Day 56 – 5/8/16
11.2 map / (in a tight canyon, inaccurate and disregarding) GPS miles
837.1 / 910.0 miles total

We went 5 miles by lunchtime and felt really good about our day. That’s what yesterday did to our perspective. Today was just “normal Hayduke nonsense*” instead of yesterday’s special brand of nonsense*.

In the morning we followed a creek bed down a canyon until eventually Tapeats creek joined in. After that there was good use trail along the banks, except when we had to actually walk in the creek. Not just cross from one side to the other, but actually walk in the raging creek. It was only about knee deep, so it wasn’t too bad.

After the large Thunder Creek joined in, we had one final crossing, which again wasn’t too bad. From there we followed Thunder Creek up to its source, which was amazing!! The spring just gushes out of a narrow gash in a cliff face and cascades down hundreds of feet. It sounds exactly like its name says. There was real trail all way to the spring from the Colorado River and we saw a bunch of day hikers, all from rafting trips.

We continued on sweet, sweet real trail over to Deer Creek, where we stopped to play at Deer Spring, another, much tinier, spring gushing out of a rock face.

The end of Deer creek canyon itself was also really cool, a narrow bunch of ledges with waterfalls and such.

Back at the Colorado River, we started a long slog through talus. But we didn’t even really start the slogging yet, for about 1.5 of the 2.5 miles we did along the river so far, we had a decent use trail to follow. Tomorrow’s remaining 5 miles will be all boulder hopping nonsense*.

*we may be using a word other than nonsense