I approached the bottom of the Redwall as the trail did not look familiar and was not well marked. When I looked up at what I needed to climb next it sent a shudder through my body.

At 8:50 I started up the Redwall ascent and at 9:15 I was on top. It was definitely not as bad going up as it was coming down but it was still bad. There were numerous places where the trail was very steep and there was nothing except loose rock covering it. You typically can't get a good solid footing on this stuff and hunting around for places to put your feet is time consuming. The heavy brush did come in handy from time to time as I was able use the plants to pull myself up past the more heavily eroded sections. My knee was a little sore from the climb but not as bad as I expected it would be. Unfortunately it was just not possible to favor the other knee as much as I would have liked to on a climb like this. It would have taken forever to climb it using just one leg and seemed easier to endure the slight pain.

At 9:25 I found a nice patch of shade and stopped for a rest, as the Redwall ascent had been sunny and very warm. I knew it would be a lot warmer when I got back into the sun, so I also added some Gookinaid to one of the water bottles.

At 9:50 I continued up the trail and at 10:45 I reached the top of the Redwall gorge. No problems along that section of trail apart from fighting through some pretty dense patches of manzanita scrub. At 10:50 I found another little patch of shade and stopped for another rest. I could see the Muav Saddle looming up ahead, getting closer with ever step. I still didn't know how far I would be going today, whether I would stop for the night on the saddle or shoot for the rim. I would have to see how I felt after the climb up to the saddle. It was a little early for lunch but I was hungry and this seemed like a good place to rest so I decided to eat anyway.

At 11:20 I was heading back up the trail. I stopped again at noon to refill my water bottles, hopefully for the last time. I was getting closer to the Muav Saddle ascent and did not know how much longer the creek would still have water in it. It still had water for a little while after that but soon thereafter the trail left the main bed of White Creek and started climbing over to the other, dry bed. I took a couple of wrong turns along the way, due to misplaced cairns that didn't seem to go anywhere. I also met a fairly large party of seven people who were headed down the trail and we stopped to talk for a while. It had been almost three days since I had seen another person. They asked about water conditions and camping spots up ahead and were hoping to camp somewhere along the Supai traverse that evening. I told them there were some very scenic campsites in that area and they should not have a problem finding one.

At 13:45 I finally reached the dry, upper bed of White Creek and was just below the ascent to the Muav Saddle. I took a short rest, drank lots of Gookinaid and started up the trail. The adrenalin really kicked in along this section of trail - what a scramble! This climb was much worse than the Redwall ascent but the brush was denser and provided a lot of good handholds. The manzanita seems to have incredibly strong root systems and they don't budge an inch no matter how much you pull. There is one spot along this section of trail that is very bad which I remembered from the descent. It is on a very steep slope and the "trail" is only one boot print wide. You can also only step where there are boot prints and there are 4 or 5 of them. Between the boot prints there is no trail, just slope. All in all, the trail was still much easier going up than it was coming down.

At 14:20 I was at the big cairn marking the top of the descent and I was very happy to be there. My knee was throbbing from the climb and I sat down right there and took a long rest. The view down Muav Canyon and over to Powell Plateau was magnificent and I took out the camera to take some pictures while I rested. Getting over to the saddle would be a piece of cake from here and I had already decided that I would be staying at Teddy's Cabin again tonight. I couldn't see any point in heading back out to the rim as there would be no way I would make it back to the car today anyway and it would likely be a lot colder up there tonight than it would be down here. Plus, if I stayed down here, I had the cabin and did not have to deal with setting up and breaking down the tent.

At 14:35 I was back at the cabin and changed into some dry clothes. It was a nice relaxing afternoon and it felt good to just lie around and read. I went back over to the big cairn to have dinner and watch the sunset and then returned to the cabin and read some more before finally calling it a night.