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Today's route stats: 

I slept late again today, and again took time with breakfast.  My companions would be coming back to this camp this afternoon, but I was getting bored just hanging around in one place.  And my back was feeling much better after resting for a day.  So in late morning I decided to leave camp and hike into Indian Hollow.  I left a message for them, at the mouth of Kwagunt, on a strip of red plastic flagging.

There are two routes into Indian Hollow from the bottom.  George Steck describes the route directly up the Indian Hollow drainage.  The problem with this route is a chockstone and pool below the chockstone that is often filled with water.  When full of water, you have to swim across the pool and waterproof your gear in your pack.  But even when dry, it is a little bit of a hassle getting by the chockstone.  But I discovered a much better way into Indian Hollow:  Hiking on top of the Redwall, starting at the mouth of Kwagunt Hollow.  This is a very easy route, with only one slightly difficult place. 

The route starts at the mouth of Kwagunt.  It climbs a sloping ramp up onto the top of the Redwall, with a climb of only a couple hundred feet.  Enough people have now hiked along this route that a fairly decent trail as developed.  As you hike along the fairly level Redwall, the canyon bottom slowly rises to meet you.  At the point where you can easily climb down into the canyon, just past some large chockstones, you have bypassed all the difficult parts of the direct route.

When I got to Kwagunt, I found the group from Prescott college camped nearby. 

My plan was to hike to the mouth of Ojojojo Canyon (named by George Steck), a tributary to Indian Hollow.  There is water near the mouth of Ojojojo and a pretty good place to camp.  Several hundred yards up Ojojojo is a beautiful trickling waterfall, replete with ferns and monkey flowers, although the flowers were not in boom.  I think it took me about 3 hours to get to Ojojojo.  If you were in a hurry, you could probably do it in half the time. 

About an hour or so after I got to Ojojojo, another group of backpackers from Prescott college passed by, coming from up Indian Hollow.  I asked one of them about the water situation.  She said there was no water.  I asked if they had come down Indian Hollow from Indian Hollow Campground, and she said yes.  So I asked her how she could have missed the water at the base of the Coconino.  She then looked confused and said I should talk with someone else.  Another woman, who I gathered was the leader, said that they did not come down from Indian Hollow Campground, and that there was water in the slot canyon section, and a little water in the canyon coming down from Indian Hollow Spring.  It amazed me that someone could be so clueless about where they were, and so unobservant as to miss the water sources.

Although I was barely half way through Life 3.0, I began listening to The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World, by Robert Garland. 

Trickling Waterfall in Ojojojo Canyon