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This trip we're staying in Maswick Lodge which is near the Bright Angel trailhead. Our hope is to try for a walk-up permit for an overnight hike down to Indian Garden.

All overnight trips below the rim require a permit, and they're always sold out months in advance, especially for the spring and fall periods.

The Backcountry Office always hold back a few permits each day for below-the-rim hikes to Indian Garden and Phantom Ranch at the bottom, and they hand them out first-come first served when the office opens each morning.

The good-news / bad-news is that if you're out of luck in the queue one day, then everyone who wants one can get a numbered chit that gives them priority the next day if they're there at the opening.

So, to maximize our chances of getting a permit, I'm outside the door hours before the door opens to at least be the first in line after any chit holders from yesterday.

With a headlamp I can read in the dark, and it's light enough soon enough.

I've been half an hour of sitting at the door when a guy all geared up with a real expensive jogging suit approaches out of the gloom, and I can hear from a good distance away that he's not at all pleased to be second in line. Oh well...

By the time the door opens, there's a good crowd of maybe 15 people, some of whom have broadcast they have chits from the previous day. People come in and a Ranger explains how it works. With a cue, all four window shutters roll up at the same time and four Rangers are standing waiting to take customers in order of priority. The head Ranger calls out the chit numbers 1...2...3...4 and people come forward each time to a window. But there's no-one coming forward when he calls 5,6,7 but a person steps up for 8 and then that's it for yesterday's people, and we get called to the window when the first one is ready. You get to listen to it all as you wait your turn and hear each chance slip away as someone grabs it.

The person with chit #1 has a chance to take a vacancy for Phantom Ranch at the bottom (camping at Bright Angel directly the first night out). They seize it, and the second chit gets shut out at Phantom, so they go for a night at Indian Garden. And the same story for the third group, and the 4th and the 5th.

But we're lucky. The last site for Indian Garden goes to us, with a departure down-trail the next morning, a night at Indian Garden tomorrow night, and it's all signed and done. The guy with the snazzy windbreaker and his girlfriend are at another window, and not making many friends with their expectations and general tone of their speaking. Oh well...

You can see the oasis of Indian Garden as a band of green in the center of the picture. The trail you can see heading straight out over the Tonto Plateau in the middle of the picture takes you to an overlook of the Colorado River, and is not the trail to the bottom. That one goes off to the right at the end of the green oasis.

For scale, the trail from Indian Garden to the lookout point is about 1-1/2 miles, in the full sun, with no shade at all. Believe it or not, there's a water fountain near the lookout!

Going down is pretty easy, but still it's nice to take a load off for a couple of minutes at the 1-1/2 mile resthouse. While we're there, news comes of a lady being encouraged back up the trail by a couple of volunteers who fetched her back from her descent near the 3 mile resthouse. She's still moving under her own steam, and might have made it to Indian Garden, but coming back would be another question. She sure has willpower and spunk, with two canes and a sweater no less.