Bagdaddy: The Granddaddy-Part 7

Friday, Day 7- 19 miles, Tonto, South Kaibab, Back BABY
I couldn’t sleep. I laid awake in my sleeping bag from 3am to 5 am. I was anxious to complete the journey. I packed my gear up and was out on the trail at 5:30am. It was still dark and the trail hard to follow so I ended up just sitting in the dark eating some trail mix and energy bars.

As the sun rose I began hammering out the miles along the Tonto Trail. I was so ready to be back. It wasn’t that I was getting sick of the canyon, but that I craved the finish line, to break the tape, and to complete the quest.

I arrived back to the South Kaibab trail after hammering out about 15 miles in the early morning. I still had about 5 miles of hiking and a few thousand vertical feet to climb out but the adventure was over. There was so much commotion along the South Kaibab corridor: perfume scented tourists, tent cities, smelly mules, chainsaws, construction, and 10 foot wide graded surface which the park service calls a trail. It didn’t feel like the wilderness that I trudged through the past week. The trail felt fake. At this point the trip was over; I was just trying to get the heck out.

I finally made it back to the south Kaibab trailhead, the same place I started the journey 6 nights and 5 hours earlier. It was suprisingly anti-climatic. I did the following things after the trip ended:

1. Drank the Old Chub brew that I carried for 56.3 miles from LCR, thanks for that one Ron.

2. Got in bus, rode to backcountry office, weighed pack=18 pounds total, went to truck

3. Texted family to tell them I made it out alive. (I would have called but my phone was about to die.)

4. 2x hot shower, cost me 4 bucks total for 16 minutes of pure bliss

5. Ate food at Market Plaza…It was good but not what I dreamt about… I should have waited until I got to a better restaurant but I was ravenous so I gorged myself on pretty crappy food.

6. Drove to Flagstaff

Thats it.