There were mosquitoes in this camp and they "bugged" me all night. I did not get to sleep until after 11:00. I did finally break down and use my Pocket PC to listen to some MP3 music. When I started the battery was still indicating a full charge. That was pretty good considering it hadn’t been plugged in for almost 4 days. I figured that spending a long time at Bass beach would enable me to use the solar charger to recharge it. And if that didn’t work I had my backup power supply.

I was up at 5:30 and we had breakfast, broke camp and were on the trail again by 6:30.

We did a lot of campsite monitoring on this stretch and did sites numbered from 7 through 18 - it was a long day. We discovered a Grand Canyon pink rattlesnake along the trail at one point, coming out of one of the many side canyons. That is always a special pleasure. He was just crossing the trail when Mike came upon him and did not seem the slightest bit concerned by our presence.

We stopped for lunch on the east side of Copper Canyon, taking maybe 45 minutes to rest under the meager shade provided by some overhanging ledges. It felt good to stop and sit down for a while. I ate some jerky and some Pringles and some trail mix for lunch and washed it all down with plenty of Gookinaid.

We finished the last of the surveys around 2:00 and headed for the South Bass trail junction to meet up with Steve. It took us maybe an hour or so to get there and when we did there was no sign of him. Hank scouted a little further along the Tonto Trail to see if maybe he went the wrong way but there was no sign of him that way either. We assumed that he went down to the beach on his own and headed that way ourselves.

It took us about an hour and a half to get to the beach, stopping for a couple of short breaks along the way. When we finally arrived at the beach there was still no sign of Steve. Mike asked some other hikers who were camped there but no one had seen him. We concluded that he had missed the trail junction and gone the wrong way and would probably figure this out when he reached the other junction, which was impossible to miss.

In the meantime I setup camp and took some photos and then ate my dinner... the last night for the hot dogs. Steve showed up just as I was finishing dinner and he was not a happy camper. He leaned into Mike about not waiting for him at the rail junction and I could not understand this. If anything he should have waited for us but he apparently missed the junction and was waiting for us about ten minutes further along the trail. When he realized his mistake he went back and waited at the junction but we had already started down the trail to the river by then. C'est la vie - the trip leader is always right.

I started drinking water right from the river since my filter wasn't working and also because Mike and Hank do it all he time with no ill effects. It tasted pretty good actually... and simplifies life considerably. I AM NOT SUGGESTING THAT PEOPLE DO THIS!!!

After dinner I talked with Mike and Hank a little, walked along the beach, visited the Ross Wheeler and all of a sudden started feeling very nostalgic and sentimental. It started by thinking about the nice people I met on the river trip... thinking about doing another river trip with Vicky and some of her friends... thinking about my other LiveJournal friends and how I was missing them. I spent a good deal of time thinking about Brenna today since our first meeting was now less than a week away and we will be spending all of next Thursday together. I just can't wait! All of the emotions eventually became too much for me and I got out my journal and started writing. I do so love the Canyon but after a few days down there I really start to miss the people, places and things outside. I miss Robin, I miss my cats, I miss my friends, I miss the Internet and all of my LiveJournal buddies... ... Two more days and I will be back in civilization - well, sort of, I hope everything is OK out there.

Only 6 more days and I FINALLY get to meet Brenna - Woo Hoo!

I broke out the Pocket PC again and listened to some music and watched the stars come out. We are spending the morning at the beach and I will try to do some recharging then.