We again had the late breakfast but following that we had the campsite packed up in record time and we were on the trail heading out at 7:50. The hike along the River Trail was very pleasant in the morning and at 8:35 we reached the start of the Bright Angel Trail. The sun was now striking the upper reaches of the Canyon and it looked like it was going to be another beautiful day. At 9:05 we reached the bottom of the Devil's Corkscrew and startup that. At 9:35 we reached the top and took a short rest. The spring that goes over the edge up there had iced over so we knew that it was getting pretty cold at night and we were glad that we had decided to shoot for the rim. Robin has always wanted to camp at Indian Gardens but that would have to wait for warmer weather.

At 10:15 we arrived at Indian Gardens and took a longer rest to prepare for what lay ahead of us, 4 1/2 more miles with a 3,000-foot ascent. It took 2 1/2 hours to go the first 4 1/2 miles and would take another 4 1/2 hours to do the rest. I let Robin start out leading as I usually do but I could see that she was trying to go too fast and was having serious problems breathing so I took the lead after the Three Mile Resthouse and tried to throttle back on our ascent speed somewhat. It seemed to work out and even though we seemed like we were crawling we didn't have to stop much and kept up a pretty consistent pace right up to the rim. We had arrived at the Three-Mile Resthouse at 11:45 and took a 10-minute rest there. At 1:20 PM we arrived at the One-and-a-Half Mile Resthouse and took another 10-minute rest. At 3 PM we were back on the rim after a 7-hour climb, which is about normal for us when we do it together. By myself I usually do it in about 6 hours.

We headed over to Maswik Lodge to check-in, rest up and take some good long showers before dinner. It's amazing how wonderful a shower feels when you haven't had one in almost a week. I was feeling very good following the hike out though the bottoms of feet felt like I was on the verge of developing some blisters. There was nothing there when I looked but the soles felt very odd. I was also having some problems with my Achilles' tendons that had started the day before and was the first time that they had ever bothered me. I was convinced that the problem was somehow related to the Utah Flats Route.

Dinner at the Arizona Steakhouse was fantastic as usual and it made me very happy to be back up on the rim. Ah, civilization? We arrived at the restaurant at around 5:30 PM and for the first time that I can ever remember we were seated immediately. Many people were still out enjoying the sunset so that may have been why. By the time we finished dinner there was a considerable crowd waiting to be seated. For dinner I had the seafood special, Shrimp Scampi over linguini and Robin had here usual, the baby-back ribs. Both were very good and we shared a piece of the Chocolate Suicide cake for dessert.