October 19, 2024--returning to the South Rim on the Hermit Trail
We had an even longer rainstorm last night. But around 2 am I think it was, I got up to use the bathroom and the nearly full moon was out for the first time in the whole trip. Clouds scuttled fast across it, and the sight was so beautiful I just sat and watched.
Not a very good picture, but you get the idea:
Since it wasn't going to be hot today, I didn't get up before dawn (as had been the plan with the earlier UNSEASONABLY HOT forecast), but I still got up pretty early. Everything was WET. There was a huge puddle in my alcove, and a puddle under my tent when I took it down--but nothing had seeped inside. Yay for my tent.
I tried to de-mud and dry out the tent, but I eventually gave up and packed it dampish and muddyish.
The day was gorgeous.
Where the Hermit Trail meets the Tonto, I saw these beauties:
And this resurrection moss that I doubt was green and soft two days ago (I don't think this is real resurrection moss, but people use the term--and if you ever spy it and pour a little water on it, you'll see why):
At the Cathedral Stairs, the air was still cool enough and my body warm enough from the climb that when I put on my glasses, they immediately fogged up. And then I saw this:
Yes. That's snow on the North Rim. A bit up the trail, I learned from a downward hiker that they'd also had quite a bit of snow at the South Rim.
Just above the Cathedral Stairs, I met a trail runner headed down. He had probably a liter of water on him and maybe enough room in his waist pack for a granola bar or two. His plan? Down to Hermit Creek, along the Tonto, and all the way up Boucher today. That's about 20 miles with 5700 feet of gain, and the Boucher is, by all accounts, a very difficult trail with a lot of washouts. Amazing or crazy, I thought. If (when?) I do that, I'll backpack it in 4-5 days. Trail runners are a whole different species.
I stopped for a relaxing lunch at this boring place with no view at all:
That's my freeze-dried lunch cold-soaking in the sun. Yum.
A few months back, I read a novel that talked about how there's little to no vegetation down in the Canyon. To that, I say:
The water in Santa Maria Spring, where we were explicitly instructed not to drink the tadpoles:
The day had been gorgeous: mostly sunny with a few pretty clouds, warm but not hot below, cool but not cold the higher I climbed. Around Santa Maria Spring, it started getting cloudier. By the junction with the Dripping Springs Trail it was starting to look threatening. The sky got darker and darker as we climbed.
Maybe half a mile from the top, on those steep switchbacks, I'll give you one guess who I met. Yes. The trail runner. I hadn't been hurrying, enjoying instead a leisurely hike. But he...he'd done the whole loop and lapped me. Sigh. Hats off to you, trail runner. I think, however, that I prefer my style of foot travel.
Here's me, at the requisite "Going down is optional. Coming up is mandatory" sign. Success!
What a fantastic trip.
I met my dad at the trailhead, where the wind was picking up and the temperature was dropping.
I'd worked up a sweat on the uphill section, and I figured it would be best to change into something dry. I had time to do that and take a quick trip to the outhouse before it started raining. Talk about perfect timing. The whole trip, the rain happened a) at night, b) early morning on a day I didn't need an early start, c) as soon as I finished the hike. Amazing.
I absolutely recommend this route (but not in hot weather).
See my posts on the first two days of the trip here:
I took them fast enough that I got my body all warmed up, but the air was still cool enough that when I put on my glasses, they immediately fogged up because ok
A bit warm down on some of the switchbacks before the C
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