We woke up well-rested, filtered some water from a nearby spring, and picked up all our stuff to leave no trace.
Can you see the rock art here? Neither could we until we got closer.
Another view of the chocolate drops.
The hike up was awesome. It was a lot like climbing stairs for an hour, only it wasn't as exhausting. The blend of man-made features and the natural environment was cool to see.
You can barely make out the chocolate drops in the background.
Once out of the canyon, the scenery was fantastic.
From there we headed back through teapot canyon over to China Neck and the Maze Overlook.
China Neck was cool to see.
Looking down on Mother and Child rock formation with the La Sals in the far distance.
This is the road we took on the way to teapot canyon.
We decided to camp at china neck. We set up our tents then headed down to check out the maze overlook as the sun was setting.
At the Maze Overlook. Here you can see the Chololate Drops, Land of Standing Rocks, the Dollhouse in the distance, and our camp spot from the night before.
We were SOOOO close to the maze overlook the night before. Too bad we didn't have time to hike up it that day.
We dared each other to jump across the 200' gap to the rock formation across. I chickened out, but Yvonne, Fat Tony, and Hardcastle made it.
Headed back to our camp, the moon decided to make an appearance.
We were trying to decide if we wanted to sleep under the stars again that night, but after finding this 10 feet from our tents, we decided to stay in the tents.
The sunrise the next morning really lit up the adjacent cliffs to the west.
Then it was up the switchbacks to the Hans Flat Ranger station, and out via Robber's Roost.
What an incredible trip it was. It was a LONG haul to get back in there, and next time I plan on taking the jetboat and doing more backpacking. To be honest, I wasn't impressed with the Maze the first two days, but once we started our backpacking portion, I absolutely fell in love. I will definitely be backpacking this area a lot more in the future.