17 miles, 10 hours

The trail continued to be lovely starting out today, heading south on the winding, pine needle-covered Under the Rim Trail. But as we got further south and even more remote the trail became more rugged with numerous down trees every mile, and thicker and longer patches of snow with our gaining elevation. Soon we were struggling for every mile, all the while the winds were building to a wild rage. We couldn’t keep our hats on for anything and we couldn’t hear each other unless yelling at the top of our lungs. At the top of each shoulder I had to lean into the wind and brace for the whipping gusts. It was really wild. We looked at the map and decided to head up to Rainbow Point at 9100 feet and skip the last bit of the Under the Rim Trail, instead dropping down more quickly on the Riggs Spring Trail. We were soon out of the worst of the wind and below the snow line. Elevation at camp was about 7100 feet.

TRAIL NOTES:
There’s a good spring at the point where Riggs Spring loop trail drops sharply off the rim at Yovimpa Pass if you take our little detour. Riggs Spring on route was flowing and appears to be reliable.