Bright Angel Campground to Cottonwood Campground

Day Two Miles: 7.2
Cumulative Miles: 14.2

The rut was on!  Later we saw a buck trying to drive a fawn away from a doe.

October 27, 2011
Cottonwood Campground
3:45pm

Day Two hike is over!  We had a slow start and got on the road at 9.  Once we warmed up, the first few miles were great, following the creek up through a shady canyon.  Then we broke out into the sun, which wasn't as nice!  We did find a nice lunch spot with a view and stopped there for an hour.  A little further was a trail split.  The right fork was labeled "Ribbon Falls via Bridge" and the left was unmarked.  Since we wanted to see the falls, we took the right fork.  Bad Idea! Left fork just made you ford the creek before a level trail met with both Ribbon Falls and the trail to Cottonwood.  The right fork made you climb a freaking mountain!  We ended up skipping the falls - we'll get another chance in two days!

Home Sweet Home - Cottonwood Campground

South Kaibob Trailhead to Bright Angel Campground

First light, just below the trailhead

Day One Miles: 7 miles
Cumulative Miles: 7 miles

My photography platform at Ooh-Ahh

October 26, 2011
Bright Angel Campground
6:00pm

Great news!  I just managed to get the camera battery out after several long minutes with the leatherman!  No more rationing!  Yay!

Dawn at Ooh-Aah

We hit the trail (S. Kaibob) this morning around 7:30 and booked it down to Ooh-Aah point for dawn.  My R knee was a bit unhappy to start but quickly settled in.  The first three or so miles were easy-peasy.  All the refits I did last week for pack and boots really paid off.  The last few miles were steeper and harder mentally because you could see the Colorado and got this "almost there" feeling.  A little after noon we were eating lunch on the north side of the river!

The sun struggles to peek through the clouds

We continued to Bright Angel and got our camp set up and cached some food with the Rangers before exploring.  I did not expect the bottom of the canyon to look like this!  I imagined a flat, desert-type area with the canyon walls blocking out the sky.  Instead, we have a creek lined with cottonwoods and you are actually so deep into the "inner" canyon that you can't see the north or south rims at all.  We had fantastic views on the way down though, even though it rained on and off.  Glad I brought my rain jacket, I almost left it at home!  Packs were pretty heavy (over 30% bodyweight) today, but they carried well.

Sunbeams!

Left knee is a bit sore, right is fine.  Feet are sore but no blisters!  Chocolate Baileys cheesecake for dessert! Tomorrow should be pretty easy - 7 miles gently uphill to Cottonwood & Ribbon Falls.  Should be gorgeous weather too, if a bit on the hot side - 70.  For now, I will go be sociable before an early bedtime, sleeping to the roar of the creek.

PS. There are flush toilets!  Cushiest backpacking trip ever!

Rain means rainbows!

October 27, 2011
Bright Angel Campground
7:30am

Camp is almost packed, but I wanted to write about last night while it's still fresh.  After a few rounds of cards and cheesecake, S and I headed to the bathhouse to wash dishes and get ready for bed.  I finished first and headed back to camp alone.  Counting to find our site, my headlamp picked up a pair of reflective eyes! A glance at the site number confirmed that the animal was in our camp!  I edged closer to see what it was and it jumped up on the table and stared back at me - a ringtail!  Way cool.  I never thought I'd see one in the wild.  I froze, hoping it would stay so S could see, but when it decided I wasn't going to noms its face, it decided to noms my backpack, so I scared it off.  The end!

The banks of the Colorado

Creek at Bright Angel Campground

So much food!

Home Sweet Home

Bright Angel Campground

Another Home Sweet Home shot

Canyon Eve

Well, I survived my backpacking trip!  In fact, I did more than survive.  I went into this trip thinking that it would be a one time only deal.  I'd do it to say I'd done it and never think of it again.  Instead, we've already started planning routes for the next time!

I kept a journal with me during the whole thing so I will be making several posts over the next few days with entries from the journal, elaborations where necessary, and photos from each day.  My first entry is from the night before we began our hike.  It was a little bit drizzly that afternoon, but cleared up around sunset.  After midnight, though, it stormed ridiculously for several hours.

October 25, 2011
Eve of Adventure
8:15pm

Hard to believe this trip is already here!  S and I left Tucson early this morning and arrived at the Canyon around 3.  We stowed our stuff and went for a quick sunset hike along the rim to warm up for tomorrow.  It was a nice sunset but I am happier about the number of stars we can see!  Not as good as AK but way better than Vegas!  I have encountered the first problem already - my new camera battery is jammed!  If I can't get it out, I'll have to be very careful and not do too many night shots.  Early to bed tonight - will be in the canyon for dawn!

Dogie Trail

As I mentioned in my last post, my friend and I had planned to do a backpacking trip in Sedona last weekend only to have our plans foiled by illness.  Being resiliant, we simply rescheduled for this weekend.  So, Friday I got up early and made the 4.5 hour drive down just in time to snag one of the last remaining campsites.  While waiting for Stacey, who had to leave later, I drove around taking pictures of the red rocks.  I also bought a new camelback because in my absentmindedness I had forgotten a whole mess of things.  I'm glad I did though - the new camelback seems MUCH nicer than the older ones, which always leak on me.

Stacey got in late that night and we got a bit of a slow start the next morning, hindered by the beautiful dawn light filtering through the trees as we attempted to break up camp.  As a result, we weren't on our trail until almost 11, which meant hiking during the heat of the day.  Interesting fact: as we drove the rural roads to the trailhead, we encounted a great big rattlesnake sitting in the middle of the road!

Last weekend a cold front had come through and temperatures in the area were a pleasant 40-60.  Silly me, I thought that was normal.  Nope!  We started hiking at 80 and it got hotter from there.  Additionally, it was a dry trail so we were carrying two days of water each plus some extra for cooking and emergencies: 22lbs of my pack just for water!  Given that 40lbs is my recommended maximum weight and 30lbs is optimal, packs were HEAVY.

As if the heat and the sun and the weight of the pack wasn't enough, about two miles into the trip I started experiencing some, well, gastro-intestinal distress.  I gotta say, hiking while sick is not fun!  I couldn't cinch my waist strap tightly enough so the pack wasn't riding right and I was pretty miserable.  I literally had to stop and drop my pack every 15-30 minutes.  Not fun!

We limped along for another three miles or so before giving in when we found a lovely little campsite on a plateau overlooking the gorge.  It was almost four by then.  Not the 9ish mile hike we'd planned, but given my unfortunate condition I was just glad to have that pack off!

Stacey started kicking rocks aside to better clear a space for our tent when she unearthed a scorpion!  Ick!  At least that was as reminder to be extra careful!

Once the camp was set we pulled out daypacks and wandered around a bit, swooping back to our home sweet home just as the sun was sinking behind the cliffs.  We devoured round one of dinner and waited impatiently for the stars to come out while we set up our cameras.  I'd managed to forget my tripod, so I balanced mine on some handy rocks, using my hat for aiming!

Darkness fell and stars filled the sky, the Milky Way sweeping across directly over our heads.  It was amazing - the second best night sky I've ever seen!

Mt. Humphreys

The plan for this past weekend was to backpack around Sedona with a friend and then summit Mt. Humphreys, the tallest mountain in Arizona, on Monday.  Unfortunately, my friend came down with a bug on Thursday and so we postponed backpacking for next weekend.  Because next weekend isn't a holiday weekend, Mt. Humphreys was off the schedule so I decided to drive down and do it myself.

I got in just after sunset, set up camp, and immediately started taking star pictures.  Unfortunately, the moon was nearly full so the stars weren't as excellent as I'd hoped for.  Still, not bad for my first tries at trails!

The next morning it was up early to break camp and drive the hour or so to Mt. Humphreys trail head.  It was quite chilly and I felt right at home!  The first quarter mile wound across a frosted meadow before heading into the forest and the switchbacks.  I was a little surprised to see the trail covered with snow and ice.

At first, the climb was no big deal.  It reminded me a lot of Resurrection Pass actually, just a bit steeper.  The ice made things sketchy in some places.  The stretch from the treeline to the saddle, however, was physically the toughest part.  The scraggly trees were covered in ice balls and every minute or so another tree would drop a bunch, sending them skittering down the slop and sending my avalanche-terrified heart pounding.

Finally, after three hours I reached the saddle.  The views were most excellent.  Since the trail was so bad, though, most of the other folks decided to head back down instead of continuing to the summit.  I pushed on alone.  Honestly, it was pretty nerve wracking to not know if there was anyone in front or behind me, what with my hiking by myself on such slippery and sketchy terrain.  A broken leg with no one around could easily prove fatal.  About thirty minutes later though, I gained a high point and saw that there were, in fact, people on both sides of me which made me feel better.

Getting from the saddle to the summit was not as physically draining as the final switchbacks were, but it was a mental challenge.  There are at least three false summits and even if you know this as I did, it was still really hard to keep going after each "summit" proved to not be.  Finding the trail was also almost impossible at times!

Eventually, though, I made it!  I was on top of Arizona, with amazing views in all directions!  It took four hours and fifteen minutes, longer than I had planned.  I spent about 30 minutes on the summit before beginning what I figured would be a grueling descent, what with the snow, ice, and my knee problems.

In actuality, I made the decent in about three hours.  I fell twice coming around a switchback, but the area wasn't dangerous and the falls weren't too bad.  My knee wasn't even bothering me!  Of course, marveling about that fact apparently jinxed me, because about a mile from the trail head my OTHER knee started hurting really bad!  I limped along on it for a few minutes before wising up and switching my brace from one knee to the other, and was able to finish out the trail without further difficulty.

BBA #26, 27, 28, 29, 30

It's been a while since I've posted a BBA challenge post.  Partially this is because I've been stalled for about a year on the sourdough starter.  I tried and failed a few times, then just forgot about it in the chaos of moving and all.  However, I recently visited a friend who gave me some of her starter, so I used my baby "Zeke" to get me going on the challenge again.

However, when I started up with the sourdoughs, I realized that somehow I lost my photographs from the last four breads that I didn't remember to post when I made them!  I've switched computers in the meantime, and maybe they're still here, but I haven't been able to find them.  So here's a quick write-up on those four (what I remember), and my first sourdough.

#26, Poolish Baguette

This one was okay, but if I'm going to spend the time to make a poolish, I see no reason to not be making Pain a l'ancienne instead!

#27, Portuguese Sweet Bread

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I don't like sweet breads.  However, on a TDY before I made this bread, DH had a sandwich with Kahlua pork and sweet bread, so I made the pork at the same time as I made this loaf.  They went pretty well together.

#28, Potato Rosemary Bread

Without a doubt, this bread is one of the contenders for "Best Recipe in BBA!"  I made two loaves and gave one to my (then pregnant) friend.  It might have been the hormones, but she tore into this like there was no tomorrow!  I don't think her husband got to try any, and I don't blame her, it's that good!  As it happens, I finally have leftover mashed potatoes in the fridge.  I'm going to make this again ASAP.

#29, Pugliese

Honestly, not particularly memorable.  Maybe if I had used the durum flour it would have made a difference.

#30, Sourdough (pictured above)

Yum yum yum yum yum!  Sourdough is a favorite in this house and this recipe did not let us down - apart from being even better the second day than the first!  I did make a few mistakes working with my baby Zeke.  I need to listen to the dough more than the timeframe given in the recipe.  As a result, the bread was a little heavy and dense, but I think I can fix it next time!  I also didn't get the crust and color that I'd want, but since I'm working without my best baking materials (notably, my baking stone), I figure that's not my fault!