Today an individual was asking me about our trek and how it was going for us. I explained that the last two days had been really pretty easy and straightforward for us.
I told him that we left Lake Powell at about 9:00am and had climbed about a thousand feet up to the canyon rim via the pioneer route Hole in the Rock, did about 60 miles of cross country 4 wheel driving, and then got out to hike 6 or 7 miles down into a canyon with a swollen river running though it that we needed to cross 8 or 9 times, and we got to camp in plenty of time for dinner. The next day we met up with two BLM officers who wanted to join us on our day hike of 10 miles into an area that see little visitation. We dropped into the canyon at about 9:00am and spent the day completing our trek, which included a ¼ mile of walking up stream in the river to access the other bank so we could exit the canyon still on public land. The gentleman I was speaking with gave me a sort of funny look and said…(and you call that a couple of easy days). When he said it I realized that we as a team, and individually have become much stronger. Both physically and mentally. We have spent as much as 12 to 14 hours hiking in desert heat with packs and gallons of water and our muscles no longer cramp on us, we longer drag ourselves into camp. We still have GO left at the end of day, and the humor to clown around in camp. Today was probably a good example of that , it was a rest day for the trekkers, so what did we do. Why we all went for a 6-mile hike of course.

Stay well…Richard