Corridor 9

We slept in a bit late this morning due to the long trek we had yesterday. In all we probably hiked a total of 8 miles between the Bright Angel trail and our trip out to Plateau Point. After having a little breakfast and packing up we all headed out around the same amount of time. Most of Crash’s group were hikers who liked to keep a fast tempo, but as far as my group, we liked to keep a leisurely pace. I’m not one to try and rush to a campsite and miss the scenery along the way.

Paige and Sam kept up with Crash’s group pretty much the whole trip. I ended up splitting off from the rest of the group about 20 minutes down the trail. I find that if I hike too slow then I tend to hurt more at the end of the day than I do if I keep a moderate tempo.

After about 5 hours I finally made it to Horn Creek. This was the campsite that Crash had for his group. I knew that I was a good deal ahead of the rest of my group so I stopped for a bit of a snack. I wasn’t there for 5 minutes before Paige and Sam left for Cedar Springs; the site that we had chosen for the night. After realizing how much ahead I was, I decided it would be wise of me to try and get to Cedar Springs and backtrack to Horn Creek just in case I needed to carry anyones gear. I knew that this day was going to be one of the longest days and I was worried about Gwen. I didn’t want her to get burnt out by such a long hike the second day when the last day was going to be killer.

I ended up making the 4 mile round trip in just over an hour. It was a nice pace to keep and I got a bit of much needed exercise and stretching done. Right as I was approaching Horn Creek again I saw Ken, Helen, and Gwen coming into camp too. I had made it just in time.

I took a bit of a rest before I donned Gwen’s pack and headed back to our campsite. Without all the weight on her back, Gwen was able to keep up with me. I think she realized how much she liked hiking, just not all the weight on her back. We all made it to camp around 5: 30 pm MST that evening as we noticed a storm brewing along the horizon.

We knew we didn’t have that much time to get things set so we quickly setup our tents and lashed them down. The wind was blowing quite hard and had the tents not been lashed down, I’m sure we all would have ended up very wet from the blowing rain. Dinner was quick that night with a bit of noodles and some Cherry Cobbler dessert that Gwen provided.