Were having a late start this morning, everyone is ready to go but we are just hanging out. Its gonna be a long day. First we have to go down the creek to Lava Canyon and from there we start up the Horsethief Route to the Chuar Butte pass.

I didn't sleep so great last night at all. I tried to level it out as best I could but my site was still very lumpy and uneven. I just could not get comfortable in any position.

10:43 - Chuar Creek

We are hanging out near the spring and the old still and waiting out the heat of the day. We are going to stay here until 2:00 or so and then head out cross-country, up and over a ridge and the drop down into Carbon Creek higher up. We will not be continuing down the Chuar Creek drainage as I originally thought we would be.

We are going to have our big meal of the day here and also load up on all of the water we can carry since thee will be no more until we get to Kwagunt Creek which is still a dozen or so miles away from here. We will have a dry camp tonight and should reach Kwagunt some time late in the day tomorrow. We have a small climb of about 400 feet coming up followed by the descent into Carbon and then a 1600 foot climb up to the saddle next to Chuar Butte. The plan is to camp at the next drainage down on the other side of the saddle which is Sixty-Mile Canyon.

It has been a good morning and not very rushed at all. We've covered maybe 2 miles of hiking down along Chuar Creek and it has been beautiful. We stopped to find and look at another archaeological site about a mile or so below last nights camp and then to look for the old still near the spring we are hanging out at now. The ruin was small in comparison to the one we saw yesterday and consisted on only one large room and another small one. We also found a few pottery shards scattered about the area. There really was not much left of the still and it also lay in ruin with just a bunch of rusted hardware scattered around. We spent some time looking for the grinder that was also supposed to be in the area and I found that a little further down the creek bed. The grinder was used to grind the grain (or whatever the moonshiner was using) to make the mash. It had been bolted to an old cottonwood stump and the tree has since grown back and enveloped a good portion of the grinder. It looks pretty cool.

Were just killing time here now and waiting for lunch time. Mike and Chuck are playing with maps and route descriptions and Dave is taking a nap. I think I'm going to try to take a nap as well. I also need to try and drink as much water as possible to super-hydrate myself for the upcoming stretch.

19:07 - Just above Sixty-Mile Canyon

It has been a wicked long and tiring afternoon. We left camp right at 2:00 and headed up and over the ridge and down into Carbon Creek on the other side. Its not quite as easy as it sounds. I actually expected it to take a lot longer but it only took slightly more than an hour. The climb on the Chuar side was a loose and rocky scramble for most of the way but the descent into Carbon on the other side was along a fairly gradual ridge and was not bad at all.

The first section of the Horsethief / Butte Fault Route was pretty easy and we just followed the route/fault/creek bed to the north. After about a mile or so it started to get a lot more difficult though and more climbing and scrambling became involved. A couple of sections were loose and these I really don't care for. We ended up topping out on the saddle just as the sun was setting and from there it was a mad dash down the other side to find a descent camping area before dark. We were hoping to make it to Sixty-Mile Canyon today but we didn't quite make it. We are pretty close though and will get there in no time at all tomorrow morning.

It is really hard to believe that this route was used to bring horses across. Some of it is obviously constructed but other sections... I just don't know. I guess its possible that some of the rougher sections have just deteriorated in the past hundred years or so and are being reclaimed more quickly by the Canyon. The other thing is horses have four legs and we only have two and that probably makes a difference as well.

My foot really didn't bother me too much today and my moleskin actually stayed in place. I'm hoping that it will just get better over the next couple/few days.

Tomorrow night we will be at Kwagunt Creek and that is where we meet the river trip on Wednesday. The trip is winding down. It will be sad to have it end but it will also feel good to get back up on the rim.