Crossing the big ravine I looked for an old benchmark that is shown on the map.  It was partly obscured by a bush, but was right beside the trail.  It is pictured with other photos below.  I tried to find other old benchmarks along the trail, but my record was 3 for 7.  So it goes.

     Crossing the Esplanade was nice.  Most of the way the trail is easy to follow and part of it is nicely lined with big rocks.  But, part isn't and I strayed here.  It didn't cost me much time, but it is always disconcerting to lose such a well-defined trail like this.  By 11:30 a.m. I was at the point where the trail drops off the Esplanade and begins its descent through the Supai.  There's another benchmark here (shown to the right) and I cached water and food there for my return.  An hour later I was near the bottom of the Supai and looking at the Redwall narrows.  I decided to eat my lunch and discovered something else that was missing - my pocketknife.  There's always something!  [Later I found it on the floor of my truck.]  At 2:20 p.m. I was down at the Tonto Trail crossing.  I looked around for water here, but came up empty.  On the trail heading east, I piled up rocks around my second water cache.  A half hour later I was on my way.

     At 3:15 p.m. I reached Bedrock Tank, where Bass had a camp and stored supplies.  I found a large water pocket here which I would use later.  Also, I saw cairns heading up to the west and decided this must be where the so-called "shortcut" trail is that goes up to the Tonto.  Almost certainly it is something Bass built to facilitate his movement throughout this area.  I had been on that trail, but it was more than 30 years ago and I had no discernable memory of it.  By 4 o'clock I had reached a junction where the trail heads down to the beach above the rapids.  There is a large stone fireplace here that Bass built for his visitors.  I am pretty sure I have never been to this site, even though I have been down this trail to the river on a few occasions.  That's reasonable, since the Park Service improved this trail (and on the north side as well) back in 2005, after it had been neglected for the better part of eighty years.  I am quite sure that on my previous trips I followed a cairned route more directly down to the beach rather than this trail.

     Fifteen minutes later I was at the beach.  No one else here so plenty of space for me.  I took the first spot behind a screen of bushes and scrambled to get my camp set up before dark.  I had carried two more liters of water for the hike and was down to just a cup left, so I planned that pretty well.  While my dinner was cooking I filtered water for the next day.  It was dark when I ate and getting cold.  Yet another item I failed to bring was my balaclava.  But, I realized that on my drive up and was able to buy a fleece cap in the gateway community of Tusayan just before leaving the highway and starting along the dirt road.  By 7:30 p.m. I was in my sleeping bag for the duration.

     At 11:30 a.m. I reached my water cache and decided that this was a suitable site for my camp.  It was cloudy this day and I wondered if it might rain.  So, I placed a couple of large flat rocks into my vestibule area for my pack and shoes, to keep them dry just in case.  Although threatening, nothing materialized for my three nights here.  In the mid-afternoon I walked along the nearby Tonto trail to a nice overview of the river.  It was flowing a deep dark brown.  Quite a difference from the past two days!  I wondered if it wasn't raining further east, causing this.  Later I found out that it was a massive release of water from the Glen Canyon Dam that was responsible.  I was glad to have pumped the water I needed before that happened.  The silt would have surely gummed up my Katadyn.  I also saw some river runners.  Most of them rowed up into Shinumo Creek, out of my view, and they ended up camping on the thinnest of beaches just below that.  The next two nights I would see yet another group camped there.

     The views from this campsite were just fantastic.  I could see all of Shinumo Amphitheater as well as a long ways east.  And, I had the very scenic and dramatic Tyndall Dome right behind my tent.  On my way back to camp I climbed up the slope to get on top of a terrace ringed by a small cliff.  Nice and flat here and there was a cairn at the point.  Looking over to the east, I thought that my campsite in the Ruby use area might be located on the same terrace there.

     I actually found the trail at the earliest opportunity, as it was still at the same level as it follows from Copper Canyon.  The schist here is all slanted and I was often tempted to head more downriver, but the trail plunges more or less directly down to the river, cutting across these bands of schist.  The river didn't look that far away from the top but it took me an hour to reach the cable site.  Bass just used this crossing to ship buckets of asbestos ore across the the river.  He didn't maintain it over time, deciding it was more economical to have his burros haul the ore to Shinumo and then cross at that cable site.  Consequently, there are cables laying around here, but nothing as sophisticated as at the other site.  I gave brief thought to going all the way to the river and started following the trail down, but it soon gave out.  The sloping rocks really didn't look too inviting and the river was still very muddy, and running high.

     One of the old photos I found shows Bass in a cable tram and is titled, "Hakatai Cable, Bass and Mr. Waite, undated."  But, according to my reading of Billingsley, et al. (Quest for the Pillar of Gold), Bass only had hauled buckets across the river at Hakatai.  So, I looked at the photo more closely and it looks to me like it shows the cable below Bass Rapids.  Below is my comparison of the old photo with a close up of the north bank of the river shown in my photo above, "View from tram to north side."  The two features I've highlighted sure look the same to me.  Initially I thought that the old photo showed the bank that looked more like the Hakatai area, but now I am convinced otherwise.  And, while this cable tram doesn't look like the other one linked above, Billingsley notes that the cable tram was upgraded once.  So, this photo, below, may show the original cable tram, which was not as beefy as the later one.

     By noon I was back up at the Tonto and stopping for an hour-long lunch break.  I spotted what looked like part of the trail down below me in the next bay.  I stuck to the Tonto Trail and crossed Copper again on the Bass trails.  This time it took me only about 35 minutes.  By 3:30 p.m. I was back at my camp, tired and looking forward to rest and dinner.

     I was off just a few minutes before 8 o'clock and still carrying a gallon of water.  The cool temperatures have sure done a great job keeping my water consumption down.  I followed the Tonto Trail back into Bass Canyon, retrieved my water cache, and continued on my way.  As I got in front of the point coming down from the Grand Scenic Divide I decided that the ground up above the small cliff band looked more promising than the Tonto level for a camp.  I spied a route that looked like it would go so up the slope I went.  The cliffs are probably 8-12 feet tall and I did find a spot where I could pull myself up the last little bit.  Later I found better spots on both sides of this little peninsula that I used.  I set my pack onto a bush and covered it with a pack poncho.

     I still needed water, so I gathered up my filter and bladders into my day pack and headed back down to Bass Canyon.  I reached the Bedrock Tank area at 10:20 a.m. and pumped out one gallon from the pothole there.  After a snack I was all packed up and ready to go by 11 o'clock.  I decided to leave this water at the cache site on the Tonto Trail I had used before and would retrieve it on the eighth day when I was hiking up to the Esplanade.

     I was back to my pack by noon.  I had lunch and set up my tent.  Just in time too, as the wind started kicking up.  I had to scurry a bit to get everything inside and gathered up many rocks to tie my lines to.  Lucky for me I set it up with the door facing the leeway side so even with the fierce gusts, I could leave the flap open.  Still, I ended up putting rocks on every inch along the edge of my ground cloth, to keep the noise down and to keep it from flapping dirt up at me.  I also got two very large rocks and tied my rope to them on opposite sides of the tent to keep it from blowing away!  I took a little walk around my area but was in the tent by 3 o'clock as the wind kept blowing and raindrops started to fall.  I could see that it was raining further to the east, but I only got a few sprinkles.  I spent the rest of the afternoon reading a book.  At sunset, the wind died down and the night was reasonably pleasant.

Day 6 photos - click on any picture to see a larger image.

     From the Tonto it took me less than an hour to reach the river and the sun was shining on that spot which made it quite pleasant.  Clouds to the east looked very threatening, as did the river.  It was very muddy and running quite high, as I could tell by the bushes that were partly submerged in the water.  Although it was cool, I found a nice calm area where I could wade out into the frigid water and even get a chance to splash water over my face and head.  I used my Phantom Ranch bandana to filter a liter of water.  It caught most of the sediment, but there was quite a lot in this water.  I used some iodine tablets for purifying purposes.  I hung around here for about one and quarter hours.

     I was back to the Tonto by noon and took my lunch break there.  As I was getting ready to leave I realized that I didn't have my bandana.  It was still back at Serpentine Rapids, laid out on a bush to dry!  Aargh!  Well, I thought that I did have the time to make a trek back to the river to get it, but decided that I would just have to write it off as one more contribution to the canyon.  Or, to the next river party that passes by and stops here.  I wonder if there is some cosmic bookkeeping entry for things lost, and found, in the canyon?  I'm pretty sure my account is still in the black.  I was back at my camp by 2 o'clock and with the wind still blowing hard I spent most the rest of the afternoon reading.  I am quite sure the wind was largely a function of my location up on this terrace - I didn't experience that much down on the Tonto.