First day of Autumn. I got up at 3:45 and packed up camp using my flashlight. I had a quick breakfast of water and Peanut M&Ms and I was on the trail at 4:30. There was still quite a bit of light from the last quarter Moon and I only had to use the flashlight for some of the shaded sections. It was very interesting hiking along the River Trail under moonlight but somewhat eerie at times as well. While gazing up at the moon and the stars and the beginnings of the dawn some lines from a song managed to get themselves stuck in my head and I could not get rid of them. The words were extremely familiar but I could not for the life of me remember where they came from and they haunted me for quite a while before I finally did:
The stars are fading quietly
The night is nearly gone
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I know now that the lines are from Goodbye Again, from John Denver's Rocky Mountain High album. How appropriate!
A couple of time I thought I saw a flashlight on the trail ahead of me but it would just be for a brief instance and I wondered how anyone could be on the trail ahead of me. At 5:30 I reached the river resthouse and encountered a party of four women who had apparently had the same idea as me. They had been staying at Phantom Ranch and wanted to get an early start. They had also packed up a bunch of their gear, combined it and arranged to have it carried out by mule. I hoped that I would never get to the point where I would need to resort to that myself.
I soaked my shirt in the creek to keep me cool for the long climb that was ahead and headed out. A 20 minute walk had me at the bottom of the Devil's Corkscrew and at 6:30 I was on top. The walk from there to Indian Gardens was a breeze and I arrived around 7 am. The morning had been beautiful for the hike and the Canyon was just starting to light up. Indian Gardens was desserted and there was not a sole in sight. I rested for a while, drank some Gookinade and ate some trail mix. While I was eating I encountered the first people heading into the Canyon from the rim and wondered what time they had started down.
At 7:20 I left Indian Gardens and at 8:10 I arrived at the 3-Mile Resthouse. I met a really nice couple there who were in there early 70s and the woman had just taken up backpacking. Apparently her hushand had done some on his own and just now had convinced her to give it a try. This was her first overnight trip and they had hiked down to Indian Gardens the day before. We all drank water and snacked on trail mix as we talked about the Canyon and hiking. They seemed to be doing fine and I hoped that I would still be doing this when I reached my golden years.
At 8:30 I said goodbye and continued the trek to the rim. At 9:20 I reached the 1 1/2-Mile Resthouse and finished off my trail mix. At 9:35 I was on the trail again and at 10:30 I passed through the last tunnel, less than 1/4 mile from the rim. A group of people had stopped here to look at some Desert Bighorn that were out on the edge of one of the cliffs and a little girl was complaining to her mother that she could not see them. I took out my binoculars out of my backpack and let her borrow them. She was so happy when she finally found them that it really made my day.
After reaching the rim I headed for the Maswik Transportation Center, where I had left the car. Once there I changed into some clean clothes and boy, did that feel good. I then headed over to Maswik Lodge and to my surprise they actually had a room ready and let me check-in. After a nice hot and long shower I felt completely refreshed and headed over to the cafeteria for the first real food in almost a week. The trip was over and I had completed everything that I had set out to do even if it wasn't the original trip that I had set out to do. C'est la vie.
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