• Date: April 28, 2019

• Trail Mile 676.3

After thoroughly using the 5 L gathered yesterday for liberal water drinking, food preparation, and of course, the backcountry bidet, we got up and got moving to Russell Tank.  

And today we would get our first view of the Grand Canyon.

Bilbo was out after us, and so Janna and I meandered our way to Russel Trough where we filled up on water.  The Kaibab Forest was dense with ponderosa now, stretching our limitlessly - a throwback to the Mogollon Rim just a short while ago.  We drank water and walked along the double track rolling through the woods.  A couple hours later, we arrived at Russell Tank, which was more of a large alpine lake than a shallow depression of cowshit water.  It was absolutely gorgeous with abundant bird life and many places to sit and enjoy the view.  

I took the opportunity to use the trash cans to dump trash (bye-bye extra large bag of free M&Ms that I was now officially sick of after 24 hours).  Then, I walked down to the shore of the lake and cleaned the salt and dust out of my socks, as well as washed my feet.  Bilbo caught up with us and we spread out, each of us taking some space to enjoy the silence and views.  My feet clean and my water refilled, Janna and I walked with Bilbo through a grove of ponderosa that the AZT wove through.  Our pace outmatched his, so we pushed ahead passing by multiple remains of half-eaten elk.  The blur of green pine covered the surrounding views, but our progress was well-measured by the hum of excitement that were approaching the Grand Canyon.  

By midday, we descended a steep embankment in the woods, sharply switchbacked to a canyon floor and up the other side where a small thinning in the trees allowed us a view of our position.  We were poised on top of a high plateau with commanding views of a drier, stunted-tree plateau below.  And there!  In the distance, was a thin stripe of red sandwiched in green: a sliver of canyon rock!  

Excited, we pushed on and by 2 pm, we arrived at the Grandview Trailhead.  Here, multiple cars were parked and people milled about below a massive fire tower.  Multiple plaques commemorating history and describing the history of wildfire on the land stood about.  We left our packs by a trail marker and climbed up the fire tower.  Several stories up, the views was AWESOME.  Behind us, the vast monolithic ponderosa forest stretched with views of the snow-peaked San Francisco Peaks in the distance.  And before us, The carved earth showed its insides as spires and buttes thrust upward from the Grand Canyon.  Every bend in the land as the cusp of that fall was as obvious as a knife cutting butter.  It was spectacular and proved we had gotten this far. 

Upon descent, we rand into Rand, the thru-hiker Janna had talked to back in the Santa Ritas during our first week on the trail!  He had just finished and was back with a friend who drove to pick him up and wanted to see the area.  He gave us some beta about the trail ahead and assured us we could secure sites in the Grand Canyon as AZT thru-hikers.  He also said the snow as tough on the North Rim and wouldn’t abate until Jacob Lake.  With that, he replace our algae-water with fresh water and gave us a whole box of oatmeal pies to eat.  All I can say is: CREAM OF OATMEAL PIE.  

Janna and I hiked ahead and passed by remains of past burns and the forest in various stages of recovery.  Apparently, parasitic mistletoe was so bad here in the 1900s that it killed most of the forest which easily caught flame.  Now, it was being managed after years of fire suppression followed by bad burns.  As the afternoon wore on, Bilbo caught up to us and we walked and talked for several miles.  The three of us moved in and out of meadows of fresh green grass and into the massive stands of pines.  As early evening approached, Bilbo decided he would camp early as he had a hotel for a Nero Day in Tusayan planned and couldn’t check in until later in the day.  We bid him goodbye and good luck.  We exchanged contact information as it seemed our trip itineraries were parting ways.  

As evening approached, Janna and I contemplated a 30 mile day to camp right outside of Tusayan, but decided against it as exhaustion set in.  We ate dinner in the evening dark as cold dropped hard into the area.  We pushed on hiking in the dark until we entered an area with excellent flat spots.  We wandered into the woods in the dark and picked a place suitable for a camping and just a few miles short of town.  We battened down the tent and just made it in as low-slung clouds that gathered over the course of the evening began to putter rain onto us for the rest of the night.