…looking south from the Tonto Trail at Horseshoe Mesa.

I always comment again and again at the scale of the Grand Canyon. From the rim, this feature looks like just another bump in the pretty view – but from here, it’s downright mountainous.

The sky was overcast and gloomy, so all of the exposures came out either unnaturally bright, or unnaturally dark, naturally.

That’s the Hance Creek canyon, directly behind this barrel cactus. A light rain fell, so I put the camera away. I was frustrated with the light anyway.

This is the entrance to the Last Chance Mine – the crown jewel of Pete Berry’s short-lived copper operations in the early 1900s, and reason behind the very existence of the Grandview Trail. Hauling ore out of the canyon on muleback did not prove to be very profitable, despite its high quality grade.

This sign prohibits exploration of the mine because of three very good reasons:
1 – a sensitive population of bats, particularly nesting Townsends Big-eared bats.
2 – vertical shafts, and the unsafe nature of a 100-year-old man-made hole in the ground.
3 – radioactive radon gas, the by-product of decaying uranium. Yum! Where can I get me some more of that? I’m a time bomb, baby…

Amazing! The Giant-King-of-Grand-Canyon-Rock-Squirrels sqeezed out of the shaft, and said “Greetings, hiker. In exchange for that Reese’s Fast Break candy bar, I’ll take your camera a few steps inside this here mine shaft and take a few photos for you.”

Now, under normal conditons I would never intentionally feed any wildlife. But in this case, I was really left with no choice. This thing was bigger than an elk! And the teeth! Big, nasty, pointy teeth!

At Hance Creek I filled up with enough water to last me through the night and into the next day to get to Grapevine Creek (Two gallons!), and chatted with a solo hiker who was there for the night. It was his return hike to the Grand Canyon after a heart attack last winter.

Hance Creek

With darkness approaching, I skipped this little side trail to Page Spring. Oh well, another exploration for another time.

steep, exposed trail on the east side of Horseshoe Mesa

These are the final shots I took before dark, as I approached camp.
There was no sunset.

It felt as though I was all alone on the mesa, though I thought (Or imagined?) that I heard two voices in the direction of the group campsites.