Start: Colorado City, Zion’s Backyard B&B
Finish: East Fork Virgin River
Daily Mileage: 19.6
Trip Mileage: 943.3
Elevation gain/loss: 2700/2975ft
It was a bed and breakfast that I stayed at, so obviously, there was breakfast: biscuits with sausage gravy, scrambled eggs, fruit, and orange juice. Way better than my normal backpacking breakfast. The eggs came from the chickens in their backyard too. They also gave me four boiled eggs for the road. That’ll do it.
Kristi offered to drop me off at the trailhead instead of walking through town, and I took her up on that. I decided to take one last alternate from the Hayduke. The usual route stays on roads all day through BLM land, and they looked pretty flat and straight. That didn’t look too exciting to me considering my past couple of days across the Arizona Strip. However, I noticed that there was a wilderness area directly north of Colorado City with some trails and tracks that would take me back to the Hayduke. That looked much more appealing than road walking, so I opted to do that instead.
The trail started off as an ATV track, which was interesting considering it was through a wilderness area. The trail is definitely well-used by ATVs, which is pretty illegal in wilderness areas. I started up a stream on the ATV track and into the wilderness. I was immediately surrounded by sandstone cliffs with lots of different colors: red, white, pink, and orange. There were different shapes and swirls in the formations, which was very scenic, and I stopped pretty often to take pictures. The area reminded me a lot of the Wave. I did have to do a bit more climbing on my alternate route, but it was only about a thousand feet up initially, so not a huge deal.
The trail was pretty sandy for the most part, so it took a little bit more energy, but there was flowing water until I climbed to the top of the plateau area. On top, I kept stopping for pictures as well because there were a lot of different formations, and it was incredibly scenic. I slowly picked my way across the mountain or plateau, once again following a 4×4 track. The sandstone hills and mountains were littered with sparse pine trees, which I think added a lot to the beauty of the area rather than just being bare.
Eventually, the ATV track petered down at the wilderness area boundary where the ATVs were just going around the fence to get on the trail, passing numerous “no motor vehicle” signs. From there, I was on an actual 4×4 track to get me back to the Hayduke. I was feeling a bit lower energy today, which is typical for me after a town stop. I can only attribute that to the massive amount of food I usually eat in town. However, I had a reasonable mileage today, so I wasn’t worried about making my goal at all. I knew that if I just kept moving forward, I would get to where I was headed.
The track continued to be very sandy all the way back to the Hayduke. However, the incredibly scenic hills continued all the way until I approached the Hayduke, where they disappeared. There was just a flat forest where the Hayduke was, which was not at all comparable. That really validated my choice to take the alternate route through the wilderness area.
I picked up mostly fresh food for this resupply. I did have a couple of snacks left over from my last stretch of trail which I had for lunch along with one of my hard-boiled eggs.
I joined back up with the Hayduke, and from there, it was, for the most part, less sandy and generally flat and downhill, so it was pretty easy. I did want to get to camp a little bit earlier today, so I made good time on the section of trail. When I got back to the Hayduke, I could see Zion in the distance—my destination! The cliffs of Zion that looked like a bunch of white mesas, were fantastic looking. They were sprinkled in with a little bit of red as well and had trees on top for green.
I made it to the end of the 4×4 track, where I had been planning to camp. However, it just didn’t look that great, and it didn’t look like there was much in the way of firewood in the area. I could see down to the Virgin River, which is where the trail went, and it looked like there were some flat spots immediately down there. I also had a waypoint for a good campsite down there. I decided to head down to the river to camp instead. It was a pretty short distance but a bit steep down to the river down a gully that the bighorn sheep obviously make a ton of use of. Not too hard, just had to watch my footing because it was a lot of loose sand and rocks mixed together. I got down to the river, and there was a flat spot right there.
I set up my tent and immediately started a fire in a fire ring that I built. I wanted to get some good coals going for my dinner. For dinner, I cut up some potatoes and roasted them in foil with oil, and I had a 1.7 lb. bone-in ribeye as well that I roasted on the fire. Both came out really good, perfectly done, and I had that in addition to some salad and a 24 oz. beer. Since this was my last night on the trail, I really wanted to go all out, and I knew I would have some time to do it with the fire. This is actually the first fire that I’ve made myself this entire trip. There was one with the rafters, but they made that.
I couldn’t quite finish the steak and potatoes, and I didn’t touch the brownie I had for dessert because I was too full. I don’t get to say that too often long-distance backpacking. I boxed up the steak and potatoes in my food container, and I figured I’d have that for breakfast tomorrow morning. It’s cool here, so I’m not too worried about refrigeration. Then I just had a campfire to sit by for the rest of the night, which was great entertainment and nice ambiance, minus some excitement when one of the river rocks in my fire ring exploded. A great last night on the trail!
It’s supposed to be a cooler night tonight, and I’m camped right next to this river. The first thing I’m going to have to do tomorrow morning is wade right through it, and I’m not really looking forward to that. However, I’m only eight miles from the end of the trail, so I’ll just power through it to claim victory!
