Grand Canyon Adventure...Day 3...

...dawn at Phantom Ranch...Boy's tent...my little tent...and the Scoutmaster slept in a bivy sac...

...and here's the promised photo of my little tent in use...I felt snug and secure in there...the night-time temps were 35° F (1.6° C)...

...the mule train heading up the mountain...with some passengers and the mail...one of the campers told us that they charge $2 per pound...Yikes! That means a ride out of the canyon for me would cost over $300...I guess I'll have to make it on my own...

...the sun coming up over the bluffs...again...we're still in shadow...

...some contrails forming a cross...perfect for morning devotions...

...the National Register of Historic Places plaque...

...Theodore Roosevelt visited here...and Mary Colter designed the cute cabins out of all native materials...good thing too...as I'm sure it would have been very difficult to get building materials here...

...Phantom Ranch Welcomes you!...

...Bright Angel Creek...

...it was lovely listening to the babbling creek all night long...that's our campsite to the right...

...we went into the canteen at Phantom...of course...to purchase souvenir tee-shirts...and some post cards...which are stamped 'Mailed by Mule'...HA!

...the little 'mail box' at Phantom Ranch...

...we filled our camelbacks...

...or just our tummies...at Phantom Ranch...during warmer weather there is water at the rest houses...but because of the freezing temperatures that's all turned off after October...we carried plenty of water and even a filter...so this is the first chance we've had to take on water...

...then we headed up the trail for a day hike...

...past the sweet little cabins...

...and the telephone lines...

...the trail is really really steep!...

...I'm hoping that the photos do it a little bit of justice...

...I know it's hard to get the perspective of the steepness and vastness of the terrain...but someone told me to put a person in the photo...to show scale...

...we had our lunch at the top of Phantom Overlook...and we heard a helicopter coming from a long way off...finally it came into view...

...then we hiked a little bit further up the trail in order to have a view of the Colorado...

...looking North...that's the North Kaibab Lodge on the second bluff in...we hiked down from the South Rim..

...I just love it when a picture of moi shows up...they're so unexpected...as obviously I didn't take them...

...we hiked back to our campsite at Phantom Ranch...

...past the signs that were too dark to photograph when we hiked in last night...

...we stopped at the Ranger Station...and LUCKY us...there was a cancellation at Indian Gardens...and we have just enough daylight left to pack up and hike halfway back up the canyon...

...the boys decided to go back by the same route we had come down as the last part was pretty dark and they were afraid they might have missed something...

...so we headed back across Silver Bridge...

...like most hiking bridges that I've crossed - it has a lot of motion...and there's no way two people with packs could pass...so you have to make sure the bridge is clear before starting out...

...it's quite a span...but the views of the river from the middle of the bridge...

...are simply AWESOME!...

...the trail beside the river is not too steep and it's just lovely there with the red water rushing by...

...our first stop was the Rest House at Pebble Beach...we had not used the Rest Houses on the way down...they have one every 1 1/2 miles...but we'll probably use them all on the way back up...

...the boys spotted this Tarantula on the trail...he's moving pretty slowly in the chilly shade here...still so very glad that I brought my little tent...I'd rather not sleep with critters like this one...

...we found a cave to explore...

...alas...it was a really small cave...

...the Ranger said that up times vary considerably with the individual...but probably average about time and 1/2 of your down time...as you make more stops...but probably take fewer pictures...(not me!)...

...one thing that I did find really interesting was how different the exact same things seem when you're going up...I mean...you just walked past them yesterday...

...but we saw things (like the cave) on our way up that we had missed on our way down...

...more deer as we come back into the oasis of Indian Gardens...

...I'm not sure we paid that much attention to this lovely little waterfall on the way down...

...now how'd she get up there...

...we get to Indian Gardens right at dusk...so thankful that we won't be setting up camp in pitch darkness...just dusky darkness...

...this sweet girl and her 2 babes were munching (loudly) on something right beside our campsite...they just slowly wandered off as it got dark...

...we got our tents up...

...and blew up our air mattresses...so very glad to have brought air mattresses!...

...and a hazy moon rises over the canyon...the forecast posted as we came into Indian Gardens is for 23° F (-5° C)...we're hoping that the cloud cover keeps things a little bit warmer than that...

...Night-Night...