Friday May 26, 15.0mi/24.0km

Dog Lake (558.3/8785ft) to Nankoweap Trailhead (572.8/8840ft) (AZ) +0.5mi GPS correction

When we woke up at 6am, we both had frost on our stuff! My tent has a little bit of frost on the side that wasn’t under a tree.

Shadow’s sleeping bag was covered in it, since he had cowboy camped.

It was only 28F/-2C, so we waited until the sun came up over the trees to dry our stuff. The sun hit us at 7am and things melted quickly, and by 8am we were hiking out. The water source nearby was Dog Pond, which was very full of water.

Within 10 minutes, we came to East Rim viewpoint.

It was shocking to see all the way down to the plateau below us, and then the Grand Canyon is entrenched thousands of feet within that. Wild!

I love seeing these AZT signs, someday it would be fun to hike the whole thing, all the way to Mexico.

The trail started off nice and dry…

But every time it went into dense shade, or a north-facing slope, there were some residual patches of snow.

For a brief section, the trail was full of meltwater.

Pretty soon though the tiny stream split from the trail.

I caught up to Shadow at Crystal Spring, which had a shockingly deep concrete well.

The next couple of hours were spent hiking on a gradual uphill following small streams. Sometimes the stream was overflowing and it engulfed the trail.

Tiny patches of snow remained alongside the trail all morning, making everything soggy and wet.

I came to a road just before noon, and this is where the Hayduke splits from the Arizona Trail.

The road was nice and dry, and I joined Shadow (who was already there) for lunch and then a short nap.

The nap was rather accidental, but it felt good in the warm sun. At 12:30 we got moving again, we only had 8 more miles to the end of our planned day. The roadwalk was mostly dry.

It was great seeing all the trees so green, usually it’s so dry in the desert.

I arrived to the end of the road, and the end of our day, at 3pm. It’s quite early but there’s no point in continuing, since the next 10 miles are on a slow & rugged trail with limited camping. The views from Nankoweap Trailhead (Saddle Mountain Trailhead?) were unparalleled.

The Grand Canyon is so deep!

Shadow and I sat on the rim and admired the view for a very long time.

Shockingly, we saw a pickup truck drive by, and the man joined us shortly after. It was shocking because the road he drove was the same road we just hiked, and it was covered in dozens of little snow piles and probably 10 fallen trees. He was out for the holiday weekend, and as a fellow Appalachian hiker himself, knew exactly what we were doing on the Hayduke. His trail name was Enigma, and he offered us cold beer and hot food.

We even had a little campfire in his solo stove, those things are great!

He’s originally from Connecticut but now lives in Phoenix, and had lots of interesting stories to share. And also shared some dessert! Thank you Enigma!

We returned to our tents at 8pm shortly before sunset.

It was neat watching the sun set over the canyon, darkness slowly covering each cliff and valley.

It was an easy 15 mile day today, but the next 5 days will be in the Grand Canyon, and also slower and harder miles. Bring it on!