It is funny how a day that starts off so utterly miserable can turn out so well. We made excellent time climbing out of Boucher. We started around 7:30 and by 10 we were on top of the Whites Butte saddle. The drizzle kept up most of the time but would occasionally stop for long periods of time. It made for some tricky footing in the upper stretches of the trail. After climbing up that section of trail I would never recommend it to anyone going down. All of the guide books that I read said that if you are going to do this loop hike, go down the Boucher and up the Hermit because route finding is difficult coming up the Boucher. Well, we never had a problem staying on the trail and the trail is so steep in places that coming down with a full pack would be dangerous. I could understand how people would have problems with it, though I didn't see any place that I would have thought would require lowering packs by rope. The upper portions of this section of trail were also cluttered with very large boulders, trees and bushes which made maneuvering a little tricky at times. The ravine that you have to climb through to get the Whites Butte saddle reminds me more of hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire than the Grand Canyon.

Anyway, the view from the top of the saddle was incredible. The rain had stopped again and we even got a few quick breaks in the clouds that allowed the sun to shine. We dropped our packs and took a good long rest. Looking back down the ravine we could see where we started from earlier that morning. It looked awfully far off. We had already decided, since we were making such good time coming up, that we would try to push further on along the Boucher and not camp on the saddle. It was too early to stop. I looked over towards where the trail led. It was reasonable flat for a while before it started to climb the upper sections of Travertine Canyon. That would prove to be the most difficult part of the hike.

After a good long rest we headed off. We spent maybe another hour on the flat section and then we came to the fun stuff, the ascent through the Redwall Limestone. I knew instantly what the three guys we ran into on the hike in were talking about. Some up the climbs in the upper section of Travertine Canyon are almost vertical. I decided now that I would never, ever, be doing this trip the reverse way, and be coming down this trail. There were a number of places where it would be much safer to take off your pack and lower it rather than trying to climb down with it on. Going up this didn't seem to be a problem though. We spent well over an hour climbing through this stretch.

When we finished climbing we were on top of the Redwall and were again rewarded with a view that was spectacular. We hiked a little further on and then stopped for lunch at a spot with lots of trees and another awesome vista. The rain hadn't bothered us since the Whites Butte saddle, though there wasn't much sun to speak off. It was quite cool and it hard to imagine how we could have been baking just a few days ago and a couple thousand feet further down.

After lunch we hiked for maybe an hour more until we came across a great spot to make camp. To the west we could see Whites Butte and the saddle, to the east the Colorado River and Granite Rapids and above us Yuma Point and a rock formation that resembled a castle. It looked like we would be all alone up here tonight. We caught a few more glimpses of the sun around sunset but the clouds never broke. It drizzled a little more later in the day as well. Once the sun went down the wind picked up and it got rather chilly up there.