I’m on a high bench, jutting out from the main canyon and surrounded on all sides by castles and pyramids, cutting into the night sky. The sunset just ended and for the last hour these prominent summits have been slowly changing color across the spectrum, all the way from red and yellow to blue, purple and black (skipping green, which was provided by the vegetation). It was sublime.
Now that the sun has set, I want to enjoy the stars. Instead, however, I find myself matching wits with a creature smaller than the hole in my brain. Dang, that mouse is persistent and if he’s (she’s) not careful, he’s going to be food for some lucky scavenger tomorrow morning. He seems to be taking a break now. Maybe he’s trying to lure me into a false sense of security. Are mice that smart? Maybe he’s just experimenting on me, testing to see how long human’s vigilance lasts after the last observed threat. I have to admit it’s working. My eyes are getting heavy.
Slept this morning, packed and gorged ourselves at the Lodge’s buffet. Temporarily satiated. We moseyed on down to the General Store for some last minute supplies before making our way to the North Kaibob Trailhead.
Despite the omnipresent evidence left behind by the mules, both visual and olfactory, the first four miles of the trail were very nice. The yellow aspens and pink/red maples in the drainages contrasted brilliantly with the pines and the desert flora on the slopes, and the trail got steadily better all day.
Instead of slowly cutting down the layers of rocks like we had along Hack and Kanab Canyons today we dropping precipitously down the already completed gorge. All layers were visible at once. Though I preferred the slow descent of last week, it was still cool to see the sheer scale of the canyon while dropping down. I applied myself toward studying and identifying the various and I remembered most of the types of layers about bright angel shale. Thinking about it we seemed we were dropping back in time as we moved down the layers—each one representing and further and further past.
It was a short 16-mile walk, almost all downhill to our camp today. So even thought we got a late start, we took our time and relaxed all day long. We still got into camp earlier than any other night on the trip. This should be a pleasant loop through the canyon.
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