Grand Canyon Hike to Battleship

A cool morning as we arrive at the South Rim and begin a 2 mile descent of the Bright Angel Trail.  In the foreground, our destination, the Battleship.  We pass....

...a warning sign that is far more graphic then previous ones I've seen here.  It's an ongoing problem of people starting the hike down, it's easy but then you have to turn around and the return is not so easy.We met

We are stopped by a ranger who asks if we understand the dangers of hiking in the GC and to warn us they are short staffed so a rescue could take some time.  I assured her we would be fine. Down we go, below the 1.5 mile rest house and then go.....

....of trail.  There is sometimes a faint path, sometimes cairns to mark the way.  I frequently lose the route and we are forced to bushwhack around, looking for....

....the cairns.  I got us high on the slope and we pass.....

....immediately below a giant band of red rock.  Even though I was following a route, I was too high as the saddle below Battleship came into view so I did a course correction and we....

....reached the aforementioned saddle.  The route up the Battleship goes counterclockwise to the far side.  I wanted to get Amy up to the chimney where in February I was forced to turn around as the view from there is spectacular but.....

....we decided with rain forecast to roll in soon, we'd make this our turnaround.  The views up and down canyon were terrific.

Rather than return on the tortuous route on which we arrived, I found a lower route and we made much better time, reaching Bright Angel and then ascending to the Rim.  We finished with 7.7 miles and 2200' of climbing.

The following morning, we took St. Rt. 180 to Flagstaff, different from how we arrived, where we had to slow for a cow, standing in the road.  Back to Oro Valley where we enjoyed a couple of days of normal temps before another few days of unseasonal temps arrive but it looks like that is summer's last gasp of record heat.