Hayduke 2009

The Hayduke Trail Pony Blues

2009-07-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

Here is a motivational video for all who have hiked, and those who are thinking about hiking, the Hayduke Trail. The video and digital stills were taken between April and June 2009 by Whiptail and Caron. The music is "Pony Blues" courtesy of blues great Duke Robillard. It's got that great 3.5 mph tempo going on...Enjoy!!

Hayduke Trail now completed!!

2009-06-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

Hey fellow blog fans!
Yesterday (June 18) I descended the east rim of Zion Canyon and completed the Hayduke Trail. Caron was there to celebrate at the Weeping Rock springs after she had done some dayhiking further up the canyon. We visited the "Whiptail Grill" in Springdale, UT but it wasn't the greasy burger joint I was hoping for (like almost all of the restauraunts in Springdale, it is making an attempt to reel in the yuppies by offering an upscale menu of overpriced, southwestern-influenced cuisine). We eventually worked our way out of yet another public zoo/national park scene and ended up in our favorite little enclave of Escalante, Utah.

The final section was a real mood-swinger. After ascending Kanab Creek Canyon (a final and unique tour of the Grand Canyon's geologic layers), we found ourselves on the arid and desolate Arizona Strip. Fortunately, Caron's vehicle support made this stretch more do-able than it would have been otherwise. Before finally yielding to the Vermillion Cliffs and more Zion-like landscape, the road passes through the very strange and somewhat creepy little corner of northwestern Arizona claimed long ago by the Mormon fundamentalists. There they freely practice polygamy, welfare fraud, and a host of other anti-social activities. I just couldn't get out of there fast enough and the walk turned into a marathon sprint across this isolated and wide-open landscape traversed by a confusing maze of BLM roads. I was happy to see the East Fork Virgin River canyon and quickly disappeared into it only to re-emerge finally at the trail's end in Zion.

The end of a long trail is always bittersweet for me. While on the trail, one anticipates how nice it would be to break away, reflect on the accomplishment, and spend time with friends and family. But this anticipation also carries a sort of emotional sadness about leaving an environment which has become familiar and comfortable-- far removed from the alien surroundings it seemed to be at the start of the journey. On the last two days, I found myself paying more attention to the little details of the trail that were taken for granted while I entertained no thoughts of finishing. The birds and their diverse language of calls, the lizards and their frantic predator avoidance behavior, the cliffrose now forming fruit from the blossoms of two weeks ago, the showy flowers, the sound of the wind roaring up a canyon and dissipating in the branches of the tall pines-- all contribute to make daily trail life so different from time spent in the confines of modern human society.

The blog will continue right up to the final days just described. This blog was much more than a diary and it took far longer than I originally thought to write and upload each chapter. Some of the remaining chapters are partially complete (an oxymoronic statement to be sure) and I'll upload them very soon as I will have full access to a computer while visiting my mom in Durango. The remaining chapters are as follows:

Playing the Slots (from Escalante to the Willis Creek Narrows)
A Three-Notch Mule (from Willis Creek through Bryce and on to the Grand Canyon rim)
The Walls of Time (The journey through the Grand Canyon and out through Kanab Creek)
The Road to Zion (Across the Strip and into Zion National Park)

Stay tuned and thanks for keeping up with the blog on this journey of a lifetime!

Whiptail (sadly, now off the trail)

Play Rock Match 2!!!

2009-06-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Many easily recognized landforms and rock formations along the Hayduke Trail have been given official names, meaning that the name might appear on a map. Often, the local outdoor crowd will ascribe an unofficial name to a landmark formation. For example, the locally famous landmark of the inner Grand Canyon, pictured left, is very aptly named "The Battleship".

The imagination of the long-distance hiker is frequently consumed with identifying and naming rock formations along the trail. This activity is not simply born of the sheer monotony of marching briskly across the terrain day-in and day-out. Rather, the terrain itself is replete with mesmerizing artifacts of the weathering of stone that stimulate the imagination in unpredictable and fun ways.

Due to the overwhelmingly positive nature of the many, many comments left in the original Rock Match, we are uploading a new, more challenging, and R-rated version called "Rock Match 2". See if you can correctly match the list of unofficial names below to the letter title of each picture that follows. When correctly matched, the letters will spell the two items most lavished by hikers at the end of a long trail such as the Hayduke. Good luck and thanks you once again for playing Rock Match!

__ The Duck Hunter
__ Atomic Fireball
__ Pierre, the arteeest
__ Decapitated sheep
__ "A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her"
__ The Goofy Catcher
__ The Construction Worker
__ Checkmate
__ Sunburned chichas grandes
__ "sit on my face and I promise to tell lies"
__ Tall woman flashing short man
__ A boy and his dog
__ Ape Krishna
__ The Mohican

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The Call of the Escalante

2009-06-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

Although the mileage contained in this section resides almost entirely within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, this section is mainly about the Escalante River drainage. The route leads ultimately into a 28-mile section of the river corridor, where the abundance of southwestern desert life should satisfy the biologist in all of us.

Having restocked our food and water supplies at the cache site, pared down our equipment, and relaxed in the shade for most of the day, we felt somewhat recharged as we continued briefly into the next section. The walk down Lower Muley Twist Canyon was easy on the legs and definitely easy on the eyes!

Day 24
Saturday, May 2
Start: Lower Muley Twist Canyon
End: Hall's Creek Canyon at the Red Slide
Miles: 11.6

We spent the night in one of the incredible alcoves of the Wingate sandstone, and awoke all too eager to commence our journey down the amazingly scenic Lower Muley Twist. Here the canyon cuts through the layers of the Waterpocket Fold in a most dramatic fashion. The 'big four' geologic layers of the upper Colorado Plateau are present in the canyon. In descending order of elevation, they are Navajo sandstone, Kayenta formation, Wingate sandstone, and finally the crumbly and erosive Chinle formation (if you haven't figured it out yet, geologic layers are named for the location of the prominent outcropping where they are officially described in the literature). We have seen and will witness again this easily recognized sequence many times along the Hayduke route.

Lower Muley Twist begins with the Wingate at the level of the wash bottom. It is a resistant layer that gradually forms extensive undercuts and dramatic alcoves along the canyon floor. In the larger of these, one gets the feeling of entering the mouth of a giant cavern. In a few alcoves, part of the roof of the massive overhang has collapsed, producing a small tunnel in the wash drainage. We took two such 'inner tours' on the way down and marvelled at the darkness and the vibrant acoustics inside. Just outside of one alcove, a male canyon wren was singing and using the natural amphitheater to amplify his song. Perhaps he will reel in more females who are initially hoping to meet up with some kind of super male. Then they just 'takes what they gets'. Hey, if it works, why not?

The Navajo sandstone has not been removed or even significantly reduced by erosion in this canyon and is absolutely massive-- hundreds of feet in height. The giant, smooth vertical walls are a cross-section showing the intricate cross-bedding pattern of ancient wind-blown sand dunes (at that point in geological time, the pattern was produced by periodic shifting in the prevailing wind direction). The weathering pattern on the towering vertical faces assumes a variety of surreal shapes and textures (see "Dirty Devil" in the Rock Match game). Perhaps a giant Navajo shaman originally created an image that was just too life-like and then decided to shake it around a bit before placing it up for display. The grandeur nature of these giant sandstone walls can't be over dramatized or even adequately described. They dwarf the many stately cottonwoods along the canyon bottom, which in turn dwarf the humans standing agaze below them.

We found some good surface water just below one of these cottonwood groves further down canyon and decided to fill up there and have a quick breakfast. It would soon be time to exit this gorgeous place but we weren't in any big hurry to do so. Eventually the canyon cut down to the level of the Navajo and then we noticed it appearing now on both sides of the drainage, indicating the latter had pierced the massive sandstone wall at some point down canyon. Soon we found ourselves walking through these grand Navajo 'halls' and spilling out onto the massive floodplain of Hall's Creek.

There we met a festive party of seven day hikers, most delighted to talk to two Hayduke hikers who had been pretty much out of the loop for a week or more. We learned of the discovery of Everett Ruess' body-- big news for those who appreciate literature born out of a sense of adventure in the American southwest. It turned out this group was heading to the Muley Tanks, as we were, to refill with water. Along the way, we learned that the Navajo sandstone of the Waterpocket Fold has many such 'tanks', where rainwater and snowmelt are contained in folds of the sandstone ('plunge pools') that retain water far longer than pools collecting on soil. The water stays fresh as there is not a great deal of sediment build-up. I noticed an abundance of newly hatched tadpoles lining the sandy bottom of the pools and endeavoring to avoid the predaceous aquatic beetle larvae that were searching for food along the pond's substrate. The tadpoles were most likely the larvae of the desert spadefoot toad, a remarkable little amphibian with a suite of adaptations enabling it to survive and reproduce in ephemeral water sources so typical of southwestern deserts.

We filtered water and continued chatting with the knowledgeable desert travellers. The building cumulus clouds finally managed to spit out a few raindrops so we headed into the large junipers for cover while we ate lunch. The storm quickly dissipated and we continued our march down the vast and open dry floodplains of Hall's Creek. More tadpoles were soon encountered further downstream where small pools of stagnant water began to appear beneath more deeply cut streambanks.

I was happy to be finally entering the realm of the spadefoot toads on this desert quest. We noticed that in some pools there were larger tadpoles that were eating the smaller ones. Whether this was a case of interspecific (between species) predation or a genuine case of cannibalism remains undetermined since identifying tadpole species is beyond my expertise. However, the desert spadefoot has a remarkable adaptation for survival if pond conditions begin rapidly deteriorating via evaporation. If it appears that the life of the pond will be shorter than the necessary time needed to complete metamorphosis into a land-loving toad, some of the larvae transform into wide-mouthed carnivores and begin feeding off their smaller herbivorous brethren. Kind of dramatic, if not perverse, by human standards. But it's a manner of translating genes into the future that makes good sense from an evolutionary view. Desert spadefoot toads: the ULTIMATE amphibian!

By late afternoon we found ourselves at the base of the "Red Slide", the aftermath of a massive collapse of the Wingate sandstone cliffs more than 2000 feet above. Our path would lead us up an old wagon track over the slide and into the Escalante River drainage. It was clearly too late in the day to begin this long ascent, so we found a relaxing campsite on a cottonwood bench perched above the larval spadefoots in the pools of Hall's Creek. The broken skies presented a dramatic backdrop of low-angle light playing onto the colors of the Red Slide rising steeply to the west. We rested easily as the light faded and the toads began their piercing trills-- a welcome reminder that the real life of the desert thrives by night.

Day 25
Sunday, May 3
Start: Hall's Creek Canyon at the Red Slide
End: Middle Moody Canyon
Miles: 13.0
Vertical gain: 2400 feet

We initiated the long arduous ascent up the Red Slide early in the morning and that put us atop the Waterpocket Fold and on the pass by lunchtime. What an amazing view we were treated to while enjoying a delicious chicken salad lunch. To the east we could resolve our passage across the Henry Mountains and through the intricate mesa/canyon system leading to the fold. Since our initial ascent of the fold up the Burr switchbacks, we had meandered significantly south as we descended the fold through Lower Muley Twist and now had just re-ascended it. New views of more expansive, sparsely inhabited landscape opened south toward Lake Powell. We took in this view with a sense of great accomplishment-- a visual record of the landscape through which we had ventured with some difficulty. Travelling such an intimate pathway offers the thru-hiker a different appreciation for this daunting landscape. We simply could not experience the same feelings had we merely done a short day hike up the Red Slide.

We now turned our concern to what was below and to the west. The lonely, sprawling Escalante landscape offers a distinctly different aspect compared to that in the east. The reddish orange Wingate sandstone, on top of which we were now perched, clearly dominated the canyon country below. Our ultimate goal was to descend a few different drainages that would lead us directly into the Escalante River itself.

We descended, more or less unscathed, into the drainage of Middle Moody Creek, a shallow wash slicing through the maroon-tinted Chinle formation. Pools of standing water made their appearance about halfway down and occasionally formed short, flowing trickles between the pools. Surface water in many of the wash bottoms forms an alkaline, evaporitic crust that splashes over the canyon bottom. We have deduced first-hand that the thickness and general prevalence of this so-called 'desert caliche' soil is a good indicator of the alkalinity of the water. The present pools looked good enough for us so we began filtering a full load of water.

During this time we heard a deafeningly harsh trill emanating from a small rock near our water pool. The raucus set off another similar-sounding trill from a few feet away, though at a different and higher pitch. This was definitely an escalating competition of penetrating calls that echoed furiously off the walls of this tight canyon. When it finally abated, we could hear that the chorus had set off a cascade of trills both up and down the canyon. Those eventually stopped and the canyon returned to silence, occasionally interrupted by the reliable warbling of canyon wrens. It was indeed good to be back in the realm of the desert spadefoot toads! We eventually began seeing more and more of these curious little creatures hopping along the water line. As a bona fide toad, the adults are only drawn back to water when it is time to call in the females for breeding purposes. No one could ever guess that this bold and raucous sound would be made by onyl a two-inch long amphibian, and a very modest-looking one at that.

By the time we filled our water bladders, we had experienced several bouts of the noisy toad-calling competition. I even managed to induce a bout by sounding out a crude sounding facsimile of the toad's call. We left the tight canyon as it opened up before merging with the larger Moody Creek drainage. We located a campsite on a terrace above the wash, noting it was also the site of an old cowboy camp with its many odd-dimensioned and thoroughly rusted tin cans. As we drifted off to sleep I thought I heard more from the toads up and down the nearby canyons, but it may have just been mental reverberations from earlier in the day.

Day 26
Monday, May 4
Start: Middle Moody Canyon
End: Escalante River Canyon at Scorpion Gulch
Miles: 11.3

We arrived at the Escalante River junction shortly into the day's walk, after noting the greater prevalence of willows and tamarisks in adjacent Moody Creek. What a refreshing site to come upon this fast-flowing water, its bluish-green color setting off the more vivid greens of the dense riverine vegetation. The canyon walls were the unmistakable reddish-orange of the Wingate sandstone that dropped more or less vertically to the canyon floor. The canyon had a different sound and feel to it compared to the hot dry washes we had been travelling to get there-- all by the addition of fast-moving snowmelt rushing in from the highlands to the north.

We had anticipated that the 28 miles downstream in this river corridor would be quite different than what we had experienced so far in terms of canyon travel. We quickly surmised that crossing the river would be a constant occurrence as we attempted to stay on the flattest part of the primary river terrace, which switched from one side to the other in concert with the meandering river. Fortunately for us, the river appeared to be at a lower level than it had been even recently and was only at thigh-level at its deepest. This and the stable, gravelly bottom made the crossings facile, if not enjoyable as a partial escape from the canyon's hot air. In some cases, we walked down the river as the intended path when both willow-choked banks presented less desirable alternatives.

This was not an intolerable mode of travel, in fact it was refreshingly novel, as we made fairly good time and by day's end we had pitched our tent among some small cottonwoods near the confluence of Scorpion Gulch. The spadefoots and other amphibians were just begining their vocalizations so we felt it would be appropriate to build a small fire to dry out our footwear and stay out among the stars. We retired with a certain sense of serenity amid the constant gurgling of the river, interrupted periodically by the spadefoot's brash call of the Escalante.

Day 27
Tuesday, May 5
Start: Escalante River Canyon at Scorpion Gulch
End: Escalante River Canyon near Fool's Canyon
Miles: 12.5

Somehow the role of the river as a viable alternative path downstream seemed different today as we resumed our downstream trek. The water appeared to have risen by about a half a foot but we weren't exactly sure of this; it probably was imagined on our part. Quicksand appeared more frequently in the quiet stretches of water causing us to sink in to crotch level in some places. This is not the Gilligan's island variety of quicksand, where the unfortunate jungle traveller eventually sinks below the surface leaving only his hat to record a rather dramatic end (of course this always happened to someone who had the solution to getting everyone off the island!). The Escalante quicksand is a thin, silty, organic mud that will only allow you to sink to crotch level but it can entrap you just the same, especially with the added weight of a pack. The level of danger depends on the water depth. You could get mired in it with your head under water, pinned by wet packweight, but that didn't seem too likely here.

Shortly into the day's journey I hit a patch of quicksand that pulled me into waist deep water and unfortunately flooded my hardy Nikon camera which I had foolishly failed to remove from its hip pouch. What an unfortunate turn this was as I had remained fully commited to a photographic record of every phase of this journey. At least Caron's waterproof Pentax was fully operational and would now be pressed into more frequent service. Despite this setback we moved forever downstream, but now sticking to more land-based routing down the river corridor, only crossing the river where riffles and rapids indicate that a stable, gravelly substrate lies below the moving water.

This change in our mode of travel down the river brought us more frequently into the realm of the collared lizard and of course my namesake, the whiptail lizard.

The collared lizard is quite a character-- not the least bit fearful. The males boldly patrol their territories atop rocks where the females can take notice of their bright coloration. Their anti-predator tactics consist of an initially stubborn and aggressive stance (making them fun and easy to photograph) and eventually a quick and dramatic escape on two hind legs. Not unlike ol' T. Rex himself.

The whiptail lizard has a different strategy altogether. It will initially and deliberately direct the predator's attention into a bush by noisily hastening into it and then effect its escape via stealthily creeping out the backdoor. As a last resort it will run in a manner few lizards could ever match. Whiptails are extremely fast. If you can catch one, you are either faster or smarter than the snakes, coyotes, foxes, and birds all looking to make a meal out of this rather sleek reptile.

We eventually noticed that the Wingate sandstone layer was gradually lowering and getting closer to the canyon bottom, despite the fact that the river should normally be cutting into and revealing the layers below the Wingate. This apparent anomoly is simply due to the fact the layers are not horizontal but display an obvious dip in the direction of the water flow, owing to a past geological uplift event. In the case of the Escalante River, the dip is quite a bit steeper than the river's gradient. This presented consequences for hikers moving downriver because the boundary between the erodable Chinle and the overlying Wingate was now closing in on the river banks from both sides of the canyon. Along this boundary, huge blocks of the overlying sandstone were cleaving off where the eroded siltsone below could no longer support its overbearing weight. As a result, we found ourselves clambering up and down huge, RV-sized sandstone boulders that blocked our path next to the river. In many instances, we were either forced to ascend up the eroded canyon walls to get around the obstacles or try to wade around the blocks through the deep pools they created. Many of the giant blocks had rolled directly into the middle of the river and had managed to collect quite an impressive mass of logs and large branches washed down by what were clearly magnificent flash floods. It brought to mind the nest of an extremely large and frightful hummingbird.

Our progress through this giant boulder field was slow and arduous, and travel downriver became a monotonous and repetitive puzzle-solving game whose current solution simply revealed the next puzzle in the series. This mode of travel was much different than that of the previous day where the giant boulders were conveniently perched so far above the river that we hardly noticed their presence. Despite this setback, we still managed to gain 12 miles on the river corridor before arriving at another superb campsite on a small beach. Although today's mileage was a hard-fought battle, we remained in good spirits due solely to the sheer beauty of this rugged and unique canyon. After a hot meal around a very small campfire, we pondered the possibility of actually getting out of the canyon tomorrow. It seemed wise not to dwell on it for too long as it was clearly becoming difficult to predict what new obstacles would be tossed in our way as the river worked its way further south.

Day 28
Wednesday, May 6
Start: Escalante River Canyon near Fool's Canyon
End: Escalante River Canyon at Coyote Gulch
Miles: 9.0

We woke to yet another cloudless day and savored the refreshing morning air during breakfast and before venturing further downstream. The previous day's endless game of finding the easiest route of passage into the next river bend picked up right away. With a growing exasperation that arrived too early in the day, we began trudging and pondering our way south once again.

We noticed two people who seemed to be descending the river course with a much greater degree of enthusiasm than we could seem to muster up at that point. For some mysterious reason, but more than likely due to a vintage 1970's global peace patch that I have sewn to the shoulder of my Mountain Hardwear Canyon shirt, James had intially had mistaken me for a park ranger and was marching over to have an informative discussion. His wife Amy was moving just as furtively and they both obviously were enjoying their hike down the Escalante. We sat and chatted for quite some time and they were quite informative in their knowledge of this particular river canyon. As it turned out, this Bay-area couple had conducted personal trips down the Escalante River canyon at least 10 times in the past 20 years! No wonder their knowledge was so sharp. They informed us that we were currently travelling down the most difficult segment of the river and that once we cleared the Wingate-Chinle boundary in the river, life would get much better. This was indeed good to know.

What was equally uplifting, though in a much different sense, was to learn of some of the past and ongoing efforts at preserving this wild river corridor we were now traversing. A non-profit environmental agency called the Grand Canyon Trust had purchased the long-term grazing rights for cattle in the canyon. Instead of actually grazing any cattle, they put the grazing status of this land into disuse and allowed the corridor to recover from the destructive activity that cattle grazing imposes. I'm sure there are many cattlemen that see this surreptitious move as a 'waste of resources' not to be converting all of this lush riparian plant life into the growth of bovine muscle. But there is a steady swelling in the ranks of people who, like myself, consider the preservation of this wild canyon country to be far more important than using public land (especially ecologically sensitive land!) to fatten up cattle. There is much politics at play here, far more than I can delve into in this journal, but in the end I came away with a great feeling from the wee bit of hope offered by this ingenious move on the part of the Grand Canyon Trust. We also learned of a park ranger working here in the Grand Staircase National Monument that almost single-handedly removed every Russian olive tree from the canyon (the Russian olive and the equally vile tamarisk tree are serious non-native invasives that threaten to disrupt or change the ecology of many western river systems). But this guy performed this amazing feat with a hand saw! Apparently it took him more than 10 years to complete his mission but he damn well pulled it off. It was certainly uplifting to hear of these new found heroes and how organization, ingenuity, and sheer determination can transcend the beurocracy and politics involved in effecting positive change in the use of our public lands.

Shortly after learning all of this we ran into the couple again after we had leap-frogged them during a lunch stop. As James was answering more of my questions regarding the Grand Canyon Trust, now my new heroes in the fight to preserve the sensitive areas of the Colorado Plateau, a large river otter emerged from behind the sand bank from across the river and began splashing and diving in the water and playfully rolling around in the quicksand. I couldn't help but think that had the cows not been chased out of the canyon and the Russian olives so systematically eliminated from the river banks, I would perhaps not be witnessing this splendid display of nature. New heroes yes indeed!

Just as Amy and James had informed us, travel down the canyon became far more efficient once the Chinle formation dipped below the river level. The large Wingate sandstone blocks were left upriver while our old friend, the stately Navajo sandstone, quickly came into view and seem to grant us safe and easy passage for the remaining miles to Coyote Gulch. Along the way we passed James and Amy one last time at their camp in an alcove as well as a few other parties camped below the towering Steven's Arch along this peaceful stretch of the Escalante. We finally completed our 28-mile river sojourn at the confluence with Coyote Gulch just as the last remaining daylight faded from the western sky and the spadefoots resumed their endless trilling for the night.

Day 29
Thursday, May 7
Start: Escalante River Canyon at Coyote Gulch
End: Hurricane Wash trailhead at Hole-in-the-Rock Road
Miles: 12.8

We had been on the trail for nearly two weeks since leaving Hanksville and were feeling a great need to get some "town time" in Escalante, not to mention a nice hot shower and an ice-cold beer. Despite having heard of the amazing beauty of Coyote Gulch from just about everyone we met en route, our primary concern for today was to get the 13 miles through it and onto the Hole-in-the-Rock road to begin the hitch to town. Still we were happy to be travelling through yet another spectacular canyon along the way and we were not the least bit disappointed in the end.

We were now travelling upcanyon against the dip direction and once again found ourselves surrounded by the beautiful Navajo sandstone that gradually yielded to the Wingate. By the time arrived at the latter, we had passed by two beautiful arches carved from the Navajo and passed through a remarkable natural bridge. Along the entire route, clear cold spring waters ran down the width of the canyon. The riparian community it supported was the richest I have yet seen on the trail, and included lush growth of alders, cottonwoods, streamside maples, and extensive vines climbing throughout the many sandstone alcoves. This was certainly a paradise, the likes of which I have seen in only a few other, still secret, locations. However, there is no such secret called "Coyote Gulch" as we encountered quite a few people who had ventured down to partake of this unique canyon experience. On the plus side of this, we felt our chances of hitching a ride to Escalante from such a remote take-out were bolstered by the large number of visitors to the canyon.

Eventually the canyon arrived at the small, very narrow gateway to Hurricane Wash. This splendid little side canyon started with many of the attributes of Coyote Gulch, its more mature parent, yet once we were sufficiently removed from the larger canyon system, it transformed, rather suddenly, into the hot, dry wash we expected to see. Our journey through the riparian canyons of the Escalante River system had finally come to an end. While we will not soon forget the unique challenges the canyons offered to us as hikers on a mission to get through, neither will our recollections of their rugged beauty fade from memory.

By the time we finally closed in on our goal, the notoriously deserted Hole-in-the-Rock Road, it was late afternoon and not a single car was on the road, which was visible in both directions for quite some distance. Although quite a few cars remained at the trailhead, we really didn't expect to catch a ride with one of these hikers whom we had left far behind in the canyon earlier in the day.

We tanked up with water at a large stock tank down the road when some cowboys trailering some horse passed by in their pick-up rig. They were definitely not interested in picking us up, however. We half-heartedly ambled up the road as though willing to actually walk the whole 40 miles into Escalante. Yet here was the sun beginning its late-afternoon race for the western horizon.

We began entertaining the notion of staying out among the coyotes and ravens for yet one more night, when a small red compact car came rolling slowly our way. They stopped and indicated they would take us into, or at least much closer to Escalante. This was good news for us! As it turned out, Terry and Eric had been on a silent meditative retreat in a secret side-canyon of Coyote Gulch and were now heading back to rejoin society. Terry, a fertile-minded gentleman in his early 70's, inquired as to whether we were walking the Hayduke Trail as he had supplied some transportation to one of the solo hikers ahead of us on his way into the area. Eric, 64, was a teacher of meditation and a buddhist as well. What great luck to not only catch the ride but to be able to talk to these interesting gentlemen during the long. Not your typical Utah cowboys to be sure.

We arrived in Escalante well after 9 PM after a long and rambling journey down the road. The locally famous Georgie's restaurant was just closing. With yet another stroke of good fortune, Georgie herself emerged from the kitchen, took a long look at us and demanded that we sit and eat a plate of her famous chicken enchiladas. We were only too willing to oblige her and Caron and I gratefully bought dinner for our two saviors in the RAV 4 Toyota. They dropped us off at the outfitters where we grabbed one of the 'sandboxes' outside that were specifically constructed for road-travelling tenters. It seemed like such a diverse day we experienced! After walking through most of Coyote Gulch, we were finally back in civilization anticipating some R and R in the great little town of Escalante. Rest came easily knowing the Hayduke Trail would always wait most patiently for our return.

Note:
Friday, Saturday, Sunday were zero-mileage days in the quaint little town of Escalante, UT, home of the mighty Moquis, back-to-back state high-school football champions in 2008 and 2009. At this point we both needed a break from the trail before heading off across a rather long stretch of the remote Kaipirowits Plateau. We are particularly fond of this little town and its eclectic collection of gift stores and restaurants.

Escalante seems to be a mecca for people interested in outdoor activities, in particular hiking and canyoneering, but who also seem to have an active interest in the social and political implications of preserving the red rocks environment. This alone makes this a great place to recoup and regroup before continuing the Hayduke hike. Throw in a well-stocked outfitter store that serves up pizza and beer 'til 9 PM (unheard of in Utah, so we hear) and it is no wonder we're taking an extended layover.

Caron then decided that a well-earned break from the trail was in order for her while I resumed making solo progress on the trail. In part, we are trying to get back on our original schedule so that our permit dates match the actual dates that we are in Grand Canyon National Park. Caron has done a remarkable job with the mileage so far, especially given that this is her first (and rather long and difficult) trip while wearing a backpack. She is indeed quite a trooper and I know I will miss travelling with her across the difficult miles ahead. I will look forward to her rejoining the Hayduke as it pushes into beautiful Bryce Canyon.

Total Hayduke miles: 332

Hayduke canyon count:
Lower Muley Twist Canyon (down)
Hall's Creek Canyon (down)
[Crossed Waterpocket Fold]Middle Moody Canyon (down)
Moody Creek Canyon (down)
Escalante River Canyon (down)
Coyote Gulch (up)
Hurricane Wash (up)

Update from the Kaibab Plateau

2009-05-24T07:25:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! We are wayyyy behind with the blogging so I thought I'd provide a brief update here while we wait to upload the more detailed chapters. Basically we have a problem with cell service availability. All the blog chapters are in my Blackberry and must be sent via cell phone. We did find service at Rainbow Point (at 9000 feet in Bryce Canyon). But the conditions were too miserable and distracting to send out the next chapter.
We are now at Jacobs Lake, AZ and found we had some computer access, so I thought I'd let you know that we are doing well and appear to be on schedule as we begin our march to the Nankoweap Trailhead in Grand Canyon National Park. Caron took a break for about 100 miles worth of additional drainage wandering in southern Utah. She has been back on the trail for the last 120 miles and we have been able to up our daily mileage a bit to stay track with the permit dates for the GC. It's all about the permit dates....

Check back soon for a more complete update!

From Mountains to Mesas...

2009-05-10T14:03:00.001-07:00

We left Hanksville late after taking a good long while at lunch to update this blog. Since we are committed to maintaining a hiking journal, I consider 'blog duty' to be as essential to this hike as resupplying with food and maps. So, we figured we might get in a "near-o", or "near zero mileage day" today as we did on the day we entered Hanksville. If, for a near-o, we could manage at least 6 miles, which is half the mileage of a regularly scheduled 12-mile day, then 2 near-o days equals one trail day plus a zero. Add this to the real zero we took and we're now leaving Hanksville with two zeroes. Of course, too many zeroes can really slow down a hike. But rejuvenating the spirit is essential for maintaining good progress on the trail. And every now and then one should also throw in a "beer-o" as essential for maintaining good mental health.

Day 18
Sunday, April 26
Start: Hwy 95 and Poison Spring Canyon Rd
End: Road junction near Butler Wash
Miles: 4.7

Our intention was to hitch back out to mile marker 17 where we intersected the highway from the east carrying our little sore-footed friend, and continue west up a less developed road. Although we had been moving up in elevation steadily since fording the Dirty Devil, we would soon start up the Henry Mountains in earnest. This leg of the Hayduke Trail offers the only taste of true alpine travel along the entire route. After having visited a variety of canyon systems and desert habitats, we were looking quite forward to a little 'vacation in the mountains'.

We had a bit of a slow Sunday afternoon hitch but eventually got a ride with a cool dude in a Toyota pick-up en route to Blanding. He had heard of the Hayduke Trail and reminded us of its reputation for difficult travel. He let us off in what seemed to him like the middle of nowhere. Rainstorms were swirling all around us as we walked west, many descending right off the Henry Mountains now only a few miles in that direction. Fortunately, none of these storms struck our location and we stayed clean and dry as we approached an intersection of the road near the head of Butler Wash. We would then follow this drainage to the base of the Henrys.

As the day came to a close, we began taking notice of the ever expanding views of the vast red-rock landscape below and to the east. More previously traversed terrain slowly opened into view with every little bit of elevation gained. If crossing the Henrys only offered a pictorial review of the vast canyon systems that had demanded so much from us these past few weeks, our efforts to gain the highest ridges would be well-rewarded.

Day 19
Monday, April 27
Start: Road junction near Butler Wash
End: Wickiup Pass, Henry Mtns
Miles: 9.4
Vertical feet gained: 2600

We quickly broke camp and soon found the drainage leading us out of Butler Wash and to the dirt road that we would follow all the way to the highest pass over the Henry's. Although the road pulled steadily upward, we made decent progress as the surrounding vegetation took on a distinct transitional character. Pinon pines slowly gave way to more stately ponderosas and white firs. Aspen trees appeared in the bed of the creek now flowing alongside the road as we occasionally heard the call of wild turkeys off in the thick brush. A large mountain horned lizard scurried across the road and, as all horned lizards tend to do, patiently posed for pictures.

The road wound around the side of the mountain and would occasionally duck into ravines that had less sun exposure. We noticed that these within these little corners, the snow had yet to completely melt away and spring had barely arrived. We encountered several groups of the renowned Henry Mountain mule deer as we wound our way slowly up to a sheltered campsite on Wickiup Pass. By then, a stiff persistent wind had picked up and seemed to inject a noticeable chill into the thinning air. From here, the road took a turn upward and into much deeper snow as it began a consistent climb up through the snowdrifts toward Bull Creek Pass. We decided that would best be tackled tomorrow and retreated into the tent as the temperatures dropped while the wind relentlessly whipped up into even stronger gusts.

Day 20
Tuesday, April 28
Start: Wickiup Pass, Henry Mtns
End: upper Sweetwater Creek Canyon
Miles: 7.8
Vertical feet gained: 2200

As the wind had not abated overnight, we departed camp dressed in the best cold-weather outfits we could throw together. This certainly didn't do too much to stop the penetrating wind and to make matters worse, the sun was melting the top layer of the deepening snow drifts. This caused us to 'posthole' frequently as we attempted to cross the north-facing ravines enroute to Bull Creek Pass. As we steadily gained elevation, the wind increased to a persistent 20 mph and made the going even slower. We soon caught sight of the south summit ridge over which we had to pass in order to cross to the eastern flank of the Henrys. We decided to make a break toward the ridge to avoid what looked like a protracted and frustrating ascent over more unstable snow banks. Unfortunately for us, this turn exposed us to even more brutal prevailing winds. We crossed a few smaller summits enroute to the main south summit from which we would begin the descent but by now the wind had picked up into a sustained 40 mph and was gusting to around 60! (I used my trusty Kestrel 4500 weathermeter to make these recordings). Despite the nagging wind, which at times simply pinned us in our tracks, we couldn't help but notice the view which had opened up on the other side. We could see Capitol Reef NP far below and to the west, with its prominent trademark monocline known as the "Waterpocket Fold" running through the park along an extensive north-south axis. Great quantities of dust had been kicked up by the raging desert winds below and were beginning to obscure the
views both to the east and west.

Our immediate task was to gain some relief from the winds raging over the mountain ridge we had worked so hard to ascend. We noticed a newly installed cell phone tower and shack on the south summit and decided to make a concerted effort to get there and out of the wind. Caron got blown over a few times by the intense summit gale and by the time she made it into the cell phone shack, she was thoroughly frozen. Our coveted east-to-west mountain getaway had gone seriously south for the moment as we could now only think about getting off the ridge and into the protected warmth of the desert canyons below! Not surprisingly, we found we had cell service inside this shack so we made a few 'you'll never believe where I am' calls while the hurricane-force winds raged outside. We fixed some hot soup inside the shack and after warming up a bit, we decided to make a break for the exit route off this ridge. By late afternoon we had mananged to descend safely off the south summit ridge and eventually found ourselves next to another antenna shack from which we then dropped all the way to the floor of Sweetwater Creek canyon. We hiked until the sun began fading and managed to locate a decent campsite just above the very narrow wash.

Thank god the tempestuous crossing of the Henry Mountains was now behind us. I have never experienced such intense winds before but the Henrys are notorious in that respect. It seems the deserts east were doing battle with the deserts west and this little mountain range was caught up in a winless battle of intense air flow between numerous low-pressure centers. Although our passage across the Henry's was all too short, it packed an unbelievable punch that will not soon be forgotten!

Day 21
Wednesday, April 29
Start: upper Sweetwater Creek Canyon
End: Tarantula Mesa above Muley Creek Canyon.
Miles: 11.5

Our goal for today was to ramp up and spill onto the huge Tarantula mesa residing immediately west of the Henry Mountains. We travelled down Sweetwater Creek canyon and filtered water at what we thought might be the last appearance of flowing water. Desert creeks are quite unpredictable in their offerings of surface water. Unlike mountain streams, they rarely get bigger or wetter downstream. In fact, it is often more likely that the water will be available upstream as it tends to disappear beneath the deepening sand in the downstream stretches. We usually just follow the policy of taking water whenever it surfaces as it is not possible to predict where it will make its last appearance.

The widening canyon hosted a few major pour-offs so we decided just to reroute to the base of Tarantula Mesa through the juniper cloaked hills after ascending to to the rim at the first impasse. From there we turned onto a road that quickly ascended to yield some pleasantly flat walking on top of the enormous mesa-- through some very scenic country as a bonus. Although we were back in familiar desert environs after having crossed the mountains, the landscape had a novel feel about it. The canyons, rather than slicing suddenly through deep layers of rock, were tightly nestled between vast and expansive mesas comprising sandstone caps sitting squarely atop thick beds of eroding grey shales. We also encountered a strange-looking solar-powered cattle tank on the mesa. I have no idea how this contraption works but it appears to be extracting plenty of water in this otherwise bone-dry habitat.

After seven miles on this road, we abruptly left it late in the afternoon and navigated briefly to the edge of Tarantula Mesa overlooking the extensive Muley Canyon drainage. We were now poised for another harrowing steep descent down the canyon wall but that would wait until tomorrow's morning sun was upon us.

Day 22
Thursday, April 30
Start: Tarantula Mesa above Muley Creek Canyon.
End: Swap Canyon inside Capitol Reef NP
Miles: 13.1
Unlike the previous steep canyon descents we have previously experienced, the route down the edge of this huge mesa was well marked. We had no problem following it down and by now we were well aware that the best way to tackle these steep descents is to be deliberately slow and sure of every step. Soon we were delivered safely to the drainage below where we tried to make sense of the guidebook's directions on navigating the tricky landscape ahead.
We eventually found the stock trail as advertised and were now on a contouring route around the base of Tarantula Mesa, whose immense size was still being revealed with every slow mile we accomplished. Our goal was to find a break into Swap Canyon which was a whole level lower than Muley Canyon. Unfortunately, although a number of springs appeared on the maps, they were either impossible to locate or severely fouled by cattle. So we were again running short of good water in the heat of the day. One such water source was a spring running down a narrow unnamed wash which we were following down to the confluence of yet another wash. Most of the standing water had evaporated leaving a thick, crusty salt deposit atop a slimy, muddy substrate. The concoction tended to entrap our feet beneath an organic salt/mud slurry in tight sections where we couldn't avoid stepping on it. Thoroughly gross and quite unlike anything I've ever seen before!

Rather than follow the guidebook's route which had us descending yet another steep canyon wall, we decided to navigate to the head of a shallow, easily descending wash that I had noticed on the topo earlier. It was located just to the west of the tricky landscape through which we were moving in order to find the route down Swap Canyon. I set the GPS for the coordinates of the wash, we found it very easily and then followed its forgiving course to the merge with Swap Canyon. I would suggest taking this alternate route as it is certainly easier to locate and to traverse (see Route Commentary). Like Swap Canyon, the drainage has a set of springs within it but like all the springs we've encountered earlier since entering the mesa country, it was severely fouled by cattle. So we thought we'd try one final time to locate usable water up in Swap Canyon before filling up with now much-needed water.

Our efforts there were also in vain as this water had also been rendered quite unusable by wallowing bovines. What makes this situation so frustrating is that there is no lack of water sources in the area, it's the action of the cattle that eliminates the availability to the human traveller. Where'sthat ingenious spring maker whose handiwork we appreciated earlier in Poison Spring? Quite frankly, I think it should be up to the cattle grazers themselves to protect these water sources for human consumption. After all, we as taxpayers are subsidizing the profit they make from fattening up their cattle on public lands. But what's done is done and it should be noted that there are now few, if any at all, good water sources for 30 miles or more beyond Sweetwater Creek. Not good news for Hayduke hikers.

We were forced then to take on bad water once again. We limited ourselves to one liter each because of the generally unhealthy alkalinity and dissolved organic content of this water. With disdain and resentment at having been foiled three times by the cursed BLM bovines, I rounded the next bend beyond the Swap Canyon Spring and found myself abruptly face-to-face with one of the offending parties. However this bovine was of the American bison variety! He saw me and turned tail but fortunately one of his buddies was frolicking in the high grass and didn't notice me until I captured a few seconds of his antics on video. I knew about the expanding wild herd of buffalo in the Henry Mountains but never expected to meet up with one in the lower canyons. In fact, we had been following a small herd down Swap Canyon all along but now engaged them in hotter pursuit with video ready to roll.

Somehow, as I was hunting buffalo along a stock trail of their own making, Caron and I became separated and couldn't seem to reconnect. I abandoned the buffalo hunt and tried to locate her by backtracking and then following her forward tracks from a location where I surmised we both had been. Eventually, about sunset, it became clear that she was ahead of me and after another hour I happened upon her campsite, well within the boundaries of Capitol Reef National Park. Neither of us was too terribly pleased with the other so we eventually just had to forget about the incident and concentrate on our impending needs, like the good water we had buried only 4 miles away in Capitol Reef NP. Once again, we retired for the night in great need of decent water.

Day 23
Friday, May 1
Start: Swap Canyon inside Capitol Reef NP
End: Lower Muley Twist Canyon
Miles: 10.1

The first of our only two backcountry caches now awaited us a few miles ahead but we first had to ascend 600 feet up the notorious Burr Trail switchbacks. After this climb, we then had to unearth what we recalled was a very deeply buried tub of goodies near the Lower Muley Twist Canyon trailhead. Since the Burr switchbacks face east, we endeavored to get started on them early in the morning before the sun was fully up and eliminating the pockets of shade that might be very helpful on the ascent.
In that regard, we were a bit late but not badly so. On the way up, we got our first views up close of the famous Waterpocket Fold of Capitol Reef NP. All the prominent and well-known geological layers of the upper Colorado Plateau (the Navajo Sandstone, the Kayenta formation, the Wingate Sandstone, and the Chinle formation) are here intensely folded and compressed tightly together by this single bout of strongly upwarping tectonic forces. The geologic exposures along this famous fold in the earth's crust alone are sufficient to warrant a trip to this under-appreciated national park.

We finally topped the fold and trotted over to the pinon pine tree that marked our cache location. Easy enough. Pinpointing the exact spot we buried it was another matter. Being even more parched than last night and in dire need of the cool water, which was now merely a mysterious arm's length away, did not seem to inject any logistical improvements into our search. Finally, and with great relief, we struck liquid gold and pulled up the water cache for a vitally needed long drink of water. It was actually cold, too! Being placed in the shade and buried deep under tightly packed soil, the tub had acted as a miniature refrigerator over the past few months. Even the candy bars were rock solid and fresh. Despite these advantages, I think we should avoid such a deep burial in future caches as the exact site was somewhat difficult to relocate and resulted in some overly anxious conjecturing.

We took a good long break in the shade of the pinon tree as we sorted through our pack contents and decided to leave some of the cold-weather items behind for reburial. We wouldn't need these as most of the remaining mileage is through hot canyons. We also surmised that we have been routinely overstocked in the food department for every leg of this trip. This was mainly due to skipping dinners and breakfasts on occasion and by the enormous proportions we originally attributed to each meal. So we streamlined our food rations as well. We finally headed out around 5 in the evening and figured to get in about 6 or 7 miles before setting up camp. This mileage went amazingly fast for little did we realize, in leaving behind the grey and yellow mesas and the rugged Henry Mountains to the east, we were about to enter some of the most wildly beautiful canyon country on the Hayduke.

Total Hayduke miles: 262

Hayduke canyon count:

Butler Wash (up)

Ridge-based crossing of Henry Mountains

Sweetwater Creek Canyon (down)

Muley Creek Canyon (down)

un-named wash to "good springs" (down)

un-named wash away from "good springs" (up)

un-named wash into Swap Canyon (down)

Swap Canyon (down)

Routing commentary:

1. We found that breaking off the road to Bull Creek Pass to intercept the south summit ridge would be preferred in the face of postholing along the road to the pass. Do this about a mile from the pass and the route is very obvious.

2. Rather than descend back into Sweetwater Canyon pass the first pour-off and then have to redescend and then reascend, we set a GO TO point for the Tarantula Mesa road intersection and strolled through the pinon-junipers hills until arriving at the intersection.

3. While trying to ascertain our position on the maps in order to make the proper descent into Swap Canyon, we noticed a very negotiable ravine that descended gently to merge with Swap Canyon. If you have the USGS 7.5' map, find the "Swap Canyon Springs" label on it. The little wash entering from the north is what you want. This drainage is easily and naturally entered from the "high ground" area you are maintaining while contouring around the base of Tarantula Mesa.

The Dirty Devil vs. The Fern Maidens

2009-05-09T17:16:00.001-07:00

Day 14
Tuesday, April 21
Start: Info kiosk near Hwy 94 near Lake Powell
End: Somewhere among the Red Ledges.
Miles: 10.1

With some anxiety, we headed off from Hwy 95 into no-man's land just when the sun was starting to beat down with a noticeable force. For me, the anxiety emerged from the required chimney ascent out of the side canyon we would soon turn into. For Caron, the whole big picture of taking off into a hot desert with no good water sources for the next 27 miles, with extremely heavy packs, and away from what at least appeared to be a semblance of civilization seemed to get the best of her. We met a solo mountain biker on the road up to the side canyon whose camp we passed along the way. Many of the people we've met so far are out here for the same reasons we are-- to experience this awe-inspiring and rugged landscape-- but have a distinctively different modus operandi of exploration. In this dude's case, he used his truck to establish a base camp and his mountain bike for exploratory excursions. It always interests me to see the various schemes people devise for being out here; I'm sure we'll witness many more along the way. One thing is for sure, putting on a pack and eliminating the tethers achieves the greatest independence of all. As alluded to earlier, it does occasionally result in some anxious moments.

We found the location of the chimney route by early afternoon and began the slow plodding ascent up to it as the sun seemed to increase its intensity. When we finally arrived, we realized that the climbing was far easier and less extensive then any of the cliff routes we had so far accomplished. With a quick lift of the packs, we were soon up on the rim resting in the shade with at least some of the morning's anxiety now dissipated.

The next twist to this leg was navigating the topographical landmark known as the "Red Ledges". After staring at the topo maps during the months leading up to this hike, I still had trouble imagining just what these ledges actually looked like. Ultimately, they were nothing like what I had in mind. The topography on top was somewhat flat with sage and junipers dotting the landscape. There was an enormous sandstone monolith to the north called "The Block" that clearly dictated a westerly path around it and through the ledges. The ledges themselves were composed of maroon-colored broken shales, eroded into a stair-step pattern and dissected into bewilderimg array of ravines. As we gained the high ground above them, I could clearly see why this maze-like landscape had earned its own title on the topographic map.

To the east I noticed a curious familiar landmark known as "The Sewing Machine" (I'm guessing it was named long before mass production of the modern units). We had seen this notable landmark at points much earlier on the trip, far to the west in Canyonlands, then far to the northwest near Fable Valley, and now it was just a few miles to our east (actually part of the same dominating sandstone formation as The Block). We had walked a huge southerly arc around the Sewing Machine. Prominent landmarks like these were the means by which natives, explorers and pioneers oriented themselves on long journeys. I'm sure cattle herders and wayward long-distance hikers still use them if need be.

We stuck to the high ground, avoiding getting sucked into walking the wrong direction down the myriad ravines and at the same time routing around The Block. Along the way we encountered an old cowboy camp with many tin cans and old bottles. These were clearly very old-- maybe 75 years. Only the stamps on the ends of the cans were readable: "Regular Grind" and "Prince Albert" (incidentally, someone had definitely let him out).

We made our way northwest around the block and momentarily made the mistake of descending too far down into the Ledges. We worked our way back up to higher ground and decided to stop for the night with 7 more miles left of negotiating the maze of ravines. We cowboy-camped behind a lone juniper up near the western edge of The Block and inadvertently discovered a great source of amusement. Keeping our headlamps on and pointed up at the night sky soon brought in the flying insects, which in turn brought in pursuing bats. We watched with great amazement as these adept aereal hunters scooped up meal after meal in ostensible silence-- a maze of stars above them and only a slightly less befuddling labrynth of red ravines below.

Day 15
Wednesday, April 22
Start: Somewhere among the Red Ledges.
End: 4 miles up Hatch Canyon
Miles: 11.5

Determined to make short order of the remaining ~3.5 miles until the descent into Fiddler Cove Canyon, we were up early and soon renegotiating with the Red Ledges. Our strategy so far had been to stay elevated so as not to get sucked into a wayward ravine. But now our direction of travel dictated a different path that cut directly across the flow of the ravines. Fortunately, the ledges appeared to coalesce into a slightly more manageable landscape and without too much errant maneuvering, we eventually approached the edge of the daunting Fiddler's Cove Canyon for the unnerving descent to its floor.

This canyon required a carefully executed 750-foot descent to the bottom-- with quite a few warnings from the guidebook authors who had earlier uncovered the only route down. We attempted to locate this route but couldn't seem to hone in on the obvious choice among a few potential breaks in the canyon rim. I thought I had located a viable route but whether it descended safely all the way to the floor would remain unknown until we were actually committed to taking it. With great trepidation that seemed to drain away our energy in the hot mid-day sun, we commenced descending a route which eventually didn't seem quite like the one described as the "only way down". We carefully inched our way down the steep-sided canyon and to our great relief it emptied onto a navigable scree slope via a short climb down a chimney. We had to remove our packs and lower them on ropes twice through this descent. If I had doubts that this was the officially decribed route down, they were forever put to rest when we finally viewed the safer route from the bottom. We were too far west to have seen it (see route commentary). I'm not exactly sure how this snafu occurred but I'm now fairly certain that there is at least and probably not more than two ways down this steep-sided canyon.

We arrived at the Dirty Devil river running critically short of good water. This was not a good prospect for us as this river only offered the nastiest water possible. The sediment load, though very high, is not the problem. The water has an alkali content that renders it nearly unpotable. More warnings from the guidebook authors concerning this water didn't help our psyche much either. Nonetheless, our route was 6 miles up this river canyon and an additional 6 miles up Poison Spring Canyon to a very nice spring-fed water source. We reluctantly filtered 4 liters of this marginal water in dubious hope that we could actually be sparing with it for the next 12 miles.

While gathering ourselves for the grueling, water-restricted miles ahead, we noticed that a large mid-afternoon rainstorm had socked in to the north some 20 miles away. In addition to fighting through willow and tamarisk thickets, muscling our way through quicksand traps, and having to contend with multiple fords of a river whose water wasn't fit for consumption, we now had to consider the prospect of a flash flood on this capricious river. The trip up the Dirty Devil corridor was really beginning to sound like pure hell to us so we began considering alternatives. Fortunately, the guidebook described an alternative high-water route that was beginning to sound like the one we wanted despite adding an additional 5 miles of walking before we could get to good water.

So we set off back up Fiddler's Cove Canyon for a short distance until we arrived at the mouth of Hatch Canyon. The walk up was easy and scenic on a slowly ascending gravelly wash bed-- definitely preferable to the Dirty Devil route. As the afternoon wore on and evening began to set in, our thirst dictated that we start taking in some of the bad water we were hauling up. I felt myself getting trapped into the dreaded cycle whereby the very water that you are drinking to quench your thirst makes you even more thirsty due to its salt content. What a terrible prospect with 14 more miles ahead where cold, delicious, spring-fed water awaited.

I remember a short story from my sophomore year in high school entitled "Wine in the Desert". It tells the story of an evil bandito that plunders a peaceful hacienda then takes the young boy residing there as his personal slave after murdering the rest his family. The boy becomes entrusted to the bandito. When it comes time to leave and continue his plundering the innocent, the bandito orders the boy to fill up two canteens before setting off across the perilously hot desert. The first canteen was filled with delicious, cold well water-- enough to get the bandito safely beyond the point of no return. The second canteen contained wine. The boy cleverly exacts revenge on the bandito by forcing him to eventually drink the wine due to the unbearable urge to consume liquid. As you can imagine, the bandito's death is slow and brutal as the alcohol dehydrates him even more. He even lances his own tongue to drink the blood. Contemplating this scenario was indeed a great way to pass the time on the long hot march up Hatch Canyon.

The sort of mental misery produced here degenerates the spirit. Whether the intense need to drink more and more water emanates from a physical need or from mental fixation is unclear. However, the exasperation of having to walk so far before truly quenching the thirst is undeniably intense. I began to dream of miraculously happening upon a spring gushing forth pure cold water. Oh the hell of the Dirty Devil!

As dusk approached we were pulling along a gigantic wall of sandstone. I noticed clusters of large ferns growing from a very thin permeable layer situated between the massive upper overhanging sandstone layer and a separate but thinner sandstone bed that descended to the floor of the wash. Ferns? I saw Caron standing beneath one with her mouth open to catch drops of water. Finally I noticed a small puddle of water collecting beneath the largest fern and immediately bent down to sample it. Ahhh.... sweet, pure cold spring water! A few more dripping ferns were just beyond the first. All told, we ran into sweet salvation here as I could see that we could easily gather enough water here to see us to Poison Spring. We decided to camp beneath the overhang next to the luscious fern maidens. We filtered all the collected water from the first maiden, nearly a liter and drank that right away. I placed our cooking pot under maiden #3 as she was only dripping in one location. Caron rigged up a collecting tarp under fern maiden #2 that efficiently funneled the diffuse drippings into a water bladder. There was enough dripping water to fill up completely by morning. We slept peacefully and with all the day's anxiety fully dispelled next to the slow but sure dripping of the watery fern maidens of Hatch canyon.

Day 16
Thursday, April 23
Start: 4 miles up Hatch Canyon
End: Poison Spring Canyon
Miles: 12.6

We were up and out of camp early, entirely rejuvenated and looking forward to passing through the Dirty Devil corridor high up near its rim. We ascended up Hatch Canyon at a break in the rim and located the 4WD road that descended to the river ford and would reunite us with the Hayduke proper. It was a pleasant stroll, made even more so because we were loaded up with enough delicious spring water to see us safely to Poison Spring.

We eventually forded the river and continued up the scenic Poison Spring Canyon, constantly on the alert to view the many petroglyphs hidden in this canyon. We were just about out of water once again when we happened upon the famed Poison Spring. Someone had gone to great lengths to protect this important water source from ruination by cattle. A rock wall was built around the seep point and was breached by a securable iron hatch. Many thanks to the clever architect that rigged this up!

We eventually peeled into a side canyon and camped next to some cottonwoods, only 6 miles from Hwy 95 and a much needed stay in the little town of Hanksville. About an hour after sunset we heard the sounds of an animal tromping up to the tent. Suddenly a dog was trying to nose his way into the tent. We immediately noticed from his whimpering that this little heeler was hurting pretty bad and was clearly lost. We fed him a bit of dinner leftovers and he seemed very content to dig out a windbreak next to the tent and rest his sore feet. This little animal was clearly asking for our help and fortunately for him he ran into two humans that think more of little animals than they do of most other humans. We decided to deal with a rescue plan in the morning.

Day 17
Friday, April 24
Start: Poison Spring Canyon
End: Hanksville, Utah
Miles: 6.0

After breakfast in the tent we stepped out to see exactly what predicament this little dog was in. He had a name tag with his owners contact info on it and so it seemed a simple matter to walk him out to the road and hitch into Hanksville to reunite him with his owner. This plan was foiled when it became apparent that the little guy couldn't walk 5 steps without having to get off his sore paws. He must have been running around for weeks out here with very little to eat, his companions long gone-- not even an ugly damn cow to chase around. We carried the little pooch out to the 4WD road in the main canyon, which had been completely devoid of any traffic the entire time. Deciding that the little dog would have to be driven out in a high-clearance 4WD vehicle, I set off to walk the remaining 6 miles to the highway and hitch into Hanksville to convince some good samaritan to rescue the dog. Caron remained with the poocher who was beginning to perhaps sense that his salvation might indeed be a reality.

After only 10 minutes of hitching, a friendly and very gigantic dude named Justin and his fiance picked me up. It turns out he knew the dog's owner and managed to place a call to his voicemail when we came into cell phone range. The owner was out on a cattle drive and wouldn't be pulling into town until that evening. Justin let me off at the Red Rocks Restaurant in Hanksville and said he could drive me back out to the turnoff later that afternoon, though he would have some trailered horses and wouldn't be able to rescue the dog. So I contemplated the situation over a juicy cheeseburger. Through conversations with some of the locals at the restauraunt, I sensed that the dog would be better off staying with someone other than his owner after he healed up, as his owner wasn't known for his humane treatment of cattle dogs. Justin dropped by as promised but didn't have a solution for rescuing the dog (and now Caron for that matter). Just then the owner of the restaurant and motel across the road interjected and graciously volunteered to drive the little dog out of the canyon.

We gassed up his truck and set off on the rescue mission. I quickly learned that Ed was born in Durango, CO, as I was, and about at the same time. He had moved away to Grand Junction when he was 5 but I knew of his half-brother who also grew up in Durango. The time passed quickly as we conversed about the ol' home town and we eventually happened upon Caron and the little sore-footed dog, who was all too happy to be lifted into Ed's truck and be treated to a can of Alpo courtesy of Justin. Ed was immensely entertaining on the way in and we decided to take one of the rooms in his motel since he had no problem with pets. We decided to name the dog "Hatcher" because we learned that he had been lost on cattle drive in Hatch Canyon some time ago. We shopped at the grocery store for some dog food and some human shampoo and soap. Then this sore-footed crowd of three got some comfortable sleep in a motel as the notorious Hanksville wind howled like crazy outside.

Saturday, April 25: Zero-day in Hanksville.

On our full day in Hanksville, we were fortunate to meet Mikayla, Ed's daughter. She and her boyfriend are going to start running cattle soon and she seemed willing to take Hatcher, as long as we dropped by after the hike to see how he was doing. This seemed like a good temporary solution for our little wayward four-footed friend. We were satisfied that Mikayla's ranch would be a good home for Hatcher, who would soon be buddies with her little boy, Adrian. We also ran into the elusive Zoner, the lone Hayduke hiker ahead of us. He had been moving very quickly on the trail and had taken a break to meet some friends coming across Utah from Colorado. We had a good time finally meeting up and sharing our experiences so far on the trail. We all agreed that the Hayduke was no ordinary long-distance trail and was indeed challenging as it includes so much routinely difficult cross-country routing.

Zoner also informed us that there is a solo female hiker ahead of him trail-named "Love Barge", and she is trucking through with determination and making good progress. At about that time, we ran into Joanne Chee from the Hite Marina store and she informed us that someone picked up a resupply package the day after we left Hite. So we got some hikers on this trail after all! It remains uncertain whether anyone will actually see each other on the trail itself.

Total Hayduke miles: 205

Hayduke canyon count:

Rock Canyon tributary (up)

Fiddler's Cove Canyon (down)

Hatch Canyon (up)

Dirty Devil River canyon (up)

Poison Springs Canyon (up)

Route commentary:

1. Against sound advice from the authors of the guidebook, we slithered our way down a different break in the rim of Fiddler's Cove Canyon than the one suggested in the guidebook. This is an alternative that works without too much inherent risk, but the safest route remains the officially advised one.

2. Tired of the willow-choked quicksand route up the Dirty Devil? Why not take scenic Hatch Canyon up to the Devil's rim and enjoy the wondrous sights and sounds of this infrequently-traveled corridor? You'll love the easy grade and lack of obstacles as you stroll past bizarre formations along the friendly, gravelly wash bottom. Enjoy a tasty, soothing drink of cool spring water served up by our gracious Fern Maidens at the 3.5 mile mark. You won't regret it. See you soon in lovely Hatch Canyon! (Brought to you by the Hatch Canyon Alternative)

Play Rock Match, the exciting online game of skill and chance.

2009-05-08T18:57:00.001-07:00

Many prominent landmarks along the Hayduke have official and often creative names that appear on maps. One such famous landmark is known as "The Sewing Machine" (pictured below) and "Squaw and Papoose Rock" (pictured in the 'Desert Dog" chapter earlier). We have done a bit of our own photographing and naming of rock formations along the Hayduke Trail. See if you can correctly match the photo labels to the nomenclature listed below. When correctly matched, the letters, read down, will spell a phrase commonly heard across American households these days. Good luck and thank you for playing Rock Match!

ROCK MATCH!

__ Fred and Barney
__ The Voyeur
__ Baboonza
__ The Pope
__ Frog on a football
__ T Rex eats
__ Dirty Devil
__ Fat Man w/Skinny Woman
__ The Pickled Parrot
__ Santa in his sleigh
__ Papa Porcine
__ The Poker Table

A.

DD.

Desert 'Dog' and Deep Canyons

2009-05-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Now we get back to what this journey is really all about: travelling great distances through deep canyons over great plateaus. We thoroughly enjoyed the respite on the river-- it added a unique twist to the trip. Travelling along with the Grand River for 65 miles provides an excellent foundation for understanding the structural topography of the Hayduke corridor. Being in a sector of the Colorado Plateau, all drainages flow toward and eventually empty into Colorado River. However, we are only periodically crossing the Colorado River (with the obvious exception of the Grand Canyon leg), while weaving in and out of drainage systems. The result is that we will occasionally be travelling down these major drainages and occasionally travelling up them. I'm trying to actually keep track of the number of significant drainage systems that we are traversing (either via the canyon bottom or along a rim or below-rim route) and the direction of travel (up or down). In this rather lengthy and varied section 3, the bookeeping may become a bit challenging.

Day 7
Tuesday, April 14
Start: mouth of Red Lake Canyon, Colorado River, Canyonlands
End: Butler Wash, Needles district, Canyonlands
Miles: 7.3

This morning we quickly found ourselves packed for the trail and ready to hand over our river gear to the Tex's Waterway guides. So I thought I'd try to sneak a quick side trip down to Brown Betty to capture her rage on video. I was stopped 2 minutes later by the drone of a motorboat engine run by a couple of punctual river guides. I'll just have to wait to see Cataract Canyon later-- hopefully in the dubious safety of a raft. Caron handed each guide a $20 tip and they seemed elated to only have to take on two lightweight drybags and be on their way.

We hiked up past Prommel Dome and located the permanent trail that would take us 1200 feet up to the top of lower Red Lake Canyon. Getting reacquainted with the trail in this way was not what we wanted-- especially with a full load of food and 8 liters of water. Heavy packs, steep terrain, and only partially conditioned bodies might equate to misery. At least it would be only temporary and we were somewhat relieved that the sun was concealed behind thick clouds while the air temperature did not seem to be climbing. Still, we did more than break a sweat as we worked our way up the Red Lake Trail and finally reunited with the Hayduke Trail at a point where it took off cross country.

We immediately noticed a set of fairly fresh footprints heading up the off-trail route toward Butler Wash, a long drainage which would contain our route for the next 12 miles or so. Maybe a solo Hayduke hiker was ahead of us.

We started up Butler from its mouth where it emptied onto a graben (a low-lying flat area in between fault blocks). The going was steep and with quite a few large obstacles as we worked our way toward the upper geological layers of the Canyonlands Needles district. When it appeared that we had finally achieved the upper layer, the wash became significantly less steep and the obstacles seemed to disappear altogether. Unfortunately this is about where the large pour-offs began inserting themselves into our route. We negotiated one such feature by ascending a steep scree slope and routing back into the wash after transcending the impasse. Our exhaustion levels were rising when we encountered the second pour-off. We decided to remain safely on the canyon rim during the course of this 'negotiation' as dusk was quickly approaching along with a distant storm front. At the end of this difficult stretch, it was safe to conclude that our re-entry to the trail was indeed challenging.

Day 8
Wednesday, April 15
Start: Butler Wash, Needles district, Canyonlands
End: divide between Canyonlands and Beef Basin
Miles: 10.4

This morning the weather had definitely taken on a strange and different character. The temperatures were not climbing at all as a rather stiff and persistent wind had whipped up a hazy layer of air-born dust. The clouds were very low to the ground but not really thick with moisture. What moisture was in the air seemed to be mixed with the dust as suggested by the greyish-brown haze. If I was back in California I may have concluded that this was that awful mixture of smoke and fog known as 'smog'. But this wasn't smoke it was dust. This was 'dog'-- cold desert dog to be exact.

At least the walking was easy in the now shallow Butler Wash. Our goal was to find a large rock spire off to the side that would mark the transition to a side drainage and the route out of Canyonlands and into a large adjoining BLM section known as Beef Basin. The wind would occasionally gust and hit us head on, instantly removing any head gear and creating seriously bad hair. At one point, the sky spit out some moisture in the form of large, dust laden droplets which quickly fouled the lenses on our sunglasses. Yes, desert dog is a reality and a first for me. Very bizarre weather conditions indeed.

The day wore on slowly as the wind and cold temperatures seemed to slow progress up the wash. The sun shining through the thin grey clouds cast a yellowish-grey hue about the surrounding rock layers. It looked and felt like a winter storm was descending on the canyon country. Finally, with great relief, the sky opened up with a full snowstorm. The wind died down as we spotted the spire we were looking for just before it vanished in a sea of white snowflakes.

We made our way up the secondary drainage, through the small natural bridge, known to Haydukers as "Seldom Seen Bridge", and finally out on top of the divide between Canyonlands and Beef Basin. We still needed to get over the divide and down into a drainage containing a natural spring as we were nearly out of water. As I'm sure we will experience many times on this trail, we had travelled nearly two days without access to a natural water source, in this case since leaving the Colorado River, so our water supply was drastically low. However, we did find abundant and fresh pot-hole water on some slickrock formations atop the divide. So we decided to take the next good campsite which happened to be next to some large protective rock formations. It had only stopped snowing for about an hour and we anticipated a night of freezing temperatures and cold, biting wind. To raise our spirits, we built a very hot fire right next to a large reflective rock and thoroughly warmed ourselves before climbing into cold sleeping bags. Another enchanting day was had in the desert wildlands of Utah!

Day 9
Thursday, April 16
Start: divide between Canyonlands and Beef Basin
End: Fable Valley
Miles: 11.9

We emerged from the tents into a veritable winter wonderland. I'm happy to have now seen Canyonlands after a snowstorm, especially with the sun out and struggling to warm the land. But more distant snowstorms were now drifting our way so we thought it wise to get off the divide and down into the basin.

In doing so, the landscape changed dramatically from the colorful layered rock formations of the Needles district to the gently sloping sage and pinon pine flats of Beef Basin. We followed a road for a bit, encountered the remnants of an unfortunate bovine, and entered a wash where we finally encountered the little spring. We eagerly filled up once again with good water.

While following the wash out, we noticed that the cattle trails were accomplishing the same feat but much more efficiently. So we stuck to the bovine route and soon found ourselves at one of the few registers on the Hayduke at the Fable Valley trailhead. The Fable Valley region is one of BLM wilderness study areas. In my opinion, the sheer vastness of the area defines its beauty. With only one or two secondary access roads leading into it, the feeling of remoteness and isolation is similar to any bona fide federal wilderness area.

I read the entries in the trailhead register and was thrilled to learn two things. First, almost every entry for the past six months was made by a Hayduke hiker. There were one or two section hikers ahead, as well as an entry by Dave and Michelle, a thru hiking couple now 25 days ahead of us. But I was also elated to see that "Zoner" was the mysterious solo hiker just ahead of us. Zoner and I both hiked the PCT in 2006 and I had last talked with him in the San Gabriel mountains of southern California that same year. How fitting it would be if after four days of seeing no one else in this vast and wild region, I would meet with someone that I know. On the other hand, who else would it be besides another long-distance hiker doing this crazy route?

From here the trail climbed upwards along the rim of the very spectacular Gypsum Canyon. We stopped numerous times to take in the views along the trail and finally made our way onto the rim of the remote Fable Valley. The weather had cleared for most of the afternoon and it looked like we were in for a very pleasant night.

Day 10
Friday, April 17
Start: Fable Valley
End: Young's Canyon pour-off
Miles: 8.6

We awoke to find a layer of wet snow on the roof of the tent and all around Fable Valley for that matter. This delayed our start as we were somewhat reluctant to get out walking in the cold. We waited until the sun made somewhat of a showing and noticed that by this time the snow had completely disappeared.

On the floor of the valley we debated an alternative route that would avoid the hike up a narrow side drainage in order to gain the top of the Dark Canyon Plateau. I'm not fully convinced that it is always necessary to stick to the drainage bottoms to move from bottom to top (or vice versa). Gaining a ridgeline can make the going much more straightforward, provided it can be successfully attained. It is worth considering if the alternative involves bushwhacking up a narrow canyon and negotiating several pour-offs all the way to the top, which was the prescribed route to the Dark Canyon Plateau.

My trusty Zeiss monocular located what appeared to be a manageable break in the cliffs along the ridgeline above the side canyon leading up to the top of the plateau. We decided to commit to get up this crack and onto the ridge. The crux was a little dicier than it looked and did contain some unnerving exposure, but we were able to ascend the route without packs and then dead lift the packs up. The terrain was generally very steep and it was a strenuous ordeal to get up on the plateau. It is unknown to us whether we saved ourselves any strain or aggravation by going along this alternate route since we have never taken the original one. I guess we can at least claim it was 'refreshingly different' than the routine drainage route.

Once on the pinon pine covered plateau, we located the 4WD road that would take us into the entry wash to the formidable Young's Canyon. Along the way we saw a group of very large elk and a herd of mule deer. A large, mean-looking Angus range bull was gaurding the water hole next to the entry way into Young's Canyon. He seemed seriously pissed off that there were no cows at the water hole and quite determined to make our lives the more miserable for it. We skidaddled past him so quickly that I had no time to mention to him that the water hole was dry, thus explaining why cows were largely absent in the vicinity. Sheesh-- domestic animals can be so obtuse at times.We descended quickly into Young's Canyon in anticipation of encountering the notorious impassable pour-off that would send us back up all the way to the rim. We arrived there at the end of the day and began ascending the canyon wall to find the point where the canyon had to be descended once again. At one point I recall being quite awestruck at the increase in the canyon's depth beyond the pour-off. This is indeed an impressive canyon, both in its depth and very steep walls. Tomorrow we might get lucky and make it all the way to the bottom without a major incident.

Day 11

Saturday, April 18

Start: Young's Canyon pour-off

End: Dark Canyon bottom

Miles: 8.0

We began our ascent of the rim of the canyon early in the day and soon located the sandstone tower which serves as a landmark in the route description. The guidebook also refers to a critical "point above the very impressive Young's Canyon" but we were never really sure exactly where this was located. We searched for a route down to the bench containing the sandstone tower but ended up re-routing up and down the steep canyon wall until we found ourselves at the notch between the tower and the south canyon wall. From there it was a steep but relatively safe descent down to the cool flow in the canyon bottom (see Route Commentary below).

Having spent more time on this descent than we had anticipated, we tried making steady progress down the canyon but soon took up walking down the creek to avoid the willow thickets and obstacles. We encountered the first pour-off beyond the steep descent and noticed a well-worn trail ramping up onto a on a bench above the canyon bottom and heading most efficiently toward the confluence of Young's and Dark Canyon, our next objective. The trail was easy to follow and quickly covered the canyon's distance. Shortly before the confluence, the trail made a steep 500 foot descent back to the bottom. This marked the third and final descent into Young's Canyon. Although we remain hopeful that not all upcoming canyon traverses will be quite so replete with impediments, the beauty and wildness of this canyon clearly compensated our efforts to get through it.

At the confluence of Young's Canyon with the larger Dark Canyon, we met up with a party of Outward Bound participants and their two competent group leaders. They had been away from civilization for 50 days and had just completed a raft trip down Cataract Canyon. One of the leaders was very knowledgeable of the Colorado Plateau and most of its major canyons. In fact, he had cairned the route for the final descent into Young's Canyon, for which I thanked him for doing such a thorough job. We briefly talked to a few of the young program participants. They were definitely proud of what they had so far accomplished and wanted to share experiences. However we had to keep the conversation short due to our need to keep moving down canyon. We did about half the mileage we needed to do to exit the canyon before darkness finally enveloped this deep rugged canyon.

Day 12

Sunday, April 19

Start: Dark Canyon bottom

End: near Squaw and Papoose Rock

Miles: 11.1

Today we had a rather pleasant walk out of the majestic Dark Canyon. This area is currently a federally designated Wilderness Study Area. The canyon walls are more than 1000 feet high and the geology is bewildering-- with fossil layers stacked between the more massive sandstone strata. Further down canyon the water volume is surprisingly large, passing in and out of several calm deep pools. With such a strong flow, what would have been only pour-offs in a dry canyon are transformed into cascading waterfalls and graceful slides. Along the way we heard racoons, saw an adult golden eagle and encountered plenty of evidence of larger wildlife.

We finally encountered the base of the Sundance Trail some two miles before Dark Canyon tragically terminates into Lake Powell. This was our route back to higher ground and out of this very deep canyon system. The 'trail' to the top is actually a a very steep obstacle course which climbs up through a wall of broken sandstone cliffs. Besides its 1,200 foot climb, it was no different and certainly no more difficult than any other vertical route we have so far encountered. Once on top the going was considerably easier as the trail gave way to a road and then another cross-country traverse that descended through pinon and sage flats toward a curious rock formation called "Squaw and Papoose Rock". There we spent the night under the watchful eyes of this partial family unit.

Day 13

Monday, April 20

Start: near Squaw and Papoose Rock

End: Hite Marina, Lake Powell

Miles: 11.6

We broke camp early to get a jump on the hot sun and returned to what would be a long day of road walking to Hite Marina on Lake Powell. We were still in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area which we had entered upon exiting the Dark Canyon WSA. Soon a large canyon came into view and we knew by its size that it contained the Colorado River. This was perhaps the final stretch of Cataract Canyon where the raging river would soon be transformed into the muddy headwaters of that most unnatural feature of the Colorado Plateau known as Lake Powell. From there, we continued our long hot road walk toward Hite Marina, where our first mailed resupply box awaited.

The construction of Glen Canyon dam and the creation of Lake Powell in the 60's polarized budding environmentalists and those that supported creating a vital economic resource and bolstering America's energy independence. The story is well-known and the polarity has maintained itself ever since. There are those of us that are still hoping somehow the dam will outlive its value will have to be safely dismantled. There are those that see it as an invaluable source of recreation and economic stimulation for the related industries such as house-boating, sport fishing, water skiing and heavy drinking. There are those that simply don't care whether there is a large reservoir perched in the middle of the Colorado Plateau, but they don't count in this discussion. No matter what opinions are cast about, there are a few undeniable facts involving geology and climate.

Lake Powell won't last long and I'm not even talking geological time here. First, it is filling up with sediments at an alarming rate. The sediment-laden waters through which we paddled down Meander Canyon emerge at Glen Canyon's spillway as clear and cold. Where'd those sediments go? Secondly, the lake levels have been dropping dramatically in the past 5 years. Discharge from the mountain basins emptying into the Colorado River have diminished significantly. Evaporation is now the most common means for a water molecule to exit Lake Powell. As the cause of this remains debatable, the effects are all too obvious along the waterfront.

Shortly before merging with the paved Hwy 95, we met a very nice couple in a 1-ton Chevy pick-up out photographing and enjoying the countryside. They supplied us with enough water to see us the rest of the way into Hite. We immediately noticed the reduction in the lake levels upon approaching the marina, whose popularity had obviously waned in the recent past because of the lowering. We finally made it to the store with great anticipation for candy, chips, and cold drinks. Unfortunately the little store had yet to receive a full shipment of the typical convenience store staples, save for ice-cold, 3.2% Corona. So we had a few while talking to Richard and Joanne Chee, store proprietors. After getting our resupply box and new supply of maps, Joanne took us down to the bathrooms and now-defunct fish-cleaning station in order to hang out in the shade and take a "sink shower".We were there for quite some time before the nice lady who we had met out on the road earlier with her husband came up and offered an invitation for dinner down at the Montana 'Fifth Wheel'. We immediately accepted and were on our way down the now unintentionally long 1/4 mile boat ramp to the edge of the starving reservoir.

Bryan and Lynn invited us into their true 'home on the road'. They have given it all up to cruise the sights of the U.S. in an amazingly comfortable and functional Fifth Wheel. They whipped up a delicious chicken dinner with amazing efficiency as we perused Bryan's gallery of breath-taking original photographs he had taken in some of the locations they had visited. We retreated outside for dinner and afterward played with their two dogs, Dodger and Paco, as their little Senegal parrot named YoYo occasionally squawked and whistled from inside the trailer. What an interesting lifestyle these two generous people have adopted! It certainly gave us some common ground in discussing our respective adventures-- after all we were all gypsies, only they were driving and we were walking.

Caron and I decided to camp down next to the trailer and were awakened by Lynn the next morning for yet another gracious offering of sausage, biscuits and gravy. We could not have fared better even with a well-stocked store at the marina. Lynn further offered to take us to the trailhead for the next section of the Hayduke and we decided it would be best to continue on the trail in short order. Save for a couple of new-found good friends, there is not much at Lake Powell these days other than a rapidly retreating shoreline.

Total Hayduke miles: 164

Hayduke canyon count:

Red Lake Canyon (up)

Butler Wash (up)

Seldom Seen Bridge drainage: (up)

Gypsum Canyon (down)

Fable Valley (up)

Young's Canyon (down)

Dark Canyon (down)

Route commentary:

1. We substituted a ridge-based climb for the drainage-based ascent up the side-arm to Fable Valley in order to top the Dark Canyon Plateau. We don't know what we really missed there and so can't comment on the actual utility of this alternative route. The climb up the crux was exposed and the remaining ascent was very strenuous so the whole thing bordered on being a questionable move.

2. The issue of how to re-descend Young's Canyon is an important topic for Hayduke hikers. Having now done this section, I hope the following will help clear up what we thought was a fairly confusing route description that could potentially lead to an imperiled attempt at using it.The goal is to get to the base of the sandstone tower at the prominent notch between it and the canyon wall after safely ascending to the rim from the pour-off. A straightforward way to do this is to walk southwest along the rim until the tower and its bench are in full view and bearing 245 degrees (true North). There are several ways to descend safely to the bench from there. I don't know if this is "the point" as described in the book, but the description makes more sense if it is. From the notch, just plop over the north edge and be safe on the steep, well-cairned descent route. For those who prefer the least amount of confusion in finding landmarks (GPS), the coordinates for the notch are: UTM 12 S 0583527, 4190874

Life is Grand

2009-04-25T11:45:00.001-07:00

We now embark on our float down Meander Canyon on the mighty Colorado River (in past times known as "The Grand River"). This leg stretches from Moab to Spanish Bottom, a total of 65 river miles. The last 31 miles will be within Canyonlands NP. Our mode of travel will be in 'packrafts', small one-person inflatables designed to carry a hefty drybag on the bow. Whether this will be comfortable, or even feasible for such a distance, is still unknown and this has been nagging at the back of my mind for quite some time.

We bid our final farewells to the eclectic little town of Moab, Utah, which has been our home base of sorts for the past week. We stayed in the house of Dave and Kay McLean, who graciously offered their house to us even while they were away on their own adventure. Having a warm home, with its odd but interesting collection of VHS movies and excellent natural history books, kept our spirits up for the journey ahead.

Jeep Week was in full swing in Moab this week. I have no idea how this extravaganza/fiasco evolved into what it currently is today, but it surely deserves a comment here. As a boy growing up in Durango, I remember exploring the high roads above Silverton in my dad's trusty Scout (the early International Harvester variety). Flesh-colored and monotoned with absolutely no extras or options (even lacking that necessary gear ratio for a comfortable highway drive), this vehicle was the most humble of servants. And that's exactly what it was-- a vehicle to explore the timberline country of southwestern Colorado. In fact, the only modification ever performed on it was the extraction of the back seats and the installation of an unsightly green bench seat bolted to a large plywood base. This was performed to accomodate the need for extra seating when my younger brother became old enough to go jeeping. My dad, a transplant from Decatur, Illinois, was far more interested in "going up to the high country" as he put it, than engaging in any sort of this machine-worshipping nonsense one sees out here in Moab these days. Armed with a simple rangefinder Petri 35 mm and humble Scout, we all explored and photographed the old ghost towns and high passes of the San Juan mountains long before the letters ATV were ever strung together.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not completely anti-4X4. I respect the old Land Rovers, Toyota Land Cruisers, and especially the Willy's jeep pick-ups. Beautiful machines in their own right. But I have no reservations about bitching at the mob-mentality of Jeep Week in Moab. At the ever-popular Moab Diner, the t-shirt of one super-charged jeep freak read "Life begins where the pavement ends". Given that we modified our trip to replace the Lockhart Basin hike with a packraft float into Canyonlands, initially to avoid the motorized parade of metalized manhood extensions, my inner t-shirt read "Life begins where YOUR jeep road ends", that being the G-rated version.

Day 3
Friday, April 10
Start: Colorado River, The Portal
End: Colorado River, near Potash
River miles: 9.0

We finally hit the river today after yet another episode of scrambling and rearranging gear. It dawned on us earlier in the day that this was our final opportunity to decide which gear was to proceed with us for the remaining 800+ miles of the trip. So it seemed the decisions were more crucial than before and this didn't help with the stress levels. Adding to this was the potentially disastrous outcome that this packraft idea was doomed to failure from the start. Would these tiny little floatables buckle under the 50 lb. weight of the drybags plus our own bodyweight? The moment of truth was very close now.

We put in near The Portal, that rather spectacular gap in a huge cliff face through which the Colorado River lazily feeds itself into the canyon country beyond. After taking some time to inflate the rafts and the air matress floors, we packed the drybags, carefully sealed them, and lashed them to bow. Nervously squeezing into the rafts and sealing up the spray skirts, we finally launched these tiny crafts into the chilly, muddy waterway to Canyonlands. To our great relief, the rafts seemed perfectly content to float high on the current. They were maneuverable and even a bit on the comfortable side.

Stress relief! Now we just hoped the weather would clear up for the long paddling miles ahead. Still, even the cloudy and windy conditions didn't dampen our spirits as we floated past "Wall Street", where we counted six different climbing parties ascending various cracks up the famed monolith. The road on the left side of the river eventually peeled inland so only the parade of heavy trucks to the Potash salt mining plant remained on our right. Maybe we will finally shed the last of the motorized distractions tomorrow. We eventually pulled the boats out on a sand bar across the river from the roadway. Although an occasional loud truck would blare by in the night, the anticipation of our second day of 'packrafting' kept things on the up and up.

Day 4
Saturday, April 11
Start: Colorado River, near Potash
End: Colorado River, Canyonlands NP boundary
River miles: 19.0

Sand, sand, sand! It looks inviting and soothing on a post card, and so it does floating past the numerous sandbars on the Colorado River, but if you camp on it, it begins to insert itself into every aspect of your daily life. Small price to pay, really. This was just too cool to wake up on the river on our own private sandbar and ready our transports for another mellow day of floating and paddling south into Canyonlands.

It didn't actually turn out to be so mellow. Shortly into our paddle, the sky became ominous as a thundershower crept its way up the river. All we could do was photograph the calamity as it approached, and when it did hit us, it hit hard. The rain covered the lenses to my glasses and I was half-blinded as I tried to steady the boat to run parallel to the current. Wind-whipped waves struck the boat broadside and reminded me just how laterally unstable are these little crafts. I began to gather just how unfortunate it would be if one or both of us were to flip in the cold deep muddy waters of the Colorado. But, as fast as it had descended, the storm moved out and was quickly replaced with sun, warmth, calm waters, and Caron's claim that she was enoying every minute of the tempest.

We pulled out at the Potash boat launch to use the last available toilet facility. This would also mark the last of the motorized vehicles running alongside the river. We noticed a park ranger had pulled up to use the restroom so we decided to ask him if he could authorize an extension of our permit for Canyonlands, given that we were a bit behind in our schedule. It turned out he was a Utah state trooper but he did not let that stop him from blindly advising us on our 'permit problem'.

Leaving the Potash launch, we were finally beginning to feel emancipated from the sounds of the motorized world when we noticed an occasional drone of raging engines in the distance. This would be Jeep Week, of course. Many of the off-road routes run next to the river. How greatly demoralizing this was. How long was this going to take anyway? About that time, a low-flying helicopter came in from the west and then decided to circle us again even lower for a better look. "Hmmm.... must be those OTHER individuals on yellow packrafts floating down the Colorado River in clear violation of their permits whose dates don't match the locations that we're looking for". So they flew away. As soon as they had departed, we noticed the sound of power tools humming along in some sort of housing structure off to our right. Well, damn, we weren't in Canyonlands yet and still on BLM land so I guess this was allowed. Something we didn't really expect however.

Toward the end of the day, the sounds of jeep engines, low flying aircraft, and industrial machinery had all but vanished. Finally these little rafts were drifting quietly between huge canyon walls where the curious call of the canyon wren was now the most audible feature. We pulled up on a sandbar island close to the NP boundary and managed to set the tent in a patch of willow trees on the island's interior. Solitude was finally at hand.

Day 5
Sunday, April 12
Start: Colorado River, Canyonlands NP boundary
End: Colorado River, near The Loop, Canyonlands NP
River miles: 21.0

Today was a superlative day on the river. Everything seemed exactly right and just what one would hope for on a trip like this. Upon our departure from the island, a great-blue heron glided gracefully onto it as if it had been forever waiting for the pesky humans to vacate. The sun was in full shine amid signs of stable weather as we finally passed into Canyonlands. With new and staggering geological formations around every bend in the river, we moved downriver with increasing anticipation.

We saw three great blue herons altogether, an osprey, avocets, and eventually became quite amused by the antics of the Canadian geese which are quite numerous along the sandbars here. We watched as one gander challenged another for ownership of the sandbar. My educated guess is that the gander who maintains quality river territory, perhaps measured by security from nest predation, will get the highest number of interested females. One challenge escalated to the cliffs on the side of the river opposite to the territory in contention. There it played out as a ritualized escalation of physical confrontation until one gander finally flew away in retreat with an astounding vocal lashing by the winner. The echoes down canyon made it seem like more than one goose was doing the scolding. Most amusing indeed!

Progress in terms of mileage is better than one would expect in these little rafts. I've been running my gps all day and taking note of the speed, total distance, total time stopped, and average speed while moving. There is no whitewater so far on this stretch and only occasionally is there a swift current. Depending on the location on the river (e.g. an inside or outside bend), the existence of submerged sandbars, and the general width of the river channel, pure drift alone will yield 1.5 to 2.2 mph. Paddling constantly will increase this to 4.0 mph. Since we are paddling intermitently, but being consistent about it, we are achieving a moving average of about 3.2 mph. This is better than one can do hiking this canyon, where moving averages are typically 2.8 or lower. The difference comes from the fact that we are still moving when resting (i.e. not paddling). I think I like this packrafting concept!

Across from Lathrop canyon, we pulled up on a tamarisk-lined beach for lunch. Momentarily leaving the river corridor, we visited some ancient native ruins in the cliffs high above the river bottom. Displayed prominently on the sandstone were the outlined hands of the family that had lived there. It's easy to conclude how peaceful their life must have been. On the other hand, this was a life without food markets, convenience stores, packrafts, antibiotics, and red rock vacations. Life surely was different for the ancients. I still like to think they occasionally looked around and felt satisfied about their location.

Tomorrow will be the end of our little river adventure. We will hand over the drybags to one of the Moab-based river tour companies at Spanish Bottom. The gear will work its way back to Moab on one of the motor boats that plow up and down the river once or twice a day. Although this commercial enterprise is a bit disruptive of the quiet solitude we are now getting on the river, we are going to use it to lighten our load significantly. Plus, when the boats come through, they generate a 5-minute interlude of class 1 rapids that are quite fun to play around in before the river returns to its slow meandering ways.

We stopped to set up camp on yet another 'private' sandbar only 16 miles from where we would resume our foot-based travel through Canyonlands.

Day 6
Monday, April 13
Start: Colorado River, near The Loop, Canyonlands NP
End: Colorado River, mouth of Red Lake Canyon, Canyonlands NP.
River miles: 16.0

After an early breakfast of grits with sausage and cheese, we readied the rafts for the final day on the river. By now we were getting fairly adept at fixing the dry bags onto the rafts. We first lay the empty backpacks flat onto the bow, plop the dry bags loaded with all other provisions on top and lash this to the raft's grab loops. A smaller drybag containing camera gear, a water bladder, gloves, sunscreen, and related items is then secured to the main drybag lashings. Finally, my gps goes into a small plastic dry bag with a see-through window to keep track of the speed and distance travelled. It's all a very compact arrangement and squeezing into the raft often proves a bit challenging. However, once we manage to get the spray skirt velcroed shut, we begin to feel self-contained and very mobile.

The best time is made by paddling the crafts close to the inside banks, which also increases the likelihood of seeing animals up close. Shortly into the day, we entered a section of river called "The Loop", whose 5-mile section of double hairpin loops yields only a single mile of downstream progress. Thereafter we re-entered the Meander Anticline where the course of the river follows the apex of strongly upwarped sediments. The upwarping was thought to be caused by vast and deep deposits of salt, forced into a plastic phase and squeezed upward by the overbearing weight of thick sandstone deposits on top. I find it very soothing in a way that these amazingly intense physical forces, occurring deep beneath the earth's surface hundreds of millions of years ago, would later determine the course of this great river. Having this understanding and, at the same time, looking up through thousands of feet of compressed sediments, provides one with a tangible link to the geologic past. Linking time and space is one of the great triumphs of science. Of the many animal life forms roaming the earth at this time, one was ancestral to humans who would eventually figure all of this out! It's indeed exciting to be a product of this great earth.

Further downstream we encountered the only set of rapids on this stretch of river, created when a massive chunk of canyon wall slid into the river and narrowed its channel. Although the rapids were only of the very manageable 'class 2' variety, they made quite a racket from a good distance upstream. Nonetheless, I never felt cheated by the absence of more technical whitewater as I was too interested in completing this raft trip without a major incident. Shortly after negotiating 'The Slide', we found ourselves at the famous confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. A huge sandbar lay beneath only a few feet of water just beyond the point where the Green yields its huge volume to the Colorado. We thought of the unique photo opportunities by standing up in the middle of these two great western rivers, but decided it would only look cool from the confluence overlook more than a thousand feet overhead.

We finally made it to Spanish Bottom, a wide canyon area created by the dissolution and removal of an ancient buried salt dome. We could see our take-out point-- the Prommel Dome, a massive gypsum plug associated with deeply buried evaporite deposits. This marked the end of our four days on the river. Continuing from here on the packrafts would be suicidal as Cataract Canyon, known for its hazardous drops and thoroughly challenging whitewater, lay just beyond the take-out.

We felt refreshed and ready to return to a leg-powered exploration of the canyons high above and distant from the Colorado. We deflated our little rafts, cleaned them the best we could, and packed them away into the dry bags. After a quick dinner, we dozed off to the distant roar of Brown Betty, the first big drop of the mighty Grand in Cataract Canyon.

Total Hayduke miles: 95
Hayduke canyon count for this section:
Meander Canyon

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Arches: desert hiking initiation

2009-04-09T14:58:00.000-07:00

I am here back in Moab after arriving 4 days earlier, still uneasy and nerve-shattered from the great escape from southern California. Since then, we walked our first leg of the Hayduke, a 30-mile trek from the northern boundary of Arches NP to its southern boundary on a highway just outside of Moab, and finally through town to stay at Dave and Kay’s house (Caron has some great friends in this little corner!).

Day 1
Sunday, April 7
Start: Salt Valley Road NP boundary
End: Willow Springs Trail, western NP boundary
Nightly low: 35 F
Miles: 12.5

After the obligatory photos at the park boundary of two eager trekkers putting on their packs in earnest for the first time, we waved goodbye to Caron’s friend David Morgan who was nice enough to deposit us there. We made quite a few physical and gear-related adjustments as we walked the first 7 miles of park road, but the largest adjustment for me was purely mental. I have done the PCT hike and I knew this moment was coming. In essence, it goes like this: having sacrificed like hell to get to this point, walking through a natural area on your own as the ultimate nomad, just what are you supposed to be thinking? There is a tendency to reflect on the magnitude of your preparation and ask “well, so where’s the show?” as if expecting equal, opposite, and immediate recompense for your backlog of effort. Yet, for all the months of dehydrating food, map planning, gear acquisition, food caching, and a generally monotonic disengagement from society, we are left hiking along a lonely windswept road with no company but a large Swainson’s hawk hunting in the distance. It seems very anti-climatic indeed, and a big problem at this point. But slowly, as the miles drift on and the views begin to stretch out before us, we begin to see that this is exactly why the sacrifice was made-- this is exactly why we are now here.

We stopped to eat lunch, our first official food on the trail, near the end of our road walk and before the first of many sudden and seemingly illogical transitions to cross-country travel. Before doing so, we made mention of the general nature of the back road travelers through Arches. Many were young males in tricked out 4X4 rigs speeding and sliding through the deep sand. I made sure that when I heard one of these yahoos coming up fast that I got in the middle of the road so as to force them to an immediate stop. Why not remind them that this is a national park? It seems the park service, at least in Arches, has caved into the failed philosophy of “multiple use”, championed by the forest service many decades ago. National forests were parted out to everyone under this idea a distinctly humanistic policy that ignored long-term preservation of the forest and its inhabitants. But national parks, by their own mission statement, are supposed to be different. Allowing use of the back roads by street-legal motorcycles and 4X4’s succeeds in keeping those awful ATVers away, but clearly diminishes the natural history experience and the solitude of the well-intentioned visitor.

We followed a border fenceline from the road down to some sandstone fins where we had to lower down the packs over the lip of a small amphitheater, whose drainage we were now entering. Caron proved herself as an adept rock climber as she descended first and helped me transition down. I think she has much better confidence in her climbing skills than I do. This revelation came at a good time as I sensed she was getting frustrated by my faster hiking pace. The drainage led us out to the western border of the park, where we met a park ranger on a motorcycle. I briefly complained about park vehicle policy in the form of naïve questions and then we slipped over to BLM land to spend the night, exhausted but relieved that we had finally made our start.

Day 2
Monday, April 8
Start: Willow Springs Trail, western NP boundary
End: Dave and Kay’s house, Moab, UT
Nightly low: 48.5 F
Miles: 17.0

We slept nearly 11 hours-- talk about needing some R&R! Caron wasn’t hungry (a very strange deviation) so we decided to continue descending the drainage we left last night until we encountered water. As we were slowly funneled into the ever-developing Courthouse Wash, we began encountering ‘pothole water’, but not of the appetizing variety. We got our first taste of negotiating pouroffs-- sudden and often impassable drops in the wash bottoms. Water erosion, although infrequent as an annual occurrence, over time produces sudden but rounded drops. The pouroffs we encountered weren’t very magnificent and were easy to walk around. But they simply pointed out that walking continuously and unimpeded down these desert canyons is not to be expected. The more challenging pouroffs will come later in the next leg, where the canyons are much deeper and the seasonal water flow is heavier. We even experienced mini “slot canyons” in upper Courthouse Wash. The more magnificent varieties are also ahead of us.

We ate breakfast where the wash merged with Sevenmile Canyon, which has a strong seasonal (quasi-perennial?) flow. This made a big difference in the nature of the canyon bottom, as dependable water sources attract greedy, space-claiming riparian trees and shrubs. I am not a big fan of hacking my way down riparian desert habitats and I think Caron is also now a member of this non-fan club. With no trail and the need to follow the flow downstream, it rapidly became apparent that the best mode of travel is down the creek itself. It is a simple matter to lose the creek if tracking it from the side. Fighting the brush means not keeping a close eye on the meandering creek and it can be lost in short order. Where did it go and where is it going? “Downstream” is not an apparent concept where the elevational differences of merging side canyons are not readily detectable, especially through thick underbrush. A permanent trail would not be possible here because after each year of flash flooding, the slate gets wiped clean. At one point, the stream became braided and we followed an
ill-fated channel that ended in a blind drainage. However, beyond thisemerged a well-worn trail above the flow channel that greatly facilitated movement down the wash. We followed this trail another 7 miles out of the canyon to the southern boundary of Arches, all the while losing and rediscovering our friendly trail countless times.

Although we felt like this passage had kicked our butts, we emerged with a sense that we had been initiated, with mercy, to the unique tribulations of desert canyon travel. We were rewarded with the pastoral air of a desert creek bottom amid the grandeur of the towering geology overhead. We’ve earned our rite of passage into the next leg: floating the mighty Colorado down Meander Canyon on rafts. We’ll turn over the physical abuse to our upper bodies while hoping our lower halves have time to equilibrate with the upcoming demand.

Hayduke Trail Canyon Count:
1. Courthouse Wash

Preparation H (H for Hayduke, that is)

2009-04-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

Escaping from the confines of society to embark on something as grand as the Hayduke Trail requires an overwhelming amount of concentration. Ironically, in order to effect one’s escape, those aspects of society that proved so intensely mundane and which, in part, motivated the escape in the first place, must be now considered top priority. Pay this bill, pay that person, set up payments for future bills, clean the damn house (the whole damn house!). In short, you must prepare for continuing membership in society even while in absentia. This is just one of the contradictions that we face when we aren’t really escaping for that long. We could just say “screw the entire thing”, but something tells me this wouldn’t produce the best outcome. We will be tethered in many ways on this hike. As we walk through canyon after canyon in blissful desolation, we are also walking a line of balance between temporary isolation and return to a permanent society. This optimum was beautifully elucidated by the story, Into The Wild. You should take in this movie or read the book if you haven't had the chance.

Add to this confusing set of obligations the enormity of preparing for a 75-day hike through North America’s wildest canyon country, and you have the makings of a very stressful episode. In addition to the monotony and sheer exasperation of cleaning and moving both our apartments, we were pressed to get the resupply boxes packed and scheduled for shipment-- the dates for the national park permits being the main moderator here. In the end it took 36 hours longer than planned to accomplish this. We considered taking the first section through Arches NP out of the picture but this did not sit well from a philosophical perspective. Also, I figured that this trek through Arches, being described as one of the easier stretches of the Hayduke, would serve as an important initiation into hiking and navigating this terrain. And let’s not forget that we are really here to experience the beauty of the area not from the usual tourist’s vantage point.

We ended up attending a 50-year birthday party for a good friend in Vista, and staying an additional 2 days at his house. The occasion was merely a good excuse for a reunion of sorts among the Ocean Beach crowd from 25+ years ago. Ironically, I was resistant from the start to attend the nostalgia party because of the ostensible intransigence of our trail schedule. Add a dash of reality and we’re there for the weekend. It was great to see everyone-- the reminiscing, drinking, and playing of bluegrass was a much better way to initiate our escape from society.

Cache cab adventures.

2009-03-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, just a few snafus to be sure. We cached food, and supplies in two locations-- the first in the Burr Trail area of Capitol Reef National Park (see photo, Henry Mountains in background) and the second near the Arizona Strip segment of the hike.

In the latter case, it was disquieting to watch the interment ceremonies as the sun was beginning to set, not knowing what type of shape we would be in when we found ourselves once again very concerned with locating this tiny, nondescript patch of soil so stealthily concealed in the middle of nowhere. Our survival across the strip, while not garaunteed, would be greatly enhanced after digging up the contents of this cache. Relying on a food cache is not something I have done on a long hike. I definitely prefer the certainty factor of a mail-in resupply, owing to the obvious contingency of shopping for food should something happen to the resupply box. To heighten the anxiety, the the oft-cited problem with a blind dependence on technology did manage to rear its ugly head: the batteries on my GPS completely died before the coordinates could be saved. Fortunately, in an age of highly competitive technologies, we found the necessary redundancy in my Blackberry, whose GPS function I never really felt like I would use. But I gladly did then. After photographing the area and promising to remember this skyline, that tree, and that "rock over there", we left with a certain unease which was quickly supplanted by the good feelings of having made some progress toward our ultimate departure. Probably good that we didn't bury that tequila-- getting to Zion from the canyon rim via the Arizona Strip will not be too forgiving of a confused state of mind!

Cachin' In

2009-03-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

We will resupply in towns most of the time, but could not find any way around caching in a couple of places. So last weekend we drove to points northeast and buried the necessary food/maps/water. Thanks, George, for your help and support -- we couldn't have done it without you! The trip was fun, not without snafus, but gave us a taste of the adventure in our near future.

We found an excellent place in Escalante, very hiker friendly. They have delicious pizza (made-by-hand dough definitely worth the wait), serve beer and wine, are an outfitter and have campsites (with GREAT bathroom/shower facilities) at very reasonable rates. Please be sure to stop by Escalante Outfitters if you are in the area, and tell them that Whiptail and Caron sent you. It is certainly the place we will revisit when we hitch into Escalante at the end of April.

Are we on schedule? Well, we still have to make some breakfasts, but after that is completed, we'll be ready to put together the resupply boxes that will be sent to us by my friend, Loie (thanks for your help, Lo!!). We're finalizing our pack contents; now my base weight is 17 lbs. With only two weeks left, we are feeling a little pressured, but at the same time are ready to just get out there!

I hadn't been in those beautiful red rocks since the end of last April. Driving through Utah again, I was filled with awe and gratitude knowing that the next time I see that scenery, it'll be up close and personal . . . not in a car, but on foot, close to the earth, out there . . .the way it should experienced. I am so lucky to be able to do this, especially with an experienced thru-hiker like Whiptail.

Stay tuned; we'll be updating more frequently now. Here's to the hike!

What's Cookin'?

2009-02-12T11:36:00.000-08:00

We've decided on one-pot meals for the trek. To that end, we cook a huge batch of food (enough to make 10 meals for two people), dehydrate it, then vacuum pack it. So far we have finished about half the dinners. We are on schedule as we still have, according to that hourglass gadget Whiptail added here, 51 more days. That's a good thing, because I can't decide what to make next. Some of the recipes in the books sound delicious, but are 'way too labor intensive at the campsite. Others seem simple, but unpalatable (does anyone really eat Spam?). So I may do a little experimentation...make a small version of a meal, then dehydrate and rehydrate it to see if it is tasty enough to make it into our packs.

Speaking of packs, we are really trying to keep the weight down. Mine is weighing in at about 15 lbs. before food and water, but I still have a few things to add. Guess it could be worse...

I've got to call about the permits now, so I'll sign off. Happy trails!

Addendum #2: An extended stay in Bryce.

2009-02-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

We needed an option for resupply at the end of section 8, just prior to the all-too-brief excursion into Bryce Canyon National Park. After a bit of research, I found that a good alternative to hitching into Tropic or Cannonville, UT is a more thorough backcountry visitation of Bryce. We are going to hike the Under-the-Rim trail all the way from its intersection with the Hayduke Trail, to the trailhead near park headquarters. This rather pleasant alternative was facilitated by an amiable park ranger who not only agreed to 'pre-permit' us until we get to headquarters, but also will accept a resupply box. So after our showers we can either hitch, shuttle back, or hike back to Rainbow Point to reunite with the Hayduke. From what I've seen of the bizarre formations along this trail, the added 24 miles is well worth this diversion. Hoodoo you love, baby!

If you can't beat it, float it!

2009-01-19T14:44:00.000-08:00

We discussed an interesting option last night, one that will perhaps allow us to escape the Lockhart Basin section of the route, unscathed by the sights, sounds, and smells of the annual Jeep Safari. This rally is held every year and unfortunately happens to coincide with our period of travel through the area. I should say at the outset that the proliferation of mass-attended, off-road vehicle rallies is a perversion of outdoor recreation like none other. The thrill surely must involve some combination of being carted around everywhere on petroleum power, the allure of mob activity, or the feeling that a desert area is a wasteland relegated to the most destructive means of travel. I really can't imagine that attending a jeep rally near Moab involves an appreciation for the solitude, or for the landscape and its non-human inhabitants. Sorry for this personal digression.

We decided that we would float the Colorado River between the river access at Kane Creek Road and Spanish bottom (~70 miles). We will be using Alpacka Yukon Yaks such as those pictured. They are light (4.5 lbs) and and can easily be packed out to Needles Outpost via the Red Lake Canyon trail opposite the Spanish Bottom. There is no whitewater on this stretch, although I've seen these babies do some remarkable maneuvers (on YouTube, of course). I've had two of these packrafts for quite some time and have always dreamed about using them in such a fashion. So, here it is. I just hope the plan is sufficient for avoiding the jeeps and all their wondrous sounds and smells!

Innocuous thoughts, part 1.

2009-01-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

I'm excited about this trail and very much looking forward to that feeling of anticipatory wonder that accompanies the start of an ambitiously long trail. Throw in a little anxiety and couple that with the mystique and awe-inspiring beauty of the Colorado Plateau landscape and what we have is pure rejuvenation!
Until then, we will keep firmly focused on the trip preparations as our start date of April 5 is approaching rapidly. We continue to be perplexed at a strict mail-drop resupply plan. The regions in and around the Escalante-Grand Staircase NM are indeed so isolated that caching appears to be the only option without including a significant re-route. The rendezvous option is still there but we need takers. If interested, don't hesitate to shoot us an email. We could even hike together with a gaurantee that no one will be disappointed with the relevant sections of the Hayduke.
Stay tuned for updates.

2009-01-15T16:47:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is ... our blog for our upcoming Hayduke Trail trek. Jeff and I plan to start the trail in early April and are really excited about it. Right now, we're working on the topos, dehydrating food, gathering our gear, etc.

Yeah, baby ...