I really like this trail. The views along it are magnificent and it is really not that difficult a hike. Most of the trail is very well graded and the steeper sections have been paved with cobbles. We started our hike around 8:00 and, on our way down, watched the storm that had been hanging over the Canyon for the last couple of days, finally clear out. We encountered one other hiker coming up while we were going down and stopped to talk with him for a while. He was concerned over a backpack that was hanging in a tree not far from where we met him. He said that he had seen it there 3 days prior during his hike down and since then it looked like some animals had been at the bottom of it. It is very unusual to find a backpack unattended for this length of time and usually means someone is or was in trouble.

It took about 2 hours to go the 3 miles to Horseshoe Mesa and another hour or so to get to the entrance to the Cave of the Domes, down on the west side of the west arm. We spent about 45 minutes crawling (literally) around in the caves underneath the mesa. The caves are named for domed formations that have formed in the ceilings of many of the rooms. Some of these domes are hugh and very high up (there are some very big rooms) and some are smaller (a couple of feet in diameter) and low to the floor. The air inside the caves in not very pleasant and smells quite musty. It also felt quite humid after crawling around for a while. I had been to the caves once before in 1993 but this was the first time for Robin. After 45 minutes or so we dead ended in a passage and Robin began to feel a little claustrophobic so we worked our way back to the entrance. I figure we were maybe about 1/2 mile in under the mesa.

From the cave entrance we went to my secret picnic spot out on the tip of the west arm and had lunch. It's actually not that much of a secret anymore and the trail heading out there appeared to be much more heavily travelled than the last time I was there, two years ago. But we were lucky and there was no one else there. After a good rest we turned back and headed for the rim. The hike back to the backside of the mesa was easy though hot. The climb up the Grandview was tiring. The cobbled switchbacks seem to go on forever on the way up. Some of these stretches are quite long and even though they are not very steep the number of them tended to wear us out.