20 miles, 11hours

Walking down Nankoweap Creek was just lovely this morning with so much in bloom we could hardly make progress because we had to keep stopping to look. There were many kinds of cactus blooming in several colors, wild flowers and bushes, century plants and yucca.

When we reached the Colorado River we turned right to bush-whack our way down stream. Without a trail it was slow going, but we found game trails here and there that we could follow for a while. Later in the day we were following rock benches just above the river that made it fun because it was faster at times and involved some scrambling. Finally, near dusk, we came upon the base camp for researchers and volunteers from the Grand Canyon Monitoring & Research Center. They welcomed us to sit down and eat dinner with them (some super tasty enchiladas) and we visited with them the entire evening. What a fun and interesting group of people! They are doing research and recovery efforts to save the Humpback Chub, a native fish in the Grand Canyon.