I spent a good deal of time stopping to photograph the wildflowers that were in bloom in Surprise Valley and because of this I probably didn't make as good time along this section of trail as I otherwise would have. The flowers were incredible though and I simply could not resist.

The trail continued upward at a fairly moderate rate as it headed deeper into the valley. This climb took me until around 7:00 at which point I was starting to hit patches of sunlight and shade. The sun still wasn't hot yet so it wasn't bothering me. At 8:00 I reached the junction with the spur trail that leads east to the Thunder River trail. By this time the sun was above the horizon completely and it was starting to get warm. I put on my sweatshirt to protect myself and stuffed my T-shirt under my hat and let it hang down over my neck to protect that. I must have looked like quite the site wandering around the Canyon this way. The section of the trail was fairly flat as it crosses only some rolling hills on its way to Thunder River. At 8:20 I reached the Thunder River trail which also stayed fairly level until it came to a small ridge overlooking the Tapeats area. The view from this ridge was spectacular and I could already here the roar of the water from Thunder River even though I couldn't see it yet. I had made excellent time reaching this point as it still was only 8:50.

The descent to Thunder River was very straightforward You get your first view of Thunder River after only 1/2 or so. The trail is very good and is not that steep, except for a few short sections. The views of Thunder River gushing out of Thunder Cave and cascading to the valley floor are incredible. I stopped frequently just to look at it and take pictures. I still cannot grasp the amount of water that flows out of that cave. The oasis that has formed around Thunder River looked quite appealing from the views along the trail and I could hardly wait to reach it. At around 9:45 I finally did reach it and proceeded to take off my boots and give my feet a well deserved rest. I had made excellent time in spite of all of the stops to gawk and take pictures. Now all I had to do was follow Thunder River and Tapeats Creek down to the Colorado.

After about a 15 minute rest I was on the trail again. The hike down to the Upper Tapeats camping area was pretty easy as the trail seems to be well maintained. It was only about 1/2 mile down and when I got to the camping area I ran into one of the guys that I had met on the rim. When I mentioned that I was all covered up because I had forgotten my sunscreen he offered me some of his - my savior. I took out an empty film canister and proceeded to fill it with sunscreen. Hopefully that would be enough to finish the trip with. I talked with him for a while and asked if he had been down to the river. He claimed to have tried but got to a cliff with no way down. Great! I was hoping that there would be a way down on the west side of Tapeats Creek because it sure didn't look like I was going to get across it. We talked a little longer and then I headed off and said that I might be back if I couldn't get to the river. He claimed that if I didn't come back, he might try for the river again.

A little further down I ran into a river party coming up. This was most promising. Of course river parties are not carrying much in the way of gear when they are up for a day hike but still there must be a way, even if it isn't easy. I stopped and talked with the leader (the guy hiking in Tevas had to be the leader) and asked about the trail. He claimed that it went up and down a lot but that there was no problem getting to the river. He claimed that the last section was the worst as the trail is very high up when it finally reaches the river and proceeds to drop down through a draw to descend very quickly to the beach.

Shortly after that I came to the cliff that the guy from the rim must have been talking about, or least I came to the only point along the route that could be considered a cliff. It was a only really a drop of about 12-15 feet or so but it was pretty tricky getting down, especially with a pack. If it was a straight drop it might have been a little easier but unfortunately there was a very large boulder lodged in the only spot you could really get down and there was only a very narrow opening alongside that. I knew that my pack wouldn't fit so I just took it off, leaned over as far as I could, and dropped it. Scrambling down without the pack was a little tight but not much of a chore. Getting back up again would be more tricky.

After that point the trail was pretty easy to follow. It climbs high into the cliffs along Tapeats five times on the way to the river. The ascents are fairly easy on the way down as they more or less follow contour lines in the rock layers. While I was climbing, however, the creek itself was dropping away on its way to the Colorado. Each ascent tended to get a little higher and when the trail came back down to run alongside the creek for a while it did so with steep, rocky switchbacks. The trail ran along the creek for maybe 1/4 mile or so each time and then started to climb away again. The last descent was the worst of all. The trail went down to the river by way of a steep, narrow, rocky draw. The drop here is probably something like 200-300 feet and it's about 1/4 mile to the beach below. I assume that if I had stayed on the trail that continues to the river I would have been on the route that I was looking for that would take me back to Deer Creek. Next time.

When I finally got down to the beach it was 1:45 and I was positively exhausted. My feet were killing me from those last couple of descents and all I wanted to do was lie down. There was no shade to be found anywhere so I setup my tent and crawled inside. The heat was still quite stifling but at least I was out of the sun. I found that I had no appetite even though I had not had anything to eat since breakfast. This is quite unusual for me so I made lunch and forced myself to eat it. After that I took a short nap and waited for the sun to move behind the cliffs that I had camped next to.

Later that day I explored a little ways up along the beach and climbed up into the rocks to see what I could see. The Lower Tapeats campground was actually on the other side of the creek but I knew there was no way that I was going to be able to get there with the creek running as high as it was. I was hoping to be able to see it at least but it must have been behind some rocks on the other side of the creek. I never saw any sign of the river runners' rafts so I can only conclude that they either returned from their Thunder River hike while I was napping or they were hiking over to Deer Creek and meeting their rafts there. I called it a day pretty early settled down for a nice restful evening. It started to cloud up around sunset so I decided to put my rain fly on just in case. Too bad, I really like being able to see the stars at night. It never did rain.