Start: Near Cottonwood Canyon Road
Finish: Hackberry Canyon
Daily Mileage: 22.3
Trip Mileage: 459.5
Elevation gain/loss: 684/1913ft
It got cold last night, and there was frost on my tent this morning. As I expected, the wind died as soon as the sun went down, which is typical. For some reason, even though it was cold, I got up and packed up in one of my quickest times yet. I did want to get some trail done today to set myself up well for my next town step.
I headed out from my protective hill back to the road, which I’d walk for a few miles till I got to my next trail. As I was walking the road, and a ranger pulled up to me and asked me if I was a Hayduke Hiker. I said, who else would be walking on this road? She suggested that I skip Round Valley Draw ahead because she expected it to be muddy and told me about a bypass route. I thought about it as I continued hiking down the road and decided that I would at least give Round Valley Draw a try. It had frozen last night, and the ground was hard, so I thought this might help freeze any mud in the canyon. Worst case, if I couldn’t do it, I could climb some small hills and be at the bypass route that the ranger suggested. So, there wasn’t a whole lot of risk with me at least taking a look at Round Valley Draw.
I got to the trailhead then hiked down the wash to the draw. When I got to the start of the slot canyon, I was confused if I was supposed to drop in straight away or hike down the edge and then drop in. My guide had talked about a log that’s helpful to get into the slot. I saw no logs and hiked down a bit along the edge but could tell that wasn’t going to work since the floor of the valley drops deeply away. I went back to the head of the slot canyon and dropped in to give it a try. There was a big drop to get to the floor of the slot canyon. For the first time of this trip, I took out my haul rope and lowered my pack to the bottom. There wasn’t a place for me to really anchor my line to use it to help me down, so I resigned myself to just down climb. The drop was about 10 feet, and it was almost vertical, but there was a very small crack that I managed to jam my shoes into to carefully get down. Probably my toughest single move yet on this route.
Once I was down in the canyon, I could see footprints, so that was a good indication that I was on the right track. It would have been difficult to climb back out of the slot canyon. I started down the canyon. It was pretty narrow at times but nothing like Peekaboo, and compared to Peekaboo, it was easy walking.
It was a very slow walk, though, because I constantly stopped to take pictures and set up my tripod for some shots. It was a really cool slot canyon winding around with stratifications in the rock, and there were lots of small fun scrambles. The canyon was so narrow and deep that it was pretty dark in places.
The moon was out, floating magically right above the narrow canyon most of the time. Amazing that with such a slim view of the sky, the moon was so perfectly placed.
I thoroughly enjoyed my slow stroll through Round Valley Draw, and am glad that I didn’t listen to the ranger and skip it, but all good things must come to an end. The draw dumped into Hackberry Canyon. Hackberry was only slightly bigger but definitely not a slot canyon. Really scenic, though, with good high walls. It was an easy walk once I got in Hackberry. The wash was very shallow, and there were not even any obstacles.
I took a lot more pictures in Hackberry. The canyon started out as normal with a wash in the middle and then generally a little bit of vegetation on either side where dirt had built up. However, a little ways down the canyon, it changed to where the wash was really wide and typically took the entire width of the canyon. This gave everything a weird look where it was almost as if the ocean was coming up to big rocks or the canyon walls like a cliff. It was an ethereal look and something that I hadn’t seen yet out here, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, the walls of the canyon were rounded in places, and there was vegetation growing on them. Since it’s fall, half of the vegetation was green, but the other half was turning yellow, giving a good general look to the place.
After walking down Hackberry for a while, some more vegetation started to appear, and water started flowing. One of my favorites! Vegetation and walking down a running stream. I resigned myself to getting my feet wet after I stepped in quicksand with one foot which did the job for me. There weren’t really bypass trails higher in the canyon, so for the most part, I just walked straight down the stream. The stream had a lot more quicksand than the other running streams that I’d been down, and I added a couple more observations for how to tell where quicksand is to my mental dictionary. It’s definitely not foolproof, though. Where there’s water running over quicksand I have no idea how you would tell that. You could prod ahead with a hiking pole, which I do, but the spots of quicksand can be very small, and the poles can only do so much. I mainly just poke at specific suspicious spots to see if they’re quicksand. It’s pretty surprising when you’re walking along normally and then all of a sudden you go up to your knee in quicksand.
With the flowing stream in the thick vegetation and needing to keep my eyes on the stream, it was hard to look up and look around at the canyon. I spent a few miles like this, mainly just charging through the stream, and I just don’t enjoy this as much.
However, as I got further down the canyon, it opened up a bit, and there was a trail on higher benches that crisscrossed the stream. The higher benches allowed me to actually see the canyon again, which was awesome! They also mostly kept me out of the stream. I wandered down these higher benches for a while until I decided that I had done enough for the day and set up camp. Today was a true example of the emotions high and low that you can go through on a long distance hike. You can go from the highest highs to deepest frustrations in a very short period of time. It is all part of the experience though, and you keep moving onward down the trail.
My poison ivy has been getting bad. My legs and ankles are swollen in addition to the rash and blisters. I cleaned it yesterday and then again today and applied some ointment to it. I’ve never had poison ivy this bad, but so far this swelling and blisters are my only effect, so hopefully that’s all that I’ll have to deal with. I’ll just have to pay attention to it.
