I ended up doing a short hike by myself down along the creek to where East Clear Creek joins the flow. It was a very relaxing hike and brought back some fond memories of past visits to Clear Creek. A lot of the area had changed as a result of flash flooding that had occurred over the past several years but there were some sections of trail further away from the creek that actually seemed familiar. I saw a canyon tree frog on the way down the creek but that was it for wildlife.

On my way back to camp I met a couple of guys who had been camped up in East Clear Creek and who were on their way back to Phantom Ranch. They had been in the area for a few days and mentioned that there was water flowing over at the falls in Obi Canyon. I was intrigued by this since that had always been completely dry during other visits. I decided it might be a nice side trip during the hike up to Ariel Falls since it was more-or-less on the way.

When I got back to camp it was getting close to lunch time. It was very sunny and getting warm but luckily we had the one campsite that had some junipers to provide a little shade. When we were over at Bright Angel Campground the cottonwoods over there were already fully leaved and provided lots of shade but over here, at Clear Creek, they were just starting to leaf-out and probably had another week or two to go before becoming decent shade trees.

After lunch Rob decided it was time to play some cards. I went along with this for a while but did not really want to spend the rest of the day just sitting around camp. I decided to head up towards Obi Canyon and check out the water flowing over the falls up there. It was another pleasant hike that also brought back some nice memories. When I arrived at the junction of Obi Canyon there was water coming down that way which gave me some hope that there was some water still coming over the falls. The water disappeared and reappeared at several points along the way. The hike up Obi Canyon was nothing like I remembered from past trips and I wondered if that has also flashed at some point recently and changed things around.

When I arrived at the falls there was indeed water flowing over it but it was not a lot of water. It was just flowing down the side of the rock face and there was nothing you could actually get under to get wet. Still the water coming over had formed a nice pool at the base and I decided to take advantage of that to freshen up a bit and have myself a little bath. Unfortunately I did not have a towel with me to dry off and it was very shady and a little chilly up there. I decided that my sweatshirt which was still in my backpack would have to double as towel. I would hang it out to dry when I returned to camp.

On the way back to camp I encountered an early blooming paintbrush with a butterfly perched on it. We had seen several butterflies along the Clear Creek trail on the way over but this one was just begging to have its photo taken.

When I arrived back at camp it was getting close to dinner time so after doing a little camp work I set to working on that. Dinner for the first night had been veggie hot dogs for me which has become a sort of a tradition for these Grand Canyon backpacking trips. I ate three of them the first night and then cooked the remaining three to have for lunch on the way over to Clear Creek. I ended up sharing one of those with Michael since he could not get his sack lunch. Dinner tonight was Pad Thai but it was a two-person serving which ended up being too much. I managed to eat about three quarters of it and the rest ended up in the trash bag and would have to be hiked out.

After dinner Rob got us back into card playing mode which we did until bed time. Bed time in the Canyon comes early and I think we were all in our bags by a little after 8pm.