Participants: Ken Hawthorne, Marty Pietz, Mike Thomas, and Larry Walker

Sat, May 28: We left Mesa in two vehicles around 7:00 AM driving North to Flagstaff. There is a small forest fire starting up just South of Flagstaff and we see fire engines heading down the road. We gas up in Flagstaff and continued on to the Grand Canyon South Park entrance, check out several overlooks then we visit the Backcountry Office to pick up our permit. We ate dinner, stash Mike's car in the Bright Angel Lodge parking lot, our exit point, pile into Larry's truck and retire to the national forest East of Tusyan for the evening.

Sun, May 29: We arrive around 5 AM at Lipan Point, the head of the South Kaibab trail. Breakfast at the trailhead of cold cereal and fruit. We start down the South Kaibab around 6:30 AM and at S. Kaibab-Tonto junction we headed West on the Tonto trail toward Indian Gardens. Stopping to rest at Pipe Springs we meet National Park Service Rangerette Patricia Thompson who engages us in conversation and appears very friendly trying to get us to say we had camped illegally at Pipe Springs. We caught on to her line and made it clear we were just having a rest on our way to Indian Gardens and ultimately to Phantom Ranch. She left to the East, we to the West. Just before the trail dropped into Indian Gardens, we cached our food for our return route, which took us through Indian Gardens and out the Bright Angel Trail. After lunch and a nap, we headed down the Devil's Corkscrew to the Colorado River, over the Silver Bridge arriving at the Bright Angel campground near Phantom Ranch around 4 PM, our first overnight. A ranger checked our permit and commented that since we were going to Clear Creek we shouldn't take aspirin for scorpion stings. This warning would make sense later. We swam and horsed around in Bright Angel Creek, ate a fine dinner of Creole chicken and rice, ice tea and pudding then turned in around 8 PM. The wind blew all night and everyone had to dig deep into their sleeping bags as there was a lot of blowing dust and sand all night.

Mon, May 30: Up with the rising sun, oatmeal then on the trail. About 0.3 mile North of Phantom Ranch is the trailhead for the Clear Creek Trail, which immediately begins to climb back up to the height of the Tonto trail except it, is on the North side of the Colorado River. There is a huge field of house sized square sided rocks that you climb through on your way up, but the trail is in good shape and well marked so no route finding is necessary. Once on the plateau, a small spur trail leads to excellent view at an overlook of Phantom Ranch and the Colorado River nearly 1500 feet below. From here, it is about 9 miles of relatively flat trail East to Clear Creek. There is no shade on this trail and we were going into the hot part of the day. We met part of another party with their tents pitched next to the trail as there are really no good campsites on the trail. The man said he was with two women who had hiked to Clear Creek to get water. This was at least a seven mile round trip from where he was camped and we thought it strange he sent the two women while he stayed in the tent. When you think you are getting near the descent to Clear Creek you are actually traversing Zoroaster Canyon below Zoroaster Temple. It is about 2 miles farther to go. Finally you spot Clear Creek about 900 feet below. The descent is on loose scree of shale and is very tiring at the end of a long walk. At the bottom of the descent you are in a wash that runs into Clear Creek about 300 yards downstream. A solar toilet is installed here to keep the designated campsite area clean. We met the two women who were getting water for their partner back at the tent. They said he had refused to go farther and so they had no choice but to go ahead and get water for their dry camp. Clear Creek is warmer than the Colorado River, about 65 degrees, and has a lot of nice pools with a good overhang of cottonwood trees. Previous campers have fabricated quite a few windbreaks out of rocks and dead branches. The wind blows a lot here. Ken has a sore knee from the trail miles, so we issue a Tylenol with codeine, which does the trick. We meet two hikers from Milwaukee, Clarence Ingram, a retired brewer from the Joseph Schlitz company, and his fetching companion Mary. Clarence's pack has a big seam ripout, so Marty breaks out the needle and thread to do a field repair. We move upstream under some dense brush hoping for some relief from the wind with some success.. Spaghetti for supper. We had submerged a large block of cheese sealed in plastic in the creek to keep it cool, but an animal retrieved it from underwater and we found it half eaten. Sack time, shooting stars, satellites, and great sleep.

Tues, May 31: Check your boots every time you put them on. Mike learns the hard way. After slipping on his boots he suddenly ripped one of them off and a 4-inch scorpion is clinging for dear life by his pinchers to the toe of his sock. Mike proceeds to give a 5 star break dancing performance to us with high kicks the Radio City Rockettes would envy. Alas, the poor scorpion pays the ultimate price for just wanting a warm place to sleep. No sting, no foul for Mike, tons of laughs for the rest of us. Larry and Marty head upstream to look for Chevya Falls and some Indian ruins. We don't make it to the falls and never find the ruins, but the upper part of the Clear Creek and Obi canyons is very riparian and pretty. Forgot what we had for dinner, but I know everyone slept good knowing that the scorpion was gone.

Wed, Jun 1: This morning we dayhike downstream to try to make the Colorado River. We don't, but have some very nice stream walking . About 3/4 mile below the camp area we find an unnamed side canyon that looks like it was sliced from a huge slab of mica. Very sparkly and pretty. I am not sure how far downstream we hiked, but we have to hike out today and we get anxious to get back to camp and packed up. We pull out about 5 PM following the setting sun west and bivouac in the trail about 8 PM. Dinner is Spam and noodles with freeze dried mixed vegetables.

Thurs, Jun 2: We roll out and hike the rest of the Clear Creek trail to Phantom Ranch arriving about 9:30 AM. We decide to spend the day at the Phantom Ranch area and head up to Indian Gardens after the sun is in decline to avoid going up the Redwall at Devil's Corkscrew in the heat of the day. We swim, drink beer and lemonade from the ranch kitchen and head out over the silver bridge around 3:30. Mike is a very fast hiker and he is at Indian Gardens by 5:15, the rest of us somewhat later. We recover the food cache and dine on Hormel canned stew for dinner. We have lots of food and stove fuel left and try to give stuff away to other campers so we don't have to carry the weight out. The deer are way too friendly here and will try to eat anything they can get from you.

Fri, June 3: Up, breakfast and on the rim at Bright Angel by 9:30 (9:00 for Mike). We hit the showers and souvenir shops then head to Flagstaff. The streets around Northern Arizona University are filled with protesters denouncing China. The Tieneman Square massacre had occurred while we were in The Canyon. We ate a fine burger at Bun Huggers and headed back to the valley.