On day six, the last day, we hiked from Esplanade camp #2 back to the Bill Hall trailhead and then drove back to Flagstaff.

22:30 - Flagstaff

We did pretty good today after a bit of a rough start. We were up early, around 5:30 or so, because I was expecting trouble on the hike back up to the rim. I tried to calculate how long it would take to get out based on how long it took to get to camp yesterday and the result was not pretty. Even with the early start I wasn't expecting to be out before 16:00 or so.

We had breakfast and packed up camp as quickly as we could and were on the trail by 7:15. We did fine on the hike back to the junction with the Bill Hall Trail and we arrived there just a little before 8:00.

The trouble started as soon as we started back up the Bill Hall Trail though and Maggi started feeling very bad. I let the ladies go ahead of me to set the pace and I stayed behind to take some photos. I stopped for a while to talk to another gal who I met hiking out with one of the biggest backpacks I had ever seen. It turns out it was her father's backpack and he was having knee problems and she was going to carry it back to the rim and then come back for him and her backpack. By the time I caught up with Maggi again she was on the ground and curled up behind a rock. She sad she felt like she needed to throw up but couldn't and insisted she could not make it out. I was pretty sure the physical problem was a result of her not eating enough over the past couple of days which is something that I had been watching develop and worrying about. She barely ate the night before and hardly anything again for breakfast and she was asking too much of her body. She needed food. Her insistence that she could not make it out was another problem I had been trying to deal with for several days now. This trip was much tougher than she had ever anticipated and The Canyon was beating her up. She just wanted to give up and I was not about to let that happen. I leaned into her pretty hard on several occasions and forced her to go on. I had carried her backpack up through the Redwall cliffs yesterday but I was not about to carry it back to the rim today. She had to do it and she had to do it on her own.

She did finally eat something and managed to get moving and then stopped and ate a few times more on the way out. I know she was still having problems with her hips and her pack but she did a lot better after that and really surprised me. We made pretty good time up to and through the Coconino and before we knew it we were at the final ascent through the Kaibab and back up to the rim. We all stopped for a rest at that point and made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches using some left over pita pockets. When we finally got moving again we continued to make good time and we ended up getting back to the rim a little before 13:00. We ended up getting back to the parking lot at 13:30, about two and a half hours sooner than I expected.

When I first planned this trip I was hoping to be out by 10:00 with the thought of stopping at Vermillion Cliffs for a nice lunch on the way back to Flagstaff but that idea was shot at this point and we just wanted to get back to Flagstaff. We made a quick stop at Jacob Lake for cookies and then just headed straight back to Flag. We made it back here just a little before sunset and after we all had showers we headed over to the Beaver Street Brewery for our celebration meal.

The shower felt wonderful, the meal was fabulous and it is going to feel very good to sleep in a real bed tonight.