Capitol Reef to Bryce Canyon Archives - Yeti Hikes

Hayduke Trail Day 28

Yeti — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Paria Canyon

Finish: Hotel in Tropic

Daily Mileage: 13.8

Trip Mileage: 495.7

Elevation gain/loss: 1315/610ft

I woke up and packed up quickly this morning; so quickly that it was still dark when I was ready to go. I had to wait a few minutes for it to get light enough since I was going to be once again wading the Paria, and this is not really something I wanted to do in the dark.

When I started, I played the same game of trying to keep my shoes out of the water. My shoes and socks were still wet this morning, and surprisingly, it just didn’t really appeal to me to plunge my feet into a river at 7:30 in the morning with a wind coming down the canyon and the temperatures probably in the 30s. It didn’t take very long until I just had to take the plunge. Then I had to cross a bunch more times in the 2 miles before I hit Sheep Canyon.

Last night, I camped right at the edge of the Paria stripe where there’s a very distinct line with red stone on the bottom and white stone above it. This continued as I went upstream, and it’s just one more unique feature of the constantly changing scenery here. I hit my turnoff to Sheep Canyon sooner than I was expecting. I guess I made pretty good progress charging up the Paria after I decided to get my feet wet.

By the time I got off the Paria, my feet were really cold, and that coldness was spreading to other parts of my body. I was glad when I turned up Sheep Canyon, which still had some flowing water in it, but it was very minor and easy to avoid. I moved on quickly to try to get some warmth back into my body now that I wasn’t having to constantly be in the Paria.

Sheep Canyon was nice and similar to the Paria. I did find some petroglyphs at one point that weren’t even noted in my data. However, there was modern graffiti right next to them, unfortunately.

I went up Sheep Canyon for a few miles, and then I turned once again into Willie Canyon. At this turnoff, there were also a lot of petroglyphs, but Willie Canyon is a more popular Canyon for day hikes, and the petroglyphs were completely surrounded and sometimes overwritten with recent graffiti. I couldn’t stay there long because it just upset me to see the modern scrawl of initials and names over markings over a thousand years old. What is the need to destroy a cultural artifact just to say “Jim Bob was here”?

I headed up Willie Canyon and soon saw my first day hikers. There was a section of narrows in Willie Canyon which were pretty cool with the rock winding back and forth with gray stripes through it. There once again was a little bit of water but very easy to avoid. I took a bunch of pictures in the narrows. I really like this type of thing. There was another slot Canyon that I could have diverted down, Bull Valley Gorge, but I had read it would be very tough with a pack. I didn’t want to repeat that after my Peekaboo experience.

After the narrows, I soon came to the trailhead which is where I was going to start my hitch into town. There were only a few cars there, so I figured I would start walking down the road towards town since other roads fed into this road. That would give me the highest potential of getting a ride. It took me a little over an hour to get a hitch, and I walked quite a distance on the road in that time. Two cars passed me but indicated that they were full, and then Dave thankfully picked me up in his truck. He was driving right past where I was going to stop, so it was a perfect hitch.

I got into town well before I could check into my hotel, so I was walking around doing my town chores, notably eating barbecue. A guy in a pickup truck stopped and said, “Wow, you made good time.” He was in a truck that passed me when I pitched camp at 7,000 ft. the night before the storm a few days ago. He told me that when there’s weather like that, people get out of the mountains. I thought that was amusing since I was camped at the top, well distant from civilization.

I did all my normal town chores, restocked with food, did laundry, bought beer, and by that time, my hotel was available. I almost finished the 16-inch pizza for dinner along with a salad. I saved 1/4 of it for breakfast tomorrow. The poison ivy is still going strong. It has been concerning to be hiking in fetid water the past couple days with open sores.

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Hayduke Trail Day 27

Yeti — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Hackberry Canyon

Finish: Paria Canyon

Daily Mileage: 22.4

Trip Mileage: 481.9

Elevation gain/loss: 2391/1994ft

I woke up from a relatively cool (not cold) night, probably only in the upper 30s. A good break from the last couple of days. I packed up quickly to hit the trail because I needed to get far enough today to set myself up well for going into town tomorrow.

Hackberry got a bit narrower as I went down it, but there was good rock hopping from side to side of the stream, and I managed to get down it without further getting my feet wet. Not that they were dry this morning; obviously, my shoes and socks didn’t dry overnight, but they were definitely drier in the desert air. I encountered some slickrock formations closing in the canyon, and it was pretty fun figuring out where I could go and rock hop to keep my feet dry.

I came out of the canyon and headed downstream slightly and then took an alternate. The Hayduke continues down a stream and then goes up the Paria Canyon/River, but I decided to check out Yellow Rock, which can be made into a loop of about the same distance as the Hayduke. There was an actual trail going up, or at least treadway, and I quickly climbed a canyon wall. There was Yellow Rock as I crested a plateau. Yellow Rock is a huge lump, mostly bright yellow but also with some grays and reds and other colors swirled in. It’s just a very distinctive, colorful 200-ft tall mount. It was extremely cool looking and very unique, and I was definitely glad that I took this diversion. I even decided to climb to the top of it and took a break, though it was a little bit windy. I took a bunch of pictures of it, capturing the different colors; it was almost like the Wave, but a different variety. And something that is just as scenic and right next to a road unlike the Wave, but no one knows about it and few visit.

Heading down, I was supposed to take another trail that would get me down into the Paria Valley and hook back up with the Hayduke. I put myself right on the supposed trail per GPS, and there wasn’t really anything. I could see some periodic footprints, but I quickly realized this is one of those “trails” that are subject to interpretation. I followed the route, but I had to refer to my GPS quite a bit since it was not just as simple as going down a wash. There was a lot of traversing and switching between valleys, but not too difficult with the GPS. There were also more colorful rock promontories on this trail, which was great to see, sort of a continuation of Yellow Rock.

After making my own trail, I got to actual treadway when the descent to the Paria River started in earnest. That was good to see; I had heard that this route could be steep, and it’s always nice to know that you’re going the right way. The trail down was super easy.

I was then on the Paria River, the upper part of it. The popular part is slightly downstream which I’ll be circling back to later on my circuitous journey, but I travelled upstream for now. I quickly came to an old town site where there used to be a mining town and explored that a bit and took a break. I always like when history is tied into a trail.

The Paria Canyon continued with colorful scenery though in a different way than Yellow Rock. The start of the Paria had a bunch of hills on either side layered with different colored stripes of dirt and rock. Extremely unique and cool-looking. Whoever set up that town had a good view, at least back in the day.

I headed up the canyon; first, it was quite wide, and I managed to stick to game trails and an old road to keep my feet dry. That obviously wasn’t going to work for long as the stream was flowing pretty good, and I was in another one of those crisscross the stream a million times situations. However, I liked this one better since you weren’t just buried in brush, and you could see the canyon as you were going through it. Though I never liked to have wet feet hiking, I think the combination of wet feet and not being able to see anything but brush is what I don’t like.

The Paria Canyon was a spectacular sight, and it changed as I traversed it. I was in it for quite a while so that’s a good thing. It started out as just dark red rock the whole way up, which was very striking compared to the deep blue cloudless sky and the yellow leaves of the cottonwood trees. Just a very stark landscape. I even saw a flock of longhorn sheep.

Since this is a flowing river, Indians used it back in the day. I had a couple of waypoints for petroglyphs in where canyons intersected the Paria. At one of the canyons, I couldn’t really find anything except a stylized “X”. I’m not sure that’s what it was supposed to be looking for. However, the other canyon had quite a bit of petroglyphs carved into the rock; it was along a whole wall, and there were all sorts of different markings. It was interesting to look through, and I wonder what it all means, although there are some obvious symbols like the sun and the snake.

Going up the stream, I saw a couple of pieces of septic field pipe, and there was heavy signs of cow, so I definitely did not want to get water from the stream itself. Instead, I got water from a Crack Pipe Spring which had a great flow of clear water along the side of the canyon.

The banks of the river were pretty brushy without camping areas that I could easily see. Later in the day, I looked around for a while for a spot as I was heading upstream and eventually settled with just setting up on the riverbank. Not above the highest flood line, but I shouldn’t have any problem with that tonight. It is a scenic spot next to an outcrop where the top half is pure white and the bottom half is pure red. I love all these different views going along in the canyons.

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Hayduke Trail Day 26

Yeti — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 03:15:10 +0000

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.

The scramble down

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.

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Hayduke Trail Day 25

Yeti — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Horse Mountain Road

Finish: Near Cottonwood Canyon Road

Daily Mileage: 16.9

Trip Mileage: 437.2

Elevation gain/loss: 1875/2718ft

As forecast, it definitely rained last night. Since I was camping at 7,000 ft., I wasn’t sure what form the precipitation was going to be in. It started off as rain in the middle of the night, but then it started hitting my tent harder, and I think it was fighting between freezing rain and snow. When I got out of my tent, the tent was coated in a layer of ice from freezing rain. There was a little bit of snow on the ground, but it seems like it was mainly just the freezing rain.

I started out on a 4×4 track. Unfortunately, with all of the rain and wintry mix, the track was pretty much just a slip and slide filled with mud. Mud was constantly clinging to the bottom of my shoes, and I was skating all over the place. Normally, I assume that road walks like this are going to be smooth sailing, but this definitely was not.

I didn’t end up staying on the 4×4 track for too long, thankfully. My track took me down to a basin. This is an alternate that probably few people have done. I saw a couple of prints, but I was largely on my own just picking my way down. It wasn’t too bad; sort of a fun challenge.

I got to the basin, and the route had me climbing some mud hills and said they had some exposure. That did not sound like anyone’s definition of fun after a big rain. I took a few steps in the wash that paralleled the route, and the sand was relatively firm even though the wash was flowing. Pretty much all the washes were flowing due to the rain. I decided to follow the wash instead for a while and see where that got me.

The wash was really smooth sailing, and I made pretty good time on it. Looking up to the mud hills to my right, they did not look like fun. I followed the wash down for a couple of miles, and I decided to rejoin my intended route when it looked like it got a little bit tamer. I found a spot to climb up, a steep dirt slope. I needed to kick in some steps, but it wasn’t too far, and I made my way to the top. From there, I wandered around on a ridge for a bit, and I think I made the right decision to go to my route since the wash had much better footing than the mud hill/ridge.

The route I was on descended the ridge and then followed a wash for a long time. I got down to the wash, and it was flowing pretty good with muddy water from the rain. It was probably normally dry like most of the washes around here. Not something that seemed like a good time to follow. I decided that instead I would go about a mile cross-country to hit a 4×4 track indicated on my map and follow that south. That would take me to the same spot.

The cross-country travel wasn’t too hard except I had to cross a couple more streams that were also flowing. The most difficult part was getting down to them and back up the other side since they had sheer walls. Just had to find the right spot to go down and come back up. Other than that, I just had my compass out following a bearing to the road.

I got to the 4×4 track, and it was beautiful walking! Just packed sand with very firm footing and no mud; perfect walking. I’ll take it!

I followed that track for a mile or two until it intersected back with my intended route. This was in the same wash that I had opted to not go down before except some other streams had joined it and the wash itself was enormous, usually greater than 100 feet across. However, the stream itself was typically about six feet or so. Since the wash was so wide, I followed it for a while, jumping over the stream at convenient places where it was going to trap me up against cliffs. It wasn’t too hard to go back and forth across it although you just had to find the right spot. I went back and forth quite a few times across it and managed to keep my feet dry!

So, you think that since all these streams are flowing, water would be easy to come by. However, the streams that were flowing were all brown and looked like chocolate milk with suspended dirt. Not something that’s easy to treat without clogging my water filter. I came across a spring and took all my water for the day and half of tomorrow from it. It just seems weird to carry all that water when there’s so much water around me.

After a while, the stream kept boxing me in against the banks, so I decided to go up on the right bank and do some cross country. It went pretty well, and after not too long, I hit the next 4×4 track that I would take over a mountain ridge. That 4×4 track varied from good to muddy. Sometimes it was smooth sailing, and sometimes I was carrying a couple of pounds of mud on my feet. It wound through a cut in the mountains and took me over a ridge.

Dropping down from the ridge I came to Grosvenor Arch. The arch was amazing looking! It’s actually a double arch with two clear arches under one smooth curve. A good spot to take a break.

The Arch was where I planned to stay for the night, at least in the area. It had gotten very windy, and I knew I’d need to find someplace that was a little bit sheltered to pitch my tent. The wind was even blowing me around a bit. I continued on the trail which followed a road and scoped out a couple of places that didn’t work because they were still too windy. Then I saw some hills in the distance past some power lines and made for them. I found a flat spot in the lee of a hill under a juniper tree. It was still a little bit windy but the hill definitely blocked most of it. Set up my tent, and it was dry in no time from the wind. That’s one nice thing about hiking here I don’t bother trying to dry off my tent in the morning because I know I can just set it up at night and it will quickly dry out. Definitely not my most scenic spot camping but it will do.

Reading this entry, it may sound like I had a miserable day today. On the contrary, for a lot of the day I just felt on top of the world. I have no idea why but I just felt so positive. I was confronted with some big obstacles with the rain and flowing streams and mud, and I decided to change my course by just looking at my topo map and it all worked out. I was given a crappy set of cards this morning but I did great with them and perhaps that’s why I feel so good.

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Hayduke Trail Day 24

Yeti — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Right Hand Collet Canyon

Finish: Horse Mountain Road

Daily Mileage: 16.0

Trip Mileage: 420.3

Elevation gain/loss: 1794/345ft

I slept great last night, way better than in the hotel the last two nights! I found my sleeping pad more comfortable than the hotel bed, unfortunately. At least I didn’t have to blow up the hotel bed. I moved my alarm back 20 minutes since the days are getting shorter and to also help me keep my mileage down to Tropic.

I was beginning to get some poison ivy blisters when I arrived in Escalante, so I got some cortisone there, though I don’t usually itch from poison ivy. By this morning, the lower 4 or 5 inches of each leg is pretty much just one big blistered rash. I didn’t think to wash my legs after going through the poison ivy a few days ago. At least my hands and face are pretty much clear since I did wash them at the time. I’ve got some really big blisters, and most of them have burst on my legs. It’s not really a big deal, but they’re just sensitive when I’m pushing through brush, or when anything hits my legs. Not the most pleasant thing in the world. My sleeping bag liner also has a lot of puss on it now even though I just washed it. Better than on the bag itself though.

Since there was running water at camp and I knew I would hit some water later in the day, I decided to dump all my extra water except what I needed for half the day or so. I resumed walking up the canyon, and it was a pretty walk even with the stream running through. I rejoined my cow friend’s trail and we walked the same path for the first few miles today.

Early in the morning, the cliffs on either side of the canyon were really colorful. There was pink, red, tan, white, and green, and the colors were also mixed in with each other in layers. The wash bed was also littered with colorful stones. It’s so nice to see differences all the time in this area; it keeps things interesting for the hike.

I didn’t want to go too far today since I’m trying to do this section in six days, so I made it to my notional goal and found a campsite not too much later. I had been looking for a campsite for a bit, but there weren’t many spots where it was possible. It can just be hard to find a spot out here that’s flat and clear and above the flood line (and relatively free of cow shit). I ended up seeing a rock in a tree obviously put there by a person. I took that as a sign that I should go up on the bank and check out what was up there and found a campsite or at least a spot to set up my tent. The nice thing about my camp tonight is I have water right next to me which is rare out here. I’ll just have to figure out how much water to carry out tomorrow morning.

The hike itself was not too challenging today. I literally followed the same wash for the entire day. I just kept to the largest branch of it as other branches came into it. For the most part, it was easy going, a wide, flat wash that made wide bends. From time to time, I would cut the bends since they were pretty circuitous. Animals often had the same idea, and there were some very well-worn game paths at times.

The wash had a mix of wide-open valleys and narrow canyons with cliffs, again with the intricately carved sandstone like yesterday. The water went in and out, and around midday, I came to what might be the last flowing water, so I grabbed some for the day and half of tomorrow. My standard six liters. There was a fence across the wash where I grabbed my water, so I parted ways with my cow friend’s path.

I crossed a 4×4 track, and then the wash changed to a wider-open valley. There were signs of an old overgrown road from time to time, and it was interesting that some heavily beaten game paths followed these roads directly. We abandon the road, and the animals took it over! I stuck much more to the game paths than the wash where I could since they were very pronounced and easy to follow. There were tons of coyote tracks on the game trails, and I think even a few mountain lion tracks.

After a while, the wash started to close up again and formed a canyon such that you had to follow the wash directly and couldn’t cut the corners anymore. The walls were steeper, and there was even some fun bouldering over big obstacles in the wash but nothing too difficult. There were potholes along the way from which I could have gotten water, but once again I didn’t know they were there, and I wasn’t going to rely on something like that.

The day got pretty warm, but since I was not going as far today, I just took it easy and took breaks every so often. Some other days on this trip, I haven’t really stopped to take a break at all. Just hiked all day! I can do either, but sometimes I need to force myself to slow down a little bit, and that’s perhaps how I got ahead of schedule. By the time I was nearing the end of the wash, I was ready to finally be done with it. It was getting a bit repetitive but towards the upper reaches, it was drastically reducing in size as other side washes came into it. I ascended into a ponderosa forest and came across a washed-out culvert in the middle of nowhere just sitting in the stream and figured I must be getting close to the road I was planning on finishing at. About a quarter mile down, I actually hit the road, and there was a flat spot right next to it that was slightly sheltered from the wind that had been blowing.

Done at 4:00 today a little bit earlier than usual but I still got 16 miles in and I think it’ll work out for me to do six days on this section instead of five so it will be perfect. I’m camping at 7,000 ft. tonight and it is supposed to storm. Crossing my fingers for rain instead of snow. We’ll see what happens.

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Hayduke Trail Day 23

Yeti — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Hotel in Escalante

Finish: Right Hand Collet Canyon

Daily Mileage: 14.6

Trip Mileage: 404.3

Elevation gain/loss: 1166/637ft

I continued working on rewriting my journal entries this morning. I wasn’t in a rush to get back on the trail because I came up with a plan to do the next section in six days instead of five, as I planned, to wipe out one of the days that I was ahead of schedule. I stayed in my hotel until nearly 10 when it was checkout time. I got some food for the trail, fresh breakfast and lunch and hiked to the edge of town to stick out my thumb.

It didn’t take too long to get a hitch with Daryl from Escalante to Hole-in-the-Rock Road. It sounded like he wanted to take me to where I was going, but he had other things to do, and I do not want people to go out of their way to help me when I’m hitching. Hole-in-the-Rock Road is a gravel road, but it’s frequently traveled. However, it did take me about an hour to get a hitch down it. There was not as much traffic as I was expecting, especially for a weekend. Eventually, Joe picked me up and took me 10 miles down the road. Great conversation. My starting point was 15 miles total down the road, so I just started walking the last five miles while sticking up my thumb at passing cars. Only three cars passed in the five miles that I ended up walking to reconnect with my path. Glad that I started walking instead of just waiting for a hitch.

I started out going down a road for a couple of miles before I turned off to hit another road. Turns out that road didn’t exist, so I did a little bit of cross country, but it was very easy anyway. My route took me past some multi-colored sandstone features with wind caves that were really cool looking. Then I started following another wash with intermittent cow trails and ancient 4×4 tracks to follow. The wash cut through a gap in 50 Mile Mountain which I had seen approaching for a few days.

I was going to be heading up the wash for the rest of the day. I just didn’t have a lot of energy today, though, and I felt tired. I didn’t get the best night’s sleep the last two nights. The hotel had an overly soft bed that was a bit disconcerting to me, and I just couldn’t sleep well on it. I slept better on the sand and rock! But anyway, I was just a bit exhausted, and I had to stop and take a few breaks to restore my energy.

Continuing up the wash, canyon walls grew on either side of me. At first, the canyon was a wide valley, but then it closed in, though the walls never got too high. It wound around quite a bit, and flowing water even quickly appeared in it. When I first saw the water, I thought about getting some, but then I thought that since I’m walking upstream, if I see it stop, I can grab some then instead of carrying it. The running water, though, made me weave around, and there was a lot of mud in the stream to avoid, but not a big deal.

The canyon looped back and forth quite a bit, and with the running water, I was constantly jumping sides to keep my feet dry, which I was fortunately successful at. The canyon got pretty cool towards the end where 50 ft. walls were incredibly sculpted by the elements with ornate features jutting out from the walls. It was creepy and quite spectacular at the same time.

There was a ton of indications of cow along the wash, and towards the end, I found myself exactly following the path that a cow had recently taken walking downstream. Interesting how both of us found the same path to be most efficient. He was definitely doing some off-roading in some rough terrain.

It was a bit windy going down the canyon, but it settled down towards night. Unfortunately, I broke my plastic spoon eating dinner, and it has to be the first night out of town. Oh well, I’ll make do.

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Hayduke Trail Day 22

Yeti — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Hotel in Escalante

Finish: Hotel in Escalante

Daily Mileage: 0

Trip Mileage: 389.7

Elevation gain/loss: 0/0ft

I took a zero day today (zero trail miles day, a day off), my first of the trip on Day 22. My body felt good, but I’m currently two days ahead of my schedule, and it’s probably not a bad thing to give myself a break. I try not to work off of a schedule too much, but it’s sort of necessary for this trip since I have two permits later in the trip that I have to start on specific days. Otherwise, I might have just ended up finishing up the trip a little bit early.

I did all my town chores today and even heard there were two other hikers in town. I went to all the normal hiker-type haunts (restaurants and bars) and couldn’t find them, so I concluded they were just a myth. When I reconnected my phone to the internet, Google decided to delete all my offline journal entries for the last week of the trail, syncing to the cloud and deleting my offline files. I ended up having to rewrite all of them, a few thousand words. Pretty frustrating. Everything else pretty much worked out, though. I got a lot of good real food and got everything else I needed in town. I also met some awesome people on the way. It’s nice to just talk to people, tell your story, and have open conversations like that.

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Hayduke Trail Day 21

Yeti — Sat, 23 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Unnamed 4×4 track in Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument

Finish: Hotel in Escalante

Daily Mileage: 9.8

Trip Mileage: 389.7

Elevation gain/loss: 489/728ft

I was up and ready to hike as soon as it was just light enough since I was headed into town today. I had about 10 miles to go and was ready for a break. I continued briefly down the 4×4 track I was on and almost immediately came upon a water tank that I didn’t know about where I could have gotten water. Oh well, as I’ve learned, you have to be safe vs sorry out here with water. I did have a good sunrise behind me with a wide-open view since I was in a high area.

I wound around some mud hills picking my way across them in the approach to a wash that I would follow. Wasn’t difficult, just took a little bit of time to figure out how to get through them. I got down to the wash, and it was a bit muddy in places. I slowed my progress a bit as I tried to stay on the dry spots but occasionally missed and got a heavy shoe in exchange. The wash wasn’t all that exciting, and I was mentally done hiking for the day (already due to the pending town stop) so I put on an audiobook to help me along. I found this a good crutch for less exciting pieces of trail. I’ve been listening to audiobooks more and more on hikes back home, and I was afraid that I was going to be listening to them a lot on this hike. I’ve managed to rarely listen, though. Maybe every other day for an hour or two. I don’t want to get too zoned out in a book; I want to focus on the terrain and the hike as long as it’s engaging enough.

I continued in the wash and took a couple breaks to break up the monotony of the hike. It just really was not an exciting area. I kept checking my GPS, seeing myself closer and closer to my end at a road. When I got near the endpoint, it got brushy, my favorite! In addition to that, there was a barbed wire fence across the wash completely blocking my progress. I couldn’t find a way through the fence, so I ended up getting to a long span and pushing it down to go over. Still caught on my pants and gave me a couple of small holes. Then I was shortly at the road!

It was a Friday midday, and most traffic was coming into the area, not going out to town. I had to wait a bit for a hitch, maybe an hour or a little less. The third vehicle in my direction picked me up. Katie in a pickup truck. She took me down to the end of the gravel road where she was going the other way. Shortly thereafter, Fred took me the rest of the way to town. I do like hitching in a way since you meet friendly people and share your stories. It speaks to the kindness and generosity of others, which is a good thing these days.

I got into Escalante and was dropped off at a burger place. They had a half-pound burger, which was a good start to my town eat-a-thon. Then I started on my town chores. I went to the outfitter, and there was Fred and his friends, and they immediately just handed me a piece of pizza! They know what a long-distance hiker wants.

I filled up on food and beer and got settled into my hotel room and had the typical hiker pack explosion with gear spread about for me to work on. I’m not going to write much about my town stops; they’re about taking a break and doing all the stuff hikers need to do to stay on the trail. Consume massive calories, resupply with food, do laundry, take a shower, charge electronics, etc.

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Hayduke Trail Day 20

Yeti — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Hamblin Arch

Finish: Unnamed 4×4 track in Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument

Daily Mileage: 21.4

Trip Mileage: 379.9

Elevation gain/loss: 3214/1810ft

I had probably my best night of sleep on the trail so far last night cowboy camping. I’m not sure why, but maybe the babbling brook helped. Finally, there was no condensation to wake up to, and it was just a perfect night. I got up and packed up at my normal time, but it was still pitch black when I was ready to go. The steep canyon walls didn’t help with that. It’s way quicker and easier to pack up without involving a tent. It finally got light enough for me to go, and one of the guys next to me decided he needed to cat hole right next to the trail, right next to my campsite. He even gave me the evil eye when I stumbled upon him, as if it was my problem, not his, that he was taking a squat right next to a high-traffic trail. That delayed me for a few minutes waiting for him to finish. Definitely inconsiderate, especially when you’re supposed to be using WAG bags in this area.

I continued up Coyote Gulch, but I think I had passed most of the really spectacular stuff yesterday. This was still a great canyon, but the party pieces were behind me. I continued up the canyon, and today I was going to take an alternate route that I put together. I was going to head up to a trailhead that is commonly used to access Coyote, and from there, do some cross-country traveling. However, looking at my maps, I noticed that there was a stream that paralleled my course, so I decided that I might try going up that instead of the high cross-country.

The stream was labeled as Dry Fork of Coyote Gulch, so you would think it would be dry, right? Well, most of the flow that I had been walking in was coming from the “Dry Fork”. A bit misleading in the name. I had been following easy treadway until I got to the Dry Fork. There were a couple of footprints going up but not much in the way of paths. I headed up the creek anyways, either walking on the bank or on cow paths on either side of the creek. Since I had turned off the trail and this suddenly wasn’t a well-traveled area, I got into my favorite, pushing through brush once again. It didn’t take long on the Dry Fork before I started looking for an opportunity to stage an escape. The walls of the canyon were dirt and steep and didn’t really offer me an opportunity. I continued upstream until I came to a tributary wash and followed that up a bit until I saw a spot where I could climb out of the canyon. I climbed straight out on some slickrock and got into the high country on top of the canyon rim.

From there, I was basically on my previously planned route, which was a simple straight line, so I grabbed my compass and took bearings to work myself across the terrain. Obviously, there’s no traveling in a straight line in just about any terrain; you have to work your way around, across, or over various hills and valleys, but it’s still a fun challenge to make your own path and figure out how to make it work.

It was getting pretty warm up top, but it was totally worth being away from the brushy creek. I had enough of that over the past few days. It’s not that I can’t deal with wet feet, but just the continuity of getting my feet wet and then having wet shoes was starting to bother my feet a little bit, and I wanted to keep them in good shape for the rest of this trip.

The high country is beautiful, and I got immense views of the surrounding landscape as I basically made it to the local height of land. I could see back to the Waterpocket Fold, and the other way to 50 Mile Mountain, which I’ll be crossing after my next resupply. Definitely well worth climbing out of the canyon. As I continued paralleling the canyon it did dry up and it got wide and steep and it looked like it might have been nice to be in the canyon, but oh well. There were a couple of spots where I might have been able to get back down into the canyon, but I would have had to do some exploring first, and it just wasn’t worth it to me.

I did cross-country for several miles until I hit a 4×4 track and made a couple of turns and was in the Peekaboo and Spooky slot canyon areas. And then the tourists appeared. It’s amazing how you can go from no one to a million people in such a short period of time. My route took me up Peekaboo slot canyon.

I think I didn’t fully consider the implications of having a full pack with six liters of water and going through a very tight canyon with many slickrock scrambles. I had to take off my pack for about half the canyon and carry it in front of me or rather push it in front of me through the slot canyon to make progress. Sometimes I had to throw it onto a ledge or something ahead of me and then scramble up after it. Several times it was really difficult for me, even without a pack, to do some of the scrambles because they were slick. I’d have to try to get a running start, but I could make it up some of the steep slopes. I had done the slot canyon before, so I knew what it was like, but definitely did not have a full pack on for that. At my first opportunity, I got out of the slot canyon because it was just so tough with my pack. Also, my pack was rubbing on the narrow walls and making more holes in my poor hip belt and water bottle pockets.

After the slot canyon, there is supposedly a trail that continued up the Peekaboo wash for a while. There were literally no footprints on this trail. Just like people suddenly appeared when I entered this area, they immediately vanished before the trail even finished the slot canyon because that’s the popular loop. I went up the wash and took a break where it ended up and entered a box canyon. The sun was pretty hot, and I was rationing my water since I didn’t expect to see any until tomorrow. The break helped me recharge with my limited water.

My map showed a trail going up the box canyon at the end of Peekaboo, but looking at the topo map and the canyon, I wasn’t sure if I could get out of the box canyon if I entered it. My map showed the trail stopping at the end of the box canyon, and I didn’t know if that meant there was an impassible pour over or that’s just as far as the mapmakers cared to extend the trail. Since I wasn’t sure, I decided to instead climb up the right side of the canyon on the rim and avoid the question.

I think that turned out pretty well because the rock I walked past on the rim was very scenic with lots of swirling designs of many colors in the stone. Beautiful rock. I worked my way over to the head of the box canyon, and there was definitely a big pour over there. There might have been a way around it, but I think I made the right decision to go around the canyon vice up it.

I had more cross country after the canyon, which wasn’t too difficult except there was a huge amount of cryptobiotic soil and no way for me to avoid it. I just had to do my best to follow the game trails to minimize my impact. There were some steep dirt slopes but nothing too difficult. I met up with a 4×4 track, and after walking down it a couple of miles, I found a clear campsite, which was the first one I’d seen in a while. This was around when I was going to stop for the night, so I decided to set up camp.

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Hayduke Trail Day 19

Yeti — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Top of the Waterpocket Fold at the head of Stevens Canyon

Finish: Hamblin Arch

Daily Mileage: 20.6

Trip Mileage: 358.5

Elevation gain/loss: 2242/3265ft

I thought I was going to be cold last night since I was at a higher elevation, but it wasn’t too bad. As always, it seemed colder than it was when I actually got out of my sleeping bag.

I continued down the wash I started on yesterday, which fed into Stephen Canyon. I would follow this canyon for much of the day today. I took the wash for a bit, but then I had to work around the head of a canyon to get to the right spot where I could get around a dryfall and drop into it. I finally found the cairned trail again to take me to the spot to get into the canyon. When I got there, the cairns led down the canyon rim, and my GPS said to go straight into the canyon, but I decided to follow the cairns since there was good treadway, and I figured that route had to drop down into the canyon eventually. It sure did, and it was a very nice and easy descent into the canyon.

I followed the wash in the bottom of Stephen Canyon for a while. It wasn’t too difficult, and as I descended, the canyon walls rose around me. I soon got to a big dryfall, and the trail went up on the left side of the canyon wall. There was good treadway where there was dirt, but the route often crossed large stretches of bare rock. The view down into the canyon was spectacular from above with ledges and undercuts below the rock I was walking on. It’s nice to have a view from above occasionally and not just be down in the canyon where you can’t always see a lot. The bypass stayed up on ledges for 3 miles or so. During that time, it was often side-slabbing on slanted rock, slanted toward the drop into the canyon, and this got old after a while. There were a lot of pebbles on the slab rock I was walking on, and one wrong step hitting one of those pebbles could have made me slide out and down. I would normally be fine with hiking like this, and I’ve done it many, many times, but the constant miles of doing this got to my nerves after a while, and I just wanted to get down.

Imagine 3 miles of off-camber side-slabbing above this canyon

About halfway through the canyon, there was another Hayduke hiker coming towards me. I did not at all expect to see that. We stopped, and he said his name was Thomas. He tried to do the Hayduke Trail this spring but had to quit due to injury, and he wants to try it again next year. He’s just trying out some sections now. We exchanged info on the trail behind each of us since we were going in opposite directions and gave each other pointers. When we traded names, he said he had heard of my trail name before, but I know there are several other Yetis out there other than me.

I continued on after meeting Thomas, and the stream down Stephen Canyon began to flow consistently. It was still very brushy, but now there was more water as well, and I decided just to get my shoes wet again to make the dodging back and forth across the stream easier. I knew I had a wet crossing of the Escalante River coming up anyways. At one point, I went over a hill coated with poison ivy that Thomas had warned me about. Once again, I washed up in my convenient flowing water after coming in contact with it.

I got back down to the stream and continued to follow it. There were occasional sections up to knee deep, but I never really found the quicksand that the ranger had mentioned. It was slippery, though, and I was doing my best not to dump myself and my pack contents into the stream. Like Muley Twist, there were great undercuts in this canyon where the stream could be completely flowing under a large overhang that it had cut. I love these alcoves, showing two forces of nature fighting against each other.

As I was approaching the end of Stephen Canyon, Stephen Arch came into view. It’s quite the beefy arch, really high up on the canyon wall and with enormous legs on it. There is a way to scramble up to the arch, but it looked like some tough scrambling, and I didn’t want to do that. I continued down Stephen Canyon and was quickly surprised to see the Escalante River in front of me. It sort of snuck up on me, which wasn’t a bad thing since I was growing tired of the wet and brushy bushwhacking. It was flowing all right, and it was really brushy along it, so I ended up having to continuously cross back and forth across the river to make downstream progress. The river was about knee-deep for the most part with moderate flow, so it wasn’t difficult to cross. I just made sure to probe ahead with my tracking poles to try to avoid the quicksand patches.

I only had to go down the Escalante River for about a mile, but in that mile, I had to cross the river about 10 times. It wasn’t really the flowing thin mud consistency the guidebook described, which was nice. Way clearer than the Dirty D. The normal Hayduke trail joins the Escalante River 25 miles upstream and goes straight down and along the river like this that entire distance, so I’m really glad that I did the alternate route down Hall’s Creek, over the Waterpocket Fold, and down Stephen Canyon even if I didn’t like some portions of Stephen Canyon. Stephen Arch came into view again since it is between Stephen Canyon and the Escalante River, and then I got to Coyote Gulch.

I knew that Coyote Gulch was a popular hike, so when I got there, I was expecting to see a trail. It took me a few minutes to figure out that there’s some trail, but part of the time you were just meant to walk up the stream. That wasn’t what I was expecting, and I was looking forward to drying out my feet after Stephen Canyon and the Escalante River. I didn’t really read the guide to the section ahead of time; otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been surprised. I was a little upset realizing that I was going to have to continue on with wet feet, but my anger quickly subsided when I started to look around and see what Coyote was all about.

As I started up Coyote, I had a big fall. There was an off-camber slickrock face that had to be climbed and traversed. It was pretty steep and I got up it after a couple tries, but half-way across, I lost my traction with my wet feet and slid down the slope. It was about 10 feet and was thinking, there goes the trip figuring I would break something. However, apart from definitely feeling the impact I ended up luckily unscathed. I dusted myself off and regathered myself and was able to get across on my second try, but it was pretty slick and sketchy.

Coyote Gulch is usually wet, so it was used by Indians back in the day. There’s a few signs of them left in the gulch. There’s also actual waterfalls and weeping walls in addition to the normal canyon undercuts and alcoves. It was all really scenic, and after starting down the gulch and understanding it better, my mood was lifted, and I began to enjoy the hike even if it was wet. I could have done a lot more exploring in this area, but I was limited by time and my food supply, so I had to press through the gulch.

There were a couple of tremendous arches along the gulch. One was actually a natural bridge, and the stream flowed right through it. I had planned to camp there, but when I got there, the campsite was already taken by a huge group. I continued on and resolved to camp at the next arch.

Just more of the beautiful canyon between the arches, and I ended up at Hamblin Arch, where there was a flat spot on the stream bank under a rock outcrop. An amazing spot to cowboy camp. The arch was absolutely massive and a sight to behold. There were some other people camped around the corner, but that’s all right. There’s also a weeping wall on the other side of the stream that let me get some fresh water since Coyote itself was silty. My mood was fully restored by the end of the day, and I was enjoying the gulch and all it had to offer. I can see why it’s a popular hike.

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