It took about 40 minutes to get back to the South Kaibab trail and the sun started hitting the trail just before I got there. I took a brief rest to use the facilities and then headed off down the South Kaibab towards the river. It was still shady and cool along that stretch of the trail which made for an easy descent. I was still feeling very good when I reached the river at 7:50. My friends from Ohio were out for a morning walk and I met them on the south side of the river right next to the short tunnel that leads to the Black Bridge and the north side of the river. To my dismay, when I started moving again, I realized that I had spent almost an hour just chatting with them and by the time I reached Phantom Ranch it was already 9:15 and starting to get very warm. I had a huge cup of very cold lemonade from the Phantom cantina, drank plenty of water and topped off all of my bottles before beginning the hike to Clear Creek at 9:30.

The walk up the North Kaibab Trail to its junction with the Clear Creek Trail was easy enough and the start of the Clear Creek Trail was also pretty easy. By the time I reached the Phantom Overlook, however, I was very hot and tired and I took a 10 minute rest. It was 10:15 before I started moving again and it was very, very hot. I still had about 9 miles to go to Clear Creek and this would be during the worst part of the day. I was looking forward to the small patches of shade that I knew I would find as the trail cotours through the Tapeats, before climbing up onto the northern Tonto Platform. I ran into another party that was day hiking part of the Clear Creek Trail. This group was from the Grand Canyon Field Institute and I enjoyed talking with them in the small shady sections that everyone seemed to be seeking out along the way. Their original day hike was supposed to have been up Phantom Canyon but because of the accident up there in the prior week, they decided to do something else instead. Can't say I blame them,

At 11:30 I finished the climb to the top of the Tonto and found a small patch of shade under a very low ledge and had a small snack of some gorp that I picked up at the Phantom cantina. After a very short rest I was moving again and felt pretty good but I wasn't very long before I started to feel tired again and started looking for more shade. There was none so I just kept stopping briefly to suck down some Gookinade and then got moving again. I knew where I would find some shade up ahead and just kept pressing on. I knew that I had plenty of water with me, I drank a lot at Phantom and left there with over a gallon, and I hoped it would be enough to get me to Clear Creek.

At around 1:30 I finally found a spot that had enough shade so that I could sit down and eat something for lunch. I was feeling quite drained alreadt at this point, my feet were very hot, and I was hoping that taking a long rest and getting some food into me would make me feel better. It did and when I started walking again at around 2 pm I felt very refreshed. At 2:30 I rounded Demarey Point and could finally see the Clear Creek area off in the distance. At 3 pm I crossed through the backside of Zoroaster Canyon and figured I was on the "home stretch". At least I knew I would make it to Clear Creek at this point. My feet had felt OK for a while following lunch but they were began to heat up again and I felt some discomfort at the back of my heels. I knew that I did not want to make the descent into Clear Creek with them feeling like that so at around 4 pm I stopped at a nice spot just above the Clear Creek camping area and performed some foot repair. Some of the skin on the back of my heels had rubbed off and although there was no blister they were still very tended. I drank most of my remaining Goodinade and ate some more food before starting to walk again at 4:30. I rounded a couple more side drainages feeding into Clear Creek and finally began the descent just before 5 pm.

The top section of the descent had seen a couple of rockfalls since the last time I had used the trail and there were a couple of places where it was quite dangerous. The problem with this section of the trail is that if you trip or slip you are going to take the shortcut to Clear Creek. The slope that the trail traverses is very steep and there is nothing on it that would stop you or that you could grab hold of before you reached the bottom. In the lower section of the trail there were some areas that were washed out and required a little more care than the rest of the trail. This section of the trail has always been a nightmare, especially when making the descent after hiking all the way from Phantom, or even worse from Cremation. It never seems as bad when you are leaving Clear Creek and hiking out along it and that's probably because you are always fresh and well rested when you do this.

At 5:20 I reached the bed of the western arm of Clear Creek and started walking down along the bed to the camping area. There had obviously been a lot of water flowing down the bed recently as the place was a mess. There was still a trickle of water flowing in places and I knew this was not right as the bed here is usually dry. Apparently Clear Creek had seen some heavier than normal monsoon activity as well and this was confirmed when I finally reached what was left of the camping area. Most of the nice little stone-lined pathways and camping areas were gone. A very fine layer of silt covered everything and most of the campsites had been completely destroyed. Much of the willow and other plant life that grew along the creek was gone and what remained had been flattened as a result of a great deal of water flowing down the creek. It would have been quite a spectacle to witness assuming that you did not get caught up in it and carried away to the Colorado. I managed to find one campsite that was a good distance away from the creek which had not been damaged too much and decided to take that for my own.

Trying to setup the tent was a real challange as there was a very strong wind blowing up the canyon. I tried to do what I could during the short pauses between the gusts and finally managed to get it up. I had to use huge rocks to keep the pegs anchored as the wind kept trying to lift it up. Quiet a bit of sand was also being blown about and it was such a fine grain that it blew right through the screen mesh in the tent and was all over the place inside.

After setting up the tent I decided to take a little stroll down along Clear Creek to check out the conditions. The flood had destroyed or flattened all of the vegetation along the creek which made it a lot easier to get through some places. The "trail" that heads south towards the Colorado River meanders all over the place and can bedifficult to follow in places. Many of the cairns that marked the trail close to the creek bed seem to have been taken out by the flood and so more care than usual is now required. It took about 15 minutes to get down to where East Clear Creek joins with Clear Creek. I did not go any further than that as it was already getting close to sunset. I headed back to my campsite and took a different route which I think was closer to the correct one. The trip down had me climbing high at one point and that just didn't seem right - but it was cairned. On the way back I managed to avoid this section and found a route closer to the creek bed.

By the time I got back to camp the sun had already set and it was heading towards dusk. I was not that hungry and didn't feel like cooking dinner. I had been snacking quite a bit on the trail and didn't feel bad so I didn't think it would be a big deal. I crawled inside the tent and read for a while as I watched evening settle down on Clear Creek. It was a very nice night and again got very cool early in the morning.