Submission from Kathy Sharp:
Well, the hike we did was real nice, but it wasn't Blue Springs. (You can read about last year's Blue Springs trip in the hiking club web pages.)
We camped Friday night just outside the east entrance to the Grand Canyon. Perry had been waiting at the campsite for Rogil, Wayne, Seth, and me. When we got up Saturday morning, the ground was covered with snow and it was still snowing. We met Brad Sanders and his friend Pete in the park at Desert View. Some of us (not Brad) were worried about being able to drive home without snow chains if the snow continued, and the weather report gave no clue ("unsettled weather all day"), so we decided not to do the Blue Springs hike. Personally, I was concerned about the 2-hour drive on 4WD roads to and from the trailhead after the snow melted, so I was worried about doing the hike regardless of whether the snow stopped.
We went to Cameron, had breakfast at the Cameron Trading Post, and decided to hike the nearby Waterhole Canyon (not to be confused with Water Holes Canyon). Rogil had already gotten us a permit to hike on Navajo land for Blue Springs.
It took us awhile to find the trailhead, and I got some valuable experience using a GPS by following Perry's lead. It turned out that we were really hiking an unnamed canyon near Waterhole Canyon, so our attempts to get into Waterhole Canyon were in vain.
The hike down to the river was very pretty and one I'd be more than happy to do again. Near the top the trail is quite steep, and lower down it's hard to follow in places, but there are cairns that will eventually get you back on track... once you find them again. By the time we got to the bottom of the canyon I had to zip off my pant legs.
Perry hiked upstream (Little Colorado River Gorge) a bit and then decided he wanted to start hiking back, claiming that he is slow (not slower than me!). After providing entertainment by crossing the river downstream, Brad and Pete headed upstream to find another place to cross back, but then they just kept going. A while later, Rogil, Seth, and I headed upstream. At the confluence with Waterhole Canyon, Seth decided he wanted to rest, and Rogil and I went up Waterhole Canyon to see if we could find the waterfall she had seen from above, laying down at the edge of an incredibly high sheer vertical cliff, while looking for a way to get down into the canyon before we realized we were trying to get into the wrong canyon.
The Little Colorado had water running in it, but it appeared to be quite a bit less than when we did Blue Springs last year. Waterhole Canyon was dry, but pretty. We scrambled around till we reached a dry (well, dripping, actually) waterfall that Rogil determined we couldn't climb safely. There was one place with pockets that looked like they might be climbable, but they were soft sandstone.
We had started hiking at 9 a.m. and turned around about 1:45 p.m. We got back to the cars about 5 p.m., if I remember correctly. Wayne had not hiked with us, claiming he was tired. He gave us a tour of some places he had found that had small pottery shards, an arrowhead, and lots of rocks that had obviously been worked. There was red pottery with black markings and gray pottery with... I forget... I think white markings.
On the way home, we had dinner at Cafe Espress in Flagstaff.
Rogil pointed out that both trips, Blue Springs and Waterhole Canyon, require serious navigating, but Waterhole was an easier hike than Blue Springs.