It took over an hour to get back out to the river. There is a little side canyon on the west side of Cottonwood that is larger than it appears on the map and takes a while to get around. Once you reach the river it's clear sailing for about a mile before you reach... Grapevine.

The worst part of the day was the route that the trail follows to get you from one side of Grapevine Canyon to the other side. If you've done the route around Hance Canyon and thought that was bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet! The other side of the canyon is only about a half mile away at its mouth but it takes a good 5-6 miles of walking to get there. I also made the mistake of telling myself that I wouldn't stop for lunch until I got to the other side so that I could find a nice overlook for Grapevine Rapids and enjoy the view. It was probably around 1:00 by the time I worked my way through Grapevine and found that overlook. The backside of Grapevine takes longer than you would expect because the canyon splits up into a number of other smaller side canyons, each one of which needs to be walked around, or down to, through, and up the other side. When I finally did find that overlook to have lunch my feet were killing me.

It was difficult to get moving after lunch. The trail heads back away from the river quickly at this point to avoid another side canyon on its way to Boulder Creek. I was traveling a lot slower now and it seemed like time had slowed down a bit as well. The walk to Boulder Creek didn't seem like it took that long but I was surprised when I got to it and looked at my watch. It was 3:30 and I still had to climb out of Boulder and had a good walk left to Lonetree. I needed a rest so I just dumped the pack and just sat for about 15 minutes. Boulder would have made a very nice place to camp and I was extremely tempted. Unfortunately my backcountry permit for tonight was not good for here or I would have been more tempted. I kept saying to myself "Self, What are the chances of a ranger walking all the way out here just to check backcountry permits?" Probably pretty slim but I hadn't broke with backcountry rules yet and I was not about to start now. If I stayed there that night it just would have made the next day that much longer anyway. I forced myself to put the pack back on and crawled out of Boulder.

I never made it to where I had planned to camp that night. I just ran out of time. It started to get dark (it gets dark early down here) and I did not want to be setting up camp and cooking in the dark. Since the Moon was now past full I knew it would still be a little while before I could count on any help from her. I did make it into Lonetree Canyon, I just did not make it to where I wanted to camp, which was up in the backside. I was probably about a half mile away from there so I didn't feel so bad, except for my feet. And another long day tomorrow!

I didn't sleep too well that night either. Lonetree Canyon is a very quiet place, probably because it is surrounded on three sides by very high cliffs. This was actually the quietest place that I have ever experienced in the Canyon. There was absolutely no sound in there at all, no wind, no animals, no running water, no rapids, no nothing. I usually camp either next to the river or next to a creek but this was my first dry camp and it was totally unexpected. I rather enjoyed it until I tried to get to sleep.