Grand Canyon (Hermit/Slate/Boucher): March 2023

Day 0: Getting there

The weather gods laughed.  The planning-season forecasts had been for a dryer-than-normal La Niña winter, but the reality turned out to be extraordinarily wet.  We ended up cancelling a hike in mid-January due to an incoming storm, and had to make last-minute changes to our plans for the spring break hike at the beginning of March because the road to the trailhead was closed due to snow with another big storm coming in.  Getting to GCNP became a challenge in itself due to various highway and road closures because of the storm.  After discussing various alternatives we decided that it would be best to wait a couple of days for the storm to pass and the roads to be cleared, then show up at the Backcountry Information Center (BIC) and figure out something workable.

Layne, Tom, and I piled into Tom's truck in the morning and headed north.  After a brief gas-and-lunch stop at Flagstaff we drove straight to GCNP and headed to the BIC.  We managed to get a permit for an eight-day trip to Hermit, Boucher, and the Gems.  The drive back to Tom's cabin turned out to be a bit of an adventure because of deep mud from the rain and melting snow on the sparsely-traveled road to his cabin.  

Day 1: Rim to Hermit Rapids

We woke up around 4 and headed out from the cabin around 5:30.  The ground had frozen overnight and was quite firm, and despite the deep ruts from the drive in the previous afternoon we had no trouble getting out.  When we got to the trailhead there was just one other vehicle in the parking lot.  Patches of snow blanketed the ground.  

We put on our Yaktrax before putting on our packs and heading down.  The top section of the trail had a lot of ice and crusty snow, and a bitter chill wind added to the sense of desolation.

The snow thinned as we descended, and we were able to take off our Yaktrax by the time we reached the bottom of the Coconino layer.  There were still the occasional stretches of snow and ice across shady parts of the trail, however, and these needed some care while crossing.  The wind, which the forecast had said would die down by mid-morning, kept up most of the day.  The sky stayed overcast, the colors of the cliffs muted.  

We reached Santa Maria Spring fairly soon, but the Supai traverse after that seemed long.  I was tired by the time we reached Hermit Creek, and the last 1½ miles to Hermit Rapids seemed to take forever; a sore Achilles tendon didn't help.  We finally reached the Rapids around 4; Layne's GPS said we had covered 12 miles.  After the usual camp setup chores. a quick dinner, and a game of chess with Layne, I headed into my tent around 6. 

Day 2: Hermit Rapids to Boucher Creek

We had a relaxed start, rolling out of our sleeping bags around 6:30 and on the trail by 8:30.  For most of the day there was a slight haze; once in a while the sun would break through enough to cast discernible shadows.  The temperature was very pleasant and hiking along the Tonto was pretty straightforward, but I felt tired all day and moved slowly, and the seven miles from Hermit Rapids to Boucher Creek seemed to take forever.  We reached Boucher Creek around 4:30.  I didn't stay up long after dinner.

Day 3: Boucher Creek to Slate Creek

The goal today was to hike over to Slate Canyon, about five flat(ish) Tonto miles away.  We had a leisurely start, getting on the trail around 8:30.  The trail followed Boucher Creek downstream for maybe a quarter of a mile, then turned west at the junction with Topaz Canyon and rose steeply up a rocky hillside until it reached the level of the Tonto Platform and flattened out.

The weather was delightful: the sky was mostly blue and sunny, the temperature pleasantly warm.  The trail wandered along the edge of the Tonto platform for a couple of miles, more or less following the Colorado hundreds of feet below us, then veered into the Slate drainage.  After what felt like a long time, with many of the twists and turns typical of the Tonto, we reached Slate Canyon.  A couple of hikers had set up camp near where the trail crossed Slate Creek, but Layne spotted some great campsites a little further up canyon.  After setting up camp we just sat around and relaxed and enjoyed the afternoon.

We had left the Rim a couple of days ago in what seemed like the depth of winter.  But trees were beginning to bud down at the level of the Tonto, and there were flowers here and there along the trail.  Spring was coming!

Later that night, lying in my tent, I could hear the soft sound of water running down Slate Creek.  It's a modest little stream: where Hermit Rapids roars and Boucher Creek  babbles, Slate murmurs quietly. In the quiet of the night, it's a pleasant and companionable presence. 

Slate Creek

 The creek runs down a wide channel of thick red rock slabs.  Upstream from our camp its modest waterfalls were cheerful but not exuberant; downstream from our camp, just below where the trail crossed the creek bed, the stream plunges down several high pour-offs and the canyon narrows considerably.

Days 4 and 5: Slate Canyon

Slate Canyon camp

I guess neither Tom nor I were feeling in the mood for a lot of hard hiking.  After some discussion, we decided on a slight change of plans: instead of backpacking across the next few Gems canyons, we decided to set up base camp at Slate Canyon and day hike to across to Agate Canyon, about 3½ miles to the west.  

The hike to Agate was pleasant.  The sky was mostly quite overcast, which kept temperatures cool.  The trail climbed gradually out of the Slate drainage, then veered west along the edge of the cliffs to our right, roughly paralleling the Colorado, which was running a thick muddy brown far below us.  The basement cliffs alongside the river seemed different from the black Vishnu schist further east at Boucher or the Inner Gorge: here the cliffs seemed a lot more reddish-brown, with thick ropy intrusions of lighter orange-ish rocks.  As we hiked further west the cliffs became entirely brown.  After a while the trail turned into the Agate drainage and became faint and indistinct, and it took some looking, together with occasional educated guesswork, to figure out where to go.

The hike to Agate Creek

Sunset: Slate Canyon

We reached Agate around 12:30 and had lunch, after which Layne darted up-canyon briefly to explore.  We headed back towards Slate shortly after he returned.  The evening was cooler than previous days, and the low overhanging clouds and chilly breeze made it seem as though there might be rain coming.  Later in the evening, lying in  my tent and listening to the wind gusting outside, flapping the tent's rainfly noisily every so often, I was glad to be warm and snug and comfortable.

The next day (Day 5) was slow and lazy.  After a leisurely start, we headed for a little rock pillar down in the canyon a short distance downstream from our campsite.  We contoured back along the Tonto until we were more or less abreast of it, then scrambled down the steep rocky slope.  The descent wasn't straightforward, but it wasn't terribly difficult either.  Once we got to the pillar and got done taking pictures, we sat around, relaxed, and enjoyed the views, shifting around into sunlight or shade depending on whether we were cool or warm as the sun moved across the sky.  The day had started hazy and overcast, but it cleared by mid-afternoon and we had bright sunlight and clear blue skies.

Eventually we headed back to camp, reversing our way uphill.  A quick dinner, more relaxed and pleasant time hanging out together, a friendly chess game, and then, once Venus had dipped behind the cliffs across the canyon and Orion was faintly visible, it was time for me to head to my tent.

Days 6 and 7: Back to Boucher Creek

The day began on a damp note.  I was in the process of breaking camp and organizing my pack when Layne called out, "It's raining!"  Layne's tent was just a little bit up-canyon from mine, and it took just a moment longer for the rain to reach me.  We hurriedly retreated to our respective tents; breakfast was eaten alone behind the shelter of my rainfly.  Mercifully, the zipper on the rainfly, despite having been temperamental throughout the trip, cooperated and held together.

After a while the rain paused briefly, just long enough to let us pack up camp without getting drenched.  It began raining again as we began hiking back towards Boucher—just a light spatter, but when the breeze blew it felt cold.  The cliffs in the distance ahead of us were lost behind a veil of low clouds and mist.  We wondered, with some worry, what we might be heading into.

Boucher Creek camp

We made good speed across the Tonto.  Encouragingly, the on-again off-again drizzle let up around 11, although the sky stayed dark and gloomy.  We reached the descent from the Tonto into Topaz Canyon a little after that, and were back at Boucher Creek about an hour later.  The place was deserted, and we had our pick of sites.

The rain, which had held off while we set up camp, started up again shortly after we'd had a quick lunch.  The rest of the afternoon was on-again off-again rain showers.  We had just enough time, in between cloudbursts and camp chores, for a quick game of chess (which I lost).  Occasionally the sky would tease us with patches of blue, but thick gray clouds would invariably roll in and the rain would send us back inside our tents.  Later in the evening it grew wildly windy—I was startled awake by the violent shaking of the tent.  We could hear the low freight-train roar of the wind starting up far up the canyon, the descend howling on us, grabbing and shaking the tent hard before moving on.  This went on all night, and didn't make for a restful night's sleep.

The wind eventually died down early the next day (Day 7), but it began raining quite heavily, the sky  covered with thick dark threatening clouds.  I spent a couple of frustrating hours trying to download a weather forecast on my Zoleo.  None of us had any enthusiasm for a long hike over to Monument Creek (which is where our permit had us) in the rain, and eventually we decided to hike out the next day on Boucher; our tentative plan was to hike up and camp overnight by the potholes below Yuma Point, then head to the Rim the last day.

Much of the morning consisted of stretches of heavy rain and strong gusting winds alternating with clear stretches with occasional patches of sunshine.  The rain petered out as the day wore on: there were still plenty of thick dark clouds scudding across the sky above us, but the small patches of blue eventually became bigger, the rainy stretches got shorter, and the dry stretches between them got longer.  

As we were finishing lunch, a hiker who had camped nearby came by and told us breathlessly about an archaeological site a little way up the canyon.  Tom and I had hiked up Boucher Canyon on a previous trip but knew nothing about what seemed to be, from his description, some pretty spectacular ruins—so, of course, we had to investigate.  After some strenuous scrambling we found a site that, while interesting, did not quite live up to the hype.  

The time taken up by this exploration delayed us enough that we had no hope of making it up as far as Yuma Point in daylight.  We decided to stay at Boucher Creek that night and hike all the way to the Rim the following day.  With that detail settled, we sat around and relaxed the rest of the afternoon.  

Thick clouds rolled in again shortly after it got dark, and soon it began to rain in earnest together with fierce tent-shaking gusts of wind.  Our last night at Boucher would be a wet and windy one.

Day 8: Boucher Creek to the Rim

We were on the trail around 7 AM.  The trail climbed steadily and steeply until we got past the Redwall and reached the flat open area by Whites Butte, about 1.7 miles and 2000' of elevation from Boucher Creek.  We stopped briefly for a pleasant lunch break, then shouldered our packs and headed on.

L: Approaching the Redwall Cliffs

R: The crux section in Travertine Canyon

When we were getting our permit at the BIC for this hike, the ranger had casually mentioned a rockfall in Travertine Canyon.  Considering that Boucher is likely the most difficult trail on the South Rim, and Travertine Canyon one of its gnarliest sections, the very fact that she had considered the rockfall worth mentioning seemed ominous.  So, as the trail moved away from Whites Butte and entered Travertine Canyon, I was naturally curious about where we would encounter it and what it would be like.  The rockfall turned out to be right at the crux move in Travertine Canyon: what used to be a (short but not insignificant) hand-and-foot climb had been turned into a steep loose mess of rocks slippery with mud from snowmelt.  The rocks were unstable enough that it didn't seem safe for the three of us to climb through together; instead, Tom went up first while we waited off to the side at the bottom of the climb, then I went up once he was clear, and Layne came up once I was done.  

By mid-afternoon we reached the potholes below Yuma Point and stopped to fill up on water.  Bones from a bighorn skeleton lay on the ground not far from the trail—the fourth set of bighorn sheep remains we had seen on this trip.  

The stretch from Yuma Point to the junction with Hermit Trail was an undulating, and seemingly interminable, traverse along the Supai layer around the east side of Eremita Mesa.  I remember looking up at the Coconino cliffs a short distance above us as we started out on this stretch; an hour or so later they were still just as far away.  There's actually a net loss of elevation of about 150' over this 2.5 mile stretch, dropping from 5430' at Yuma Point to 5280' at the trail junction, though the ups and downs of the trail add up to quite a bit more of total elevation change (Caltopo claims +450' -660').  I think this stretch of the trail feels especially long and tedious coming up Boucher because by that time one is tired and ready to be done with the hike.

The final leg, from the Hermit Trail junction to the Rim, was about 2.7 miles and 1360' of elevation: modest, especially by Grand Canyon standards, but we were tired and it felt like a lot work.  Layne had gone ahead of us, and we eventually found him waiting by the side of the trail talking to a group of day hikers.  The last stretch of trail went slowly.  The sun was setting as we reached the trailhead at around 6:30 PM.

More pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/D5o2CstLN1AYeKqU8

Grand Teton National Park: July 2022

I had wanted to explore Grand Teton National Park in depth ever since my first visit there several years ago.  I finally got a chance to do that in July 2022, when Herman, Nancy, and I spent five nights (six days) backpacking the GTNP backcountry: starting at Death Canyon trailhead we went up Open Canyon to Marion Lake and Fox Creek Pass, spent a night on Death Canyon Shelf with a day hike to Alaska Basin, then came back down Death Canyon.  It was an amazing and unforgettable experience.

Jackson Lake

We drove up from Tucson over 1½ days, arriving at GTNP around noon the day before the hike (detouring briefly to check out the trailhead parking situation), settled logistics (campsite for the night, wilderness permit) had lunch, took a short hike around Jackson Lake.  Later, after dinner, we went to a Ranger Talk.  It was a pleasant and relaxing day, and I was excited about our upcoming hike.

Day 1: Death Canyon Trailhead to Open Canyon

Phelps Lake

We broke camp and headed out to the trailhead around 7am.  The drive to Death Canyon Trailhead—the last stretch slow over a rough dirt road—took about 1½ hours.  A little bit of excitement along the way: making our way up the dirt road, we came across a small clot of stopped cars and excited people gesticulating by the side of the road ... I hopped out to see what the fuss was about, saw the silhouette of a large bear maybe thirty or forty feet away, hurriedly jumped back into the car and exhorted Herman to get the heck out of there (I didn't hear anything afterwards about any problematic bear encounter there, so I assume everything was OK, but I wasn't planning on staying around to find out).

Starting at an elevation of about 6700′, the trail climbs about 400′ over the first mile to an overlook above Phelps Lake, then drops back down to the lake.  We worked our way across the network of trails and trail junctions near the lake to get to Open Canyon Trail.  The trail began climbing almost immediately,  the combination of altitude, steepness, and pack weight leaving us huffing and puffing.  The hillside was covered in wildflowers: red paintbrush, blue lupine, and lots of yellows and whites I didn't know the names of.  The bushes were so thick in some places that the trail seemed just a narrow slot cut into a wall of green.  The vegetation changed as we climbed higher: the oaks at lower elevations gave way to pines and fir, and the trailsides were thick with white columbines.  The thick forest made for a shady hike but also limited our views.

Open Canyon Trail, above Phelps Lake 

I hadn't known what to expect in terms of campsites.  I thought we might see something roughly akin to Yellowstone, where camp sites are localized and well-defined, each with its own cooking area and bear hang; Grand Teton, on the other hand, has camping zones that stretch for miles, indicated by small signs at each end, with individual campsites (no bear hangs) interspersed sporadically.  Open Canyon, which we were going up and which doesn't get a lot of hiker traffic, had only a few widely separated and unmarked campsites—basically, small flat bare patches of ground off the side of the trail (the more popular Death Canyon, which we came down a few days later, had many more sites, each labeled with a little sign).  We reached our campsite around 1 PM.  It was at an elevation of about 8,400′, meaning that we had hiked a little under six miles with an elevation gain of about 2,400′—a decent but not epic day's hike, though we were tired from the altitude and the warmth of the day.  Although it wasn't far from the trail, the tall pine trees surrounding the campsite gave us plenty of shade and seclusion.  A small but energetic creek burbled down the hillside just a few dozen yards away.  It was delightful.

Open Canyon

The afternoon was quiet and pleasant, the only minor issue being the abundance of flies buzzing around everywhere.  Herman tried to get us to play low-tech Wordle, with mixed success (I had trouble remembering letters).  At one point we heard a loud drumming and saw a big deer go running down the hillside by the creek.  We fully expected to see a bear or mountain lion in pursuit, but there was nothing. Not long after dinner I headed into my tent—summer days are long this far north, and it was still quite bright out, but I was tired.  The rushing sound of the creek made for a wonderful and relaxing backdrop, and I wasn't awake for long.  

The day had been sunny and warm, but a few clouds rolled in later in the afternoon and at one point gave us a few brief drops of rain.  I had expected cool temperatures at that elevation, but the clouds kept it surprisingly warm, with a short sprinkle of rain a little before dawn.

Day 2: Open Canyon to Granite/Mt. Hunt Camping Zone

I woke up to a loud chorus of bird calls, none of which I recognized.  We broke camp after a leisurely breakfast and were on the trail a little before 8:30.  The trail rose gradually for a little while, following the side of the canyon with the creek a couple of hundred feet of steep hillside below, before turning away and heading steeply uphill.  After climbing steadily (and steeply) for a while the steepness eased a bit, the forest opened up, and we were treated to beautiful views of Phelps Lake and Snake River.

The vegetation thinned and the terrain turned increasingly rocky as we approached Mt. Hunt Divide (about 9,700'), and there were patches of snow on the ground.  Going over the saddle at Mt. Hunt Divide was very cool (also literally).  After a short break, we headed downhill on the other side of the saddle.  Mt. Hunt rose steeply to our right, and the trail was littered with rocks that had rolled down from its side, needing some care to avoid slipping or rolling an ankle.

Approaching Mt. Hunt Divide

As we dropped lower the trail gradually softened to a pine-needle-covered forest trail.  Entire hillsides were covered with brilliant yellow flowers.  It was very pleasant hiking.  The sky clouded up with dark grey clouds as we hiked down, and there was a brief sprinkle of rain that soon stopped.  Eventually we found a nice campsite.  It was early afternoon and we still had a fair bit of day left, but we were in the camping zone on our permit for that night, there was water nearby, and we didn't know how far the next campsite would be, so we decided to stop and set up camp.

It was very breezy all afternoon.  The skies had cleared, and the warm sunshine and scudding clouds made a beautiful backdrop to the wildflower-covered hillsides.  But once the sun dropped below the high ridges surrounding us, the temperature dropped quickly and the wind felt cold.  We had an early dinner and I was in my tent by 7 pm.

Day 3: Granite/Mt. Hunt to Fox Creek

We were on the trail a few minutes after 8.  The trail climbed gently for a while (though even the gentle slope left me out of breath fairly quickly due to the altitude), then began to descend steeply into Granite Canyon.  We paused briefly at the junction with Granite Canyon Trail, then headed uphill again; Marion Lake was just 1.6 miles and about 900 vertical feet away. 

While the streams in Open Canyon all had bridges across them, the creek crossings in Granite Canyon (at least the ones we encountered) were "real": they needed the hiker to actually step into the creek to cross.  Interestingly, this made the hike feel a little more "authentic" somehow, despite the potential for wet feet.  As it happened. the streams we encountered were all quite shallow and easy to step across—nothing like the creek crossings in Yellowstone—and in the end getting wet wasn't really a problem.  

Marion Lake was a stunning little blue-green jewel nestled among steep rocky hillsides.  As we enjoyed the view over lunch, we in turn were checked out by a couple of marmots and one very bold and inquisitive chipmunk.  A troop of Boy Scouts from Tennessee came up while we were sitting there, which was pretty cool.

Marion Lake

After a short lunch break we continued north towards Fox Creek.  We had to go up a short steep uphill stretch of maybe a couple of hundred vertical feet, but the altitude made it slow going and we had to stop fairly frequently to catch our breath.  Eventually the trail flattened out and the going got a lot easier.  We were now on the Teton Crest Trail (TCT) proper, and it was quite a bit busier than it had been coming up Open Canyon and Granite Canyon.

Marion Lake to Fox Creek

Bug net
(note hovering mosquito)

We reached the junction of TCT and Fox Creek Trail in the early afternoon and made camp at a secluded little spot just a few hundred yards down from the trail.  At an elevation of 9300′ this was our highest camp so far.  The bugs were absolutely ferocious—lots of buzzing flies at first, replaced by swarms of mosquitoes as the day wore down.  Even our clothes and bug nets weren't enough to fully protect us!  Eventually we dived into our tents around 7 PM, even though it was still bright and sunny, just to get away from the mosquitoes.  Of course a bunch of them managed to get into the tent in the process, so there was a bug-killing spree before settling in.  Once that was done and I was lying on my sleeping pad, I could see dozens of mosquitoes flying around the mesh inner wall of the tent, looking for a way in.

I woke up once during the night, around 3 AM, and went outside.  There was a small half-moon and a pretty display of stars, a pleasant change from the previous two nights when tall trees all around the camp had blotted out much of the sky.  It was surprisingly mild, maybe around 40°F, with a cool pleasant breeze—not quite what I had expected given the elevation.

Day 4: Fox Creek to Death Canyon Shelf

Snow plant

The day began with a pleasant surprise.  As on previous days, we were up at 6 and aiming to be on the trail by 8.  We were sitting around having breakfast when a deer with a large head of antlers came by our campsite.  It stopped and looked at us for a moment before running up the next hillside.

It was a short uphill walk from Fox Creek to Death Canyon Shelf.  We had decided earlier to day hike over to Alaska Basin and then backtrack and go down Death Canyon the next day, so it didn't make sense to carry our packs very far.  We found a nice little campsite at the very edge of the shelf, right above a steep drop into Death Canyon far below us, and after a short discussion about whether it would be safe to leave our packs unattended (the marmots seemed active) we dropped our packs and headed out north towards Alaska Basin.

Death Canyon Shelf is a narrow flat-ish strip of land with a sheer 600′ wall of rock one side and a near-vertical 800′ drop down to Death Canyon on the other.  The trail wanders across the shelf for about four miles before dropping down into Alaska Basin (which lies outside the national park boundary).  On our right (to the east), far below us, is Death Canyon, brilliant green in summer foliage, with the thin thread of Death Canyon Creek meandering across the canyon floor.  Across the way the other wall of the canyon rises up, though not quite as steeply, with bright white patches of snow scattered here and there.  At this elevation, the vegetation consists mostly of low shrubs with a few scattered clumps of trees.  This makes for gorgeous expansive vistas, but means also that the trail is exposed to the sun with little in the way of shade.

Death Canyon Shelf

Disappearing flow

One curiosity of Death Canyon Shelf is that, at many places, a burbling creek coming on the uphill side—very likely snowmelt—simply disappears into the ground as it approaches the trail; there is no corresponding flow of water on the other side of the trail.  That is a lot of water to just disappear, so I guess it must emerge as springs flowing into Death Canyon below us.  There must be a really interesting maze of underground flows below the Shelf!  

The hike across Death Canyon Shelf, without the weight of a pack and with no steep slopes to huff up, was delightful.  The sky was cloudless and blue, the sun pleasantly warm, the temperature perfect.  The trail was relatively busy, with lots of hikers, most of them heading to Alaska Basin.  The only critters we saw were a few marmots, who seemed curious about us but also skittish.

The trail across Alaska Basin led to Basin Lakes, and as we got closer it was clear that there were quite a few hikers milling around the lakes.  Nancy and Herman decided to hike on to the lakes, but I didn't want to deal with crowds, and chose to veer off towards a waterfall I had noticed on the South Fork of Teton Creek.  It was beautiful, just a short and easy walk from the trail, tucked away behind a small rise that made it hard to see from the trail, and to my delight I had it all to myself.  I had lunch with the roar of rushing water drowning out all other sounds, then wandered back to meet Nancy and Herman.  We hiked back to our campsite (the wildflowers were very distracting, and I detoured frequently to take pictures), set up camp, had dinner, and headed into our tents around 8.

Alaska Basin

Day 5: Death Canyon Shelf to Death Canyon

The day began with a close encounter with a marmot.  I was standing next to a large boulder cleaning dirt off my trowel when a big fat marmot walked around from the other side of the boulder not five feet from me.  It stared at this unfamiliar addition to its landscape for a long time, occasionally tilting its head this way and that.  After a while of standing still and staring at each other, I went back to my tent and came back with my camera, and it was still at almost the same place.  It was clearly alert and aware of me, but unafraid, and let me tiptoe quite close to it to take pictures.  We saw several other marmots on our way to Death Canyon.  One sat and posed for us for quite a while, holding a flower in its mouth as though it was going to a dance, before suddenly letting out a loud piercing "Eep!" and diving down a hole between rocks.

The trail leading down into Death Canyon dropped about 800′ down a large steep open expanse bursting with many different kinds of wildflowers.  The trail was not steep, but it had a good amount of elevation to lose and not a lot of distance to do it in, so it zigzagged busily through the field of flowers.  In many places the vegetation was so thick that it made it hard to see the trail, which looked like a narrow slot cut through a sea of intense green.  Every so often we'd catch a whiff of the fragrance of some wildflower.  The trail flattened out as we got down into Death Canyon proper and the open landscape transitioned to dense forests of pine and fir.  There were still lots of wildflowers, but not as showy and not in the riotous variety of the open fields. 

Wildflowers: Upper Death Canyon

Death Canyon seemed to be set up to accommodate more hiker traffic than the ones we had gone up (Open Canyon and Granite Canyon).  There were many more campsites, each labeled with a neat little metal sign that said "Campsite".  Creek crossings had sturdy wide log bridges across them, sometimes with extra split logs lying nearby to allow quick repairs.  In at least one place there was even a sign pointing towards the bridge so that people wouldn't get lost.

The hiking was easy at this point and we covered ground more quickly than we had expected: the "Leaving Death Canyon camping zone" sign took us by surprise.  We could probably have made it to out all the way to the trailhead, but since we didn't have a campground reservation for the night and in any case the quiet seclusion of the forest seemed more appealing, we backtracked and claimed a campsite.  It was still early in the day, so we just put our packs down and started on various camp chores.  A marmot showed up almost immediately and proceeded to nose around, wandering around surprisingly boldly and nonchalantly even though we were sitting right there.  Eventually Herman yelled at it and threw a stick at it to chase it off.  This must have hurt its feelings, because it didn't show up again after that.

Death Canyon marmots

Mosquitoes on tent mesh

As the afternoon wore on the mosquitoes rose up in dense swarms, diving on us determinedly and trying to find any way they could to get through to skin.  Even with our bug nets on, it got so bad that, once we'd had dinner, we didn't stay out in the open very long.  As I lay in my tent, I could see a whole horde of mosquitoes sitting on the mesh inner wall of my tent, eyeing me hungrily.

Day 6: Death Canyon to the trailhead

The trail out of Death Canyon mostly followed the creek, passing through thickly forested terrain at first, then opening up as we dropped lower.  It had a gentle grade and made for pleasant and easy hiking.

After about a mile of hiking, as we approached the junction with Alaska Basin Trail, a storm began brewing.  Expecting a drenching, we stopped to put on our rain gear.  But the storm blew by quickly, and we got only a brief cloudburst.  As it happened, that was the heaviest rain we had for the entirety of our hike.

There is a cabin at the trail junction where park employees working on the trail can stay.  We stopped outside the cabin to put away our rain gear.  One of the people staying there came out and chatted with us for a while.  It was interesting to get a perspective on the place from a non-tourist.

Death Canyon

The canyon opened up quickly below the trail junction.  On our left was a high wall of rocks; on our right the creek, thundering down in a rush of foaming white water; beyond the creek were huge vertical cliffs rising up to the sky.  It was majestic.  Eventually we reached the junction with the trail that went down towards Phelps Lake, which we had taken almost a week ago when we were headed up towards Open Canyon.  This time we headed the other way, up the hill towards the Phelps Lake overlook and then down to the trailhead.  

Epilogue

I had never backpacked this sort of terrain before this—in terms of elevation, the steep slopes, the likelihood of summer thunderstorms, the possibility of residual snow or ice making the trail treacherous—and didn't quite know what to expect.  We ended up being more cautious and conservative than we needed to be, with hiking distances of about five to six miles a day and elevation changes of around 1,500 to 2,500 feet.  The trail ended up being easier than I had expected (maybe I was unconsciously planning for Grand Canyon terrain): we typically started out on the trail at around 8 AM and stopped around 1 PM.  We could certainly have planned a more ambitious hike with longer distances.  On the other hand, given the campsites on our permit, a more ambitious hike really wouldn't have gotten us further, and it was really quite pleasant to have half the day to relax and enjoy our time there.

I had a surprising amount of gear problems on this hike, though thankfully they were resolved before we hit the trail.  I somehow managed to forget to put my hiking poles into Herman's car when we were starting out; we fixed this by stopping and picking up a pair in Flagstaff.  Then, at Colter Bay campground the evening before our hike, I discovered that my headlamp wouldn't turn on; this necessitated a walk to a nearby camping store.  Although both issues were discovered and fixed before the hike itself, and there were no problems on the trail, they still suggest a lack of care in planning that I find bothersome.  I'll have to do better on the next hike, whenever and wherever that is.

All in all, having six days in that gorgeous landscape was the treat of a lifetime.  I have to go back again.

More pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DM7YuwyamLUvkHFQ7