Wednesday, October 11, 2023 - 130pm
I am at my Palisades Creek camp, and arrived here just a little before 12noon. I had a nice relaxing morning and left Tanner at 850am, so it took just around three hours. The GPS says 3.7 miles and I figured about 4 miles. The cliffy section at the south end took about 45 minutes to get through and the trail was mostly pretty easy after that. The trail can be a little difficult to follow in places. I stopped a lot for photos. I am going to allow three hours to get back to Tanner on Friday morning but I hope it does not take quite that long. I am planning to leave here at 5am so hopefully I will get there by 8am. Everything should still be in shade. The first hour will be dark so hopefully I can follow the trail with a headlamp. I want it to be daylight before I get back to the cliffy section.
I have filtered water and made lunch but have not setup camp yet. I want to explore a bit and see if I want to stay here or if there is a better site somewhere else. Access to the river from here is a little tricky.
I want to find where the Beamer Trail climbs out of here too before it gets dark.
I took a couple of short rest breaks coming over here, one pack off and one pack on. Less than 30 minutes total.
415pm
I did not find any better campsites. I went downriver and then up but what I have seems to be about the best there is. There is a nice beach just a little to the north of here but I could not find anyway to get to it. There is a dense growth of mesquite and willow along the shore that seems to be impenetrable. I also scouted out the Beamer Trail to where it climbs up the cliffs to the north on the way to the Little Colorado. I did not go up because I was still only in my camp shoes. I will head up there tonight after dinner to see if I can get some Milky Way shots with the river in the foreground. I took some shots last night from Tanner. Hopefully I can get something with the river in them tonight. I need to have an early dinner tonight to get ready for that.
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