Cathedral Rock and Little Falls

I don't know if I've mentioned this here before, but exactly six weeks from now I will be at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, two days into a six-day backpacking trip with two good friends.  Needless to say, I've been hitting the gym hard.  The gym isn't enough though, and it's only this week that it's gotten cool enough for me to dare hiking outside here, even in the mountains.

This morning I rolled out of bed at 4:30am, threw together a few last minute things, and hit the road.  It's an hours drive from home to the trailhead.  When I arrived around 6am, I was the only car there.  Another pulled up as I was putting my pack on, and I chatted with them briefly.  Very nice gentlemen, and they were headed up a different trail than I was (and made me decide to try that trail next week).

A few switchbacks up I stopped to take pictures as the dawn was breaking across the entrance to the canyon.  I am not generally a morning person, but the dawn combined with the cooler weather may have converted me.

From there I continued the 1.5 mile climb up to Cathedral Rock, hovering about a thousand feet above the trail head.  And I do mean hovering:

I was moving slower than I'd hoped to, and not only because I was stopping to take a lot of pictures.  I need to do a lot more hiking in the next few weeks!

It took me an hour to reach the saddle (picture below, center left), and then another 15 minutes to scramble up to the top.  I was moving pretty slowly on the scramble, because the "trail" was right on the edge of a thousand foot drop and full of loose rocks.  Of course, once I got to the summit, I realized that it wasn't actually the trail - I'd missed a turn at some point!  Oh well.

The summit was gorgeous.  Great views and cool weather, a few puffy clouds in the bright blue sky.  I hung around for fifteen minutes rehydrating and taking pictures before starting down the correct trail.

The descent was easier on my cardio but tougher on my knee.  I'm going to need to watch that closely, even with the brace, trekking poles and advil it was acting up.  I descended in an hour, but that includes two side trips to see the seasonal falls (unimpressive) and a 10-minute stop to watch a hawk who had landed just in front of me.

Once back at the trailhead, I had a little snack and debated my next move.  I'd intended to climb Echo Overlook, but I didn't really want to push my knee since I'm doing some more hiking in Tucson this weekend.  So I compromised and headed up to Little Falls, which is only .8 one way instead of 2 and has less elevation gain.

The falls were small but gorgeous so I was glad I checked them out!  Next time, I think I'll aim for the loop trail to summit Mt. Charleston at nearly 12,000 feet!