Last weekend we took the MCC geology class. Hiked to Skeleton Point and did geology drawings, then visited Sunset Crater and Grand Falls.

Friday this week hiked down South Kaibab and across to Bright Angel. Flowers are great. Snowed on the north rim -- last weekend in April!

I keep telling myself I don't have to beat every 20 year old out of the canyon, and then someone cuts a switchback and I have to dust him to teach him a lesson.

Hiked to Indian Garden with a women's basic backpacking class. Weather was just right: cool at night and pleasant during the day. All the flowers have started to bloom. One of my participants pointed out that my shirt was the same color as the redbud.

Water out at Phantom Ranch. They fixed one leak and when they turned it back on, another leak sprang forth. Oh well, showers are overrated.

Some mule riders came in while we were drinking lemonade and asked where we had come from. We said we were camped at Indian Garden, and one asked, "Oh, are there cabins there too?". We all decided that 10 miles round trip is a long way to go for a lemonade, even with ice. Maybe a Cherry Pepsi, but a lemonade?

The dude mules met the pack mules at Three Mile, and they had to pass one another while we got to watch. With all the mules on the same trail nowadays, they have to get kind of creative to get past each other. They are actually forming new trails at certain areas where they meet and pass.
Poem written on the trail:to the tune of Smoke gets in your eyes:
I said the hike was hard, my legs felt like lard,
And this trail is tough, it is way too rough, I have had enough.
They said the trail is fine, and I should not whine,
Hiking makes you wise, strengthens up your thighs, and salt gets in your eyes...

Friday we hiked down to Skeleton Point. Spring is definitely here: there were dozens of people on the trail, at the Point, and way too much graffiti on the rocks. I had filled my liter squirt bottle, and I used up half before I got to Cedar Ridge.

Then we had to go to Prescott to mail a package, and Sunday I was supposed to do a Field Institute gig, but the couple canceled at the last minute, so Brad and I hiked to Indian Garden to see the Redbud in bloom. Not as much graffiti on the BA: maybe because it lacks that lovely, smooth Coconino slab section on the South kaibab, that I have termed "graffiti alley". Met a boy on the way out racing his dad. He said they were trying to get to the "motel at the bottom", so I told him to be sure to get the pink rattler junior ranger patch. I can picture him now, bugging his parents to get to the bottom so he can get his patch.

Just a dibble of ice left on the very top of the SK, and some still on Heartbreak Hill and just below. Nothing we couldn't handle without grippers, though Brad did manage to slip on the way up and twist his back.

Got out of the rut this weekend and went to South Canyon. Used to run in and out of that all the time when I was a kid. I don't remember it being that exposed...no trail, just a route. Down-climbing in the Coconino, and lots of loose scree, then rock hopping all the way down the wash to the Colorado.

There was water in the wash, so we dropped packs and ran to the River and back. I thought the redbud would be in bloom at Vaseys, but it was not so. I had also forgotten the joys of alkaline water in the slickrock. Ick. Brad dropped his canteen and it split, and when we got out our emergency Platypus, it had a crack in it. Fortunately I'd thrown in an extra folding canteen because I thought we would be settling grit out of the River water.

Ran up to the head of the canyon to see some really nice fossil footprints, and then climbed out. Took less time to climb out than in, as is usual with a loose route. Carried out someone's discarded water bottle and tore apart a campfire ring. Same person? Perhaps. There was a cache of what looked like gatorade, and we debated leaving it, until we saw that it had a critter hole in it, and had been there so long it had fermented. Why don't people clean up their caches? With the incoming storm tomorrow, it was nice and cool hiking out. I do remember from our college hikes there that the last 1000 feet is all in the sun, and we never carried enough water...