It has been a long day. We were awaked by Chuck at the crack of dawn again but I was already awake so it was fine by me. I did not sleep well at all last night and it seemed to take forever to get to sleep. I doubt I slept for more than 4 hours out of the 10 that I was in the bag. I am looking forward to sleeping in a real bed tonight.

The early morning hike up Indian Hollow Canyon was easy and we made consistent and steady progress towards the Coconino break. There were some slightly brushy spots along the route but nothing major. There is just tons and tons of sagebrush growing along the full length of the Indian Hollow Canyon and that was the predominant smell for the day, which is good because without that we all probably smell pretty bad.

We reached the base of the Coconino around 10:30 or so after leaving camp at 7:30. We spent the next couple of hours slowly working our way up through the Coconino cliffs through a series of climbs and pack hauls. We did two of the more difficult climbs before lunch and then had lunch just below the last one.

Once through the last cliffs we were still not out of the Coconino though and it seems to go on forever in the section of the Canyon. We were still in it for a few hours after that last climb as Indian Hollow Canyon meandered its way slowly towards the rim. I don't even remember when we reached the Kaibab (Chuck said there was no Toroweap here) and all of a sudden Mike just stopped and turned and shook all of our hands and thanked us for joining him on the hike. We were at the junction of the trail that leads from the parking area to the trailhead for the Thunder River Trail and it was 3:20 pm.

It only took a few minutes to get to the vehicles from there and after spending some time unloading gear, packing up the trucks, having an ice cold beer, saying our good-byes to Bolek... we took off and headed for dinner back at the Vermillion Cliffs Cafe. We all had the same thing for dinner, a full-slab of baby back ribs, and there were absolutely the best I have ever had.

Mike and I got back to the house around 9:30 and I took a shower while uploading photos to the laptop and now I am ready to crash.