So, here we are, all sitting together on a big rock next to Tapeats Creek, watching the water roll on by. It has been a nice relaxing morning after a very, very iffy day yesterday.

Everyone seems to be doing pretty well this morning and we only have about 2½ miles to go today, with not nearly as difficult of a trail as the past two days, so I am hoping for the best. If we can get out of here by 1:00 I am hoping that we can be at the river no later than 6:00 this afternoon. I am hoping to get there earlier than that since the trail should be somewhat easier but we will see. For the past couple of days we have been doing only about ½ mile per hour so it should not take any longer than 5 hours to get there. That's what I am hoping anyway. I hope the long rest this morning is going to help. People are eating a lot of food and drinking a lot of water so that should help as well. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

10:00 - Upper Tapeats Camp

I went for a short walk down along the Tapeats Creek Trail just to check it out and probably would have gone further if I had not been wearing my tevas. I know river folk hike in these things all of the time but I just don't feel that confident in them. The trail started to get a bit rough and I had second thoughts. So far the trail looks pretty mild though with just one touchy section on a shaley slope. I turned back when the trail started to descend back towards the creek.

12:45 - Upper Tapeats Camp

We just finished lunch and camp is all packed up and we are just about ready to leave. It's been a nice quiet morning but it is a little on the warm side. After breaking down camp I used the fly from my tent to create a little sun shade for us to huddle beneath. We are just putting on sunscreen now and getting ready to head down the trail towards the Lower Tapeats camp.

14:00 - Tapeats Creek Trail

Well, that was scary. Apparently I missed a cairn someplace and before I knew it we were in the middle of an exposed section of trail that was shaley, crumbly and just plain nasty. It didn't look too bad at first and I really didnt have a problem with it but by the time we were halfway across I could tell that the others were seriously not liking it. I really did not want to be there but at that point it seemed easier to go forward than back. We got to an area that was a little wider and I had everyone take off their packs and I shuttled them the rest of the distance across and then back down to the creek. Everyone else seemed to have a much easier go of it without the packs.

Now we are taking an extended rest break back down at creek level. I figure we have covered about 1/3 of the distance to Lower Tapeats in about an hour so we are doing pretty good.

16:25 - Tapeats Creek Trail

We hiked solid for about an hour. I was convinced we were on the approach to the final descent to Lower Tapeats when the trail threw me another curve and all of a sudden we were descending back to creek level with the Colorado River still some distance away.

Well, it is very pretty here and we are taking the opportunity to get our packs off and have another rest break. There is a nice waterfall close by and I think right after this point is where Tapeats Creek really starts to take the plunge.

17:05 - Tapeats Creek trail

Well, now we finally are at the final descent and just about when I figure we would be, maybe even a little quicker than I thought. I will reserve final judgement until I see how long it takes us to get back down to creek level. Robin has started down already and I am just waiting for Sue and Tom to catch up to make sure they dont miss the descent. The trail continues on from here but I don't know where it goes. We took two very long rest breaks and I think we made much better time than in the past few days.

17:55 - Lower Tapeats camp

The tent is setup and Robin is sorting out the gear and I am wandering around and taking photos. Aside from the nasty exposed section I feel pretty good about today. No, we still didn't break any records getting down here, but people seem to be doing a lot better today then the prior two days. We had some nice rest breaks and that final stretch of trail as well as the final descent to the creek were cool and shady. The sun was leaving the beach just as we arrived and aside from some nasty biting flies its pretty nice here right now.