Start: Below Cape Solitude
Finish: Tanner Canyon Campsite
Daily Mileage: 8.0
Trip Mileage: 741.3
Elevation gain/loss: 1217/1455ft
It was windy last night, and I had to make sure that none of my gear was going to blow away with me cowboy camping. The wind was also clawing at my sleeping bag pretty good, trying to snatch it away. I would have stayed in my tent last night if I could, but I was on a sheer rock, so that wasn’t really possible with the decent pitch, especially with it being windy.
I didn’t set an alarm, but I was still awake and ready to go shortly after sunrise—or rather, when it got light enough. The sun rises pretty late and sets pretty early in the canyon due to the narrow walls. I continued on the cliff ledges that I started yesterday, winding in and out of washes to maintain about the same level. In many places, there was a sheer drop to the Colorado, 200 feet below me. Pretty good terrain for hiking.
I saw my Canadian friends at camp on the other side of the river and shouted down to them, but they didn’t hear me despite me hearing myself echo down the canyon. Right after I passed their camp, I met Burnt Snag. She asked me about the section of the trail that I just passed through since it was slightly exposed. She was a little hesitant about exposure, so I offered to walk across it with her, especially since I had time to kill today. We got about halfway across, but she didn’t like its narrowness and exposure and decided to turn around. She asked if I wanted to hike with her, and I said, “Of course!” I’ve only hiked with one other person for this entire trail.
We chatted while picking our way around the rest of the cliff ledges, which were tamer and easier than the earlier stuff. We dropped down to the river as the canyon widened, and I could see the observation tower on the South Rim. Pretty easy trail, and once again, it was nice being on the official trail. It didn’t take too long before we reached Tanner Beach. It was only 11:00 a.m., but this is where my permit was for today in case I had needed more time waiting to cross the Colorado River.
Burnt Snag set up camp and decided to do some day hiking. She was just headed out on the trail that I was going to do tomorrow, so I didn’t see a reason to do that. I decided just to sit on the rocky beach, enjoy the Colorado River rapids in front of me, and get cleaned up. I took a pseudo-bath in the cool Colorado River and washed out my clothes as best I could. It turned out a bit better than I was expecting, although there were still plenty of flies on them when I set them out to dry in the sun. I also did some more repairs to my pack to patch up some holes that had opened up. I brought an old pack on this trip since I figured any pack would get beat up and destroyed with all of the off-trail travel on this route.
Burnt Snag offered the use of her solar panel, so I tried one out for the first time in the backcountry and mostly charged my devices. We had dinner when Burnt Snag got back before retiring to be lulled to sleep by the rapids.
With my planned chores done, all I had to do was relax and read by the river. This would normally be boring to me, but I find it relaxing and enjoyable. Not much of a better venue available to take a half day off.
Burnt Snag and I had dinner and chatted before we headed off to bed.
