sunrise on the Tonto Trail

This is the last installment of a 3-day, September backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon on the Grandview – Tonto – South Kaibab Trail loop. I had three days and two nights available for the trip – here’s the itinerary:

9/8/08 – Day 1: Grandview Trailhead to Horseshoe Mesa (3 miles, plus extra exploration mileage)
9/9/08 – Day 2: Horseshoe Mesa to Grapevine Creek (7 miles)
9/10/08 – Day 3: Grapevine Creek to the South Kaibab Trailhead (20 miles)

The reason behind the absurdly long mileage on the last day is simple – Grapevine Creek was the last reliable source on the route, leaving 20 miles with no water. To account for this I placed a two gallon cache near the Tipoff on the South Kaibab Trail prior to this trip.

This third day was all business. I hiked from the vicinity of Boulder Creek out of the canyon to the South Kaibab Trailhead.

Dawn comes to the inner canyon.

Zoroaster’s first light

my camp

tip of the redwal below Lyell Butte

Boulder Creek

The clouds were very nice. Ah, September.

Zoroaster Temple always just begs to be photographed.

With the exception of crossing the drainages, this is about as indistinct as the Tonto Trail gets through here. Sometimes there are old feral burro trails that look similar to this, confusing hikers like myself.

Lonetree Canyon

Cremation Creek

Here’s a cozy, shady refuge as I knew I was getting close to the the Tipoff, the South Kaibab Trail, and relative civiliaztion.

At the time I did not know what these cairns were for, but now I’m quite sure that they must mark the division between the Cremation overnight use area and the main corridor.

At last I reached the outhouse at the Tipoff, with my water cache nearby. One of my gallon jugs had a slit in the upper half as if a raven had been in it, but that was okay – two gallons was overkill anyway.

From here it was the typical, weary slog up to the rim.