Last night was... interesting. It was pretty cloudy when we all went to bed but I remember waking up at one point to an almost clear sky, a very bright moon and a bunch of stars. I drifted off again only to be awakened again some time later by the wind. The sky still had some clear spots but there were clouds rolling in and the wind was just crazy. It was blowing like a hurricane at times and reminded me of a windy night I spent years ago sleeping up next to Saddle Mountain at the Nankoweap trailhead. That was like sleeping under a speeding freight train and this wind was on a par with that. After an hour or so the wind finally died down but now the sky was completely socked in and the rain started. It was more than just the possibly showers that had been in the forecast but at least it was not a drenching rain. Michael and I wrapped ourselves in our tarps and John in his bivisack and I know that Rob was glad he had brought a tent. The rain did not persist for very long either and finally stopped a little before 530am I think.
We were up early again because we wanted to get an early start on the hike out. The morning was cool and cloudy and we were all sort of hoping it would stay that way. There were some showers in the forecast and we just hoped that would not turn into a major rain event.
We started out around 730am and made it up the lower portion of the trail to the top of the switchbacks by 830. That was a significant milestone and a good start since it was most of the climbing we would need to do for the day. Now we just had 8 miles to cover with some lesser ups and downs until we got to the final descent portion at the Phantom Overlook.
The sky was very interesting and the north rim cliffs were shrouded in clouds while it looked like there was some clearing going on over at the south rim. There were a few times during the morning when it would start to shower and had to take our packs off and put our rain jackets on not knowing how long the rain would last. In every case the showers ended almost as soon as we started hiking again or very shortly thereafter. We would hike for a few minutes in rain gear expecting it to start again but it never did and so we would stop, take of the packs, take off the rain jackets, put the packs back on... The Canyon was having its fun with us for sure.
We stopped for lunch a little after noon in Sumner Wash, at a spot I remembered camping at with my wife, Robin, many years ago. We were making good time and it felt good to take a long break.
It took less than an hour after lunch to reach cairns marking the final two miles on the Clear Creek Trail so we only had about 2.5 miles to Phantom Ranch and another half mile or so beyond that to the campground. I could almost taste that ice cold beer at Phantom Ranch. Unfortunately there was some serious storminess on the south rim and heading up canyon in our direction. It looked very dark over there and was probably raining quite heavily but after a time it just faded away and never bothered us at all.
We reached the Phantom Overlook at 230pm and did not stay there long. The cantina at Phantom Ranch was only open until 4pm and we were all dreaming of either ice cold beer or ice cold lemonade, or both. We made excellent time going down that final section of the Clear Creek Trail and then the North Kaibab Trail and arrived at Phantom Ranch right around 315pm. It felt so good to sit down in a real chair again after using rocks for the past several days. And the taste of that beer was fantastic. Michael purchased a sack lunch for the hike out tomorrow. It wasn't until now that he told us he had planned to purchase three sack lunches before heading over to Clear Creek, so he had been very low on food.
We were chased out of the cantina promptly at 4pm but planned to return for the 8pm "beer hall" that evening. We headed down the trail to Bright Angel Campground and even though we were late arrivals we still managed to get a site next to the creek. We set up camp and had dinner and played some card while waiting for 8pm to arrive. A little before 8 we trekked back up to The Ranch and had some more beer and snacks and played some more cards. We did not stay until closing though and headed back to camp around 9pm. We had to be up at 5am to get back to The Ranch for the 530am breakfast and then pack up camp and start the hike back to the rim.
Rob's videos
Morning clouds - Clear Creek Trail
Rob - Clear Creek Trail
Early lunch break - Clear Creek Trail (photo by Rob)
John, Rob and Michael - Clear Creek Trail
Storm heading up canyon, towards us - Clear Creek Trail
Reward for a long day of hiking - Phantom Ranch cantina
