Today was just about perfect. We slept in, until 7 AM. Hiking by 8! I slept so well last night. It was cold outside and I was huddled under a tent and thick layer of down in my sleeping bag. It was perfect.
The cold did bring a new challenge though. We were out of water, and the snow we had gathered last night was frozen in our bottles. Nothing we could do, just had to wait for some running water or the snow in bottles to melt.
We followed an easy going dirt road all day, the Swamp Ridge Road. It doesn’t sound nice, but it was extremely nice, no marsh in sight. It took us through ponderosa groves, aspens, and even some green grass. It was beautiful. We also got occasional glimpses of the Grand Canyon, which is always amazing. It is so much more enjoyable to look at here on the closed North rim than the crowded south rim. In fact we didn’t see a soul other than each other, all day. The north rim does not open for 2 more weeks.
We did see a coyote and a herd of bison today. They must be open range bison. Why don’t people raise more bison? They are smarter, faster, and therefore survive better in the wilds. They are also healthier for us to eat, less fatty, and more tasty. So why don’t more ranchers raise them?
We ended our day pretty scared. We had been melting snow slowly all day, each had about 2 liters left. We thought we would have snow all day, but at Swamp Point, there was none. In fact the last snow was 3 miles back. So we had to choose to either hike another mile and 500 feet down to a potential spring, or hike back 3 miles to snow. We only had 6 miles to definite water, but those are supposed to be the hardest of the entire trail! Which is scary, as we have had some hard miles!
We opted to go down to the spring which was a mile down. We lucked out too. The seep was flowing well and we tanked up. We are staying in a cabin built for Theodore Roosevelt. He never slept here, but camped near here while hunting mountain lion. It’s beautiful here.
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