Start: Jacob Lake
Finish: Old Corral on Kaibab Plateau
Daily Mileage: 22.1
Trip Mileage: 682.0
Elevation gain/loss: 3136/2114ft
I didn’t sleep well last night, for the 3rd night in a row. I just go through phases like this sometimes. I probably only slept a couple of hours each of the last three nights. Not the best situation with all the physical exertion from hiking. I need to restore overnight to recharge my body and prepare for the abuse I’m about to put it through the next day.
I was mostly packed already, so I had my breakfast of four cookies from the Jacob Lake bakery and headed out. It was 2.2 miles to the trailhead, and I had waited until it was light out in hopes of getting a hitch. I ended up walking the whole way back to the trailhead with only about 10 vehicles passing. Oh well, not the end of the world. However, I was really struggling this morning. The lack of sleep had me start the day exhausted, one of my shoes had a pressure point, my right hand was still swollen and sore, and I was still pretty pissed off about my food being stolen and not having a good resupply for the next week. I was really down and on the verge of crying on the way to the trail. The immersion in the hike, with it being a long-distance and a lifestyle, not just a weekend trip, can make the hikes a lot more emotional.
I started down the trail after checking the bear box one last time to make sure I hadn’t missed any of my scraps that the scavengers had missed. The trail went through the woods most of the time on treadway but sometimes on old roads. There was nothing terribly scenic about it; it was the same sparse ponderosa forest as I was in yesterday. I had to take my first stop three miles in since my resupply was bulkier and heavier than usual.
I just kept pushing down the trail. Normally, I’d probably listen to an audiobook, but I wasn’t now since I was straight out of resupply and have a longer stretch of trail this time. Need to make sure my batteries last. I was just using one hiking pole and had the other one put up due to my swollen, sore hand. As I did more and more miles, my mood gradually improved but never got that great. It basically went from bad to less bad.
After hiking through the forest for a while, I entered a huge burn area where all the trees were gone for many miles. I was up on a plateau around 9,000 ft., and the wind was blowing pretty good. It was pretty exposed and not at all scenic walking through the dead forest, so the stretch of trail didn’t do anything to help improve my mood. The one minor perk to this area was in a couple of places I could see the Vermillion cliffs that I was walking on top of yesterday and Marble Canyon, which is immediately downstream of Glen Canyon Dam where Grand Canyon rafting starts. I remember how prominent the Vermilion cliffs were when I did the Grand Canyon 5 years ago, so it’s cool seeing them from a different angle.
I pretty much just charged through the burn area. I got water halfway through at a wildlife trough, and had to take a couple breaks due to my pack weight with the full resupply and water weight. Since I had 50/50 hot and cold dinners, I decided to make this a cold dinner night, which would let me carry less water for half a day. I guess that’s sort of a pro of going stoveless.
Towards the end of the day, I finally reached real live trees again, and what a relief to get back into the forest where the trees protected me from the wind and the sun. It was a cooler day with a high only in the 40s, but I’m almost out of sunblock and couldn’t get more at Jacob Lake, so I need to try to minimize my exposure to the sun.
I was getting pretty tired by the time I got to the forest, but my goal was 2 miles further because I wanted to roughly split up today and tomorrow to put me at the edge of the Grand Canyon tomorrow night. My permit starts the following day. I kept going and took a couple breaks. I reached the large meadow with a lake that I was targeting, but I wanted to go a bit further to get into some trees to protect me from the wind. Meadows also tend to be cold and damp overnight too. There was a little bit of snow in the sheltered areas of the meadow, which I was surprised to see still sticking around. Shortly after the meadow, I found an old corral or something with some fire rings and flat spots. I set up under some trees to shelter me from the wind.
I actually inventoried my food when I got to camp because it just seemed too heavy for eight days of food. However, when I put everything together, it turned out right, so I’ll just have to carry it and eat the heavy stuff first.
My right hand wasn’t as sore as this morning, but it seemed to swell up as the day progressed. I had it bandaged with Leukotape and gauze and applied Neosporin a couple times to try to ward off infection. I was also trying to not use the hand and rest it. Towards the end of the day, I noticed that it wasn’t really hurting anymore. I wonder if it was swelling up since I was just letting it hang there, not doing anything. I was using my other hand with my hiking pole. Tomorrow I might try using both hiking poles again and see how that goes.
Today was probably my worst day on the trail so far. It just wasn’t exciting, and I had the mental and physical challenges that I mentioned. It’s all part of the journey though; every day isn’t going to be the most scenic or greatest day. But it all averages out in the end.
