08:30 am - Heading over to Mystic Falls Canyon

It took me longer than normal to break camp this morning and I wasn't out of there until 630. I decided to eat breakfast at camp rather than on the trail so that took a little longer. A bee came by as I was taking down the tent and buzzed the site for a while, checking out my piles of gear, but luckily didn't stick around.

I took a wrong (early) turn away from Nankoweap Creek and started climbing at the wrong location. The result was I climbed higher than I needed to and had to descend a little gully to get back on route on the other side of the ridge. I really should have saved a GPS waypoint for where I wanted to leave the creek. D'oh!

This is second breakfast, behind a solitary juniper tree somewhere on the slopes below Bourke Point. The route so far is taking its toll on my feet and I have my boots and socks off to give my feet a rest as well. I got a small blister yesterday, as a result of all the creek cobbles I think. I drained it last night though and it doesn't feel so bad. I am closing in on the midway point and should get some good views of the creek (Mystic Falls Creek?) when I get around the next bend. I just need to stay at this contour level and let the creek bed rise up to meet me. Then I go about half a mile more up creek to camp below Seiber Point.

12:00 pm - Camp #3

I am at camp below Seiber Point, got here a little past 11. The tent is setup and gear that I don't need for the day hike is stowed inside. I am going to have lunch here and then head up to Mystic Falls area for the afternoon.

I went down to the creek to fill a water bottle for lunch and when I got back one of those pesky bees was already protecting my tent. It's gone at the moment but will likely return and spend the afternoon. I had this problem several years back with a blue and white tent and someone told me the bees thought is was a big flower. When I bought a new tent I purposely got green and white. Perhaps it's the white part, I don't know. I wish I knew what kind of bees these are. I hope they are not the Africanized variety. All I need to do is piss one off and have it come back with the rest of the hive.

07:40 pm - Mystic Falls and ruins

Another long day!

I left camp around 1230, right after lunch, heading for Mystic Falls and hopefully some ruin sites. It seemed to take forever to go that 1½ miles. There is water in the creek up here even though it is bone-dry a little below camp. It's not a lot of water but perhaps one quarter to one half of what was flowing in Nankoweap Creek. This creek bed is narrower though and there a lot of pools that need to be bypassed so you're crossing from side to side every 20 feet or so. It's maddening. The dense brush on the creek banks and above makes overland travel impossible though. I did find short "trails" on the banks at times.

So anyway, it was taking so long to get up there and I was seeing no sign of the falls that I half convinced myself they were not running this year. I thought I found the spot they should be and it was dry. But all of the water had to be coming from somewhere and as far as I know the falls and related spring are the only source back here. There certainly isn't enough snow melt to account for it. I checked my GPS and sure enough I still had another half mile to go! Gah!

I finally got to the falls around 230 and took some photos from a distance but did not go close like last year. Fighting my way up there would have blown an hour or more.

I set out in search of the ruins and was succcessful in finding the two best ones, which thrilled me to no end. I am not surprised at all now why I didn't find them last year. They can't be seen at all from the creek and you just have to know where to go. You could wander around up there looking for a long while and miss them completely. These places sure were well protected... and the view... the view was to die for. They sure knew how to pick 'em.

I left there at 4 and got back to camp at 6 only to be bothered by more pesky bees, one guarding my tent and one watching me intently while I filtered water. I think it was the blue bucket. It actually dived at me a couple of times hoping to chase me away I guess. Not fun! Once I stopped with the water it went away. I stayed down at the creek and ate dinner and cleaned up and by the time I got back up to camp the other one was gone for the evening. One came by my site this morning as I was breaking camp but luckily it didn't stay. I want to try to break things down a little earlier tomorrow.

I hope I can figure out this Marion-Seiber Route. I am somewhat intimidated by it and there is some anxiety just thinking about it. If I have to come back down and go out on the Nankoweap Trail it is not going to be fun and will take an extra day... at least.