Cooling off in the Colorado River at the bottom
Wow, do we hurt today! For me it’s the toes, the outside part of my quads and my butt, right near the hip bones. Shoulders are surprisingly fine except when I touch the part where the back pack straps sat. I feel bruised there. Dave had similar pain except the pain in the butt! But I can always help out with that! :-)
First thing we did this morning is book a mule at the Phantom ranch to carry a pack back up to the rim for us. Got that great piece of advice from a 4 some we met on the hike down. We thought their packs looks suspiciously small for a 2 nights stay...they hired mules to carry their stuff down and up...SMART! Only $64.64 for 30 lbs.....going to be worth every single penny!
As far as the rest of the day goes, the guy in the Back Country office where we picked up our permit recommended a 13 mile round trip hike to Ribbon Falls (part of the North Kaibab trail). Sounded good in theory but in reality no way. We still have 9.3 miles of BIG up to do tomorrow and we’re still tired after yesterday. Instead we just decided to stretch our legs with short level hikes close to the campground.
Spent some time just sitting on a rock in the Bright Angel Creek with our feet in the very cold water and wet hats on our heads. But that wasn’t exactly comfortable so after lunch, we headed for the Phantom ranch and some cold lemonade and one cold beer. My God it tasted so good, water gets pretty boring after a while but it’s necessary in this hot dry climate. As an added bonus, the building at the ranch was air conditioned so we sat there for a couple of hours, played scrabble and stayed cool. They kick you out from 4pm to 8pm so they can make and serve the dinners that their guests and any hikers had reserved. Apparently the meals were pretty good but expensive. The bulletin board showed that steak dinner that night was about $40 and stew was $25. Fully booked too, no room for any extras.
When we left the ranch at 3:30 pm, the thermometer at the campground said that it was 116F in the sun, 93F in the shade. No wonder we didn’t feel like moving, we were baked.
Crashed early, went to bed at 7, setting the alarm for 4 am. Gotta figure out what goes up with the mule and what we carry up.
Check out the ALBUM!