Start: Horseshoe Mesa Campsite
Finish: Cremation Creek
Daily Mileage: 21.3
Trip Mileage: 782.2
Elevation gain/loss: 2226/3446ft
It stayed surprisingly warm considering the elevation last night; it was also amazingly still. This might be why I didn’t sleep too well. I did wake up to my alarm today, and once again, I got packed up so quickly it was still dark. I successfully killed some time reading on my Kindle without getting attacked by birds, which is amazing. I really wanted to wait until it was light before I started hiking today since I was on top of Horseshoe Mesa, and I wanted to see the surrounding terrain from this vantage point.
I took a slight alternate from the Tonto Trail by crossing the Mesa and going down the other side. My mileage was pretty similar, but I figured this would let me see more. Unfortunately, I read that a big cave in the Mesa was closed by the park service to protect bats, so I couldn’t visit that. However, the view from the Mesa was great during the sunrise, with portions of the Canyon gradually getting lit by the sun. The pink tint of the canyon is just amazing.
I crossed the Mesa and headed down a much more gently graded trail. I hooked back up with the Tonto Trail, which I would continue to follow for the rest of the day. The Tonto Trail stays at pretty much the same elevation and just winds around the various canyons that it encounters. They make for some pretty flat hiking but also pretty circuitous.
I shortly came to a running stream and decided to get the bare minimum water that I would need for the day until I hit water tomorrow. I’m planning on getting more water later in the day, but since there’s water here now, I decided I will get at least some here. I headed out with 5 and a half liters.
The trail went out to the Colorado and generally got a view over it from about a thousand feet up. The river was running through some pretty sheer cliffs, so there was no way for the trail to be closer. However, I liked the view down to the river and up to the rim by walking on the middle ground. When you’re down by the river, you can only see that lowest tier of canyon walls for the most part. This gave a much better big picture of the canyon.
The trail did a big detour to go around Grapevine Canyon. It was a great-looking canyon, very deep with sheer walls. I passed a flowing spring on my way to the actual Grapevine crossing. Another hiker told me that Grapevine was flowing, so I decided to wait until then to take water since it was further. When I got to Grapevine, it was not flowing at all and was bone dry. I briefly considered going back to the spring but decided to keep going since I had enough water barely for the day and tomorrow. Once again, the towering walls were great going down Grapevine back to the Colorado, offering really great views from the Colorado.
Later in the day, I came to Lonetree Canyon, where I had heard there were some old Indian ruins. I went down, scrambled, and climbed into the canyon and I found them exactly where I was told they would be. There were some stone foundations, but then a bunch of mini granaries built into the canyon wall. It was the typical stones with mud mortar, but there were also some sticks providing structure in a few places. These sticks are more than a thousand years old, and they still look like they were just cut recently. They’ve probably never gotten wet where they are, and things don’t really decay in the desert. I did really enjoy taking in this area with its cultural significance, and yet unknown since it is slightly off trail. It’s a pretty severe area, and I can’t imagine living here with basically Stone Age technology. But they did it; they got down here, and they made their life here somehow. I just tried to imagine what it was like back then.
From there, it wasn’t too long until I got to Cremation Creek. The sun was out again today but not as bad as yesterday. There’s a little bit of wind too, which helped me from getting too hot. I got to the limit of where my permit would let me camp, and there were a few people there already. There was one open spot, and they let me stay there. We chatted for a while before we wandered off to our respective tents.
