Bryce Canyon Archives - Yeti Hikes

Hayduke Trail Day 30

Yeti — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Willis Creek headwaters near Bryce National Park

Finish: Park Wash

Daily Mileage: 24.3

Trip Mileage: 540.8

Elevation gain/loss: 2922/4468ft

As the weatherman predicted, it didn’t get too cold last night. Some clouds rolled in, which helps hold in the day’s heat. Once again, I was up and ready to roll before it was light enough to walk. I think I just need to set my alarm back a few minutes. The day’s length is changing rapidly right now, and I can definitely notice the difference from when I started the trail to now and the amount of daylight I have. Sunrise is about 7:40, and sunset is about 6:40. I had almost an hour extra when I started the trail.

I was pretty low on energy this morning, probably because I didn’t sleep much last night; not sure why. The trail continued as it had through the pine forest below the rim of Bryce. A couple of miles from where I camped, I intersected the actual Hayduke once again. Occasionally, the trail would rise and cross a saddle, and I could see the rim of Bryce, but for the most part, it was buried. I was ready for a change in pace and was getting bored with the scenery.

I met a backpacker on the trail, Haiku, and he’s actually planning to do the Hayduke next spring. The second person I’ve met like that. We exchanged information, and then he mentioned that there was three feet of snow at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This is quite a surprise to me since I was standing at 9,000 ft. of elevation which is higher than the North Rim, and there was no snow here. He got me pretty worried because three feet of snow at the North Rim would pretty much destroy the last third of my trip. In a couple of days, I was going to place a cache at the North Rim, and I also have to do some hiking across the North Rim in a couple of places, so it will be pretty tough to do with that much snow.

The trail climbed nearly to Rainbow Point before it went back down under the rim again. I decided instead to cross Rainbow Point and go down another route which will get me to the same place. I want to see Bryce from the top, not more from the bottom anymore. The perspective shift was good, and I’m glad I decided to do that alternate.

At Rainbow Point, I managed to get some cell signal and looked up the North Rim and some webcam footage, and everything looks fine, no snow. That was quite a relief. I was pretty worried about my trip after hearing that from Haiku, and it eased my tension to briefly check in with the outside world to confirm that everything was okay.

I had lunch at an overlook from the top of Bryce near Rainbow Point, eating my tortillas, sausage, and cheese. Always nice to have lunch with a view. Heading down, I grabbed a little bit of water at Riggs Spring. There was supposed to be water further on, but I wanted to get some now just in case. It was just the bare minimum for the night and not really an ideal amount. I left Bryce National Park, heading south now towards the Grand Canyon.

I briefly walked some tracks before the trail dumped me into a glorified drainage ditch. The drainage was so tight that I had to walk through it toe to heel at times. Due to this I kept kicking the back of my legs and managed to tear open one of my poison ivy blisters. I cut off the rest of the loose skin and doused it in Neosporin and bandaged it to protect it. My poor legs have really been taking a beating while recovering from the poison ivy.

I did get a little bit more water in the ditch where it started to run. I didn’t know there was supposed to be water there, so it was a pleasant surprise. There was still supposed to be a good water source closer to where I was camping for the night, but I’ve learned my lesson, and if I see a good source, I’m going to grab it from now on. I had to walk down the drainage for a couple of miles before I hopped out and got on a track that paralleled it. The track was much more pleasant.

I’m now hiking south towards the Sun, which can be draining in the afternoons. I was losing energy and enthusiasm with the drainage ditch and roads, but then the wash transformed, and a canyon started to grow. Just before that, I came to the water source I intended to grab from, and right where it just started, there was a big cow patty sitting in it. I could still treat water like that, but not something I prefer to drink. So, it ends up it was good that I grabbed the water from the other places because now I’m set and don’t even have to touch the cow flavored water.

The canyon grew, and grew, and it was a different type of canyon than I was in before. The rock was about the same, but the trees were about the only vegetation inside the canyon. It was big pines, though, just growing out of the canyon walls and everywhere, and that was a cool site to see, not just the normal vegetation.

I was at a bit higher elevation still, which the pine seemed to prefer, so maybe that was why. I was really energized walking through a canyon again, and this was a good scenic rocky canyon for me to recharge in. The canyon was also steep which blocked the sun and made for a nice cold walk.

I enjoyed the canyon winding around for a while until eventually the walls started to shrink. A 4×4 track came in and started going straight down the wash. This is the point I intended to camp at today or at least where I intended to get to, but I still had some more energy and wanted to get a little bit further to make tomorrow’s day into town a shorter. At first, the road was straight in the wash, but then it went on to the sage flats next to the wash.

Everything was covered with sagebrush, and there were no flat or open spots for camp. I ended up walking a couple of miles until near the end of the road where l I found a spot next to an old corral. The spot was otherwise pretty scenic, right under No Man’s Mesa, which is a great view. I wasn’t expecting much south of Bryce, especially when I started in the drainage ditch today, but the terrain has really grown and is fantastic again. There should be some more good stuff tomorrow before I hit the road to town.

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Hayduke Trail Day 29

Yeti — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Hotel in Tropic

Finish: Willis Creek headwaters near Bryce National Park

Daily Mileage: 20.8

Trip Mileage: 516.5

Elevation gain/loss: 4864/3437ft

I hit the trail early this morning not too long after I got light enough. I was not going to hitch hike back to where I got off the trail because I was going to instead do an alternate where I would do a lot more hiking through Bryce Canyon. The Hayduke Trail only hits the bottom part of the park, and I’ve heard that the top of it is way more scenic. This will put a gap in my hike but in reality I’m hiking at least 10 more miles by doing this alternate and the official trail is mostly road walking until where I’ll join back up again. Seems like a pretty obvious choice to me.

I walked straight out of town down a road where it was about 3 miles to a trailhead. From there I was on national park trail for the entire day! Quite a change from the normal make it up as you go. It was quick and easy to climb up into the park and I joined the Peekaboo loop where I took the half of it closer to the rim.

The northern area of the park was incredibly scenic with arches, tons of hoodoos, and lots of very intricate rock formations. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was hard to make progress due to taking pictures all the time. But the trail was super easy and very beaten down since this is a very popular loop.

I soon came to the Hat Shop which is an area where there’s a bunch of hoodoos with a rock balanced on top of a dirt spire. It’s amazing that all these rocks are still standing up there with no solid support. It was quite impressive and I once again took a lot of pictures.

The trail then went through a couple valleys and there was running water in a stream. I had debated where I should get my water for today and ultimately decided to get it from the stream. I didn’t really want to since I still had about 8 miles left for the day and a decent amount of climbing, but I really had no idea if there was water up ahead. There was another semi reliable stream up ahead but I just didn’t have any information on it and I decided that I didn’t want to pass up a flowing stream. I learned my lesson earlier on the Hayduke.

For a while the trail wound around at lower elevations, but it was never far from the cliffs of Bryce to the right with their pink various rock formations. It was nice, but it just did not compare to the morning’s show pieces. The day started to heat up. I’m basically generally going to be walking south now for the next week to get to the Grand Canyon so the sun was in my eyes and it was a clear day. It got pretty warm and I felt my energy levels dropping. I did have a good lunch of tortilla, sausage, and cheese since I had a shorter resupply this time and I carried some heavier food.

The Under the Rim Trail I’m using is obviously a lesser used trail and got a fraction of the maintenance of the main popular trails that I was at earlier today. A couple places I had to look around to figure out where the trail went and there was footsteps leading off in different directions which showed that other people were similarly confused.

Continuing along just below the rim of Bryce, I entered a big burn area which was unfortunate. I could see more around me but I would rather not see all the burned trees. It also made the trail a little bit of a mess. At this point I was just driving to be finished for the day since nothing could really compare to the morning. I got to the second stream where I was thinking about getting water at and it was bone dry. So glad I made the right choice to get water when I saw it. I climbed up to 8200 ft. for my high point today and actually found a small flowing stream near the top. I topped off my water there since it was there and I wasn’t far from where I was going to camp.

Late in the day, I thought I saw something moving in the woods and stopped to look to see what it was. At that moment some sort of bird decide to have a screeching fit and the combination of the two events startled me pretty good.

I started a gradual downhill from the high point. The trail passed through a corner of National Forest where I could legally camp so that was my target for the day since I didn’t have a back country permit for Bryce. It didn’t take long for me to find a decent camp site in the National Forest. I decided to hang a bear bag tonight for the first time since the back country campsites that I passed in the National Park made it very evident that they were very concerned about bear activity, and it could have been a bear I saw in the woods just up the trail. It wasn’t hard to do the hang, so I figured why not.

I’m at 7800 ft. at my campsite tonight. I think it will be a cold night, especially since I saw some snow and ice on along the way today. The weather report claims it will only get down to 38 or so even at this elevation, but I don’t believe that. I’m expecting some frost on my tent tomorrow morning.

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