Up at 4:15 again, I was beginning to like this. I was packed up, out of camp and on the trail by 5:20. I shortly discovered that I was not completely out of Turquoise Canyon yet, and still had a little further to go along the eastern side.

At 5:55 I started into Sapphire Canyon and reached the stream crossing at the backside at 6:20. There was a nice healthy flow coming down the creek and all I was going to go was refill my small water bottle so I could taste it. I did have an empty two liter bottle, along with two full ones from Elves Chasm and Serpentine, but decided that I would wait until Slate Canyon to refill that. I should not need any more water for the day and could do without carrying the extra four pounds. I ate some breakfast first: Slim Jim, Chex Snack Mix and Gookinade. After that decided against filling the water bottles it didn't seem worth the effort to get the filter out just for that. I wanted to get moving anyway. At 6:40 I started out of Sapphire and at 7:15 I was back out on the Tonto. The trail was a bit difficult to follow on the east side of Sapphire and I lost it a couple of times.

I started heading over towards Agate Canyon and took another short rest just before heading into that at 7:40. Agate is a wide canyon with many drainages to cross. I didn't see water in any of them and the whole place looked very dry. I did discover a neat Bighorn skull that someone had placed up on top of a boulder in place of a cairn to mark the trail. It was taking a long time to get across Agate and I took another short, 5-minute rest on the east side, which was still in the shade. I finally got out at 8:55 and began the slow, hot, torturous contour around Geckie Peak. The east side of Agate and the contour around Geckie Peak also had some sections of trail that were a bit difficult to follow.

The morning was warming up by now and there were no clouds in the sky yet so it looked like it was going to be a hot one. The heel of my right foot, that had the skin scraped off of it, began giving me problems late in the day yesterday and it was starting to feel a little uncomfortable now. I found one of the few remaining shady spots at 9:40 and took a rest break to change film in the camera as well as check the foot. It felt good just to get the boot off for a while but I really couldn't see what more I could do to protect the sore spot.

I started moving again at 10:00 and finally reached the west side of Slate Canyon at 10:55. It looked very deep, very hot and very dry. I kept looking for the expected water as I approached the back side but there was none to be seen. As I approached the spot where the trail crosses the creek I could still not see any water but when I finally reached it at 11:35 I heard water flowing a little above the trail. It was not flowing fast but it was better than a trickle. It was flowing over a small ledge and there were no pools so I used a pot from my mess kit to collect the water and then filtered out of that and into my bottles. This water tasted pretty good and it was probably the best I had found since leaving Elves Chasm. There a slightly discernible bitter aftertaste but nothing like the other water I had been drinking for the past few days.

After filling the water bottles, sucking down about a liter of water and then topping them off again, I hunted down a shady spot to take a good long rest and eat my lunch. I decided against camping in Slate and also to skip the planned day hike down to Crystal Rapids. It was hot up here and it would be much worse down inside Slate and my foot didn't need the extra walking. I really needed to take it easy today to get ready to start the hike out tomorrow. I was lucky in that the shady spot I found for lunch seemed to be attracting a very cool breeze. I took my boots and socks off and gave my feet a good rest. I shouldn't have much further to go today and was planning to shoot for the boundary of the Slate and Boucher Use Areas, in front of Marsh Butte, for my camp tonight. That would make for a fairly easy day tomorrow assuming I was just going up to Whites Butte or further on to below Yuma Point. And besides, I really preferred camping out on the wide-open Tonto Platform much more than the side canyons. You can see a lot more of the sky at night out there and the sunsets and sunrises are glorious.

But then there was the air traffic. I don't know how I could have forgotten about it. I hadn't heard any airplanes or helicopters during the first 6 days of the trip but now that I was in Slate Canyon I was in the Dragon Corridor and they were out in full force. I really did not relish the idea of staying here any longer that I had to and began toying with the idea of hiking all the way back out to the rim tomorrow. That would make for a very long day but it should be possible. I would just have to wait and see how I felt and take it literally one step at a time.

Anyway, lunch consisted of canned chicken, mayonnaise, tortillas, snack mix and plenty of water. I knew that I would be able to get water at Boucher Creek tomorrow for the hike out so I could drink as much as I wanted today. After lunch I was just sitting there in the shade, watching and listening to all of the birds that were in Slate Canyon, and updating the notes in my log book, when all of a sudden it sounded like a 747 had just taken off from Grand Canyon airport. The roar down in Slate Canyon was deafening and all I could think of was that it was like living next to a major metropolitan airport, the Grand Canyon should not be this way. Anyway some the birds seemed to be enjoying the little waterfall that I had just used to get water for my water bottles. One would occasionally fly up under it, splash around in the little puddle beneath it for a while, and then fly away. I saw this repeated many times while I was sitting there watching.

I hung out there until after 2:00 and finally headed out at 2:10. I felt very rested and the feet felt pretty good as well. Some clouds had finally started to build and I was glad for the extra relief that they would give from the sun. It took over and hour-and-a-half to get out of Slate and I reached the end of the east side at 3:45. The east side of Slate is covered with a couple of good sized rock falls which are very time consuming to cross. The trail tends to go right through them and there and lots of little ups and downs along the way as you negotiate the little drainages that have formed throughout these rockfalls. They must be quite old.

I had trouble finding a flat place to camp and it took some time but I finally found what I though was a good spot just west of the little drainage in front of Marsh Butte. There were also some small cliffs that had some late afternoon shade, a little way further up on the Tonto slope, and I thought that they would make a good place to wait out the afternoon. I dumped my pack on the ground, took my camera, map, binoculars and book and headed up to the cliffs to get out of the sun. I was hoping that the shadow from Marsh Butte would cover my camping area in a couple of hours and then I would return and setup camp.

I only managed to stay at the cliffs for about 30 minutes before the bugs drove me away. There were lots of these little tiny bugs that almost seemed like black flies except that they didn't fly much and they didn't bite. They were all over me, however, and quite annoying. There were also a fair number of mosquitoes up there as well and they were biting. When I returned to my pack I found it covered with ants and discovered a nest under one of the bushes off to the side of my campsite. I decided that this would not work for a campsite and after brushing off all of the ant I picked up the pack and continued east in search of a better site. I still had a mile or maybe a little more to play with before I got to the Use Area boundary.

After about 20-30 minutes of walking and searching I found a good spot on some cliffs above the river on the other side of the drainage that comes down from Marsh Butte. At this point I was just a little west of the Use Area boundary and the site was perfect, the hike into Boucher Creek from here would be a breeze. The only problem was that the ground was solid rock and there was no way to get my tent pegs into it. Luckily there were plenty of large rocks in the area to use as anchor stones. A slight breeze made it a little difficult to get the tent up but I did get it up.

It was about 5:30 when I started dinner, which tonight was Lipton Pasta & Sauce, Creamy Garlic flavor. This one was not too bad and I managed to finish the whole thing no problem. I just love garlic. I had plenty of coffee left since I had not been cooking breakfast and so I had a couple of cups of that as well. The clouds that had started to form later in the afternoon never amounted to anything and it looked like it was going to be another nice clear night. The moon was out as well and was very close to First Quarter. By 6:30 I was finished with dinner and all cleaned up but not the slightest bit tired. I crawled into the tent and just read for a while as I watched night fall, the moon set and the stars come out. It was a wonderful evening and very cool. I actually had to crawl into the sleeping bag before going to sleep which was unusual for this trip. It was probably the best night of sleep that I had on the entire trip, except for maybe that first night at Bass Rapids.