I also bought myself a collapsible Leki hiking pole to try out on this trip and I highly recommend them. It has an adjustable wrist strap that is great because you can change the size of it for use with or without gloves. It also has a metal tip for use on ice that you cover with a rubber heal when not on ice, and comes with a snow basket that screws on for use in deep snow. After using it on this trip I don't think that I will do another hike without it.

I went along at a fairly good clip for about 1/2 hour before stopping for a rest. The trail still had some icy patches but they were getting fewer and farther between so I hoped I would be done with them soon. It was also getting warmer as I descended and I knew I would have to get rid of the jacket shortly. I looked back up towards the rim to see how far I had come and saw a thin crescent of the Moon hanging above it. That warranted a photo.

I started off again and only went for 15 minutes or so before I had to loose the jacket. I was starting to overheat. There was still ice on the trail here and there so I decided to keep the crampons on for a while yet. After about 15 minutes more I was done with the icy section and was able to get rid of them as well. Now I was moving very fast. The Leki pole made the descent a lot easier than it would have been without it. There are some major boulders that the trail goes over and without the pole it would have been quite awkward trying to get down from these. But with the pole I would just put it down first and then shift most of the weight onto it and down off of the boulder. That pole really got to be quite handy. After about a 1/2 hour more I was getting close to where the trail would actually descend into the bed of the west Tanner drainage. The view ahead of me was really starting to open up into the canyon and I kept looking for the Stegosaurus Rocks that would mark the descent into the drainage.

It was about another 1/2 hour before I saw them and shortly after I did the trail turned off to the right and went right down into the drainage. It follows this right over to the base of the Stegosaurus Rocks and in about 10 minutes I was there. I was tempted to stay above the drainage and continue along the ridge to the rocks but this did not look easy. I was now about 2 hours into the hike and decided to take a brief rest at the rocks. I scampered about on them for a while looking for photo opportunities that never came. After about 10 minutes or so I donned my pack again and set out. The trail them proceeded to contour around and to the back of first Escalante Butte and then Cardenas Butte. Between Escalante and Cardenas Buttes the trail stays at pretty much the same altitude and just goes through some little ups and downs as it crosses some drainages. In between the two buttes I was presented with a very nice view of the eastern arm of Tanner Canyon coming down to meet with the western arm, with the watch tower at Desert View perched above them.

I also took some photos of the Pinyon-Juniper forest to use on other sections of the Grand Canyon WWW pages. There were a lot of birds in this section of the canyon but you end up hearing a lot more than you actually see. I also heard some kind of hoofed animal, which was probably a Grand Canyon Bighorn, climbing around on the rocks over the edge. I couldn't find anything visually but there was definitely something down there. As you get closer to Cardenas Butte you end up in a sort of a rock garden. There are some pretty awesome boulders in this area, some the size of automobiles or even small houses.

After you get around and to the east of Cardenas Butte you get your first teasing view of the river. It looks close but it is still very far away. The trail then contours around to the backside of Cardenas Butte and heads for the break in the Redwall that allows you to get down into the lower reaches of Tanner Canyon.

Just above the Redwall break there is a truly spectacular view of the river and the Palisades of the Desert to its east. I reached the top of the Redwall break around noon and took a short rest before beginning the descent. The descent through this section did not take nearly as long as I remember it to have taken the last time I did it. In only about 1/2 hour I was through the Redwall.

There were some interesting rock formations down here that reminded me of the Hoodoos in Bryce Canyon. The shape was right at least but these are mostly a greenish-grey and not nearly as colorful as those found in Bryce. After you pass these you end up on a section of trail that has some particularly nasty sections. There are a couple of sections where the trail gets very narrow and couple more where it has been destroyed by slides.

This section of the trail ends up bringing you down to the base of the Hoodoos and it then contours out along a ridge for while before it coming to a saddle overlooking the river and Basalt Canyon on the other side. It was now 1:00 so I took a good long rest and ate my lunch here. The view was spectacular and I knew what awaited me below this point so I was in no hurry to get moving again. It was so quiet that I could actually hear the rapids below on the river, even though they were probably still a good 2-3 miles away.

I started down at 1:30. Luckily I had been through this hellish section of trail before so what I encountered was not unexpected. There is virtually no place to stop along this section of trail until you get to the floor of Tanner Canyon. There are no rocks and nothing else to sit on unless you want to take off your pack and sit on the ground. That seemed hardly worth the effort so I just kept going until I reached the floor of the canyon. One portion of this section of trail is known as Asinine Hill and after you hike it you will know why. The hill that the trail descends it fairly steep and the trail goes straight down it without the aid (or courtesy) of switchbacks... truly asinine! I finally reached the floor of Tanner Canyon at around 2:45 and was out at the river just a little after 3:00. There was a river runner wandering around down there and he stopped to chat for a while. His river party was camped over on the other side of the river about 1/4 mile upstream. I setup camp on the upriver side of Tanner as most of the good sites on the downriver side were closed for revegetation. After setting up camp I headed out and wandered west along the Escalante Route (down river) for a ways. When I got back to camp about an hour or so later I noticed that another hiking party of 4 people had come down and camped on the other side of Tanner Canyon from where I was.