Start: Sweet Alice “Road”
Finish: Dark Canyon
Daily Mileage: 24.1
Trip Mileage: 174.2
Elevation gain/loss: 1183/4925ft
There was a hard frost last night, and both the inside and outside of my tent were coated with it. Fortunately, my new quilt kept me warm, and it was good to see that it performed well. I didn’t have much chance to test it before this trip, but even with a cold, I was able to get up and out as usual. As I started my day, I even noticed a large puddle almost completely frozen over.
The trail went on to wide planes that were slightly above salt Creek and pretty much went from ruin to ruin. There were lots of granaries and pictographs. The trail didn’t indicate where points of interest were, but it was quite obvious when a large side trail went off somewhere that there was probably something to see. The ruins were about half intact. They were sheltered from the weather by rock overhangs so water had probably never touched them. The ruins were a bunch of stacked flat rocks and it looked like they were mortared together with mud or a loose clay. One of the ruins had what looked like squash plants by it but there was no fruit on the plants. I hadn’t seen vines yet like this, and I imagined that they were left over from ancient farmers and had grown back season after season in homage to the ruins.
Once I reached Dark Canyon, I turned and headed downstream, a path I would follow for the rest of the day. The streambed was a dry wash, similar to many others I have travelled, and there was an official trail going down the canyon. The trail mostly stayed out of the wash, going from one side of the stream to the other, though the path wasn’t always obvious for the next segment. It became a bit of a game to find the trail, but it wasn’t a big deal; I could always just follow the wash easy enough.
The canyon started out pretty wide where I entered, with the wash meandering in lazy bends. The rock walls changed as I went, but it wasn’t too exciting. After a couple of hours, I got bored and had to put on an audiobook. The sun also came out, and it got pretty warm, slowing me down until I balanced my electrolytes. The scenery was still good though.
My goal was to rejoin the Hayduke Trail that day, reaching the junction of Youngs Canyon and Dark Canyon. Despite the heat, I made good progress down Dark Canyon. When I got within a few miles of Youngs Canyon, Dark Canyon changed quite a bit. It grew narrower with steeper walls, and eventually, water appeared, flowing down the canyon – good clean water, which is always great to have. The canyon featured a series of ledges or benches that you could traverse for a while until they ran out, and then you had to go up or down a level or switch to the other side of the stream. It was really fun to go through this part of the canyon, facing the challenge of figuring out how to get through while keeping my feet dry. The canyon turned incredibly scenic, being high and narrow with water cascading down it.
Near the end of the day, I came across a cave above the flood line for the canyon and almost stopped there, but I was not yet at my goal of Youngs Canyon. I felt I had a couple more miles in me. It would have been a perfect spot, especially with potential weather coming in tonight, and you could tell that people had camped there previously. But I forged downward.
Right after passing a couple of waterfalls and pools, the canyon got narrow, and there was a way trail up to the left of the stream. Starting on that way trail, I noticed a flat spot overhanging the stream above the flood line and within sight of the small waterfalls. It was solid rock, but I decided to try to pitch my non-freestanding tent there anyways since it was such a perfect, beautiful spot. I staked it out with rocks, which seemed to work well enough until a gust of wind came along and almost blew it over. I replaced the rocks with much bigger rocks and more support. That seemed to hold out right, so we will see how it goes tonight. If there wasn’t the potential for weather tonight, I might have just camped near the stream. But for this reason, it was also important for me to be above the flood line since this canyon often has flash floods, draining a wide area.
