12 miles, 7 hours

We started on the Beamer Trail, a rugged and sometimes faint trail that can be hard to follow in a few places. We stopped for about three and a half hours for a siesta at lunchtime, resting right by the Colorado River at Tanner Creek. After a nap we cooled off in the river, soaked our handkerchiefs and tied them around our necks, and then moved on, now on the Escalante Trail. This trail is a little more traveled than the Beamer, but is still rough in places.

Hiking along the Colorado is just beautiful. The walls are red and there are different levels to the Canyon that make the view so complicated and interesting that it’s hard to keep moving forward – we just kept stopping to look! It is also amazingly hot, and after the cold we’ve been through on most of the trip so far, this is really a shock to our bodies. Water consumption has gone way up, but luckily we have had frequent access to the river to treat water and stay hydrated while cooling down at the same time.

We are also enjoying the warm nights! No more cold mornings where it’s hard to get going. We are getting up before dawn in order to use the cooler part of the day, and yet it’s so much easier to get up because it’s not frigid. We are loving the Canyon experience so far.