It is a surprisingly chilly morning today which makes me reluctant to get out of bed.  I hang around doing my tent yoga routine with the sleeping bag draped over me in various styles while Dean does all the difficult stuff like fetching water from the river.  Eventually I emerge for breakfast as it starts to warm up.  I must have spent about 13 hours in the tent!  After a leisurely morning, we head out on a day hike to Mineral Canyon, which is 3 miles along the trail towards Hance Creek.  The trail is steep at times, but it’s beautiful with many rewarding views along the way. 

	Camping beneath a large Mesquite tree

Cairn marking the trail  west of Red Canyon	Yellow Tamarisk and an interesting rock feature in the background called a dike	Initial flat section of the trail

Climbing up	Interesting boulder field  above the River	Looking across to an old John Hance asbestos mine

Zooming in on the old mine	Looking west to the inner gorge	Mineral Canyon

In the bed of Mineral Canyon we find a shady spot to rest. We spend a couple of hours here having lunch and chatting before starting back the way we came. The hike back is great, because now I get to enjoy all the gorgeous views, while going down instead of up!  Excellent.

Ripple rock, a fossil from when this area was a shallow sea	The boulder field from above

We are back at camp a couple of hours before sunset, and it’s nice to have time to enjoy the beauty and the power of the rapids this evening.  However, we need to move our camp over to the west side of Red Canyon in order to be in the Hance Creek use area that we are permitted for, so we take care of that first before settling in for the night.  The deer mice are quite active here after sunset, so having all of our food and scented items in our Outsaks is a must.  They are awfully cute too!

Moving our camp	Enjoying the River

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