Surprise! For the first time, I'm up before John. It's 7:40 AM. We both slept late, a testimony to the previous day's struggle, or maybe we're finally unwinding. Went down to the river to check it's color, no longer chocolate now, but a light chartreuse. As I scouted, I found what appeared to be a promising crossing point. There were rocks and travertine exposed all the way across, with minimal spaces between them.
I started water for coffee and John and I had the usual, eggs, over easy on top of fried potatoes and onions, whole wheat toast with apricot preserves, fresh squeezed orange juice and plenty of hot coffee. I told John about the possible crossing I found and headed there after picking up camp. Shoeless and packless, we waded into the water. No way, it was too deep and was running too fast. John tried another spot with the same result. We hiked upstream and John tried two others. Ditto.
Houston, we had a problem: How were we going to get across the river while keeping some essential equipment dry?
At one of the locations where we had attempted to cross without success, there was a room size boulder. Because most of the water was channeled on the far side of the it, we discovered that we could safely wade out to it from our side. This left us with a distance of about 40 ft. to the other side. We decided to put our 100 ft. rope to work, again. The idea was to get one of us to the far side of with river with one end of the rope and then use it shuttle our equipment across the river.
With this is mind, we dropped all of our equipment on the top of the boulder, John stripped down to his BVDs, grabbed his hiking stick and the end of the rope and swam across the river just downstream from the boulder. At mid river the current was swift and knocked the hiking stick from his hand sending it forever to bottom of the murky water. Most importantly, John, still holding the end o the rope, was on the other side.
We began by filling my sleeping bag stuff sack with supplies (5 pounds was about right), attached the sack to the rope with a carabiniere and attempted to slide the sack down the rope toward John. No go. The incline wasn't sufficient to allow the sack to slide easily and reach the other side. Only by bouncing the rope, (which nearly got the sack dipped in the river) were we able to get it across.
Plan B. Since our rope was more than twice the distance between us, we decided to tie a loop in the middle of the rope with the carabiniere attached to it. We hooked the sack on the carabiniere and then stretched the rope between us. As I slacked off, John pulled, and vice versa sending the sack across the river. This worked well. As the sack got to John, he released it, waded to shore and emptied the sack. We then sent the sack back on the rope and repeated the process with a new load.
We had started the transfer at 9:00 and were finished around 11:45. Now it was my turn to swim over. The water wasn't very cold in fact it was quite refreshing. It was then that Louie and Dewy happened along on our side of the river, checking their nets. I wondered what they thought seeing John standing calf deep in the muddy shallows wearing only his skivvies! In our conversation about the river crossing, John mentioned that he had lost his hiking stick. Both of them offered to look for it when the river cleared and, if they found it, they would mail it to him. John declined the offer and said to keep it if you found it. I guess Dewy felt sorry of him so he insisted that he have his homemade hiking stick. John greatfully accepted. He still has it as a reminder of entire adventure.
Earlier, while we were transferring our gear across the river I had noticed Dewy successfully cross the river upstream going up to his armpits. When I had asked him why he chose that spot to cross he told me the spot he told us to cross was impassable today! That made me feel a little better about our inability to cross in a more conventional way.
We asked them what they knew about the trail to today's destination, the base of Salt Canyon. Though it was a short distance, Louie advised us to go high and find the old Hopi High Trail thus avoiding similar difficulties we had encountered yesterday. Before we got out of ear shot, Louie yelled, "You guys might as well sleep on the helo pad tonight!" Had to laugh.
The north side of the this section of the canyon was choked with the usual thorny bushes and shrubs covering most of the steep, rumbly slope between the cliff and the river. We sloughed through the flora looking for a trail gradually climbing up the scree slope. As before it looked impassable, but alas we discovered the trail. The Old Hopi High Trail! Yee Bloody Ha! But, even though it was a trail, and was marked with periodic cairns, it was a slow grind, every step of the way. Washed out here. Had to boulder hop there. Acacia. Thorns. It was tough going. Hard work.
We broke through to the base of the Salt Canyon Wash about 1:30 about 500 yards from the river. Finding some shade, we lunched and rested for an hour taking the time to dry our shoes and socks in the sun. Scouting the area, we headed toward the river, down a well worn path. It led past the HELICOPTER PAD! As Louie had suggested, it would have made a nice place to pitch a tent... The trail ended up in the well fortified camp of the last group of researchers, so we backtracked and found another trail to the river.
We were filling the 5 gallon container with the now milky water when a guy walks up and introduces himself as Randy. He asked about our trip and we talked about his research and he invited us to dinner. I asked if shorts and t-shirt would be OK and he laughed. After he left, we boiled our water. Boy it tasted brackish. Ugh! It didn't quench, but kept us hydrated.
We returned to our packs and decided to scout the trail up the Salt Canyon in anticipation of tomorrow's hike out. We easily found the start of the trail about 75 yards back up to the Hopi High Trail we had earlier traversed. We ascended about 40 minutes following the trail well marked with cairns. No problem. Though we would rise about 3000 ft. it looked like a piece of cake.
Upon our return from our brief excursion, we went to dinner (didn't dress up). Met Chris and Bart. Hamburgers! Baked beans! Cashews! And Chocolate Mint Cookies!
Talked of many things. Randy related that the research in the river has been going on for 14 years to answer the question, "Does the Glen Canyon Dam effect the Chub population?" He says that every time they get close to publishing the obvious answer, the researchers get shifted around and it all starts over again. Politics.
Back to camp. John drank his last tea and we slept. Very well, I might add.